Refugees in Malta

Abstract

My subjects of research were a group of around thirty males who are accommodated within a Church Home for Refugees. I say a 'group' but the only fixed thing within my research was the location of St Joseph's Home and Sr Rose who takes care of the Home. There was a constant turnover of refugees within the 'community' living at the Home. Within the six months of my research, four of the refugees were resettled in the US, two Iraqi refugees moved out together to rent their own flat, two Algerians moved out together but returned within the month, a Sudanese has moved in with a male friend outside the Home, one Iraqi has set up base with a woman twice his age and the Angolan I was told has got married. New refugees continued to move in, filling the vacancies. Chapter 2 will deal with the institutional controls that regulate the lives of refugees in Malta. The national and international institutional frameworks which they must navigate through will be introduced. A pattern which will already begin to emerge from this consideration is that, in spite of the rhetoric of protection of the refugees' interests, they are constantly at risk of exploitation. I will draw on Davis' Exchange in this analysis. Davis' description of the play on categories, and how these are liable to different sets of control and manipulation are especially relevant to the study of refugees in Malta. Through these two concepts, it is possible to analyse the power relations involved in the different areas of the refugees' lives. In chapter 3, we shall take a closer look at refugee trajectories through Malta. On the basis of a number of case studies, some broad patterns will be identified. We will then proceed into St Joseph's Home. Here we will analyse what sort of network the refugees are able to assemble. This chapter will be concerned with establishing what kind of community we find at St Joseph's. We will discover the limitations of their lives in Malta, as they try to make sense of their everyday existence. Having established the context, we can then move on to the central question of the nature of charity which is dealt with in chapter 4. Chapter 4 is concerned with the different repertoires engaged in charity in Malta. Again the influence of Davis will be evident. However, the chapter also puts to the reader the following: that 'the more one receives, the less one is'. This may lead the reader to question why I do not draw on Strathern's work. Strathern establishes exchange as a mode of symbolising the self. My focus remains on the level of social practices. On principle, Davis shows caution in how much can be done in searching for deeper meanings that need to be excavated. I follow his caution for pragmatic reasons, since my limited time of research prevents me from dealing with this dimension exhaustively. Likewise, the theoretical debate just referred to is beyond the scope of the present work. Chapter 5 will recapitulate the principal conclusions of this work.