Doctoral Dissertation Research: Legal and Oppositional Consciousness Among Actors in the Central American Refugee Movement

博士论文研究：中美洲难民运动参与者的法律意识和对立意识

• 批准号: 1921156
• 负责人: Catherine Albiston
• 金额: $ 2.66万
• 依托单位: University of California-Berkeley
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1921156&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Legal; Oppositional

Since 2014, thousands of Central Americans have fled their home countries and traveled across Mexico to the U.S. border to seek asylum. In response to increased migration from Central America, the U.S. government has implemented a number of policies meant to deter migration. Rather than dissuading Central American asylum seekers, these policies may foster resistance among some asylum seekers and their U.S. legal allies, including attorneys and legal advocates. In contrast to undocumented youth in the United States, asylum seekers, particularly those that have not yet entered the physical boundaries of the nation state, lack claims to cultural citizenship, let alone formal citizenship. Yet many make claims against the U.S. state. At the same time, a broad base of attorneys and legal advocates are engaging with asylum seekers, working en mass to provide short-term pro bono legal services both before and after asylum seekers' transnational border crossings. Unlike impact litigation, direct legal services provision is not traditionally thought to lead to social change, yet it may be a new form of social movement engagement. How do these diverse actors think about their actions? Do these individuals consider themselves part of a social movement? If so, what roles do law and identity play in how they come to see themselves as activists and how, if at all, does this shift across spaces inside and outside of the United States? Understanding the role these factors play in fomenting resistance will have critical implications for both our understanding of social movements and for U.S. immigration policy. Combining a multi-sited ethnographic field study with interviews with Central American asylum seekers and U.S.-based attorneys and legal advocates, this study will provide the first systematic empirical examination of whether and how these various actors come to view themselves as part of a broader movement, what has been called the development of oppositional consciousness. Contributing to the literature on social movements, the legal profession, and migration, this project maps consciousness among actors in the social field of the Central American refugee movement and generates a theoretical model for analyzing the processes through which asylum seekers, attorneys, and legal advocates begin to view themselves as part of a social movement. Focusing on the development of consciousness before, during, and after asylum seekers' transnational border crossing, the study particularly examines how law, and the punitive policies enforcing law, shapes actors' consciousness; how actors' identities, including the asylum seeking identity and professional identity, influence the development of consciousness; and how space mediates consciousness.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

自2014年以来，成千上万的中美洲人逃离了本国，并在墨西哥到达美国边境寻求庇护。为了回应中美洲的移民，美国政府实施了许多旨在阻止移民的政策。这些政策不是劝阻中美洲寻求庇护者，而是在一些寻求庇护者及其美国法律盟友（包括律师和法律倡导者）中促进抵抗。与美国的无证件青年相反，寻求庇护者，尤其是那些尚未进入民族国家的身体界限的人，缺乏对文化公民身份的主张，更不用说正式的公民身份了。然而，许多人对美国国家提出了要求。同时，广泛的律师和法律倡导者正在与寻求庇护者互动，大规模工作以在寻求庇护者的跨国边境过境之前和之后提供短期Pro Bono法律服务。与影响诉讼不同，传统上认为直接的法律服务规定不会导致社会变革，但这可能是社会运动参与的一种新形式。这些不同的演员如何看待自己的行为？这些人是否认为自己是社会运动的一部分？如果是这样，法律和身份在他们如何将自己视为激进主义者中扮演着什么角色，如果有的话，这是否会在美国内部和外部的空间之间发生变化？了解这些因素在强化抵抗中的作用将对我们对社会运动和美国移民政策的理解产生关键的影响。将一项多人民族志现场研究与对中美洲寻求庇护者和美国的律师和法律倡导者的访谈相结合，该研究将提供首次系统的系统经验研究，以了解这些各种参与者是否以及如何将自己视为更广泛的运动的一部分，所谓的反对意识的发展。该项目促进有关社会运动，法律界和移民的文献，绘制了中美洲难民运动社会领域的参与者之间的意识，并产生了一个理论模型，用于分析庇护寻求者，律师和法律倡导者开始将其视为社会运动的一部分。该研究专注于在寻求庇护的人的跨国过境过境之前，期间和之后的意识发展，该研究特别研究了法律和惩罚性政策如何执行法律，塑造行为者的意识；演员的身份，包括寻求身份和专业身份的庇护所如何影响意识的发展；以及太空如何介导意识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来评估值得支持的。