What can the design of these spaces tell us about how people are sorted and classified today, all in the name of humanity?įirst, a few words about the logics of humanitarianism are in order. Why are shipping containers the new design of choice to house refugees and migrants? I want to examine the relationship between humanitarianism and racism by thinking about the nature of this politics of containment on the edges of Europe. In this article, I want to shift the focus slightly to think about the humanitarian designs on offer, to preserve the so-called dignity of migrants. Much of the media coverage concentrated on the fact that residents of the Jungle did not want to leave the temporary homes they had built in anticipation of making the crossing to the UK, to move into what many called “prison-like” conditions - protesting, for some of them, to the point of sewing their mouths shut. Valls made clear that people in this camp would be treated with what he termed, “humanity”: “all migrants, regardless of whether or not they are seeking asylum, must be treated with dignity and live in decent conditions.” Container camp of the Calais’ “Jungle” / Photograph by Léopold Lambert (2016)
As French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stated, they had to get people out of the “squalid” and “filthy” conditions of the Jungle, into these containers, “because we, in France, cannot allow people to live in such wretched conditions” (September 2015). Humanitarian logic was cited: the containers were a direct response to the current conditions of “inhumane and degrading treatment” active in the Jungle. the “genuine asylum seekers”), or return back to their countries.
The French authorities proposed that those who did not find or refuse a place could either apply for asylum (i.e. About 1,500 people fit into the 125 available containers - about a quarter of the residents of the Jungle. In its wake lay the humanitarian container camp assembled to replace it a few months earlier. The bulldozing by French authorities of the southern part of the make-shift refugee camp outside Calais, called “la Jungle,” in early March, turned into a global spectacle.
0 kommentar(er)
