ABSTRACT
During the last decade the number of people fleeing to the European continent peaked. As a consequence, European institutions, together with the European Union member states, tried to find quick remedies to what they called the refugee crisis. The high number of refugees led to an increase in narratives regarding refugees, which were widely circulated in the media and within European institutions. In this chapter, we look at these narratives and how they prevent the European institutions from taking into account the refugees’ own knowledge and skills. We raise the question of whether disregarding refugee knowledge is intentional or whether it stems from a lack of consideration or benign neglect.
The main questions for the analysis are: What are the dominant discourses or narratives regarding refugee knowledge impacting European rhetoric and, as a result of that, European decision-making and policymaking? In what ways do these institutions and organisations narrate and recognise the knowledge of refugees? How do they acknowledge the knowledge and capabilities of the refugees? The main site of research comprises institutions within the European Union, although some attention is also paid to the Council of Europe. We have analysed policy papers, travaux préparatoires, proposals, white papers, and news outlets. We look at what kinds of roles the refugees are assigned in these reports and whether any of these roles take the expertise of the refugees into account.
We understand the so-called European refugee crisis as a context for identifying five different, partially overlapping, and even contradictory narratives. We demonstrate how these dominant narratives contribute to categorising refugees and migrants in stereotypical and harmful ways that hinder recognition of the refugees’ own knowledge and hearing their voices. Seeing refugees as valuable human beings with knowledge and skills risks being overshadowed by these problematic narratives, which are circulated and reproduced not only in the media but within the European institutions as well.
