Abstract

SANTINHO, Maria Cristina. What kind of asylum is this that doesn’t protect us, after all?. Etnográfica [online]. 2013, vol.17, n.1, pp.5-29. ISSN 0873-6561.

This article is based on a field research undertaken between 2007 and 2011, which resulted in a PhD dissertation on refugees and asylum seekers in Portugal. Here I aim to show the significant distance between the laws that grant rights of citizenship to refugees and their daily lives. Also underlined are the two common ways in which the political discourses and social welfare perceive refugees: either as victims or opportunists, and always deprived from their right to social and political visibility.

Keywords : refugees; human rights; victimization; invisibility.

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