ABSTRACT
Asylum travellers have to encounter a series of bureaucratic requirements, and they need to practice certain negotiations with UNHCR, Turkey and Canada in the act of asylum seeking and resettlement. This chapter addresses the first phase of the asylum journey, which I call the separation phase, which refers to the asylum traveller’s decisions to flee the country of origin due to well-founded fears of persecution. This chapter examines asylum travellers’ separation practices, production and exchange of knowledge through their established networks and ties, their engagement with information/misinformation about routes, transportation means, sites, and regulations. Like each empirical chapter, the chapter brings the narratives and experiences of asylum travellers from Iran, Iraq, Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia with whom I conducted interviews in Turkey, Canada, and Iran. After the completion of my PhD. I conducted fresh interviews with Syrian nationals who are currently living in Turkey under Turkey’s secondary protection regime.
