Paper details
| Paper authors | Kristin Bergtora Sandvik |
| In panel on | Refugee Social Integration: Resettlement, Protection & Europe |
| Paper presenter(s) will be presenting |
In-Person / |
Abstract
With Adele Garnier, Ingunn Bjørhaug and Astrid Espegren
The emergency evacuations from Afghanistan are characterized by an unprecedented focus on protecting professional and educated women. While this is perhaps mainly resulting from the legacy of Taliban and the need to salvage something from a humiliating end to two decades of military presence, this shift has progressive potential for resettlement as a durable solution. To harness the potential of this shift in discourse, attention must be given to how this re-calibration of vulnerability, deservingness and protection reshape interventions. The tradeoffs involved must also be considered, for example with respect to who may have less access to resettlement. To contribute to a critical conversation, the paper raises three/ issues:
Does this new focus on women represent a shift from perceiving woman as vulnerable due to lack of protection and lack of resources to perceiving women as vulnerable due to their competence and experience? Will using “brain save” as an argument (as opposed to “brain drain”) make it easier to legitimize the resettlement of female professionals, even among those who advocate for resettlement of the most vulnerable? What are the implications for how gender is used in the instrumentalization of resettlement/resettlement as multilateralism?
