Are Refugee Camps Totalitarian?

Abstract

Within analytic philosophy, the question of how Western liberal democracies should respond to refugees has focused primarily on admission and resettlement obligations; the moral implications of using refugee camps as containment mechanisms have received less attention. Serena Parekh is critical of this failure to address the ethics of ‘encampment,’ and her fluidly written and engaging book redresses it. Given that resort to encampment is widespread, the topic is of pressing importance: at stake is the preservation of a world in which human dignity and fellowship remain possible in the public realm.