Serena Parekh, "No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis" (Oxford UP, 2020)
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What is the central ethical dilemma presented in Serena Parikh’s book “No Refuge”?
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Hello, and thanks for joining us for New Books and Philosophy, which is part of the New Books Network. I'm Robert Talese. I'm Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co-host the program with Carrie Figder, Alexis McLeod, and Sarah Tyson. Today my guest is Serena Parikh. Serena is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University. She works in social and political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and continental philosophy. She's co-editor of the journal Feminist Philosophy Quarterly. And she has a new book, which is titled No Refuge, Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis. It's just been published by Oxford University Press. Now discourse in wealthy Western countries about refugees tends to follow a familiar script.
How many refugees is a country morally required to accept? What kind of care and support are host countries required to provide? Who's responsible for maintaining the resulting infrastructure? What ultimately is to be done with refugees? But many of these questions assume that states are morally required to rescue refugees. Rarely does the discourse consider the role of wealthy nations in creating the conditions under which refugee crises emerge. More importantly, we often overlook the role of wealthy Western countries in designing the systems that refugees themselves must navigate in order to access support and assistance. As it turns out, these systems are often complex, inefficient, haphazard, and unfair.
In her book, No Refuge, Serena Parikh argues that the refugee crisis needs to be understood as two crises, one focused on the moral responsibilities of wealthy nations in hosting refugees, and another having to do with the obstacles and impediments that refugees confront in trying to access assistance. Now, as usual, there's a lot to talk about, but let's begin as we normally do with our guest. Hello, Serena.
Hi, Bob.
How are you today?
I'm doing great. Thanks. It's a pleasure to be here.
Well, thank you for joining us. Why don't you start us off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
I'd be happy to. As you mentioned, I'm currently a professor at Northeastern and Boston. I direct the PPE program here, and I absolutely love being a professor here. in philosophy. I came to this position from the University of Connecticut, where I had worked previously at the Human Rights Institute and the Department of Philosophy there. And before that, I had done my PhD at Boston College on Hannah Arendt and her work on human rights. So this book project is kind of the culmination of a lot of different years of scholarship and being interested in contemporary events, being interested in the refugee crisis. being interested in how states respond to crises that really challenge their own values and goods.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the central ethical dilemma presented in Serena Parikh’s book “No Refuge”?
0:00–7:43
2
How does the guest explain the two distinct crises that shape the global refugee situation?
7:43–16:54
3
Why does Parikh argue that Western nations help create the conditions that generate refugee flows?
16:54–27:09
4
What challenges arise from defining who qualifies as a refugee under international law?
27:09–35:49
5
How do the official Refugee Convention options (voluntary return, local integration, resettlement) differ from the reality on the ground?
35:49–46:50
6
What are the main humanitarian and ethical problems associated with long‑term refugee camps?
46:50–54:02
7
Why are urban settlements and smuggling networks becoming the primary route for asylum seekers?
54:02–1:02:12
8
What practical steps does Parikh propose for individuals and governments to improve refugee assistance worldwide?
1:02:12–1:11:34
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