The EU border regime as a damaging factor on the wellbeing of Syrian refugees in the Netherlands

The EU border regime as a damaging factor on the wellbeing of Syrian

refugees in the Netherlands

Unreserved thanks go to the Syrians that trusted me to share their experiences with about their journey to the Netherlands. I would also like to thank Dr Nel Vandekerckhove for her guidance,

judgement and understanding.

Tjalling Johan Frederik Meinsma 11055138

University of Amsterdam Social Science Department

MSc Political Science: International Relations Supervisor: Dr Nel Vandekerckhove Secondary Reader: Dr Polly Pallister-Wilkins

Date: 10th _{of June, 2020}

This study is dedicated to every human being that is excluded from getting the most out of life only because of skin colour, gender, culture, or religion. The power is with the people, all people.

Abstract

The discrimination of the ‘Other’ in search of universal protection and a future is manifested in the immobility of refugees that try to reach the EU. Most studies on refugees aim for insights on both ends of the journey: what causes an individual to flee its home country and how are refugees perceived and integrated into a host country. However, in all the refugee literature it is an understudied theme how the journey of refugees is a life-changing event that shapes the unwelcome newcomer’s social conditions. With this thesis on the wellbeing of Syrian refugees in transit, the aim is to find out how the EU affects the wellbeing of Syrian refugees during their flight to the Netherlands. The research in this thesis is built upon online interviews with Syrians with a residence permit for an indefinite or definite period in the Netherlands that are conducted in April in 2020. In terms of analysing the individual testimonies, a thematic analysis was applied. In this study, it is argued that everyday EU practices of immobility, normalization of the ‘Other’, uncertainties, dehumanization and losses damage physically as well as mentally human beings that are forced to leave behind all their belongings and dignity in their attempts in search for shelter and human existence within the borders of Fortress Europe.

Table of Contents

1.1. An Introduction ... 7

1.2. Relevance and Objective ... 8

1.3. Thesis Outline ... 8

2.1. The Rise of the EU Border Regime Crisis ... 10

2.1.1. The Politicization of Refugees and the EU Institutional Crisis ... 10

2.1.2. Outsourcing Border Control and EU Indifference ... 12

2.1.3. The Everyday Practices of the EU Border Regime ... 13

2.2. Towards a Definition of the Wellbeing of Refugees in Transit... 15

2.2.1. Conceptualising the Political Wellbeing of Equality ... 16

2.2.2. Protracted Uncertainty ... 17

2.2.3. The Dehumanization of Refugees ... 19

2.2.4. Losses and Fear ... 21

2.2.5. The Limited Mobility of Refugees ... 23

3.1. Thematical Approach to the Effects on a Refugee’s Wellbeing... 24

3.2. Methodological Limitations ... 27

4. The EU Politics of Exclusion ... 29

4.1. Everyday Practices of Immobility and the Politicized Experiences of Refugees... 29

4.2. The Normalisation of the Excluded ‘Other’ and its Uncertainties Along the Way ... 34

5. The Losses and Dehumanization of the (EU) Border Control ... 39

5.1. The Dehumanization of Refugees Along EU Borders and Beyond ... 39

5.2. The Burden of Losses ... 42

6. Conclusion ... 46

References ... 49

Annexe ... 57

Interview Guide ... 57

Summary Table of Interviewees ... 58

Codebook ... 59

Information Sheet ... 61

“Every society creates its own strangers, and so does the political particularity of the EU. It is the inequality of a politics of difference of which the migrants

are victim. The migrants are pushed in the non-self-chosen category of the immigrant with no legal name and seen as a ‘burden’ that needs to be shared

among the various states of the EU.”

Chapter One

1.1. An Introduction

The discrimination of the ‘Other’ in search of universal protection and a future is manifested in the immobility of refugees that try to reach the EU. Despite militarized and securitized EU external and internal borders integrated with inaccessible asylum procedures that keep out unwanted individuals from the EU a strong increase in refugees and migrants occurred in 2015 that is defined as the ‘refugee crisis’ in public discourse and the political debate. As a consequence, the EU border regime gained even more power to immobilize those that seek protection within the EU by building physical, maritime and virtual walls at its borders, by outsourcing border control to neighbouring states (such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Libya, Morocco, Serbia, Tunisia and Turkey) and by politicizing refugees and their universal rights. In 2020, five years later an estimated total of 2.000.000 refugees and migrants were forced by the EU to irregular migration and risked their lives to reach the EU while an approximated total of 19.000 is dead and missing (UNHCR, 2020). That so many had to risk their lives or are dead and missing to save their lives from conflict, persecution or natural and economic disasters illustrates the inhumane policies ‘Fortress Europe’ is capable of (Benedicto and Brunet, 2018: 16). With an estimated total of 500.000.000 citizens that live in the EU in 2015 and where ageing harms the labour market and retirement benefits the arrival of merely two million refugees is not a crisis per se, but it demonstrates there is an EU crisis regarding the perception and housing of refugees (Eurostat, 2015: 4; Pichelmann and Roeger, 2004: 228). One of the primary nationalities of refugees that seek protection in the EU is the Syrian nationality (Eurostat, 2019) which can be linked to the Syrian civil war that started in 2011 with nonviolent protests and is in 2020 still an ongoing violent conflict. In the documentaries

For Sama (2019) and The Cave (2019), it becomes shockingly clear how Syrians still try to make a

living in the cities of Ghouta and Aleppo that are shot to rubble: it illustrates how these proud Syrians keep refusing to leave their homes until the very last moment. What the documentaries do not address is the cruelty after fleeing when Syrians have to turn to irregular and life-threatening ways of migration to reach a safe place where they can build a future. The experiences of refugees in transit have an enormous impact on the rest of their lives (Benezer and Zetter, 2014: 299) This thesis aims at providing knowledge on the matter of Syrian refugees during their journey to EU member states. The focus will be on Syrians that fled to the Netherlands due to the researcher’s background and the current restrictions around COVID-19 that forbid travelling.

1.2. Relevance and Objective

Most studies on refugees aim for insights on both ends of the journey: what causes an individual to flee its home country and how are refugees perceived and integrated into a host country. Literature that does focus on the refugee’s journey generally concentrates on the violence refugees have to experience along with their flight (Arsenijevic and others, 2017; Crepet and others, 2017; Farhat and others, 2018; Gerard and Pickering, 2013; Jeandesboz, 2014). While violence does reoccur in many journeys of refugees some other studies focus on the journey as an immense experience through the narratives, stories, representations and memories (Rogaly, 2015; Sigona, 2014). However, in all the refugee literature it is an understudied theme how the journey of refugees is a life-changing event that shapes the unwelcome newcomer’s social conditions (Benezer and Zetter, 2014: 297). Because the fleeing has such an impact on the wellbeing of a refugee this research adds the literature on refugees by studying what other factors – next to violence – are affecting the social state of mind of a refugee. This study gives insights in how the loss of belonging to a place and the dangers on the way shape an individual’s notion of wellbeing. These insights create a better understanding for the host society – in this case the Dutch society – of what a Syrian refugee left behind and has endured along the way before being able to start from scratch in a society that is very reluctant in receiving refugees that have the universal rights to protection.

Now that the societal and academic relevance of this research has clarified a justification will be given on the aim of the research. With this thesis on the wellbeing of Syrian refugees in transit, the aim is to find out how the EU affects the wellbeing of Syrian refugees during their flight to the Netherlands. To do so the following research question will be answered: How does the EU border regime affect the wellbeing of Syrian refugees during their journey to the Netherlands? For the definition of a refugee, I am following the Refugee Convention of 1951 that defines a refugee as an individual “[…] who is unable to return to their home country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion (UNHCR, 1951: 3). The experiences of Syrian refugees during their flight to the Netherlands are central since their testimonies give a better understanding of how their wellbeing is affected. Therefore this thesis is built on knowledge collected through interviews with the ‘researched’.

1.3. Thesis Outline

In this first chapter, the topic and context are briefly explained for the reader to understand what crisis the EU is in and how this disadvantages the mobility of the most vulnerable people that seek protection away from their home country. The chapter also addressed reoccurring themes in the literature on

refugees and explicated the literature gap on the refugees’ wellbeing. It is delineated that the eminence of this study is to create more knowledge on the subject of refugee wellbeing for the receiving state for a friendlier environment to those that need protection. The second chapter will devote effort to a variety of theoretical debates that are of importance for the analysis of this dissertation. The crisis of the EU regarding the housing and distribution of refugees will be discussed and linked to the politicization of refugees and their rights. The chapter will also explain how wellbeing is a social construct that measures circumstances for ‘the good life’ with three components of equality: equality of resources, equality of opportunity and equality of subjective welfare. Consequently, a broad theoretical framework on a variety of factors will be examined that infringes the social understanding of wellbeing. Before going into the discussion of the travel experiences of ten Syrian refugees that reside in the Netherlands the third chapter will analyse the methodological concerns on which this research is built, describing the decisions that are made in terms of research demographics, data collection and data analysis.

In chapter four and five the findings will be demonstrated. In analysing the EU politics of exclusion within the context of Syrian refugees that fled to the Netherlands it will be suggested that human beings are suffering by the hands of EU border policies in their search for protection, that is a universal right to everyone and everywhere. Chapter four will focus on the effects of EU everyday practices on the depoliticized experiences of limited mobility by Syrian refugees and it will equally concentrate on the issue of the normalization of the refugee ‘Other’ who has to endure a variety of uncertainties. In chapter five it is argued that the concept of ‘dehumanization’ uncovers how (the EU) border control has a demoralizing reaction on the wellbeing of Syrian refugees in transit to the Netherlands while it will be suggested too that border regimes provoke a variety of losses that these individuals have to deal with. In doing so a better understanding of the suffering Syrian refugees are confronted with when fleeing to the Netherlands this study challenges the geopolitical discourse that perceives the harbouring of refugees worldwide as a burden. In light of this, it will be underlined that a broader understanding and reconceptualization of the European ‘Self’ and the outsider ‘Other’ is necessary for an attempt to overcome divisions of based on postcolonial, racial, religious and hierarchical approaches.

Chapter Two

2.1. The Rise of the EU Border Regime Crisis

2.1.1. The Politicization of Refugees and the EU Institutional Crisis

The last decade European states received an influx of refugees from outside Europe and while politics referred to this as refugee crisis literature demonstrates that the EU as an institution is in a crisis. The EU with its securitized and militarised borders sacrifices the lives of refugees and irregular migrants in an attempt to deny the human right of asylum and the freedom of movement (De Geneva, 2017: 6). This crisis of European borders illustrates the inability of the EU to govern transnational human mobility which relies on a border regime of classifying migrants and refugees and categorizing who belongs in and who belongs outside Europe (De Genova, 2017: 9). The EU has come to this point through the confrontation of the global phenomenon of refugees and politicizing its human rights. The former is rooted in how the EU after World War II functioned as a federation that protected stateless people within Europe from national sovereignty (Heuer, 2007: 1163). Before, the stateless did not belong to any state and were therefore outside the law: their mere existence arouses a state to act in a problematic manner, because naturalization, repatriation and expulsion put excessive demands on national institutions (Heuer, 2007: 1162). Even more problematic was that stateless people cannot rely on a nationality, civil rights and human rights, because these rights were written in national law this group was excluded from as is what Rohingya refugees are experiencing in Myanmar for six generations (Milton and others, 2017: 943). National sovereignty in Europe prevented a solution for stateless and refugees after World War II. To quote Heuer (2007: 1163):

“The system of nation-state was incapable of solving the fate of minorities, refugees, and stateless people in a humane manner. The European dimension of streams of refugees required a European answer.”

This European answer materialized in the European Union in which European states uphold their national sovereignty, but also have to abide by the laws written at the EU level. Stateless people, refugees and minorities living in EU member states were no longer at the mercy of national arbitrariness but could rely on EU laws. However, now with refugees coming from countries outside Europe the EU is challenged with refugees as a globalised phenomenon. This European federation is altered in a nation-state that has sovereignty on who belongs and who does not belong in EU territory which makes non-EU refugees lawless when fleeing to the non-EU. In essence, this is explained as the discriminatory politics where the colonizer (read: the EU) is the source and embodiment of law and where the colonized (read:

human beings outside of the EU) are the valueless ‘Other’ that defines the law’s legitimacy (Brophy, 2007: 206) Again, the stateless people are at the mercy of a nation-state, however now this nation-state is a regional institution that does not have to abide by any international laws.

The latter eases the refusal of refugees seeking asylum in Europe by the EU because the urge to safeguard human rights diminishes into a replacement of humanitarianism. Through “[…]the old trade-off between policies that criminalize what may not intrinsically be a criminal act in the name of controlling a somewhat untenable situation […]” the human rights of refugees seeking for a safe haven are being politicized (Heuer, 2007: 1170). This contemporary truth of asylum illustrates that the world is segregated into poorer countries where asylum is taken for granted, but where refugees are doomed to live in huge refugee camps under desperate circumstances and richer countries where asylum is only for the happy few and refugees live in protracted uncertainty when trying to reach the fortress called Europe (Fassin, 2013: 42). This is a major contrast when compared to the context of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the ratification of the treaties of the Geneva Conventions: the rise of a “[…] political division of asylum between mass treatment in the global South and individualized selection in the global North.” (Fassin, 2013:42). At the EU borders, the logic of universal safeguarding is collapsing under the logic of national sovereignties with extensive bureaucratic control over who receives asylum and who does not (Dahlvik, 2018: 33). The loss of universal protection to those in need is replaced by a system that selects only a tiny percentage of the refugee population worldwide to give asylum to depending on compassion and humanitarian reasons (Sirriyeh, 2018: 11). Approval of asylum based on compassion and humanitarianism is problematic because it causes states to become selective in hosting refugees while all refugees require protection. This categorization of refugees favours specific refugees over others with consequences of excluding larger groups of refugees from their universal human rights to a safe haven (Fassin: 2005: 371). Not only promotes this system of humanitarianism asylum only for certain groups of refugees, it increasingly treats unwanted stateless people either as security threats or economic migrants (Isotalo, 2009: 79). Being a refugee in the EU thus is depending on the political context and not anymore on universal rights. According to Isotalo (2009: 79), this potential system abuse by the EU is controlling the mobility of refugees and their mere existence.

The politicization of refugees causes that the protection of refugees depends on humanitarian reasons instead of universal rights but likewise, this politicization produces dehumanization and illegalization of the travel of those born outside the EU. The zeitgeist of global freedom and opening borders that culminated in the opening of the internal borders of the EU has been replaced in the past decades by the desire to control and reclaim territory, power and national identity which resulted in extensive EU external border politics that manage the exclusion of the ‘Other’ inhabitants worldwide (Van Houtum, 2010: 957). With the EU border policies that have the purpose to discriminate the welcome from the unwelcome the EU redefines itself by the production of border legislation towards incoming migrants, but paradoxically the migration of refugees evokes stronger political and national

communities in the EU with again, more bordering legislations which creates even fiercer borders for those seeking for protection (Van Houtum, 2010: 958). For the functioning of the EU external borders othering is a crucial element, because through othering justification is created to draw up lines in between territories to separate the wanted from the unwanted (Borrelli, 2019: 4). Othering “[…] implies the production of categorical differences between ours and theirs, here and there, and natives versus nonnatives […]” and thereby violates the dignity of unwelcome refugees (Van Houtum, 2010: 960).

2.1.2. Outsourcing Border Control and EU Indifference

This dehumanization of refugees justifies stopping the ‘Other’ from crossing the external EU borders not only within the EU member states but also in neighbouring regions of the economic and political union. With promising its neighbours to help develop, become more democratic and economically strong the EU asks their neighbours in return to tightening their border control. States that border the EU function as a buffer zone to hold of refugees from entering the EU and are themselves excluded from EU membership, because they are defined as neighbouring states of the EU (Van Houtum, 2010: 961). This EU border regime crisis illustrates how the EU not only tightens its external borders but also how the EU outsources the border management of exclusion to neighbouring states. To exemplify the partly outsourcing border control of dehumanization one has to look at the closing of the Balkan Route, the EU-Turkey deal and the effects of both. EU member states Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary and Slovenia that militarized and securitized their borders in an attempt to close of the Balkan Route put a higher burden on the asylum systems in neighbouring countries Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (Weber, 2017: 5). This bottleneck effect causes a drop in the number of refugees along this route, but it does not succeed in stripping away the human rights to a safe haven from all refugees: the route keeps being redirected and increasing use of smugglers assures refugees are still able to cross the EU borders in search for protection (Weber, 2017: 3). Furthermore, with the EU-Turkey deal, the EU managed to prevent mass migration between Turkey and Greece over the Aegean Sea with Turkey that promised to take back refugees that make the cross to Greece. For every Syrian refugee from Greece taken back by Turkey, the EU would resettle another refugee from Turkey in one of the EU member states to stop irregular migration (Lehner, 2019: 177). The outsourcing of border control to Turkey is possible because the EU designated Turkey as a safe third country even though human rights organisations condemned the misuse of the concept (Kasparek, 2016: 61). Because the EU neglects the universal rights of refugees trying to cross the EU borders, these non-EU states that function as a buffer zone are encouraged to carry out the same dehumanizing behaviour (Zaragoza-Cristiani, 2017: 60). Besides the refusal of universal protection of refugees by the EU and the outsourcing of external border regimes cause erosion of the rule of law and democracy in these non-EU states and thus a decline in the rights of refugees transiting their borders (Haferlach and Kurban, 2017: 85).

At the same time, by creating external border regimes outside the EU in Turkey, Macedonia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina it is easier for the EU to largely ignore how these external border regimes fall short in maintaining human rights of refugees residing or transiting in these states. The EU chooses to not take responsibility for how refugees trying to reach fortress Europe are being treated because denying refugees safe passage is partly outsourced to non-EU states (Weber, 2017: 3). EU member states, by contrast, focus on their joint asylum goal of receiving as fewer refugees as possible in any way (Haferlach and Kurban, 2017: 89). Closing of the Balkan Route is part of reducing the number of refugees that succeed in reaching the EU, but physically closing migration routes is not possible and that is why certain states on both sides of the external EU borders aim for hosting the minimal amount of refugees by operating as a transit state. States that make up the external borders of the EU or neighbouring states of the EU have to respond more often to the arrival of refugees than other EU states to avoid becoming a refugee hotspot, because of their geographical position (Župarić-Iljić and Valenta, 2019: 367). On the one hand are South-eastern European states, both EU members and non-EU states, labelled as transit states by refugees crossing the region, because of economic, political and social factors. Most of these states have weaker economies and larger amounts of native emigration movements to richer EU states. Refugees consider these states usually as transit states and a least favoured final destination, because of the poor economic perspectives. Another factor that causes refugees to label these states as transit states are the underdeveloped reception conditions for refugees and the lack of integration opportunities (Iglicka, 2017: 125). On the other hand are South-eastern European states engaged in a zero-sum game where each state transits as many refugees as possible to the next state to avoid becoming a final destination hotspot for refugees (Župarić-Iljić and Valenta, 2019: 371). Some states allow and tolerate the irregular transit of refugees in their countries while other states have transit reception centres to assist refugees in transit to the next states and to regulate the pace of their movement (Sardelić, 2017: 7). These border states facilitated around 2015 to 2016 the transit of refugees or tolerated this which caused the trespassing of refugees into the EU through the Balkan Route at times overtly controlled and in an organized manner (Župarić-Iljić and Valenta, 2019: 367). Transit centres focus on humanitarian aid on the short term and temporary shelter before they have to move to the next state (Umek and others, 2019: 45) which is problematic because the right to universal protection is being jeopardized. According to Umek and others (2019: 42), a transit reception centre can be exploited as a tool to achieve governmental presence at strategic and fragile regions as is the case in the Serbian border region next to Kosovo. Using a shelter for refugees for geopolitical gains is another factor that shifts granting asylum depending on universal rights to politicized reasons.

2.1.3. The Everyday Practices of the EU Border Regime

For the EU border regime policies that separate those that are welcome in the EU from those that are not practices of exclusion are put in place, but the key is to normalize this discriminatory discourse in

people’s everyday lives as well as in those that are excluded by the policies. The EU does so with the use of positive/negative list: states that are on the negative list require a visa, “[…] that is, an individual permission for entrance during a given period of time and for certain purposes […]”, to enter the EU and those on the positive list do not require a visa to enter the EU (Van Houtum, 2010: 963). The vast majority of states worldwide is on the negative list while only a smaller amount of states are on the positive list – for example in the last 20 years only 33 countries have gained free visa treatment from the EU – which causes a division in states whose inhabitants are welcome and whose inhabitants are not welcome unless they get permission (Meloni, 2017: 654). Even more problematic is the unknown criteria that are being used to place states on the positive or on the negative list as well as how it normalizes how the inhabitants’ mobility of two-thirds of all states that are slowed down, illegalized and immobilised (Meloni, 2017: 653). After analysing this negative list of countries it is striking that a significantly high number of states that are labelled as developing countries and states in which Islam is the biggest religion are on the negative list: the religion and economy of the ‘Other’ are reasons for exclusion (Van Houtum, 2010: 964).

A second everyday practise is the normalization of the EU borders as a cause of death. With the instalment of FRONTEX, that is the EU’s external border management agency, the goal to an overall effective and efficient EU border security increased securitizing and militarizing the EU’s external borders. FRONTEX has been deploying boats, helicopters, planes and cars outside of the EU’s external borders to prevent refugees from entering the EU’s territory (Van Houtum, 2010: 968). This increase in securitizing and militarizing does not stop refugees from coming to the EU for protection, it only becomes more hazardous for them to reach the safe lands of the EU. This EU denial of regular access to inhabitants of the majority of states worldwide regulates the mortality of people worldwide, that is people keep willing to risk their lives to reach the EU for its protection and economic, social and political perspectives (Papadopoulos and Shea, 2018: 108). Deaths of those that try to cross the EU’s external borders caused by force or natural disasters are considered as collateral damage and are made absent, unrepresented and invincible to make it part of the everyday practices to keep out refugees (Van Houtum, 2010: 968).

Tracking refugees that roam around the EU in search for acceptance and asylum in one of the member states is another institutionalized practice that refugees have to deal with every time they ask for asylum in an EU country. To quote Kasparek (2016: 64):

“Eurodac is the first pan-European finger print database, established in 2003 solely for the purpose of tracking irregular migrants and asylum seekers. […] Each member state of the European Union is legally required to enter into this database the finger prints of any asylum

seeker or irregular migrant apprehended at the border. Through this database, the country of first entry or first asylum application can be ascertained.”

Asylum in an EU member state will almost always be denied when a refugee beforehand got caught in the institutional web of any other EU member state. Whenever a refugee trades its fingerprints to prevent deportation the refugee will be sent back to the same state when applying for asylum in any other EU member state (Kasparek, 2016: 64). The EU practice of tracing refugees with the Eurodac fingerprints database erodes the right to universal protection. A tug-of-war between EU states sending back refugees to the first country of arrival and EU member states with a depleted asylum authority that deliberately denies refugees access to their asylum systems engenders an EU border regime that standardizes the irregular ways of fleeing for a refugee to get access to EU asylum systems.

A fourth everyday practice refugees are confronted with when trying to reach the EU is the practice of questioning their legitimacy. The image of a refugee with the right to universal protection has changed with an increase in migration restrictions to limit access for non-EU migrants on the labour market (Fassin, 2013: 47). As a consequence, the credibility of a refugee that seeks for shelter drops, because EU citizens consider every non-EU ‘Other’ as a danger to the economic position of the ‘Self’. According to this mistrust of the refugee, the EU has to overvalue the right to asylum, that is, it is institutionalized to exclude the great majority of applicants (Fassin, 2013: 47) and it is normalized to securitize and militarize the EU’s external borders to keep out as many refugees as possible while not losing face (Scheel, 2017: 40). This mistrust of refugees applying for asylum is also subject to change by two subtle factors that transform the way asylum is understood. Firstly, the legitimate grounds for applying for asylum keep changing due to politicization of the universal protection (Heuer, 2007: 1171). Secondly, the ‘closed’ external EU borders cause an increase in the invisibility of refugees which undermines the importance of the right to universal protection (Fassin, 2013: 47).

2.2. Towards a Definition of the Wellbeing of Refugees in Transit

Now that is delineated how the EU border regime deprives the freedom of movement and the right to universal protection via asylum, it is required to recognize the forced movement as a social force. Human mobility is constructed by dreams, acts of refusal, escape, trespassing and vital impulses that change the demography of states worldwide continuously (El-Shaarawi and Razsa, 2019: 107). Therefore my thesis will build on this train of thoughts: the wellbeing of refugees in transit to the EU is affected by their attempts to reach the militarized and securitized borders of ‘Fortress Europe’ (Van Houtum and Lucassen, 2016). To understand how this affects the wellbeing of refugees it is necessary to define what

concepts affect the wellbeing of refugees in transit. In this thesis, it will be researched how uncertainty, dehumanization, losses and limitations affect the wellbeing of refugees on their journey to EU safety.

2.2.1. Conceptualising the Political Wellbeing of Equality

Before going into the conceptualisation of uncertainty, dehumanization, losses and limitations a definition of wellbeing that is constructed through the relations between the state, society and the ‘Self’, will be offered here. Discussions about the concept of wellbeing in contemporary society focus particularly on accounts of ‘the good life’ that derive from ancient ethical theory in which the connection of virtue – arête – and happiness – eudaimonia – are central (Bache and Scott, 2018: 9). The term arête does not have a similar understanding of contemporary virtues when compared to the ancient meaning of the term. A common translation is ‘excellence’ that describes the development of skills, habits and intelligence. The term eudaimonia is often translated as ‘the good life’ and ‘happiness’ (Annas, 2002: 1). Already back then there was agreement that eudaimonia was the ultimate goal in life, but there was disagreement about how to achieve this goal with arête. Virtues that are sufficient to achieving happiness or virtues that are tools with which happiness can be achieved (Bache and Scott, 2018: 9). These ancient philosophies reflect the contemporary discussions on wellbeing in which ‘the good life’ should be facilitated by the state or is the responsibility of its society and the ‘Self’. In the words of Bache and Scott (2018:13) the fallacies of these debates are explained comprehensively:

“However, these debates are in danger of missing two vital aspects central to a politics of wellbeing: firstly, and most obviously, a focus on the political implications of these conceptualisations of the good life and what the rise of different approaches to wellbeing in policy means to relations between the individual, society and state; secondly, the inclusion of ideas from the many and diverse traditions of thought that may have something additional or alternative to offer, for example, from the Islamic ‘golden age’ or from feminist political thought.”

Inclusion of political theorists and international relations literature can add to a more detailed and complex understanding of wellbeing such as literature on the state, international institutions, border regimes, power and conflict. There is a lack of research on how political change advances or damages wellbeing. Furthermore, the current and continuous critique of Western hegemonic discourses in science by feminist and postcolonial theorists flourishes with new insights (Bache and Scott, 2018: 13). The questioning of these theorists can also add to a more nuanced and inclusive conceptualisation of wellbeing.

In this study, the definition of wellbeing is socially constructed within a Capabilities Approach that aims for equality and justice. Theories of wellbeing explain what is most valuable in life and thus theories of social justice advocate that it is equality that is most important in life (Mahler and Ramos, 2017: 6). Three components of social justice define and measure wellbeing with the Capabilities Approach. These are equality of resources, equality of opportunity and equality of subjective welfare. Each in itself is necessary for the wellbeing of social justice, but in itself not sufficient: the combination of these three components creates more of an entity. The possession of economic resources and primary goods measure the equality of resources: at the individual level this is income and wealth, at the national level this is GDP, basic rights, liberties, opportunities and freedom to pursue one’s understanding of ‘the good life’ (Austin, 2018: 51). This would mean that in a society that aims for valid wellbeing within the Capabilities Approach every individual starts with an equal amount of economic resources and primary goods and when strict equality is not feasible the opportunities to aim for one’s understanding of wellbeing are to the benefit of the most marginalist groups of society. The equality of opportunities is constructed to the ideal that socially beneficial positions are accessible to every individual without putting responsibility and blame on the individual because of awareness of structural disparities (Austin, 2018: 52). The ends of wellbeing are measured in the equality of subjective welfare that is signified as a preferred or agreeable state of subjective happiness. Factors are happiness, life satisfaction, feelings of self-worth while distinguishing differences between normatively different preferences that are not all as equally as possible. For example, a racists’ preferences that are discriminating against others should be of value less for the wellbeing of all. Now that is illustrated what subjective wellbeing of equality is below the conceptualisation of elements that affect this wellbeing will be clarified.

2.2.2. Protracted Uncertainty

The journey of a refugee in search of protection and a future is merely not travelling from one place to the other: the EU border regime impedes a safe flight that is not short-lived. Crossing EU external and internal borders irregularly take a great deal of time, money and emotions. This produces feelings of protracted uncertainty because the lengthy and burdensome flight continuously enforces unpredictability of the near future during the flight of a refugee. According to Fontanari (2017: 25) the temporal dimension of one’s transit is inherent to human and social life, because “[…] it engages the subjective experiences of the body and the mind and represents a fundamental element for understanding the human condition.”. As explained before, securitization of the EU external borders and criminalization of refugees makes it harder to cross these borders, but once inside the refugee’s worriedness about one’s near future endures due to other strategies to limit the mobility of refugees. When applying for asylum or when in contact with any EU member state asylum authority refugees are not allowed to leave the administrative district in which the reception centre is located nor are asylum seekers allowed to work (Ghorashi and others, 2017: 380). This imprisonment that lasts for an unknown period and the chance

of the asylum’s disapproval causes a refugee to have feelings of protracted uncertainty. Because it is not clear for a refugee how long one is forbidden to leave the reception centre inactivity occurs. Whenever someone is not able to make choices and can act, the everyday life underscores the temporality of places the refugee is held captive in (Fontanari, 2017: 32). The experience of time feels protracted and uncertain as the distinction between days fades and the continuous dreaming of a future with perspectives changes the experience of days passing by to months passing by.

Next to the indefinite waiting for a refugee to be granted asylum and an uncertain future, limited knowledge and an unpredictable legal status are factors for a refugee to experience a feeling of protracted uncertainty. Refugees are on their own since the most accessible way when fleeing to the EU is irregular border crossing due to the strict border regime that aims to keep out as many unwanted as possible. Irregular travel involves limited knowledge on how to get from A to B without being detected or caught by the EU border regime, that is routes that keep changing for refugees to successfully cross EU borders (Weber, 2017: 3). Limited knowledge in combination with unpredictable twists during the transit that one may reach safe EU member state and receive asylum causes refugees to experience uncertainty during their transit constantly. The effect of having limited knowledge on one’s feelings of protracted uncertainty continues when one applies for asylum. During the unreliable waiting processes that vary extremely in length, asylum seekers are addressed on their patience. Having to be patient while receiving too little information on any prospects normalizes the temporality of refugees in their host country and the expectedness that refugees cope with uncertainty when they want to become part of the wanted in the EU. Limited knowledge of the asylum processes can cause overwhelming emotional and physical distress in the feelings of refugees (Biehl, 2015: 60). At the same time is limited mobility during the asylum process and before reaching the designated EU destination enforced, because refugees are at the mercy of EU laws and policies when it comes to the legal status and claims of a refugee that crossed the external borders of the EU successfully. In Turkey, where intercepted refugees are sent to before being resettled to an EU member state refugees are obligated for the entire duration of their stay, if they want to have access to their rights and asylum in the EU, to reside in places designated by the Turkish border regime (Biehl, 2015: 66). This unpredictable legal status within the EU and outside at its borders imposes protracted uncertainty to the everyday life of refugees.

Refugees that flee to EU member states experience continuous uncertainty because of their displacement from home and the lack of belonging. The experience of becoming a refugee, fleeing your house and the loss of your home country is marked by long term uncertainty because a refugee is understood as someone in between in terms of legal status and their perception of temporality (El-Shaarawi, 2015: 39). This limbo that characterizes the experiences of refugees in transit evokes uncertainty which is both spatial and temporal. On the one hand, the protracted uncertainty of space demonstrates how refugees are stuck in-between places: their home country which they had to flee and their current place of residence in which their future is still unstable. As a refugee in transit, it is not

possible and desirable to go back to your home country and simultaneously a refugee struggles to reach an EU member state that will grant asylum and offers perspective. It has become very difficult for refugees to reach a final destination. Also, refugees are nevertheless experiencing spatial uncertainty after reaching a designated EU member state, because of the likelihood of a denial of asylum which implies resettlement, deportation or repatriation as well as during the long-lasting asylum procedures when refugees are placed outside society (in camps and centres) for an unknown period (El-Sharaawi, 2014: 41). On the other hand, temporal uncertainty is experienced by refugees in transit to and within the EU because to them it is not clear for how long they are allowed to stay at a certain place and if they ever can go back to their home country (Clayton and Vickers, 2019: 1467). Perchance refugees can repatriate in the future whenever it is safe again in one’s home country or it may be that a refugee is only allowed to stay for a certain amount of years. The space a refugee exists in is experienced as temporal uncertainty because their exile can be permanent and at the same time can be solved shortly.

2.2.3. The Dehumanization of Refugees

The dehumanization of refugees that flee to EU member states starts with the legal language at the EU level. The use of language in the context of EU institutions depersonalizes contact between sender and receiver which encourages generalisation and the use of formal expressions without emotive words. Legal languages cover a mixture of languages used in courtrooms, legislative bodies and public administration (Loupaki, 2018: 99). EU legal texts have a role to play in how refugees are framed and dehumanized through discourse that is created by the hierarchical power of EU institutions. With the use of the term ‘European refugee crisis’ in EU legal language refugees are being framed as a negative development and stripped away from their emotions, experiences and human rights to universal protection. Legal EU language discriminates ‘us’ versus ‘them’. In this sense, refugees are dehumanized to a group that is unwanted and does not have any rights. Other terms in EU legal language that are used to describe how refugees enter the EU are ‘irregular’, ‘unlawful’, ‘uncontrolled’ and ‘unstable’ (Loupaki, 2018: 104). These are all words that negatively portray refugees. While this language does not illustrate how the EU border regime forces refugees in search of protection to flee utilizing irregular and unlawful practices. It becomes clear how EU legal language can function to divide those that are welcome from those that are not. Legal language produced in EU context dehumanizes refugees because they are considered as less than human since they cannot rely on EU law and rights (Heuer, 2007: 1162). Using negative words to describe refugees adds to the justification of the EU border regime to securitize and militarize the external EU borders which deprive refugees of their feelings of being human because they cannot appeal to their universal rights to protection and instead will only receive help based on humanitarianism (Andersson, 2017: 68).

Because of the institutionalized EU language that illustrates refugees as unwelcome an increase in racial profiling at the external and internal EU borders adds to the dehumanization of refugees in the EU context. The fear for the unwelcome ‘Other’ within EU territory and at the frontiers of its fortress justifies the increase in checkpoint procedures and military and security efforts that worsens the racial profiling among refugees trying to cross borders. Racial discrimination at the EU’s external borders or moving through the member states is connected to the stereotyped image of the refugee and non-EU migrant ‘Other’. This stereotyped image of the ‘Other’ is typically established on a person’s skin colour and other non-EU appearances as a primary reason for suspicion and ethnic profiling. (Schwarz, 2016: 256). According to the Schengen Borders Code the border control of EU member states has “[…] to be carried out in a manner fully respectful of human dignity.” (Schwarz, 2016: 256). The opposite happens at multiple EU member state borders when refugees are refused, because of their skin colour and appearance. The practices of racialization at EU borders illustrates how refugees are not respected with human dignity while it should not matter for a refugee to have a darker skin tone: to be entitled to EU protection and to belong to the ‘Self’ a lighter skin tone is decisive. Not only matters the tone of one’s skin colour to be perceived as an unwelcome refugee, but one’s religion dehumanizes a refugee as well. The stereotyped image of a refugee portrays these unwanted ‘Others’ as a security threat to EU culture and norms and values, because of racialization all refugees coming to the EU are characterized as Muslims or even jihadists and Islamists – Muslims that either wage war to spread their faith or Muslims that interpret the Quran literally and for political purposes (Rexhepi, 2018: 2217). The refugee ‘Other’ is depicted as a darker-skinned person that is a Muslim and therefore should be excluded from universal protection. Racialization drives refugees again to choices of irregularity to earn a human treatment of protection.

Dehumanization of refugees emanates from the EU border regime’s practices in the sense that EU legal language and racialization push refugees to the most fruitful ways of reaching safety, that is irregularly crossing the EU borders. To succeed to cross the militarized and securitized EU borders refugees are increasingly dependent on smugglers. While the EU border regime fails to shut down smugglers to reduce the number of refugees that successfully cross EU borders the risk of being caught for a smuggler increase which affects the vulnerability of refugees (Brunovskis and Surtees, 2019: 78). Since smuggling of human beings into EU territory is not allowed smugglers are empowered while refugees that depend on smugglers are endangered. To quote Mandić and Simpson (2017: 85):

“In their understandable rush to persecute traffickers, governments have endangered refugees and unnecessarily empowered criminals financially and logistically. Anti-smuggler policies have encouraged abusive practices, raised smuggler prices, made routes deadlier, and increased risk and cost for vulnerable refugee populations.”

Illegalizing smugglers and the irregular migration of refugees decrease the human value of refugees since smugglers only transport refugees for a higher price (for them to claim protection) and smugglers abuse their powers because refugees are at the mercy of smugglers for crossing deadly routes between borders. On the one hand, paying an absurd amount of money for a refugee’s irregular transport increases the feelings of inhumanity since refugees have to be smuggled the same was as other goods that are not allowed to transport or possess, such as drugs and wild animals. On the other hand, the abusive practices of smugglers increase the dehumanization of refugees since these vulnerable people have to accept everything the smugglers say or do because they are at the mercy of smuggler if they want to be alive and well crossing dangerous borders. While being at the mercy of smugglers the rise of uncertainty about one’s value is growing, because exploitation is easier when one is irregular and does not have any institution that will protect its rights. There is a higher chance of labour trafficking, removal of organs in exchange for irregular transportation, sex in exchange for irregular transportation or even rape by smugglers (Brunovskis and Surtees, 2019: 79). The forced use of smugglers to cross the EU’s securitized and militarized internal and external borders are a factor that dehumanizes refugees which affects their wellbeing.

2.2.4. Losses and Fear

Fleeing and leaving behind all that is familiar brings enormous offers and when on the run to a country that can offer protection threatening obstacles are no exception. Being a refugee involves different losses during the journey that do have an impact on the wellbeing of the refugee. But, experiences of losses are already present right after fleeing your home country. Dislocated individuals experience the feeling of losses: loss of family, friends, culture, religion, language, smells, food, country, and previous identity (Volkan, 2017: 4). Leaving behind these familiarities in their home country affect the ability to mourn and to adapt to new environments (Lijtmaer, 2017: 687). With the inability of mourning past and present are confused which causes the individual to be driven by guilt for leaving behind family, friends and other familiar things (Goveas and Coomarasamy, 2018: 104). This guilt emanates from being a survivor while this may not be the case for family and friends. If one is not able to discriminate between past and present it is difficult to process the losses causing one to be in a perpetual condition of sadness, pain, fear and unreality (Volkan, 2017: 9). Mourning is part of overcoming one’s losses, but when one is displaced for an indefinite and unknown period one can be fixated with all the losses one had to endure which complicates the stage of reflection and processing a loss (Volkan, 2017:13). Leaving behind familiarities in a home country also causes a refugee to partly lose its identity, that is shaped around the cultural context in its home country, after fleeing. As a refugee it is difficult to rebuild a social identity in distant and culturally different environments especially while on the move, but also after settling

down in an EU member state, because the refugee is generally perceived as undesirable which complicates the recreation of a new identity (Colic-Peisker and Walker, 2003: 338). The extent to which a refugee can adjust its social identity to new environments while crossing the EU’s external and internal borders depends on three elements of human capital: language, skills and rural-urban background (Colic-Peisker and Walker, 2003: 339). The loss of the social identity leaves a refugee temporarily to just their physical appearance because their language, skills and their rural or urban background do not suffice in these strange environments and leaving behind everything denies refugees to prove their legal identity (Appadurai, 2019: 563). Being labelled as a refugee also puts one into the identity of a refugee which gives certain welfare and social entitlements – not any rights – but also the identity of a refugee which is portrayed almost always negatively within the EU. Also losing one’s social identity and being placed in a negatively ‘Other’ identity simplifies a displaced individual to someone inferior, poor and underdeveloped. Classifying all refugees to the same identity slows down the process of creating a new identity while in transit or when settled down in a new environment.

Losses of familiarities and one’s own social identity affect the wellbeing of refugees which contributes to the fear of losing even more along with the flight. For a refugee in transit, the irregular migration is fraught with dangers that threaten one’s life, the lives of others on the way and the fear for losing control over one’s own life and future (Colic-Peisker and Walker, 2003: 342; Volkan, 2017: 9). During the journey of a refugee that is trying to reach the EU’s external borders or while travelling within its territory refugees are in fear constantly, because of imminent dangers such as deportation, violence, rape, drowning, death and separation from family or friends (Mangrio and others, 2018: 4). This varies in intensity, but is never absent since the chances of losing control over one’s own life is extremely large (Hoffman, 2010: 278). Especially the fear of losing one’s life on the flight, for example when crossing the sea between Turkey and Greece is present. Fleeing to safety while being under high pressure of making decisions between life and death when crossing the sea, mountains or other dangerous paths contribute to losing stable wellbeing which can manifest in hopelessness and depression (Hoffman, 2010: 278). The dangers of death around the corner that refugees in transit have to endure mentally affect them since there are continuously high alertness and realisation that their search to protection could end in the loss of their lives or their relatives’ lives. Gambling on one’s life to protect one’s own life does affect the wellbeing of a refugee in the sense that it becomes more blurry to value someone’s life. Experiencing the survival of a boat trip as a miracle disregards the cruel reality that refugees need to bet with their lives to claim the universal right to protection (Mangrio and others, 2018: 3). The effects of losses along a refugee’s journey as well as what is left behind in its home country destabilize the wellbeing of a refugee in transit.

2.2.5. The Limited Mobility of Refugees

The movement of people depends on the choices they can make and to what sources they have access to. For an individual that does not come short in money, it should be easier to flee from point A to point B. However, refugees are more exposed to immobility, because of the decline of their economic situation. Wartime and violent conflict that forces people to flee also forces people to leave behind almost everything they possess as well as how they make ends meet. This social, economic and political disempowerment affects how mobile a refugee in transit is (Lubkemann, 2008: 467). With the loss of income and the loss of possessions, there are limited choices in how, when and where to travel. Do they have connections and money to get travel documents? Do they have enough wealth to travel safely by plane? By all means, it is of importance to note that forced movement will not always disempower refugees in their mobility (Alkhaled, 2019: 245). However, most refugees are dependent on irregularity to cross the securitized and militarized EU borders, because of their weaker economic, social and political situation as a result of leaving behind everything and being excluded as the ‘Other’. A weak economic position involves less safe options to flee such as crossing a sea in small boats, being dependent on smugglers and uncertainty about when and where to travel to. Besides the political disempowerment because of the lack of travel documents, visas or a passport. The EU border regime regulates mobility and immobilizes those that are unwanted which reduce the options that refugees have to cross the EU’s external and internal borders (Jansen, 2009: 824). Therefore, limited options for refugees to flee their home country to the safety of EU member states affect their well-being negatively.

Chapter Three

3.1. Thematical Approach to the Effects on a Refugee’s Wellbeing

The research in this thesis is built upon online interviews with Syrians with a residence permit for an indefinite or definite period in the Netherlands that are conducted in April in 2020. At first, there were difficulties to gain access to the field. Partly because the only way I could reach Syrians was via social media and mail, with the disadvantage of having to wait for replies from possible interviewees. Herewith I handed over the pace of gaining access to the field and planning interviews to my interviewees. This was in the period around the outbreak of COVID-19 and the uncertain effects it would have worldwide and to Dutch society particularly. This could explain why multiple Syrians did not reply to my request nor why they did not reply immediately. Furthermore receiving requests from an outsider, a young white European male, that wants to ask questions about personal and life-changing experiences during a burdensome flight could also be undesirable to these Syrians. Therefore it was crucial to explain to potential interviewees what the purpose of my research was, how it would be ethically conducted and why it was of importance for them to participate. During my four weeks of ‘fieldwork’, I made contact with three Syrians that helped me gain access to the field which resulted in reaching out to seven more Syrians and conducting seven more interviews.

In total, I was able to interview ten Syrians from which nine male and one female. The interviewees range from 24 to 46 years old. Eight interviewees resided in a Syrian city before fleeing, two of the ten were from rural areas. The ‘researched’ fled between 1999 and 2017 which give insights about fleeing from Syria to the Netherlands over a longer period. A table with crucial information about my interviewees is added to the annexe at the end of this thesis. For my research, I used a theoretical sample for my first three interviewees due to restrictive accessibility of the research group and the regulations around COVID-19. Theoretical sampling is crucial to the development and clarification of a theory that is established on data (Breckenridge and Jones, 2009: 114). For theoretical sampling to ensure access to a dense source of data “[…] a researcher will establish a set of inclusion or exclusion criteria based upon research questions generated deductively from prior knowledge of the area and a preliminary review of related literature.” (Breckenridge and Jones, 2009: 118). Because of the limitations to access the field due to COVID-19, the inclusive criteria to participate were very approachable: the participants had to be Syrians, they had to flee the country because of the Assad regime with the final destination of the Netherlands. In this study the sampling is theoretically oriented: the aim is to generate and develop a conceptual theory around the wellbeing of Syrian refugees in transit to the Netherlands. That is what I aimed for when comparing my interviews with the produced theory in chapter two that is based on refugee literature (Arsenijević and others, 2017; Crepet and others, 2017; De Genova, 2017; Farhat and others, 2018; Van Houtum, 2016). I contacted the first interviewee after reading a written column by

him and via searching through his Facebook friends I contacted the second interviewee. After conducting the interviews it was difficult to get access to other Syrians that would participate. That is when I decided that snowball sampling was the best way forward to have as many interviews as possible and to aim for saturation. Within the toolbox for qualitative research snowball sampling provides the means to research marginalized groups “[…] by harnessing the power of social networking and personal connections, which allows for the more thorough analysis of individuals and groups that may otherwise remain inaccessible.” (Woodley and Lockard, 2017: 322). In the meantime, I was able to reach out to a Syrian person through my network. These 3 people helped me to gain access to the field to conduct seven more interviews via their networks. The advantage of interviewing acquaintances of the first three interviewees was the easier establishment of credibility and trust by the next interviewees because these previous interviewees would not have asked others within their network to participate in my study if they did believe I only ‘parachuted’ in and take a very short time to write down their stories for an overall conclusion (Jordan and Moser, 2020: 9). Access to and approval of people within the Syrian community avoided that I approached the research subjects with a ‘zoopolitical’ perspective (Vaughan-Williams, 2015: 4). Instead, I was able to satisfy the interviewees in how the study can contribute to their experiences and the spread of knowledge within Dutch society by giving them a voice to narrate their journeys and by publishing this thesis that addresses the concerns of the inhumane EU border regime.

The interviewees in this study are a vulnerable group of refugees that fled their home country because of violence, fear for persecution and the loss of future perspectives, that have endured an exhausting journey to safety and are granted asylum in an unfamiliar environment to them. Therefore it was essential to establish a safe environment with the research subjects. When having Skype interviews as an interviewer I had to use my emotional intelligence, social skills, humour and resilience to get in-depth data in an ethically responsible manner and simultaneously I had to be very careful to not cross a line whenever the interviewee did not want to talk about certain topics and experiences (Jordan and Moser, 2020: 11). Furthermore, guarantying anonymity gave the interviewees the chance to speak more freely. Therefore the data and personal information were stored separately and in a safe place. Besides fictionalized names for the interviewees are used in the thesis when references to the interviews are made. The intention is not to strip away the humanity of these interviewees, but to respect their wishes and protect their privacy. For convenience, the fictionalized names are in alphabetical order and borrowed from the Arabic culture to create a representation of their Syrian backgrounds. Furthermore, I conducted the face to face interviews via Skype and Zoom that provide secure video call conversations. Before interviewing I also sent an information sheet with my personal information, what the purpose of the study is, what I will do with the information, that participation is voluntary, that the interviewee has the right to withdraw from the interview at any time and that their data will be treated with full confidentiality (Halperin and Heath, 2017: 308). In addition to that a consent form was sent on which

the interviewee could tick boxes that allowed recording the interview, gave written consent for participation, and that the information sheet was clarified (Halperin and Heath, 2017: 309). These steps contributed to creating more trust. The information sheet and consent form are included in the annexe of this study.

The type of interviews that were conducted were individual face-to-face online interviews because this type of interviewing allowed for longer and detailed questions and answers which makes it a rich and dense source of data (Halperin and Heath, 2017: 286). Furthermore, by being able to ask questions personally useful information could be obtained by looking at body language, vocal cues and non-responses (Halperin and Heath, 2017: 286). As for the form of interviewing semi-structured interviews were held, because the combination of structured questions to obtain factual information and unstructured questions to delve deeper into the refugees’ experiences gave evident insights to answer the proposed research question (Halperin and Heath, 2017: 289). Also, doing semi-structured interviews for this thesis made it possible to perceive the meanings of the Syrian refugees’ experiences and hence produced more well-founded data. To let the interviewee speak as freely as possible an environment of confidence and trust had to be created. That is why I always started to have a little chat before the actual interview. We chatted about anything from the – surprisingly – sunny and hot days in the Netherlands, to the unreal situation around COVID-19, to our families, to legendary Dutch football players, to fasting during Ramadan and to their skills in the Dutch language. When scheduling the interviews I informed the interviewees that it would take up to approximately 1 hour to prepare them. Some of the interviews were 40 minutes while others were almost 90 minutes long. Having in-depth interviews of at least 40 minutes allowed the interviewees to elaborate as detailed as possible about their experiences during their journey. This narrative method is the closest one can get to the experience from something that happened in the past (Benezer and Zetter, 2014: 313). That is to say that the individual is in control of how the experiences of the flight are narrated.

In terms of analysing the individual testimonies, a thematic analysis was applied. This method is very suitable for identifying, analysing and reporting patterns – themes – within data while it minimally organizes and describes the data in detail (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 79). In this study a theoretical thematic analysis was employed which provides “[…] less a rich description of the data overall, and more a detailed analysis of some aspect of the data”. (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 84). Since I focussed on four particular factors that affect the refugee’s wellbeing in transit. These four factors were coded to ‘EU everyday practices’, ‘uncertainty’, ‘dehumanization’ and ‘losses and fear’ which were divided into subcodes that can be found in the annexe at the end of this thesis. It is important to notice that I was aware of my theoretical and epistemological bias which certainly influenced the interview guide – which is added to the annexe at the end of this study – and the answers that followed. After analysing the data I was able to adjust my theoretical framework to it and to concentrate on more detailed analysis on how uncertainty, dehumanization, losses and immobility affect the wellbeing of Syrian refugees in transit to

the Netherlands. The approach for this thematic analysis is constructivist, that is meaning and experience are not fixed, but rather socially (re-)produced (Braun and Clarke, 2006: 85). This enabled me to analyse the individual experiences of the interviewees in the context of structures and discourses. Hence the discourse of exclusion of refugees and the EU border regime that structurally hinders refugees in their search for protection on the European continent is covered. The constructivist approach within thematic analysis allowed me to integrate the refugees’ testimonies into the broader political narrative on how wellbeing can be fundamentally produced and affected.

3.2. Methodological Limitations

To understand how the wellbeing of Syrian refugees in transit is affected by the EU border regime the most valuable insights will come from fieldwork. However, due to COVID-19, the planned fieldwork abroad in the Balkan region could not be executed. Instead, I could only do interviews through Skype and Zoom with Syrian refugees that used different ways of travelling to get to the Netherlands. Since I video called with my interviewees it was more difficult to see and interpret body language and non-responses than when we would be physically in the same room. Also, the factor of no physical presence during the interviews perhaps limited talking about sensitive topics. Travel bans and a lockdown due to COVID-19 limited the accessibility of interviewing refugees on their wellbeing because it was only possible to get in touch with Syrians that live in the Netherlands through online platforms such as Facebook, items in newspapers and other social media. Furthermore, a crucial factor to a dense source of data on the wellbeing of Syrian refugees through semi-structured interviews is to use an interpreter that speaks the same language as the interviewee does. Because language barriers make it harder for the interviewee and interviewer to understand and use the same terminology on wellbeing (Hassan and others, 2016: 133). However, nine interviews were in Dutch and one in English, because the interviewees insisted on speaking either Dutch or English. Two of the interviewees spoke Dutch as a native speaker while the others spoke Dutch too, but were limited in expressing their selves. This can be explained because these participants had in a lesser extent knowledge of the Dutch language due to a shorter stay in the Netherlands or due to having more difficulties with learning the language. Because most of the interviews were held in Dutch I had to translate quotes that are used for analysis to English and regularly I had to rephrase sentences or include small additions to be understandable for others. A noticeable detriment is that language cannot be translated one-on-one. For the quotes sometimes I had to interpret what word would best fit the translation. Furthermore, it is almost beyond the bounds of possibility for an outsider to holistically understand the familial, social, cultural dislocation and the uncertainty concerning mobility experienced by Syrian refugees, but with a language barrier, this was even harder. Despite the language barrier the aim for saturation was achieved to a certain extent with

the findings from the ten interviews since patterns reoccurred in all the interviews. However, with only ten individual testimonies it is not possible to rule out new findings with certainty.

Unfortunately, a poor variety in demographics of the interviewees limits the transferability of this study. As transferability indicates the degree to which the findings can be converted to other contexts or other research subjects (Korstjens and Moser, 2018: 120). The inconvenience of snowball sampling is that of the ten interviewees only one female refugee participated in the study. Literature suggests otherwise: slightly less than half of all refugees are female (Farhat and others, 2018: 1). Furthermore, eight of my participants were from a Syrian city and two from rural areas. Research illustrates that just a little more than 50% of Syrian refugees are from cities (Farhat and others, 2018: 4). What was even more interesting is that the female respondent was able to express her emotions in a more detailed manner. This could indicate how gender expressions and performance are constructed and how wellbeing is also gendered, but since the variety in gender is very poor conclusions cannot be made. However, it gives a glimpse of the complexities of how to theorize on and what methodology to use for the politics of emotions, feelings and sensing (Zalewski, 2015: 43). Another issue is that, while the findings are from refugees that fled Syria between 1999 and 2017, there is no data on the wellbeing of refugees fleeing between 2017 and 2020 towards the Netherlands. To a certain extent, this distorts the results on how the EU border regime affects the wellbeing of refugees in transit to the Netherlands because in the last couple of years the external EU borders fortified even more with policies and procedures that are harsher on refugees seeking for protection. Nonetheless, biased knowledge is preferred above a lack of knowledge of vulnerable minorities as long as the researcher is aware of the bias and mentions it. To quote Sydor (2013: 36):

“In the end, to address the needs of those individuals and groups who are oppressed or marginalized, social justice researchers have a responsibility to consider using strategies such as snowball sampling because perhaps “biased information is better than none.”