Abstract

RUIZ-ESTRAMIL, Ivana Belén. Asylum and Refuge. The Colonial Legacy in Today’s Humanitarianism. Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais [online]. 2022, n.127, pp.6-24.  Epub May 30, 2022. ISSN 2182-7435.  https://doi.org/10.4000/rccs.12785.

This article analyzes the colonial mark present in current humanitarian management, focusing on the specific case of asylum and place of safety in Europe, tracing a historical evolution based on the considerations expressed by Bartolomé de las Casas in his work Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. Starting from this work, different periods of the international management of humanitarianism are analyzed, in order to highlight the aspects which are changing in their way of acting but continue to be marked by the colonial vision, thus perpetuating it. Particular attention is paid to the colonial conception of the subject of Humanitarism, starting from the hypothesis that the colonial mark in the definition and recognition of the vulnerable “other” susceptible to protection also acts within the European states, where the asylum procedure is a clear exponent of the normative ethical construction which legitimizes a hierarchy that is imposed on those applying for asylum.

Keywords : asylum; colonialism; humanitarian intervention; protection of refugees.

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