Serena Parekh: 'Global Refugee Crisis as a Structural Injustice'

Serena Parekh, of Northeastern University, will argue that the global refugee crisis needs to be understood as a kind of structural injustice. The global refugee crisis is often depicted as a crisis for Western states who are burdened with rescuing refugees through resettlement and granting asylum. The main injustice or harm that refugees need to be rescued from was committed by the refugee-producing states. But this way of seeing the situation misrepresents the refugee crisis by focusing too narrowly.

Serena argues that we ought to adopt Iris Young's structural injustice framework and see the refugee crisis as a form of structural injustice. This way of framing the global refugee crisis gives rise to a new way of thinking about our moral obligations.