Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

Against a global backdrop of anti-refugee discourse, governments are increasingly paying refugees to repatriate. This critical ethnographic study explores the lived experiences of refugees who participated in Israel’s Voluntary Return program. The data were derived from in-depth interviews with refugees who had departed Israel. Participants highlighted the various exile-related stressors that led them to choose to leave and reflected on the ambiguity inherent in the term ‘voluntary’. Post-departure, participants continued to experience significant psychological distress. In light of popular perceptions that repatriation is an optimal solution to refugees’ displacement, the implications of these findings for interventions and policies are considered.

Keywords

Displacement forced migration lived experiences mental health repatriation

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Amnesty (2018) ‘Israel: Forced and Unlawful: Israel’s Deportation of Eritrean and Sudanese Asylum-Seekers to Uganda’. Available online at: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/8479/2018/en/ (accessed 5 August 2018).

Avraham

Rozen

Marom

Weiss

Ghebrihiwot

Cheska

(2015) ‘Where There Is No Free Will: Israel’s Voluntary Return Procedure for Asylum Seekers’. Available online at: http://hotline.org.il/en/publication/where-there-is-no-free-will/ (accessed 10 June 2017).

Birger

Shoham

Boltzman

(2018) ‘Better a Prison in Israel than Dying on the Way’. Available online at: https://hotline.org.il/en/publication/better-a-prison-in-israel-than-dying-on-the-way/ (accessed 14 February 2018).

Carr

(2014) ‘Returning “home”: Experiences of Reintegration for Asylum Seekers and Refugees’, British Journal of Social Work 44(Suppl. 1): i140–56.

Carspecken

P.F.

(1996) Critical Ethnography in Educational Research: A Theoretical and Practical Guide. New York: Routledge.

Crisp

(2018) ‘We Must Not Repeat the Shameful History of Returning Rohingya Refugees’, Refugees Deeply. Available online at: https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2018/01/17/we-must-not-repeat-the-shameful-history-of-returning-rohingya-refugees (accessed 7 March 2018).

Denzin

N.K.

Lincoln

Y.S.

(2011) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Desta et al. v. the Knesset et al . (2015) ‘HCJ 8665/14 44 (Isr)’.

Encinas

(2016) ‘Assisted Voluntary Return: Implications for Women and Children’, Forced Migration Review 52: 84–5.

10.

Fazel

M.R.

Ruth

Panter-Brick

Stein

(2012) ‘Mental Health of Displaced and Refugee Children Resettled in High-Income Countries: Risk and Protective Factors’, The Lancet 379(9812): 266–82.

11.

Fennig

Denov

(2018) ‘Regime of Truth: Rethinking the Dominance of the Bio-Medical Model in Mental Health Social Work with Refugee Youth’, British Journal of Social Work. Epub ahead of print 2 June. DOI: 10.1093/bjsw/bcy036.

12.

Galtung

(1969) ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6(3): 167–91.

13.

Gerver

(2017) ‘Paying Refugees to Leave’, Political Studies 65(3): 631–45.

14.

Ghanem

(2003) When Forced Migrants Return ‘Home’: The Psychological Difficulties Returnees Encounter in the Reintegration Process. Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre.

15.

Hammond

(2004) This Place Will Become Home: Refugee Repatriation to Ethiopia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

16.

International Federation of Social Workers (2016) ‘Social Work Responding to the Political Crisis Forcing People into Displacement and Refugee Status [Position Statement]’. Available online at: http://ifsw.org/news/social-work-responding-to-the-political-crisis-forcing-people-into-displacement-and-refugee-status/ (accessed 22 May 2018).

17.

Koch

(2013) ‘Assisted Voluntary Return Schemes’, Forced Migration Review 44. Available at: https://www.fmreview.org/detention/koch

18.

Kritzman-Amir

(2015) ‘Introduction’, in Kritzman-Amir

(ed.) Where Levinsky Meets Asmara: Social and Legal Aspects of Israeli Asylum Policy, pp. 9–42. Tel Aviv: The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute and Hakibbutz Hameuchad (in Hebrew).

19.

Lior

(2016) ‘Three Years of Holot’, Haaretz. Available online at: http://www.haaretz.co.il/news/education/.premium-1.3149830 (accessed 7 March 2018).

20.

Madison

D.S.

(2012) Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

21.

Nakash

Langer

Nagar

Shoham

Lurie

Davidovitch

(2015) ‘Exposure to Traumatic Experiences Among Asylum Seekers from Eritrea and Sudan During Migration to Israel’, Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health 17(4): 1280–6.

22.

Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, Action Against Hunger, CARE International, The International Rescue Committee and The Danish Refugee Council (2018) ‘Dangerous Ground: Syria’s Refugees Face an Uncertain Future’. Available online at: https://www.nrc.no/resources/reports/dangerous-ground–syrias-refugees-face-an-uncertain-future/ (accessed 7 March 2018).

23.

Policy Development and Evaluation Service (PDES) (2013) ‘Difficult Decisions: A Review of UNHCR’s Engagement with Assisted Voluntary Return Programmes’, Report, UNHCR, Geneva, July. Available online at: http://www.unhcr.org/research/evalreports/51f924209/difficult-decisions-review-unhcrs-engagement-assisted-voluntary-return.html (accessed 7 March 2018).

24.

Population and Immigration Authority (2018) Data on Foreigners in Israel 2017. Available online at: https://www.gov.il/BlobFolder/reports/foreign_workers_in_israel_summary_2017/he/foreigners_in_Israel_data_2017_1.pdf (accessed 29 October, 2018).

25.

Rozen

(2015) ‘Rwanda or Saharonim’, Monitoring Report: Asylum Seekers at the Holot Facility, Hotline for Refugees and Migrants. Available online at: https://hotline.org.il/en/publication/rwanda-or-saharonim/ (accessed 7 March 2018).

26.

Sigona

(2014) ‘The Politics of Refugee Voices: Representations, Narratives, and Memories’, in Fiddian-Qasmiyeh

Loescher

Long

Sigona

(eds) The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, pp. 369–82. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

27.

Silove

Steel

Watters

(2000) ‘Policies of Deterrence and the Mental Health of Asylum Seekers’, JAMA 284(5): 604–11.

28.

Social Workers Without Borders (SWWB) (n.d.) Available online at: https://www.socialworkerswithoutborders.org/ (accessed 7 August 2018).

29.

Thomas

(1993). Qualitative Research Methods: Doing critical ethnography. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.

30.

Tsegeta vs. Minister of the Interior and others (2017) ‘Administrative Appeal 8101/15 (Isr)’.

31.

UNHCR (2018) ‘UNHCR Appeals to Israel over Forced Relocations Policy’. Available online at: http://www.unhcr.org/news/briefing/2018/1/5a548e064/unhcr-appeals-israel-forced-relocations-policy.html

32.

United Naions High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (1996) Voluntary Repatriation: International Protection (Handbook). Geneva: UNHCR. Available online at: http://www.unhcr.org/publications/legal/3bfe68d32/handbook-voluntary-repatriation-international-protection.html (accessed 7 March 2018).

33.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (2007) ‘Sweden, Afghanistan, UNHCR Sign Deal on Voluntary Return of Afghans’. Available online at: http://www.unhcr.org/468bb4542.html (accessed 7 March 2018).

34.

Von Lersner

Elbert

Neuner

(2008) ‘Mental Health of Refugees Following State-Sponsored Repatriation from Germany’, BMC Psychiatry 8(1): 88.

35.

Wolcott

H. F.

(1994). Transforming qualitative data: description, analysis, and interpretation. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

36.

Webber

(2011) ‘How Voluntary Are Voluntary Returns?’ Race and Class 52(4): 98–107.

Beyond Voluntary Return: A critical ethnographic study of refugees who departed Israel ‘voluntarily’

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References