Language Abuse: The Politicization and Categorization of People on the Move Through Language and Narrative

Over the last three decades, the once-distinct terms ‘asylum’ and ‘immigration’ have become conceptually intertwined. This process is almost complete in Europe, where politicians, media, the public, and even academia often speak of these concepts interchangeably. Blurring these concepts has implications for migratory people: it removes legal rights borne by the state and diminishes the claims of humanitarian protection seekers within these movements. We have simultaneously witnessed the recategorization and reinterpretation of the statuses of vulnerable populations on the move, using geolegality to exclude them from otherwise legally entitled protections. We speak to the problems with narrowing the eligibility for protection through geolegality while simultaneously contributing to conceptual indistinction between people that discredits their identities as rights bearers. This short essay reflects on the ethical dilemmas of language use by researchers in shaping and contributing to this situation.