Asylum Seeking and the Global City
Asylum seeking and the global city are two major contemporary subjects of anal ysis to emerge both in the literature and in public and official discourses on human rights, urban socioeconomic change and national security. Based on extensive, original ethnographic research, this book examines the situation of asylum seekers in Hong Kong and offers a narrative of their experiences related to internal and external borders, the performance of border crossing and asylum politics in the context of the global city.
Hong Kong is a city with no comprehensive legislation covering refugee claims, and official and public opinion is dominated by the view that the city would be flooded with illegal economic migrants were policy changes to be implemented. This book considers why Hong Kong has become a destination for asylum seekers, how asylum seekers integrate into local and global economic markets and why the illegalization of asylum seekers plays a significant role in the processes of global city formation.
This book will be essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of migration, globalization and borders, research methods in criminology, social problems and urban sociology.
Francesco Vecchio is a postdoctoral research fellow at Charles Sturt University and collaborates with Fondazione ISMU and Hong Kongbased NGO Vision First. He develops research on mobility and borders with a focus on refugees. Vecchio completed his PhD in Criminology at Monash University and previously worked in the nonprofit sector. He completed his undergraduate studies in History at the University of Milan and obtained a Masters in Intercultural Studies from the University of Padua.
Asylum Seeking and the Global City is an impressive ethnographic study of asylum seekers, their transnational networks and survival strategies in the informal economy of Hong Kong. Through his vivid and sensitive depictions of life on the margins, Francesco Vecchio provides a major analysis of the intersections of local and global forces and individual agency in irregular migration and the troubling consequences of contemporary migration control policies and practices. A must-read for all those who are interested in globalisation studies and the criminology of mobility.
Professor Maggy Lee, Department of Sociology, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
The book Asylum Seeking and the Global City by Dr. Francesco Vecchio is an excellent work. The author relies on his substantial research in the field and previous experience as a NGO worker in Hong Kong to give a rich and thick description of the life of refugees and asylum seekers in that city, one of the best ethnographic accounts of life in Hong Kong. I was deeply impressed with the careful, detailed and thoughtful treatment that Dr.Vecchio gave to the rich empirical material he collected. I found particularly arresting the way in which he was able to show how the conditions and destiny of many migrants are the outcome of an almost heroic struggle between conditions outside of their control and their continuous striving to acquire a measure of power and control over their own lives and destiny. This very presence of agency in the migrants lives faced with often overarching economic and political forces is perhaps the strongest impression with which the reader comes away from this book, where we find a wealth of empirical observation, mixed with very intelligent analysis, and a reflexive empathy for his subjects.
Dario Melossi, Professor of Criminology, University of Bologna, Italy
First published 2015
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2015 Francesco Vecchio
The right of Francesco Vecchio to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
HV640.4.H85V43 2014
362.87095125dc23
2014008547
ISBN13: 978-0-415-85875-5 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-79909-3 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
I would like to thank a small number of people for their invaluable support during the completion of this project, without whom this book would not have been feasible.
I am truly indebted to the refugee participants, who kindly shared their experiences with me and offered their time and support in allowing me into their world. Although I am prevented from naming them, I thank them sincerely. I would also like to extend my gratitude to the many people I encountered in Hong Kong, who courageously work in a very challenging field to advance the rights of those who might otherwise be denied any such rights. My thanks go to the dedicated staff and volunteers at different organizations, and in particular Vision First, Christian Action and the Vine. I would also like to thank Cosmo Beatson for the time he generously shared with me throughout the fieldwork and his contagious sense of resolve, which enormously benefited this project. In Hong Kong, I also thank Gordon Mathews and the participants in his weekly discussion group for asylum seekers and Kelley Loper for her kind assistance during the preparation of the fieldwork.
This book began as postgraduate research work. I was extremely lucky to land at Monash University, to which I owe my deepest gratitude for providing generous support and access to a rich and very diverse range of experts in the field who taught me a great deal. For their excellence as model mentors, intellectual insights and exceptional kindness, I am especially grateful to Sharon Pickering, Dharmalingam Arunachalam and Leanne Weber. My thanks also extend to Michael Janover, JaneMaree Maher, Susan Stevenson and the examiners of my thesis. At Charles Sturt University, I thank Alison Gerard for her inestimable professional assistance, and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences for generously facilitating the completion of this manuscript. I also thank Katja Franko Aas, Mary Bosworth and Sharon Pickering, editors of Routledge Studies in Criminal Justice, Borders and Citizenship, and Thomas Sutton and Heidi Lee at Routledge for their constructive feedback, gentle criticism and merciful patience.
I would also like to thank Stepworks (www.stepworks.com.hk) for creating the maps that feature at the front of this book.
This book would never have been as readable without the assistance of Julia Farrell, who provided expert and careful copyediting, for which I thank her. Finally, I thank my family for their infinite support.
is partly based upon my article The Economy of Seeking Asylum in the Global City (2013), International Migration by Wiley.
