Abstract
This refreshing book enlivens the refugees/asylum seeker debate amidst a revived interest in Marxism. By drawing upon qualitative empirical data from his study of Newcastle upon Tyne, Vickers develops a holistic understanding of the lived experiences of refugees and reveals the underlying structures shaping their lives in a historical context. He looks at the capitalist forces and relations of production within which refugees are placed and applies the labour theory of value, surplus value, alienation, class conflict and exploitation to their position. The book poses some important questions not often asked by social workers and other practitioners such as whose interests the British state represents; why refugees, despite the useful and varied skills they bring, continue to be treated inhumanely; why refugees might consent to their treatment; and what the relationship is between refugees and other oppressed and service user groups. The argument is that, in Britain and other ‘oppressor’ countries, refugees form an industrial reserve army of labour and constitute an international working class, managed by the state through a ‘refugees relations industry’ and endorsed by a narrative of ‘social capital building’, where the largely unpaid voluntary work of refugees and their organizations provides a cheap and effective management of potential class conflicts. He thus links the emergence of this industry and its institutions to political economy, class conflict and exploitation.
The introductory chapter sums up the historical processes of Britain’s reliance upon foreign labour to reduce costs of (re)production. The necessity to continuously increase the rate of profit has culminated in wars, justified through racist and fascist ideologies, maintained by installing repressive regimes. It is this impoverishment and dispossession that refugees seek to escape as they simultaneously keep down the cost of production in industries such as agriculture and catering. Refugees lie at the behest of compassionless governments, employers and other international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, with their rights as workers and citizens denuded.
The chapter on ‘Racism and the Political Economy of Refugee Reception’ unravels the state’s attempts to manage and exploit the different elements of the working class, preventing it from forming a unified challenge to capitalism. It outlines the role of the state in tailoring the supply of labour to the demands of capital by historically depending upon, and marginalizing, labour from ex-colonies. Individual testimonies of refugees and policies developed in Newcastle are used to throw light on how mechanisms of detention, dispersal, restrictions on study, voluntary efforts and dispersal policies can be seen as tools for disciplining the international reserve army of labour and for dividing migrants with settled status from those without, whilst attacking multicultural policies in favour of integration and assimilation.
Chapter 3, ‘Refugees and the British State’, shows that the state specifically represents the capitalist class, although it poses itself as an agent of reconciliation by representing the ‘national interest’. Vickers argues that the role of the state is not to reconcile opposing class interests but, by deploying repressive, coercive and ideological means, it is to regulate and control antagonistic/contradictory interests of different capitalist sectors and to ensure that the dominant interests of capitalist accumulation are not threatened. The welfare state reflects both the concession made to working classes to placate rebellious forces as well as a mechanism for social control through which they could be moulded to adopt middle class values. These concessions rested on colonial exploits, low taxation zones and cheap labour reserves, and these processes give class exploitation a national/racial dimension. That the state is not a neutral entity is witnessed by the support provided to banks and MPs, whilst double punishment is imposed upon refugees, detained and deported, possibly illegally to places of torture and represented as a political threat to the ‘nation’.
Chapter 4 introduces the ‘refugee relations industry’ as a reflection of its predecessor, the race relations industry in which the creation of a black middle class, a migrant aristocracy, formed a central plank for co-opting black militancy and for managing colonial exploitation. Newcastle mirrored the general developments in which immigration restrictions went hand in hand with a race relations industry from the 1960s to 1980s incorporating integration, multiculturalism and anti-racism. The role of Refugee Community Organisations (RCOs), particularly those funded by the state serves a similar state function when implementing dispersal policies. The tensions between state funded and community based organizations are explored. The creation of these organizations can be seen as the state’s attempts to manage refugees and to divide the black working class, as well as neutralizing political movements that challenge and resist immigration laws. Vickers notes that refugee organizations are not by their nature conciliatory but have the potential to be oppositional too, as illustrated by previous organizations active in anti-deportation cases and in building international alliances with anti-racist movements.
Chapter 5, ‘Social Capital and the Management of Refugees’ Oppression’, reveals the contradictory position in which refugees are placed to defend their own interests while implementing government policies that damage these. Social capital is understood by Vickers to mean a form of co-option and oppression: a conscious strategy to engage refugees in organizations to manage the casualties of the expanding state apparatus against them through notions of ‘fairness’, ‘tolerance’ and ‘partnership’. In carrying out the government’s work, some refugees draw upon mainstream, racist narratives arguing that the state policies are correct as they prevent the entry of ‘bogus’ claimants, ‘economic migrants’ and overcrowding. The engagement of refugees ensures that the system of deportations, incarceration and enforced destitution continues to contain and discipline the threat that is potentially posed by refugees to the imperialist division of labour. However, the more collective and community based organizations that are free from state funding are seen as potentially useful sites for challenging capitalism.
The Conclusion suggests that the state is likely to intensify its social control through consensual and indirect means by providing particular groups positive rewards and incentives, rather than by conflictual strategies. Vickers points to the need for alternative forms of organizations which can help build strong and lasting alliances between the different sections of the working classes, across national boundaries. Social workers can help to make people aware of the underlying interests of the state and its divisive techniques and strategies of management, whilst drawing upon their professional values of social justice to help build links between different exploited and oppressed groups.
The distinctiveness of the book is not just its explicit Marxist stance and methodology (contained in the Appendix), but its ability to go beyond the mainstream literature on asylum seekers which remains largely descriptive. Vickers is able to probe the underlying structures that explain why certain practices exist. For instance other works also describe the downward social class mobility of highly educated refugees, but Vickers asks why their skills are not used and why destitution is allowed to take place. The Marxist approach leads to the argument that since the aim is to create an industrial reserve, it is in the interest of the state to deny the validity of such qualifications and skills. There are, however, instances where the arguments do not fit neatly. For instance, given that the industrial reserve pool of labour is created to allow a cheap/flexible supply of workers, and that the prohibition on asylum seekers’ employment is a form of discipline, it is not entirely clear why employers who seek to employ asylum seekers should also be punished and disciplined for using them, particularly if the state represents the capitalist class.
Overall, the arguments are clearly presented and the book is a good resource to deepen the understanding academics, students and practitioners have of refugees. Its price, however, is prohibitive.