NEWS

2020.10.30

The 23rd AJI Frontier Seminar on “Reconstructing the Lives of Syrian Refugees in Europe: With Special Attention to the Differences between Refugees and Migrants”

On October 20, 2020, the 23rd AJI Research Frontiers Seminar was held online. This time, Ms. Aoi Mochizuki (Research Fellow of JSPS [DC], Doctoral course of Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University) made a detailed and comprehensive presentation on the actual issue of refugee under the title of “Reconstructing the Lives of Syrian Refugees in Europe: With Special Attention to the Differences between Refugees and Migrants” (in Japanese). In this presentation, Ms.Mochizuki showed that the distinction between "refugees" and "immigrants" created by states and international organizations complicates the issue of how to construct the capacity of EU countries to accept the massive amounts of refugees created by the Syrian war. Her presentation provided a concise explanation of the “European migrant crisis” and the limitations of the policies of refugee protection caused by the Syrian refugees’ exodus, along with detailed data on the cases in EU countries and the status of refugee acceptance. The presentation also discussed the limitations of the policies on refugee protection created by existing measures of sorting out “refugees”, “economic migrants”, and “illegal immigrants” employed based on advantageous logics of national boundaries and security. In the Q&A session, participants meaningfully discussed about the necessary conditions for establishing more inclusive institutions for refugee protection and the prospects for the development of Ms.Mochizuki's research on this issue.

Ms. Aoi Mochizuki delivering her presentation