Who Is a Refugee? Political Subjectivity and the Categorisation of Somali Asylum Seekers in Sweden

The status of refugee refers to activities in the political sphere and is sparsely applied in Sweden where subsidiary protection is much more common. Our aim was to analyse how the status of subsidiary protection is reached in the case of Somalis, by unpacking the inherent logic (or lack thereof) regarding tacit assumptions of what it means to be ‘political’. The type of status matters because of the concrete and symbolic rights and recognition connected to it. It is also associated to the legitimacy of the asylum system as a whole. Qualitative analysis of 45 Somali asylum applicants' case files suggests that Somalis can be viewed as an extreme case of ‘indefinables’; the subsumption of the individual to collective categories becomes clearly visible here. Although the law guarantees the right to an individual assessment, interest in the person is limited to aspects of the narrative that undermine moral character, rather than directed at restoring the political dimensions of individuals outside of citizens...