Bordering Aspiration

: A case study of refugee education policy enactment in Addis Ababa

Abstract

Enforced waiting of refugee youth, and the resulting liminality during transitions to adulthood (Honwana, 2012; Singerman, 2007) is being increasingly evidenced in protracted displacement (Riggan and Poole 2020; Hunt 2021; Ramsay 2017) and has been described as a form of temporal violence (Brun, 2015).

The research presented in this thesis focuses on the implications of recent migration policy enactment and its relevance to the aspirations of youth refugees in Addis Ababa. Since the signing of the Global Compact on Refugees in 2016 the CRRF has increasingly become a central policy focus for international and national migration and development actors. Ethiopia, itself a conflict- affected country, hosts over 800,000 refugees and was the first nation to commit to enacting the CRRF, undertaking to significantly improve opportunities for education and training of youth refugees.

Beyond Ethiopia, migration and education are central concerns for sovereign states from the global north and south. Adapting the Comparative Case Study methodology (Bartlett and Vavrus, 2015) this research considers the vertical, global, national, local, and temporal dimensions of change in the period 2016-2021. During data collection semi-structured interviews with 28 key stakeholders involved with enacting the CRRF at global, national and local levels and the refugees themselves were undertaken. Secondly, a Critical Discourse Analysis of key policy documents relating to refugee education at the global and national scales was undertaken.

Drawing upon multi-scalar empirical research with adolescent refugees, educators and policy actors in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, I contend that forms of education linked to immobility are increasingly prioritised. I argue that such educational enactments are intended to diminish associated working and wider-life aspirations (Appadurai 2004; Sen 2000) related to onward migration to the global north.

Consequently, opportunities infrequently align with refugees’ imagined futures, who can find themselves in cycles of re-education, each as irrelevant as the last to either their envisioned aspirations, or present opportunities. In the complex malaise of enactment, I propose that education provision in such contexts, dominated by northern migration agendas, is being deployed as part of wider border externalisation processes. Despite these challenges, refugee learners are highly dynamic in attempting to realise their strongly held aspirations, including through onward migration. Informed by Brun, (2016), Ramsay, (2020) and others, I extend the theory and conclude that attempts to truncate migration related aspirations result in enforced waiting and is a form of temporal violence.

Date of Award	18 Mar 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bristol
Supervisor	Leon P Tikly (Supervisor) & Julia Paulson (Supervisor)