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INTRODUCTION TO THE THEMATIC SECTION
Mojca VAH JEVŠNIK
The predominant response to recent refugee arrivals to Europe has been one of paranoia 
and fear of depersonalised masses of people disrupting Europe’s cultural and social wel-
fare landscape, triggering (further) political crises, violence and the rise of nationalistic 
movements. It therefore came as no surprise that the mainstream political focus has been 
on tightening external European Union borders in a desperate attempt to keep them out. 
Some intriguing strategies to reach this goal have been put forth. For example, legal 
obligations to provide protection to anyone fleeing persecution and war have been rhetori-
cally undermined by introducing the argument of ‘exception’ in the public debates over 
deservingness of protection. In a blog post on the emotions of solidarity with refugees, the 
sociologist Serhat Karakayali (2016) evokes Immanuel Kant’s Perpetual Peace argument 
that the protection of strangers is not a question of philanthropy but of right. Yet public 
opinion on the recent refugee arrivals, he notes, has been less informed by reason or re-
ference to the Geneva Convention and more by the mobilization of feelings of empathy to-
wards refugees. Noting that these days Kantianism is not a very powerful paradigm when 
it comes to migration politics, he warns against deservingness becoming determined by 
public opinion – which can be based on flawed assumptions and can, if the representation 
of refugees as deserving is damaged, be reversed. Indeed, the protection of the vulnerable 
should not depend on the presence of raw, visible need reflected in injured, sick, starved, 
disabled bodies (Malkki 2015) and the ability of those seeking protection to evoke feelings 
of empathy and acts of solidarity. Seemingly healthy and young male refugees are in this 
respect most often cast aside from the humanitarian gaze, which has recently prompted 
calls to put the spotlight on our gender biases (Hilhorst 2016). 
There is of course no denying that the language of immediate need is more eloquent, 
expressive and mobilizing than the legal lingo on abstract commitment to rights (cf. Englund 
2006). This is not only true in the case of mainstream public opinion on deservingness, but 
can also be observed among humanitarian workers and volunteers working with refugees. 
A hungry and inadequately clothed child can evoke a surge of empathy and the need to help 
much more pointedly than a dispute over the legal documents of a seemingly self-confident 
man with a border official. And the effects of doing good in the case of the former are much 
more immediate and satisfying. During my fieldwork on humanitarian and development 
workers in Kosovo, conducted some years ago, I observed an overwhelming motivational 
drive and sense of accomplishment among the individuals whose tasks involved sorting out 
immediate problems, such as providing a missing piece of clothing, bandaging a cut, arrang-
ing a dentist appointment or comforting a crying child by providing a new toy. Bringing im-
mediate relief to the most vulnerable refugees gave them a sense of what Stamm (2002) labels 
as compassion satisfaction, i.e. the pleasure derived from being able to do your work well. 
More frustration and feelings of helplessness and defeat were observed in the case of human-
itarian and social workers assigned to individual cases, since this type of help requires con-
tinuous interaction and long-term engagement that goes beyond patching physical wounds. A 
UNHCR case worker whom I met in Pristina told me that her greatest work-related challenge 
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D V E  D O M O V I N I  •  T W O  H O M E L A N D S  •  4 5  •  2 0 1 7Mojca VAH JEVŠNIK
has been working with unaccompanied refugee children with disabilities or severe post-trau-
matic stress disorders, because those cases did not make her feel rewarded for doing good, 
but have instead increased her own anxieties and made her put up emotional walls. Building 
resilience is of course an essential component of every aid worker’s job, but she feared that she 
was heading towards numbness and indifference, adopting the ‘I’ve seen it all’ attitude. Such 
compassion fatigue (Figley 1995) can not only affect individual aid workers working with ref-
ugees on a regular basis, but can be symptomatic of large populations exposed to aggressive 
media campaigning that may result in their indifference to humanitarian appeals. 
The inherently volatile societies should therefore be continuously reminded of the ex-
isting normative frameworks, but they should also be encouraged to preserve and revive 
philanthropic endeavours – by all means within the realistic limits of ability and capacity 
to help. Karakayali (2016) believes, based on data from his recent survey, that face-to-face 
interactions in particular are one way to break out of the cycle of volatility, and calls for in-
vesting in the volunteer movement, “where citizens do not depend on mass and social me-
dia when it comes to the emotional dimension of their relation to migrants and refugees.” 
The most vulnerable of the vulnerable in particular should not escape the humanitarian 
gaze or become victims of lingering compassion fatigue. Research can be of paramount 
importance in this respect. It can throw light on refugees’ multiple vulnerabilities and 
facilitate development of evidence-based strategies, mechanisms and tools for the advance-
ment of a coherent and efficient response to help ease their struggles. It can also illuminate 
the wider structural frameworks and political agendas that contribute to constructing vul-
nerabilities in the receiving countries. 
In an attempt to encourage relevant research, the purpose of this thematic section is 
to open the floor to explorations of various aspects of vulnerabilities lived and experienced 
by refugees. In the first article, Claudia Schneider uses Freeman’s framework for the study 
of admission policy, which acknowledges the wider socio-economic and closer party po-
litical structures but also emphasises the mediating role of politicians who interpret and 
maintain or change these structures, to explore the developments leading to the response 
of the German government to refugee arrivals. She discusses the political debates on the 
‘deservingness’ of refugees to be admitted to Germany and brings attention to the emer-
gence of the discourse that calls for the hierarchical classification of the groups of migrants 
and refugees more and less needy of protection. 
The article by Synnøve Bendixsen builds on the research findings gathered within the 
framework of an extensive research project that was initiated in order to examine how poli-
cies affect practice in welfare institutions and the everyday lives of irregular migrants in 
Norway. She brings attention to the increasingly restrictive asylum and immigration poli-
cies across Europe and argues that irregular migration is constructed by governments’ uti-
lization of complexly interrelated techniques. The purpose of the article is not to argue that 
migrants cannot be irregular or ‘illegal’, but rather to explore the various forms through 
which being irregular (and therefore subject to deportation) is produced. It also touches 
upon an important issue that has been relatively underexposed in academic debates, name-
ly the use of research findings and discussions to legitimize specific political stances and 
decisions. Bendixsen therefore calls for caution in regard to how research questions are 
framed and how results are presented. 
Darja Zaviršek brings attention to the processes of militarization of borders on the 
Balkan route and institutionalization of refugees across Europe. She is critical of the 
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ideologies of eurocentrism, culturalisation and cultural racism that have pervaded many 
debates on refugee arrivals, and of the construction of refugees as a national threat and 
health risk. She argues that spatial confinement and segregation are unnecessary and inap-
propriate in this respect. The response to the humanitarian crisis should not be a crisis of 
humanity reflected in the militarization of borders and pathologisation of those wanting to 
enter, but rather enforcement of the notion of the universal values of humanity.
The final two articles address the important issue of unaccompanied minors seeking 
international protection in Slovenia. The articles are complementary in that they cover 
the same problematic from two different viewpoints. Mateja Sedmak and Zorana Medarić 
build their argumentation on the empirical research of the experiences and views of unac-
companied migrant children conducted as part of the international project “In whose best 
interest? Exploring Unaccompanied Minors’ Rights through the Lens of Migration and 
Asylum Processes”. They explore migrant children’s perceptions of different life transitions 
experienced on their journey, including transition across geographical spaces, institutional 
transition, transition over time and psychological transition. The narratives reveal their 
multiple personal vulnerabilities, but they also expose inconsistencies in relation to the 
formal admission procedures that may further exacerbate their insecurities. The authors 
argue that durable solutions for unaccompanied minors in Slovenia do not exist and call 
for an efficient, child-oriented system of protection. 
The article by Tjaša Žakelj and Blaž Lenarčič is also concerned with the determination 
of the best interest of unaccompanied minors in Slovenia, but uses a different lens. The au-
thors explore the inclusion of the principle of the best interest of the child in Slovenian leg-
islation and other formal regulations that determine this principle in various formal proce-
dures, and discuss the understanding and utilization of this principle in formal procedures 
by a variety of experts. One of the important arguments brought forth by the article is the 
need to improve the system response in a manner that will support the endeavours and 
engagement of legal representatives.
REFERENCES
Englund, Harri (2006). Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor. Berkeley: 
University of California Press.
Figley, Charles R. (1995). Compassion fatigue: Toward a new understanding of the costs 
of caring. Secondary traumatic stress: Self-care issues for clinicians, researchers, and 
educators (ed. Hudnall B. Stamm). Baltimore: The Sidran Press, 3–28.
Hilhorst, Thea (2016). The other half of gender: Are humanitarians blind to the vulnerabili-
ties of male refugees? http://www.alnap.org/blog/147 (22. 12. 2016).
Karakayali, Serhat (2016). Rights or Philanthropy: Emotions of Solidarity with Refugees, 
https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/2016/rights-or-philanthropy-emotions-of-solidari-
ty-with refugees/ (22. 12. 2016).
Malkki, Liisa H. (2015). The need to help: The domestic arts of international humanitaria-
nism. Durham: Duke University Press.