Chapter 2: Key Debates

This chapter explores two key debates which shape how higher education (HE) institutions conceptualise and respond to issues around forced migration, as well as the access, retention and integration of refugee students. The first debate relates to the politics and processes of seeking refuge in the age of alt-right politics. This includes the collapsing of discourses around Muslim students, and terrorism, as well as the uneasy relationship between universities and border control requirements. The second debate relates to the ways in which refugees and asylum seekers have become political pawns, with pejorative descriptions of immigrants and asylum seekers used to chase votes and sell newspapers. In this section we also describe the ways in which the concept of the ‘worthy’ refugee or refugee as ‘victim’ are used to offer romanticised descriptions of survival and success by universities, set against a backdrop of the actual refuge entitlements of asylum seekers as well as those granted leave to remain, as outlined in Chapter 1.