What Is a Refugee?

"What is a Refugee?" by William Maley, published by Oxford University Press. With the arrival in Europe of over a million refugees and asylum seekers in 2015, a sense of panic began to spread within the continent and beyond. What is a Refugee? puts these developments into historical context, injecting much-needed objectivity and nuance into contemporary debates over what is to be done. Refugees have been with us for a long time -- although only after the Great War did refugee movements commence on a large scale -- and are ultimately symptoms of the failure of the system of states to protect all who live within it. Providing a terse user's guide to the complex legal status of refugees, Maley argues that states are now reaping the consequences of years of attempts to block access to asylum through safe and 'legal' means. He shows why many mooted 'solutions' to the 'problem' of refugees -- from military intervention to the warehousing of refugees in camps -- are counterproductive, creating environments ripe for the growth of extremism among people who have been denied all hope. In a globalised world, he concludes, wealthy states have the resources to protect refugees. And, as his historical account shows, courageous individuals have treated refugees in the past with striking humanity. States today could do worse than emulate them. 'This timely, informative and highly accessible book tackles with the thorny issue of real people in the real world who move out of environments marked by pervasive fear and repression in search of places where they and their children can enjoy safe and more meaningful lives. Maley cuts through much technical jargon and legal terminology to bring to the lay reader an account of how some of the key challenges of refugee protection are being managed in the 21st century. The clarity of the writing and the use of extensive first-hand testimony gives the book a liveliness not often found in work of this nature. Highly recommended for anyone puzzled by the way in which rights of refugees seem to be acknowledged by Western States, but simultaneously criminalized in their search for asylum.'-- Dawn Chatty, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration and former Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford Book details: 289 pages, published 2016. Order now on BookShops.in with fast, reliable delivery across India.