The Real Appearance of the Economic/Political Binary: Claiming Asylum in Bulgaria

Authors

  • Raia Apostolova Central European University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v2i4.285
Abstract Views: 642 PDF Downloads: 512

Abstract

The paper examines the distinction between ‘economic’ migrants and ‘genuine refugees’. I argue that the economic/political migrant binary belongs to a particular ideological presupposition which is present in classic economic liberalism. In migratory systems, this ideology construes the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ vis-à-vis violence and lays the ground for subject differentiation. This logic, furthermore, imposes itself in the migratory system and its empirical reality (e.g. detention and reception centres). The struggles that we witness at borders and detention centres attempt to disintegrate definitions of what constitutes violence. The struggles against the imposed categories take place at two interconnected levels: at the border and in the repositioning of migrants from detention to reception centres. I empirically trace these levels within the practice of the asylum-system in Bulgaria.

Author Biography

Raia Apostolova, Central European University

Raia Apostolova is a PhD candidate in the Sociology and Social Anthropology department at the Central European University in Budapest. She engages with the historical and theoretical interaction between migratory categories in late capitalism and the political/economic migrant dichotomy in liberal democracies.

Downloads

Published

2016-12-21

How to Cite

[1]
Apostolova, R. 2016. The Real Appearance of the Economic/Political Binary: Claiming Asylum in Bulgaria. Intersections. East European Journal of Society and Politics. 2, 4 (Dec. 2016). DOI:https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v2i4.285.

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 4 (2016): Global Migration Crisis and Europe: Whose Crisis is it?

Section

Global Migration Crisis and Europe: Whose crisis is it?

License

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work three months after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. This acknowledgement is not automatic, it should be asked from the editors and can usually be obtained one year after its first publication in the journal.