Yasmeen Abu-Laban, Michael Frishkopf, Reza Hasmath, and Anna Kirova (Eds), Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees, Athabasca, Alberta, Canada, AU Press, 2024, First Edition, 420 pp., ISBN 978-1-771-99410-1

Keywords:

• Refugee,
• Immigration policy,
• settler colonialism,
• critical race theory,
• rehumanization

Abu-Laban et al.’s Resisting the Dehumanization of Refugees offers a comprehensive examination of how contemporary policies, institutions, and practices systematically dehumanize refugees while exploring pathways towards rehumanization. Drawing on interdisciplinary scholarship from researchers, practitioners, and refugee voices, the collection moves beyond traditional refugee “management” frameworks to interrogate the structural mechanisms that strip refugees of their humanity and the creative forms of resistance that counter these processes. The work’s central thesis emerges from an observed paradox in Canadian refugee reception: the contrasting treatment of Ukrainian refugees compared to Syrian and Palestinian populations. The editors attribute these disparities to racialized hierarchies; wherein European refugees receive humanizing treatment while non-European groups face systematic dehumanization. This pattern reflects broader global tendencies where Western media frames European crises as exceptional tragedies while normalizing violence in the Global South. By foregrounding this racial dimension, the collection contributes important critical perspectives to refugee studies, challenging colourblind approaches that obscure how Whiteness shapes humanitarian response. The opening section dissects how immigration policies and media representation function as dehumanizing apparatus. Yasmeen Abu-Laban’s comparative analysis of Canada, the United States, and Australia between 2015 and 2020 documents various dehumanization practices across these settler-colonial states, establishing their shared genealogy of exclusion. Jeffrey M. Ayres extends this critique through his examination of the Canada-US Safe Third Country Agreement, demonstrating how shifting border enforcement at locations like Roxham Road creates migration precarity. His attention to transboundary advocacy groups reveals grassroots resistance to restrictive asylum policies, though such efforts combat persistent negative media framing. Fariborz Birjandian’s contribution addresses the psychological dimensions of refugee experience, advocating for holistic approaches that enhance mental health support and acknowledge compounding pressures, particularly those intensified during COVID-19. This intervention usefully connects dehumanization to its embodied and psychological consequences, though the chapter could benefit from deeper engagement with trauma theory and clinical literature. Nariya Khasanova’s media analysis traces the oscillating Canadian portrayal of Syrian refugees following the 2015 Paris attacks, from sympathetic coverage after Alan Kurdi’s photograph to threatening narratives conflating Islam with terrorism. Her identification of Orientalist discourse permeating most coverage illuminates how media simultaneously holds potential for humanization while remaining constrained by political-economic imperatives. This analysis would be strengthened by examining the material conditions shaping journalistic production and editorial decision-making. The second section reframes education as terrain where dehumanization and humanization compete. Pallabi Bhattacharyya, Labe Songose, and Lori Wilkinson document how Yazidi refugees’ premigration trauma shapes Canadian resettlement experiences, establishing the necessity of trauma-informed approaches. Jwamer Jalal’s autoethnographic account of navigating identity as a first-generation immigrant exposes everyday encounters with police, educators, and peers that accumulate into patterns of dehumanization. Jalal’s advocacy for cultural community-based programs offers practical interventions, though the chapter would benefit from theoretical frameworks explaining how such programs effect transformation. Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez’s examination of the “Branch Out” pilot study in Giessen, Germany (2015–2017) reveals how postsecondary institutions reproduce exclusion through language barriers, othering, and classroom racism even while ostensibly creating access for asylum-seeking youth. Anna Kirova’s critical analysis extends this critique by exposing how essentialism and normative assumptions embedded within multicultural and anti-racist educational theories themselves contribute to dehumanization. Her proposed framework centred on “alterity,” genuinely acknowledging the Other’s perspective, offers philosophical grounding for educational transformation, drawing productively on phenomenological traditions. Chapters examining state apologies reveal their paradoxical function as both rehumanizing gestures and political instruments. Abigail B. Bakan’s analysis of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2018 apology for Canada’s 1939 refusal to admit Jewish refugees aboard the MS St. Louis demonstrates how such apologies can simultaneously acknowledge historical antisemitism while dehumanizing Palestinians through conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism and condemning the BDS movement. …