By Georgia Broome, Hannah Syrad, Clara Collins and Alix Garton

Our game is called ‘Boarders and Barriers’ and the aim of the game is for each player to reach their own personal end goal. There are 4 players: Refugees, Aid Workers, Humanitarian Organisations and National governments. In order to reach the end goal each player has to take steps up the board towards each of the player’s unique end goals. This happens by rolling the dice. Each player moves up the board as many spaces as the numbers on the dice. On the board there are diamonds in some of the squares. These signify barriers that the characters would be likely to come across in real life. When someone lands on the diamond they have to pick up a card from the pile. This will give an example of a life event with good or bad connotations for the players, such as a natural disaster. The point of the game is to signify that different events affect players disproportionately – meaning that an event that moves the refugees back by three spaces may only move the aid workers back by one, and potentially could move another actor forward.

Our tabletop game captures the systemic inequities faced by refugees as they navigate opaque bureaucratic systems in order to reach the end goal. The character of the refugee in the game has an end goal of achieving political and social agency. This highlights the real life struggle in which refugees endure against the rigid and unclear bureaucratic procedures of resettlement, asylum and status determination. Thomson (2012) explored the procedural barriers, delays and exclusionary practices that a group of refugees in Tanzania experienced as they sought third-country resettlement. There is a focus on the suffering of the individual when trying to claim resettlement, with bureaucratic systems requiring the refugees to provide accounts of personal suffering and persecution, ignoring the political and social reasons for the suffering of the refugees. The game mirrors these real world barriers which impede the progress of refugees, represented by setbacks such as natural disasters and complicated bureaucratic systems. This echoes Thomson’s critique of bureaucracies deflecting accountability and impeding progress with individual needs of refugees. Refugees are systematically disadvantaged, which is reflected in the game where obstacles compound their progress significantly while the other players advance towards the finish line. The point of the character of the refugee is to invite players to reflect on the urgent need for bureaucratic change and the need for transparency and long-term sustainable solutions that centre refugee agency rather than bureaucratic inertia.

The end goal for the aid workers in our game is a sense of moral fulfilment. Each worker is unique, and different amounts of aid work and involvement are required to meet each aid worker’s criteria for moral fulfilment. Rozakou’s study ‘The Biopolitics of Hospitality in Greece’ explores the dynamics of humanitarian aid, including the personal motivations and goals of aid workers. Many of the workers describe feeling a sense of fulfilment for the work they do in Greece (Rozakou, 2012), particularly because there is a moral expectation in Greece to be hospitable (Filoksenia). However, Rozakou also touched on the power dynamic and social hierarchies that the aid workers describe feeling towards the refugees and aid recipients. This reinforces how the different players will move along the board unequally. This doesn’t mean that they would not feel fulfilled, however. Even with their self-awareness of the power dynamics, aid workers can still feel a sense of fulfilment.

The humanitarian organisations collectively represent the body that administers the survival of individuals in need of aid. Within the context of this board game, their ultimate goal is to alleviate the suffering of refugees. While these organisations may be led by good intentions, they can unintentionally impose biopolitical frameworks. Redfield (2005) introduces the idea of ‘minimalist biopolitics’ within the context of humanitarianism, suggesting that humanitarian organisations act as a form of ‘productive governmentality’ (Redfield, 2005; 339). ‘Minimalist biopolitics’ means that individuals are maintained at a level of physical existence rather than being treated according to their political agency (Redfield, 2005). Governmentality, as a Foucauldian concept, is described as the “conduct of conduct” that includes the ‘practices of the self’ not just the practices of the government (Dean, 2010; 20). Redfield’s analysis suggests that humanitarian organisations are ‘always one disaster behind’ (2005; 338), meaning that their response to crisis is ‘reactionary’ (2005; 338). This short-term response maintains refugees at a level of minimal existence and intends to show that organisations are not politically neutral, nor are they independent of state governmentality.

The overall aim of national governments is to strengthen their economy and optimise political growth while maintaining life. The emphasis on growth often implies gaining access to markets, resources, and imposing Western ideologies. The article “The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” by Naomi Klein (2007), discusses how corporations and national governments priorities private interests in a crisis. Both exploit countries and people in the name of ‘crises’, a phenomenon that Klein (2007) calls the ‘shock doctrine’. She explains that when people are in shock due to war or a disaster, they are less likely to resist change. Thus, the Western free market takes advantage of these disasters as companies seek to privatise public services and westernise these places under the guise of rebuilding and recovery.

National governments also find themselves complicit by actively supporting privatisation efforts of public services and thereby failing to protect the vulnerable Klein (2007) suggests that help is only offered in the state of crisis because that’s when the wealthy can profit, instead of intervening beforehand to prevent the crisis. The game will demonstrate how national governments often have underlying objectives to impose state control while also sustaining life only at its most basic level. Thus when something bad may happen to other actors, national governments may benefit.

Overall, the objective of the game is to help the players reflect on the fact that humanitarianism is far more complex and multifaceted than it is portrayed in public discourse and media. The game reflects how one event, such as a natural disaster, affects different actors disproportionately, with refugees enduring the most negative effects.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dean, M., 2010. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. 2nd ed. London: SAGE Publications.

Klein, N., 2007. The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. London: Allen Lane.

Redfield, P., 2005. Doctors, Borders, and Life in Crisis. Cultural Anthropology, 20(3), pp. 328–361.

Rozakou, K., 2012. The Biopolitics of Hospitality in Greece: Humanitarianism and the Management of Refugees. American Ethnologist, 39(3), pp. 562–577.

Thomson, M., 2012. Black Boxes of Bureaucracy: Transparency and Opacity in the Resettlement Process of Refugees. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 35(2), pp. 186–205.

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By Phoebe Ireland, James O’Connor, Anushka Singh, Hannah Wheeler, Jess Woodward

In this exhibition, we focus on capitalistic conceptions of crisis and how they shape development via the example of the housing crisis in Manchester. This is a relevant topic since the lack of affordable housing is an issue that impacts populations around the world. We researched different housing development projects across the globe and came to the conclusion that a local focus would be more impactful. We feel there are important similarities here with the work of organisations around the world focusing on housing issues, such as SALVE. In researching how housing development projects follow neoliberal ideals, we examine how the housing crisis has evolved and many individuals, families and subsequently children can end up living in precarious situations. We also felt it important to rethink development as being simply a third world phenomenon and delve into the issues of development in ‘advanced’ economies.

We exhibit a photographic collection of buildings around Manchester, some abandoned, some current development projects, and some redeveloped or brand new. Displaying such photographs contrasts the living reality of Manchester’s homeless population against the backdrop of continual developmental efforts that inadequately attempt to combat the housing crisis, the way in which sustainable development projects are framed as an avenue for capitalist expansion, and the resultant continued precarity experienced by the homeless.  

We employ Klein’s (2007) framework of disaster capitalism to argue that the housing ‘crisis’ has created a space for capitalist expansion under the guise of development efforts. According to Klein (2007), neoliberal capitalism has developed a shock doctrine that encourages the expansion of free market policies by taking advantage of the chaos and ambiguity brought on by crises, both natural and social. We propose that the housing crisis posits a similar situation, where developmental efforts seem to be beneficial to expansion of capitalist policies in the name of empowering the homeless and poverty-stricken populations. 

Sustainable development, especially, emerges as a controversial landscape. On the one hand, we see the rise of eco-sustainable projects which claim to boost employment, invoke climate responsibility, and cultural multiformity. However, urban cultural spaces often advance capital accumulation by inviting new investment flows and boosting land rates (Harvey, 2002). This can be seen in our exhibition and around Manchester, where abandoned warehouses are converted to high-end apartments rather than affordable housing, and public funding is pumped into urban cultural spaces which only serves to increase rent and land rates and decrease affordability for the poor. This can be seen in some of our photo exhibits. We concluded that even if some of these high-end projects are done in the name of eco-sustainability, they are not accessible to the majority of the population and so the benefits are limited. Projects need to be socially sustainable also, meaning that they actively add to the current and future generations’ ability to build liveable and healthy communities. Often the development of high-end apartments is part of the gentrification process in which previous communities are pushed out by the rising prices in that area brought on by development. 

Moreover, the housing crisis has profound effects on individuals experiencing it. Redfield’s (2005) minimalist biopolitics offers an important theoretical standpoint to investigate this. Redfield discusses vulnerable populations and the NGOs providing aid to them in times of crisis (such as refugees fleeing conflict or a disaster), arguing that the construction of crisis and emergency reduces victims down to zoological, not biographical, beings. These populations lose their voice and sociality, and are not benefited in the long run when their crisis is deemed to be over and immediate aid stops. We believe this is applicable in our research context too. We acknowledge the importance of organisations such as Shelter and what they offer to those experiencing housing crises. However, this aid, whether it be a raincoat or a room for a night, reduces people down to their biological needs, which causes the full complexity of their biographies to be downplayed. Echoing Redfield, offering aid in place of constructive development does little to confront the roots of a long-term problem. Thus, we must build more accessible houses for these communities or state support to help with (re)building a safe and stable place to call home.

Further, we must also consider the implications of framing this situation as a crisis, which can exceptionalise the issue. According to Ramsay (2020, p. 21), global capitalism has generated a “precarity of everyday life.” In this context, it means that looking at the crisis as an ‘exceptional’ state to be solved by implementation of neoliberal development strategies is a mistake. One instrument perpetuating the precarity of life for the homeless is microfinance, which is the lending of small, non-mortgage backed loans to lower-income families or individuals, to put towards their housing. Housing microfinance has advanced among low-income populations both in the Global North and the Global South due to the market-driven expansion of financialisation. A few characteristics set housing microfinance apart, such as its acceptance of borrowers, housing arrangements that are more informal, as well as the fact that non-profit or not-quite-for-profit organisations actively promote it (Grubbauer and Mader, 2021). However, exploitative rates render the poor even more indebted, continuing their precarious living conditions even after ‘help’. Homelessness, thus, is not just an exceptional problem to be solved, but also a problem rooted in capitalist expansion and hence neoliberal development policies are just a bandaid preventing profound reformation of the system.

Thus, we contend that rethinking development requires reimagining crisis as a permanent feature of capitalist modes of economy. We suggest that, firstly, we need to rethink sustainable development. This includes, for instance, converting abandoned buildings into affordable housing for the poor rather than pouring public funding into ‘development’ projects that aim to reform the aesthetics of an area and end up inflating prices. Moreover, we need to reconsider the state of homelessness from being a state of exception to be solved by aid and neoliberal development policies, to being an everyday reality, which forces people into adopting unfair means such as exploitative microfinance as an escape. By seeing the housing crisis as part of the everyday, it can allow for the full biographies of people to be viewed when creating long-term, sustainable solutions. Ultimately, rethinking the housing crisis involves development that does not put the needs of the homeless as secondary to their incorporation into the economy.

Bibliography

Grubbauer, M. & Mader, P. (2021) Housing microfinance and housing financialisation in a global perspective, International Journal of Housing Policy, 21:4, pp. 465-483

Harvey, D (2002) ‘The Art of Rent: Globalization, Monopoly and the Commodification of Culture’, Socialist Register, vol 38., pp 94-110

Klein, N. (2007)  Disaster capitalism. In Harper’s Magazine, 315, pp.47-58.

Ramsay, G. (2020) Humanitarian exploits: Ordinary displacement and the political economy of  the global refugee regime. In Critique of Anthropology, 40(1), pp. 3–27.  

Redfield, P. (2005) Doctors, Borders, and Life in Crisis. In Cultural Anthropology, 20(3), pp.328–361.

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