The rights consciousness of male Sudanese migrants in Malta

Abstract

This thesis aims to shed some light on the extent to which the human rights of asylum seekers are respected in Malta through a study of the Rights Consciousness (i.e. the understanding of rights) of Sudanese male asylum seekers residing in Malta. A semi-structured questionnaire investigated the role that legal and administrative practices, as well as Maltese society as a whole, play on the migrant’s rights consciousness. This study was motivated by three research questions: (1) what are the effects of legal and administrative practices on the rights consciousness of male Sudanese migrants? (2) What are the effects of bio-power on the migrants as subjects of rights? (3) Are migrants just passive subjects of rights? These are fundamental questions in the research of migrant’s rights, especially in the socio-legal area of rights and legal consciousness. In this thesis they were pursued from the perspective of the theories of power and subjectivity developed by Foucault, Collier, Mahmood, and Agamben. This study thus aims to contribute to the study of migrants’ and refugee rights in Malta by studying the rights consciousness of the migrants themselves. Nine interviews were conducted using a snowball sampling methodology. The findings from the research illustrate how migrants perceive themselves as being unjustly treated by a crooked, legal and bureaucratic administrative system. At the same time they respond by imaginatively constructing themselves as subjects of human rights under International Law which gives them rights and legal personhood. The research findings support the hypothesis that migrants feel they are treated in an undignified and unjust manner which does not empower them. The patriarchal state denies them agency. As Foucault however states, power is productive, and migrants resist and show their agency in various ways, imaginatively reconstituting their selves as active subjects of human rights.