ABSTRACT
This chapter considers how the notion of civic stratification can be extended to analyse the treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. At first glance, this area of rights might seem to imply a much simpler configuration than the complexities of immigration status described in the previous chapter, but the recent history of asylum may be characterised by varied and shifting categories of legal status and their associated rights. The very concept of the refugee and other (lesser) forms of protection that may flow from human rights guarantees rest on a process of classification. It is here that the notion of civic stratification might be brought to bear, and in fact, it can operate with respect to several dimensions of the refugee/asylum-seeking experience. The starting point is access to the status determination process itself, followed by its possible outcomes in terms of formal status. We can then consider the treatment of pending, successful and unsuccessful claimants in relation to maintenance and survival, and finally the political discourse that lies behind the shifting contours of this whole phenomenon. All turn on stratified access to rights and protections.
