Feminist Geopolitics and the Production of the Scale of Community in Refugee Settlement Policy

Keywords: refugees, community, scale, intimacy, feminist geopolitics
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

In 2021, the US launched a new refugee resettlement program, "Operation Allies Welcome," for people who left Afghanistan in the midst of the upheaval caused by the US troop withdrawal and the speedy Taliban takeover of the country. This program constructed those from Afghanistan seeking safety as "allies", distinguishing them from many others from the region and elsewhere. Furthermore, the cornerstone of "Operation Allies Welcome" is a new community sponsorship model. Amnesty International touts community sponsorship as a successful model for welcoming refugees and "rebelling against hostility" and boasts of this model application in Canada, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, and New Zealand. This model mobilizes "ordinary citizens" to take part in refugee settlement by entering a sponsorship agreement with the government to take responsibility for raising funds and providing assistance with logistical matters such as finding housing, registering children in school, and accessing health care--all services provided by previously by professionals in refugee resettlement organizations. As such, community sponsorships construct new ideas of "community" as a scale and depend on intimate bonds between sponsors and refugees. Building on feminist geopolitics scholarship, this paper examines the geopolitical production of community and intimacy in the service of US empire.