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To Date or To Marry: That is the Question
Key Centre for Law, Ethics, Justice and Governance, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland 4111, Australia h.adelman@griffith.edu.au
Centre for Refugee Studies, York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada smcgrath@yorku.ca
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Jim Hathaway's appeal to date rather than marry proposes a separation of the study of convention refugees from that of others who are being forcefully displaced; a separation that we find disappointing and problematic. His determination to prevent the marriage of two sets of potential lovers—forced migrants and convention refugees as well as internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in flight from war—suggests a puritanical differentiation of identities that belies the potential of a supportive union.
The first problem is with definitions themselves. Squeezed into one category of refugees, Hathaway confuses two very different categories: convention refugees who, in flight from persecution, cross a border to claim refugee status, and humanitarian refugees who flee across a border because of war and conflict in their homeland. Thus, when Hathaway contrasts refugees with the internally displaced, the emphasis and central defining characteristic is crossing an international border. According to Hathaway, refugees are