Dispersal of asylum seekers and processes of social exclusion in England

Abstract

This thesis investigates the compulsory dispersal of asylum seekers introduced following the Immigration & Asylum Act 1999. This policy was formulated in an environment of mistrust towards asylum seekers had an explicit deterrence element and was the first time refugees without secure status were dispersed across the UK. This thesis examines the formal and informal social exclusion inherent in this system and the specific impacts on the ability of asylum seekers to access services and maintain or create social networks. These were investigated in order to explore the sense of 'belonging', 'inclusion' and longer term effects on the process of resettlement for those awarded refugee status. The main methods used were qualitative combined with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software to provide a spatial analysis of dispersal. Field research carried out between November 2002 and February 2005 consisted of in-depth interviews, focus groups and participant observation with asylum seekers, refugees and key informants in three dispersal locations. Interviews were also conducted with policy makers and other key informants in London. A range of published and unpublished secondary sources have been utilised. A key finding was that multiple forms of social exclusion of asylum seekers exist. These different forms relate to the declining entitlements of asylum seekers as well as the geography, structure and process of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) system. A significant relationship between dispersalocations and areas of deprivation combined with the tensions of the structure and process of implementing dispersal results in a system that maintains asylum seekers in a state of limbo or liminality. It was found that the system offers limited space available for the restoration of social trust and virtually no space for the restoration of political or institutional trust. It is concluded that the primary lens for understanding the experiences of social exclusion of asylum seekers throughout dispersal is policy-imposed liminality and that resistance to liminality is the way in which asylum seekers begin to acquire a sense of 'belonging' or 'inclusion'.