5 - Asylum

Summary

This chapter foregrounds the subjective experience of asylum seekers like Hassan Ali Djan, who arrived in Munich from Afghanistan via Iran, Turkey, and Greece in 2005. It also presents accessibly the complex history of asylum legislation and practice across time. It points out the continuities amidst the changes: the number of refugees varies, the major countries of origin vary (at one point Bosnia, at another Syria), the escape routes vary (at one point the eastern, at another the middle Mediterranean route), the popularity of destinations changes (at one point Britain, at another Germany). What remains the same is that the causes that rarely allow for a neat separation of “political persecution” from economic, religious, ethnic, and other factors; refugees, who are rarely the oldest, the weakest, and the sick, but rather are young and dynamic; the reliance of refugees on word of mouth and local networks; the role of the traffickers and others who are inextricably part of the economy of refugee migration logistics; rescue, relief, gratitude; and countless traumas and tragedies.