Resettlement, Austerity and Vulnerability: A Critical Examination of the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme in the North East of England

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a global move from states to have resettlement perceived as the only remedy to forced displacement. A growing number of resettlement schemes have materialized in destination countries of the Global North in recent years, whilst at the same time asylum protection is increasingly restricted amid rising far right anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of this trend with the Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS). Focusing on this scheme, this thesis explores the relationship between resettlement, austerity and the concept of vulnerability in the enactment of the VPRS in the North East of England. It shows how the term ‘vulnerability’ has been embedded into the legal categorisation of refugee resettlement, becoming an integral part to the conceptual separation between individuals worthy of protection and those who are not. It also argues that in the context of resettlement schemes such as the VPRS, individuals placed in areas hit hardest by government austerity measures, such as the North East of England, adopt a neoliberal subjectivity whereby individuals become entrepreneurial and compete with themselves and with others to do better, ultimately with the eventual goal of citizenship. In developing its analysis, the thesis also illustrates the methodological point that when conducting research with groups of people framed as ‘vulnerable’ in normative ethical review processes and institutional frameworks, it is vital that researchers are attuned to the need to develop situated judgments of ethical practice and responsibility in situ.

Ultimately, the thesis shows how specific understandings of vulnerability shape resettlement policy, its experience, and the ways in which it is researched. It argues that while these understandings are often at odds, they also intersect in shaping how the VPRS materialises on the ground.