The performance of subject positions, power, and identity: a case of refugee recognition

This article explores the negotiation of subject positions, identities, and their recognition. It develops a theoretical model of identity and recognition, which is applied to the exemplar of a young Palestinian woman negotiating the refugee recognition process in Ireland. The paper is divided into five parts, as follows: (1) methodology; (2) a theorisation of subject positions, identity, and recognition based upon the work of Austin, Barnes, Davies and Harré, Butler, Foucault, Giddens, Goffman, Heidegger, Jenkins, and Searle; (3) the application of these perspectives to the complex performance of identity in a cross-cultural context; (4) the negotiation of the subject position asylum seeker; and (5) short conclusion-cum-epilogue. What emerges is that social actors occupy multiple conflicting subject positions; they are structurally constrained by others’ perceptions and refusals of recognition, thus frequently affirming subject positions that are contrary to their own desired identity-construction.

The UN special envoy on migration, Peter Sutherland, recently asserted that ‘morally, politically, and economically, migration is the defining issue of the 21st century’ (Sutherland, 2015). Indeed the ‘current refugee crisis’ is frequently, and perhaps more appropriately, referred to as a global humanitarian crisis. Hannah Arendt used the term ‘worldlessness’ to ‘define those conditions where a person doesn’t belong to a world in which they matter as human beings’ (Evans & Bauman, 2016). Daily drownings in the Mediterranean and appalling conditions in camps across Europe, from Calais to Idomeni, have become all too familiar. We acknowledge the need to contribute to policy debate on such complex matters; however, this article focuses on human agency and subjectivity through the lens of just one refugee applicant, on the difficulties of being recognised and acknowledged by others for who you are and wish to be. This is a process that is heightened in this case by the asymmetrical power dynamic and bureaucratic nature of the refugee recognition process. We intend our article to highlight the human face of refugees, everyday people negotiating multitudes of identities, a refugee being one of them. This article explores power relations associated with the social reproduction of subject positions and identities. It concentrates upon a female, Muslim, Gazan, Palestinian subject who moved to Ireland from Gaza in pursuit of education, and who then found herself needing refugee status. Firstly, she negotiates basic cultural differences. These include the tension between Irish preconceptions about female Muslim identity that are at variance with this subject’s attempt to create an identity for herself as an educated, liberated woman, who is also Gazan, Palestinian, and Muslim. Secondly, she is confronted with the asymmetries of power between the refugee applicant (asylum-seeker) and bureaucrats managing the application process. This asymmetrical relationship gives the latter the power to create her phenomenal reality. The social subject does not have full control of what meanings count and which identities are considered felicitous. In particular, we see a tension between being a student and an asylum seeker. This process and tension constitutes a paradigm instance of the difficulties that social subjects have in projecting identity in a culturally contested and highly bureaucratic terrain.

The empirical part of the analysis in this paper appears, at times, like a contest between ‘heartless bureaucrats’ and a ‘deserving subject,’ or as critique of the Irish asylum process. Neither is the intention nor the focus of this paper. Indeed, if we were to interview the bureaucrats we would not find deliberate acts of subjection or domination. Rather, the bureaucrats are sense-making within a complex set of rules and regulations, which are not of their own making. They have to ‘fit’ an asylum seeker into certain pre-established identity categories. This includes separating genuine refugees from bogus asylum seekers, which entails a structurally constituted position of distrust.

The objective of our exploration is to analyse the difficulties and multiple tensions that a social subject is exposed to when she has to shift sociocultural context, and how she must negotiate an organisational bureaucracy that entails inequalities of power. Thus we offer an account of a subjective phenomenological social ontology of subject identity creation. This negotiation of social ontology takes place within a complex sociocultural context, in which power differentials are high.

The article formulates a four-dimensional power-theoretical analysis of the reproduction of social subjects and then examines in detail the way in which a particular asylum-seeker, Hannah A., transitions into the system. The empirical data come from a larger study of the Irish asylum process (Dagg, 2012). In contrast to that larger study, this article does not seek to generalise about the particulars of the Irish asylum process. Rather, it is a micro-study of one person confronting a culturally complex terrain and an unequal power relationship. This entails projecting a multitude of identities that revolve around a singular bureaucratic identity, that of a genuine refugee. Hannah’s account has been chosen to show the complexity of identity creation: how the subject is pulled in several directions at once, and how difficult it is for her to make her account and self-perception of herself count as valid. This is a journey inside the complex phenomenology of the evolution of self in a contested terrain. While the particulars of this journey are different for everyone, the constant tension between identities, and the difficulty that a social subject has of making their story of themselves count, is a universal one.

The article is divided into five parts. First there is a short account of its methodology. Second is a theoretical section that sets out a model of power and subject/identity creation, based upon the work of Austin, Barnes, Davies and Harré, Foucault, Giddens, Goffman, Haugaard, Jenkins, Butler, and Searle. The third part applies this model to an empirical analysis, showing how identity is contested in a cross-cultural context. In the fourth part, we shift emphasis to explore how Hannah A. negotiates the subject position of asylum-seeker, which entails inequality of power. Analysis and discussion of the data are combined within the two empirical sections. In these sections we demonstrate how the rules that constitute a felicitous performance of subject position are far from clear, and entail a complex set of negotiated, often contradictory, strategies. Lastly we offer a short conclusion-cum-epilogue, which does not aim to summarise the paper; we feel that any attempt to do so would do symbolic violence to the nuance of the argument and material.

This article is based upon part of a wider and more comprehensive study of the refugee recognition process in Ireland (Dagg, 2012). In that study, the interpretative research approach was used for the qualitative study of asylum-seekers and refugees living in Ireland. The approach to sampling, data collection, and analysis employed some of the methods utilised in the interpretative paradigm, notably, ethnography, phenomenological research, and discourse analysis (Rabinow, 1987). Although somewhat eclectic, the interpretative paradigm informed the larger investigation which adhered to judgement criteria from a post-positivistic perspective – triangulation, research reflexivity, and thick description (Creswell & Miller, 2000, p. 126). Ultimately, interpretation foregrounded the context of subjectivity and agency.

For this article, we were interested in the interaction between the context in which asylum seekers live their lives and the wider refugee recognition process, and whether, or how, this gives rise to the reproduction of particular subject positions. This led us to ask the following questions of the data:

• How do asylum-seekers living in direct provision centres understand their subject position and identity?

• How do they negotiate these positions within the asylum system and beyond?

• What helps or hinders their progress towards recognition of their subject position and identity?

In the larger study, fieldwork was undertaken in 2011–2012 through a combination of ethnographic and participant-observation methods at a local Refugee Support Group. The primary purpose was to explore the experiences of asylum-seekers as they interacted with the refugee recognition process (particularly those living in direct provision centres). Attempts to contact those who administer and support the refugee recognition process were made; however, they proved unobtainable in some cases, and silent in others.

Participants were identified and recruited through face-to-face contact with the researcher at the local Refugee Support Group, or through a gatekeeper who worked on a voluntary basis in the direct provision centre. In selecting participants it was sought to represent a balanced gender and ethnic representation. A diversity of participants were interviewed in terms of their length of time in the refugee recognition process, as well as those who had succeeded in gaining status positions such as Leave to Remain or Refugee status, thus encapsulating the experiences of contestation, negotiation, and recognition. Eight participants were interviewed who had spent between one month and seven years living as asylum seekers in direct provision centres in Ireland, as well as two participants with refugee status, and one with Leave to Remain status. The data were examined for descriptions of experiences in which the participants experienced their identity as contested.

A further twelve interviews were held with a particular participant, Hannah A., who transitioned into the refugee recognition process at the end of her Master’s programme in Ireland. To begin with she was one month in the system. Hannah was keen to document her transition and saw the interviews as an opportunity to reflect on the process as she was experiencing it. Interviews with Hannah lasted between one and a half and three hours, whilst the others lasted between 30 minutes and an hour and a half. All interviews with participants were audio recorded and transcribed. Data analysis took the form of discourse analysis (Foucault, 1972, 1980).

For the purposes of this paper, we concentrate on Hannah’s experiences of the system. We study her attempt to grapple with, negotiate and perform her sense of self, and for this to be recognised by the wider social world. In the larger study, Hannah’s series of interviews were chosen as a critical case with which to compare the interviews of our other participants. Hannah was interviewed over the period of a year, from one month in the system to over a year in the system. Her experiences are corroborated as representative by the evidence of other participants. However, unlike our other participants who were far longer in the process and usually looking back, Hannah was detailing current changes and transitions as they were taking place. Consequently, her experiences are phenomenologically more immediate, rather than retrospectively interpreted. This rich material forms the focus of this article.

The creation of subject positions constitutes a complex process in which power and identity overlap. It entails an overlap of power, truth, and meaning with the process of self-creation. As a theoretical starting-point we will begin with Foucault’s observation on the relationship between social subject creation and power. Foucault writes as follows:

There are many elements that have to be unpacked in this short paragraph. Foucault is observing that the process of subjectification is mundane and constitutive of everyday life (‘This form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life … .’). While we are examining this process through an unusual instance, which is rife with cultural and power tensions, it is important to understand that these processes are part of everyday interactions, albeit normally less visible. Foucault argues that subjectification constitutes a process that categorises the individual (‘which categorizes the individual … ’); the individual becomes a carrier of meaning in much the same way as the rest of the furniture of the world. This meaning marks the person’s individuality, making them a particular being-in the-world. This does not just situate them for others, but is also constitutive of their own sense of identity (‘ … attaches him to his own identity … ’). This meaning is not just an arbitrary social construction, but is represented as part of a regime of truth (‘ … imposes a law of truth … ’). Truth is used this way because it is considered by social actors to exist beyond convention (Haugaard, 2012a). This is not a process of solipsistic self-discovery in which the individual ‘discovers themselves’ as a self-creative act. Rather, it constitutes an interactive process in which the individual recognises their subject position as perceived by others (‘ … which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him … ’). In this act of recognition they become subject to someone else’s normalising judgement, which constitutes a form of dependence upon another as a validator of that subject identity and, consequently, that other imposes upon them a form of control (‘ … subject to someone else by control and dependence … ’). Because the meaning imposed by another is not external, but rather integral to identity, this act of knowing becomes a form of self-knowledge which comes to define the person’s perception of self (‘ … and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge.’). These overlapping elements constitute a form of power relationship in which the person becomes both a subject and an object of knowledge. As an object, they are subjected to the evaluation of others, and in so doing, thus constitute their subject position in society (‘Both meanings suggest a form of power which subjugates and makes subject to’).

The Foucauldian image of the re-creation of subject position emerges as one that is inherently tied to the reproduction of systems of meaning and relations of power. It is implicitly interactive, but does not theorise agency sufficiently. In this regard Davies and Harre’s (1990) account of positioning is a useful corrective. They argue that ‘conversation unfolds through the joint action of all the participants as they make (or attempt to make) their own and each other’s actions socially determinate’ (Davies & Harre, 1990, p. 45). As they argue, subject positions are different from social roles in that they are the product of interaction, in which some accounts of subject position are made to count and others are invalidated. Sometimes certain perceptions of a subject position have more illocutionary force than others (Davies & Harre, 1990). In this regard Davies and Harré emphasise the significance of pre-existing discourses that exist as dynamic frames of reference. As we will emphasise in this case, the power relations of bureaucratic context are significant, as well as the contingent will and resistance of the social actor in question. Subject positions are constructed within contexts of social power.

Power is a complex phenomenon that is not inherently negative. Power is a capacity for action that includes both power-to and power-over (Allen, 1998, 1999; Haugaard, 1997, 2012b). As argued elsewhere (Haugaard, 2012b), the first dimension of power is simple agency. The everyday image of power is as domination. However, power also includes power-to, which is agency, and power-over is a subset of power-to. Actors find themselves negotiating their subject positions in contexts where others exercise power-over them and, simultaneously, where these subject positions give them power-to. If you wish to be recognised as a refugee, those in authority will exercise power-over you telling you how to act. Once recognition is bestowed, a capacity for action is conferred, or power-to. What emerges is a complex relationship entailing both power-over, as domination, but also power-to.

This power-over and power-to take place within a set of structural constraints, which are both limiting and enabling. For example, the bureaucratic structures of the refugee recognition process that differentiate between bogus and genuine applicants limit the actions of the officials that staff this bureaucratic structure, while also constraining the actions of applicants. However, the second dimension of power is both constraining and enabling, in the sense that these constraining structures also offer a process whereby people fleeing persecution can find sanctuary, and ultimately gain citizenship in Ireland. The latter constitutes agency and power-to.

The third dimension of power concerns the epistemic context of meaning, which shapes conditions of possibility. The structural constraint of the second dimension of power is nested within an episteme (Foucault, 1971). An asylum-seeker is a specific type of agent (with meaning) who, by virtue of being like this or that, can do this or that (power-to). Translated into the everyday, a person who is a citizen (agent with meaning) has, for instance, the right to vote, work, or claim unemployment assistance (power-to). This epistemic horizon defines what is locally considered reasonable. It is considered reasonable that citizens can vote and work. Conversely, it would be unreasonable that foreign non-citizens, or bogus asylum-seekers, should have these rights, which is a form of exclusion. Of course, this reasoning presupposes social constructions, which could in principle be constructed otherwise. It is part of genealogical deconstruction to make this contingency manifest (Foucault, 1988, p. 37). However, this form of deconstruction is not usually visible to the actors involved, especially those representing the status quo, because they adopt what phenomenologists call the natural attitude (Schutz, 1967). When adopting the natural attitude social actors forget that it is they who impose meaning upon the world. Instead, they assume that the world comes with meaning given. As we shall see, for someone outside the system negotiating it for the first time, many of these meanings appear constructed, thus in a sense arbitrary, as they do for the genealogist. These are points of resistance (Scott, 1990) that render three- and four-dimensional power visible. As argued by Davies (2008), those resisting in this way are at an intrinsic epistemic disadvantage as they are contesting that which is considered the natural order of things, one which, as a consequence, is considered to have greater moral worth. This is further reinforced if bureaucratic authority is involved – be this in a school (as in one of Davies examples [2008]) or Irish asylum bureaucracy, as in this case. In terms of the four dimensions of power, this form of resistance contests not only at the overt A versus B (first dimension) but also deeper within the other dimensions, which include the systemic structuring of social life that confers differences in structured authority (second dimension), tacit epistemic frame (third dimension), and social ontology (fourth dimension). We agree with Davies (2008) that this kind of power conflict is a potentially insurrectionary act because this form of contestation cuts right across all four dimensions. Thus, it is what can be termed deep conflict (see Haugaard, 1997, pp. 136–162).

As argued by the social theorist Barnes (1988), the meaning of things is created by groups of social actors who constitute a ring of reference for meaning. If we elect someone President, or interpret a piece of paper as a 50-euro note, we constitute a ring of reference that makes these things what they are. This ring of reference is not necessarily society as a whole, but a set of relevant others, an audience. It is a specifically designated set of officials who are the relevant others that decide whether an applicant is a bogus asylum-seeker or genuine refugee. They have the power to create social reality, or social facts, in this context.

Social facts are recreated as constitutive rules (Searle, 1996, pp. 31–58). In everyday speech, when we think of rules we tend to think of regulative rules, which are discursively set out rules that tell us what we should do. It is a regulative rule that we should stop at a red traffic light, or that we can use money in certain ways and not others. While money, marriage, and the Presidency of the United States are surrounded by regulative rules, what constitute the essence of these social institutions are constitutive rules whereby the piece of paper, a marriage certificate, and the office of the President count as particular signifiers. Constitutive rules take the form ‘X counts as Y in context C’ – a piece of paper with the number 5 and the symbol $ counts as a five dollar bill in the United States (Searle, 1996, pp. 26–29). With constitutive rules, we count something as having certain status, and with that status, a certain function.

Bringing Foucault, Barnes, Searle and, Davies and Harré together, a subject position is one that has a ring of reference around it. In that case the person becomes an X that counts as Y in circumstances C. For an individual, an X, to become a Y is not purely in their own power. Both for Presidents and refugees there are exact procedures (circumstances C) that Xs have to go through to become Ys. Xs cannot simply will themselves to be Ys.

From the perspective of the person wishing to occupy a subject position, the recreation of their status and meaning is essentially performative (Austin, 1975). They have to act in a way that is deemed felicitous by relevant others. The fourth dimension of power concerns this ontological shaping of subject position. As argued by Jenkins (2008), the world-out-there is full of social things: chairs, tables, and so on, but it also contains subject positions, or identities, including, for instance: the Queen, teachers, women, student, delinquents, and refugees. Each of these subject positions constitutes a signifier that actors perform – an X performing Y. If their actions are considered inappropriate by others (as in the label ‘bogus asylum-seeker’), they are deemed infelicitous. In contrast, if their actions are considered reasonable, by relevant others in a specific ring of reference, then their actions are deemed felicitous (as in the case of genuine refugees). A felicitous action gives the performer of that action certain powers (power-to), while an infelicitous reaction renders that actor powerless. The audience has quasi-panoptical (Foucault, 1979) power-over the performer.

Subject positions constitute a complementary duality of both empowerment and disempowerment. A sovereign state, such as Ireland, is populated by social actors most of whom are citizens, which entitles them to all sorts of rights and services. However, there are those who are not born with those rights, who wish to access them (asylum-seekers). Thus, the position of citizen becomes a closely guarded entity, which has complex governmental procedures to protect it. The refugee recognition process contains within it endless demands for performances from applicants. Once the applicant achieves a performance which is considered felicitous, then they are declared a refugee, and the process opens up to citizenship. What counts as a felicitous performance is at the behest of officials who operate as a ring of reference (four-dimensional power). The system has a bureaucratic structure that operates as the appropriate ring of reference deciding who is a genuine refugee, which is the first step to becoming integrated into the social system, as an Irish citizen.

No one is simply one kind of a subject. As social actors we are consistently creating and recreating our identities. Each action of identity constitutes a performance, which is carried out for an audience (Goffman, 1961). In the morning someone may perform the identity of a mother, in the afternoon a teacher, then a citizen, consumer, and mother again, simultaneously remaining all these identities. However, subject positions represent institutionalised forms of identification allowing for successful interaction in particular contexts. They are fluctuant and processual, overlapping social categories of self-perception and societal structures (Davies, 2008; Jenkins, 2008). Sometimes there is tension between these subject positions, especially where they overlap. For the social actor, subject positions situate them in a meaningful universe. Using Giddens (1984) vocabulary, these acts are moments of structuration that, when well received by the audience, form part of the natural order of things and bestow ontological security. As such, subject positions provide us with the content of our subjectivity, with a particular, limited set of concepts, images, metaphors, ways of speaking and self-narratives that we adopt as our own to make us ontologically secure as social-beings-in-the-world.

Ontological security constitutes a sense of being at ease with one’s being-in-the-world. Being a Y in circumstances C can be ontologically rewarding, especially when the projected sense of self is an unproblematic part of the furniture of the world. Nonetheless, as argued by Butler (1997), sometimes these apparently unproblematic identifications that provide ontological security actually entail the reproduction of inequalities in power relations that may be normatively problematic. However, if we are an X wanting to be a Y, but the external ring of reference tells us that our performance of Yness is inappropriate (consequently, that we are really a Z), then our being-in-the-world is contested and we become ontologically insecure.

These subject positions are often emotionally charged for social subjects. Identifying with a subject position frequently has more than instrumental value. As argued by Lacan, ‘What I seek in speech is the response of the other’ (Lacan, 1953, p. 86 – quoted in Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 128). When social actors present a self-identity, it is more than a strategic position. They desire above all their self-perception to be validated by others (Peters & Appel, 1996, p. 128). In this sense subject positions imply something deeper than simple positioning (Davies & Harre, 1990), they also entail profound ontological identity-claims (Jenkins, 2008).

As emphasised by Butler (1997), in many instances those in a subject position come to be attached to their subject position. With regard to gender, a woman who has been brought up to be ‘polite,’ which is considered a ‘female’ virtue in many societies, will become attached to the praise and recognition she achieves when being ‘polite,’ even though this form of gendered ‘politeness’ can be disempowering. This form of four-dimensional power however takes time to reflexively process, in order to configure the socially ontological formative psychic force within the individual (Butler, 1997). In the case under examination we see a social actor being forced into a subject position, which is, at first, objectionable to her and so there is significant resistance. At the outset, compliance to four-dimensional power is purely strategic (Scott, 1990) for the sake of gaining power-to. However, over time, that is, during and beyond this study (see Epilogue), there may well be psychic internalisation as contestation to the enforced subject position generates reflection, transformation, and ultimately the stability of the self.

If acting were just a question of recognition at all costs, the obvious rational action is to perform what the more powerful ring of reference demands. However, that may not represent the being-in-the-world the social actor wishes, or what gives ontological security. Being recognised for who you want to be is far from a straightforward process. This applies to all social agency, but most acutely to cases involving cross-cultural interaction and formal entry into a system with official guardians, such as the refugee recognition process.

Hannah begins her interviews with a self-definition:

Her subject position is in terms of her family, her father’s name, making her proud. We can see that she is from Gaza, Palestine. In other words, her being-in-the-world is tied to family and situatedness in Gaza, Palestine, all of which confer ontological security. This point is reinforced later in the interview when she discusses her decision to become a refugee: Relative to ‘X counts as Y in circumstances C,’ note the assertion I am not a refugee in my country, I am a refugee here. I am not a subject Y (refugee) in my country (C), with regard to that ring of reference, but I am a Y in the context of this country (different C), as a ring of reference. This social actor is reflexively conscious of the local, socially constructed, nature of the category refugee (Y).

Hannah A. explicitly compares giving up the claim to Gazan citizenship as equivalent to an Irish person giving up their citizenship. In other words, unlike the refugee category, this identity is something deeper, more ontologically significant, which is consistent with Butler’s (1997) claim that subject positions have significant psychic force. Consequently, she thinks that attempting to claim the citizenship of another country constitutes an act of betrayal to her family and, by implication, to her own self. She defines her subject position Y in terms of her family lineage – Gaza and Palestine. In regard to this strong Gazan identification, it is relevant to note that Hannah’s grandfather was not a refugee of the 1948 war – when 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from Israel, 200,000 of whom wound up in Gaza under Egyptian occupation (see Morris, 2003 for more detail on the origins of Palestinian refugees). Her grandfather and his family are indigenous inhabitants of Gaza, hence the identification with Gaza city, which is then layered with ‘Palestinian’ as an overlapping identity. It is reasonable to infer, following Elias’ work on insiders and outsiders (Elias & Scotson, 1994), that being a true Gazan carries higher status than being a 1948 refugee to Gaza. Gazan is a Y status to be proud of.

Identity is rarely singular, even though it is often talked about that way in everyday discourse. Those trying to fight for the recognition of Yness against opposition from dominant groups, be that based upon national or sexual orientation, often use phrases like ‘I am Palestinian’ or ‘I am gay.’ These statements misrepresent the complexity of identity, although their singularity makes sense in context where a particular identity is contested. Like most social actors Hannah’s Gazan-cum-Palestinianess is not her only subject position of Yness:

She came to Ireland initially on an Irish Aid fellowship to do a Master’s degree. After completing her MA, Hannah decided to apply for refugee status in Ireland as a consequence of deteriorating circumstances for Fatah supporters in Gaza (her family is strongly associated with Fatah), brought about by Hamas’ intolerance of political opposition inside Gaza. Later, conflict with Israel added to these reasons for asylum. As a student Hannah lived in student accommodation, called Ranelagh Manor (name changed). She describes how she became friends with many Irish people there. Even now, as an asylum seeker, when she visits she still feels the Yness of a student. We later learn that this student identity is, together with her Gazan-Palestinian identity, one of her preferred identities. However, as a student, before her asylum application, she already felt certain tensions between her student identity and the demands of her identities from Gaza, Palestine, and Muslim.

Relative to a perceived wider ring of reference of Irish society in general, subject position student Yness entails tension with her Gazan-Palestinian identity. To be clear, this Irish society ring of reference is different from the rings of reference of individual Irish people, such as the interviewer or other Irish students. ‘Gazan-Palestinian’ is linked, in her mind, to the subject position of female Muslim, which, relative to this general Irish ring of reference, is in tension with student. This becomes manifest in her discussion of the hijab. When she came to Ireland she wore a headscarf, or hijab, which identified her:

So the scarf signifies her Gazan-Palestinian-Muslim, identity and serves to give her a clear identity.

By using the general word scarf she is suggesting that this piece of cloth could have a dual role. It could be a hijab for Hannah as the Gazan-Palestinian-Muslim, but it could also just be a scarf, which anyone might wear, relative to the Irish ring of reference. Here, ambiguity has the potential for a certain freedom of self-definition. However, while that ambiguity or duality was reproduced in the house with her friends as a ring of reference, this was not so in Irish society in general. In the student house they saw her as an individual, as she considered herself to be: ‘I find it easier with the Irish friends, inside Ranelagh, to look inside me rather than my appearance.’ ‘Appearance’ here is code for being identified as a female Muslim. As suggested by the concept of a ring of reference, you are not in control of how others perceive you. While she liked the subject position Gazan-Palestinian-Muslim, at the same time she rejected many of the preconceptions that went with female Muslim, as defined by the ring of reference of Irish society. To the wider Irish interpretative horizon, female Muslim excluded being a reflective, educated being, the essence of being a student. This reading of what it is to be a female Muslim is based upon clichés derived from a Western Orientalist reading of what it is to be a Muslim (Said, 2004).

Based upon encouragement from her grandfather, from the age of six, Hannah desired an education and what she considered the kind of normal life that went with that:

When she came to Ireland as a student, she ‘found the scarf as an obstacle’ because Irish people could not see past the scarf to the self-educating person she considered herself to be. This is a particularly interesting piece as she is expressing the conflict between the subject position defined by her religion and her culture, yet there was the draw of her average (Irish) student identity, equivalent to social integration and power-to. Note that she continues to use the word scarf, not hijab, and then tries to substitute a hat. The hat has even greater ambiguity than would a scarf. To Hannah it could suggest continuing to conform to her Muslim identity. Hats would not normally be recognised as substitute hijabs, so she could escape the signifier of Muslim relative to the Irish ring of reference, while remaining a Muslim to herself. However, even for her, the signifier hat was stretching the signified equivalence of hijab too far. When she was dispersed from Dublin to a direct provision centre in a Western City, the latter was a new ring of reference. Here was a chance to dispense with a misunderstood aspect of her identity so that she could integrate. The significance of the phrase they look at you stands for the perception of Irish society as a whole, which constitutes a ring of reference that defines her, irrespective of her desires. She is here without a family, her normal ring of reference and mode of social integration. With family removed she was open to ontological insecurity, and so decided to socially integrate when she moved to Western City.

Agency entails improvisation, and so Hannah finds a way to square the apparent incompatibility of removing the hijab with remaining loyal to her family ring of reference. The ontological security of her family, even if not physically co-present, provided stability. Her grandfather is the paterfamilias and, as such, has high status authority within the family-Gazan ring of reference. Her grandfather wanted her to be educated. Therefore, implicitly, by projecting student in Ireland, she is receiving the approval of her grandfather, even if the actual performance conflicts with her Gazan-Palestinian-Muslim identity. True, her grandfather would disapprove of her not being a good Muslim, but he would approve of her being an educated student. Consequently, if she cannot be both, by being an educated student, she is not rejecting her grandfather’s desires. Thus, in his physical absence, Grandfather can be reconstructed as a referent or ring of reference for her identity and ontological security.

In the passage on subject positions referred to earlier, Foucault refers to subject positions as subjection, or as being subjected to another. A constant theme of Madness and civilization (Foucault, 1971) is the idea that modern domination entails monologue by reason upon madness. By this he means that reason, as a ring of reference, has the singular right to define reality, including the meaning identity (subject position) of the other. In normative terms, this is a non-reciprocal or one-way action (not interaction) upon an abject other. This same theme reappears in Foucault’s account of the Panopticon. The observing official at the centre of the device observes the other, classifies them, but is never themselves observed by that other (Foucault, 1979). We would argue that this constitutes the opposite of what Habermas designates as ideal speech (Habermas, 1984). The other is no longer considered a reasoning agent with whom to co-define social action, rather that other is acted upon. We would add that this is also what Honneth has in mind with the normative significance of the politics of recognition (Honneth, 1995).

As we can see in Austin, performativity of subject position is never entirely in the gift, or power, of the performer because she cannot control her audience. That said, there is a difference between an audience that defines you in advance, and one that responds to the cues that the actor gives off. By using the words ‘Like you will look at me’ Hannah is making a distinction between the wider Irish ring of reference and the interviewer, even though the former and the latter overlap – both are Irish. Unlike the wider Irish ring of reference, Hannah is reflexively careful to observe the particularities of an interaction. In this regard, Hannah is making the point that she herself, the interviewer, and fellow students are all responsive to the interacting other. What is key is that a subject position can be negotiated interactively between social subject and the ring of reference. This approaches ideal speech and recognition of the other. Alternatively, the ring of reference can constitute a monologue that is deaf to the other. In this form of domination the social actor is judged in advance of her actions. The audience decides that an X, who is attempting to perform Y, is really a Z. This constitutes fourth-dimensional power as domination. The more equal interactive negotiation of subject identity referred to earlier (friends and interviewer) is also four-dimensional power but with significant emancipating potential – it is important to remember that all dimensions of power, including that of subject formation, have dominating and enabling emancipatory aspects (Butler, 1997; Haugaard, 2015).

Relative to a different Jordanian-Muslim ring of reference, Hannah also experiences incapacity to define herself. Her Irish MA research was upon the lives of Palestinians in Jordan, which necessitated a visit to Jordan. In Jordan she did not fit with expectations either. Despite wearing a hijab, her Jordanian ring of reference saw her as an educated female in her 30s, pursuing her own independent identity. However, that ring of reference demanded a different identity: ‘ … In Jordan I was supposed to be seen with a husband or a father or with a brother, or with a man.’ She was different to the average Jordanian and Palestinian female. ‘It was about my attitudes and personal plans. I have different plans and I am not married and for someone my age … ’

Her perceived Yness in Jordan elicited negative reactions from both Jordanian men and women. Women did not welcome Hannah as a purveyor of liberating feminist potentials. Rather, she ‘created a question mark for a lot of women, like ok she’s dangerous for me she’s going to take my husband because we have, in Islam a man can marry four wives but … .’ These women saw beyond the scarf/hijab to a socially constructed image of her as the threatening female. Relative to the general Irish ring of reference, the scarf made her an uneducated devout Muslim, while to Jordanians she was an autonomous threatening other. These definitions are at variance, however the process is the same. Both groups create rings of reference that define subject positions for her, thus operating a monologue of four-dimensional domination. Hannah brings that lesson with her, as she comments: ‘I was really tired in Jordan to have that integration. I do not want to have that same story here.’

In conclusion, before the refugee recognition process starts, Hannah is a social actor who has to negotiate complex subject positions within cross-cultural contexts. She has to renegotiate between various roles, not all of which are in her control, because it is not she who decides the conditions of felicity and infelicity for her various subject positions. She is already subject to four-dimensional power because of cultural difference.

Ireland’s refugee recognition process was established in 1996 with the passing of the Refugee Act, 1996. This Act, as amended, established two independent bodies, the Office of the Refugee Applications Commission (ORAC) and the Refugee Applications Tribunal (RAT), who have the responsibility to make recommendations to the Minister for Justice, Equality, and Law Reform as to whether someone applying for asylum should be declared a refugee. The process is that an application is first considered by ORAC and, if rejected, it normally proceeds on appeal to the RAT. In 2011, 135 people were accepted as refugees in Ireland, 5% (half the European average) of the applications that were decided that year by ORAC and RAT (Conlon, Waters, & Berg, 2012, p. 1). Ireland’s system remains unique in Europe as it operates a two-tier legal process. An applicant must first be granted or denied refugee status before being considered for subsidiary protection, carrying over any negative implications their denial of refugee status may have on their case. Although Ireland is part of the Common European Asylum System, many directives that would enable ORAC and RAT to operate more efficiently have not been introduced to legislation, or Ireland has opted out. Since 2000, asylum-seekers are dispersed to Direct Provision centres pending decisions on their cases (often taking between three and seven years). They are provided with full board accommodation and subsistence of €19.10 per adult per week and €9.60 per child per week.

When entering the refugee recognition process as an asylum seeker Hannah feels well equipped from her experience as a student in Ireland. She has Irish friends, but the social and cultural capital she has accumulated does not prepare her for the harsh reality of the system. She is aware that it is a highly significant move, but not quite how big:

How significant a move it is only dawns on her as she becomes involved in the process, which is because her Yness as a Gazan-Palestinian is an ontologically deep Yness, not shallow like her asylum seeker Yness. Once she adopts the Yness of asylum-seeker, the Irish ring of reference changes from being friendly to being largely hostile and distrusting: ‘Then after claiming asylum I saw the other image of Ireland, which is a sad image, just away from … that I learnt in Ranelagh. It’s different.’ The changing ring of reference entailed a fundamental shift in everyday interaction:

The ring of reference that defines a subject position includes the material world, not just the interaction of other social actors. For instance, the Direct Provision centre (Hostel), in Western City, where she lives is encoded with a different language than the student hostel of Ranelagh: She emphasises the one-way nature of the communication. The building speaks in a one-way judgmental view that defines the subject positions of the inhabitants. There is no communication as an interactive process – no ideal speech, no recognition of otherness. This constitutes the subject position of subjection. However, Hannah does not suddenly forget what it was like to interact in Ireland before. In fact, the sharp contrast shocks her. Unlike some other asylum-seekers, Hannah has a strong sense of what a big decision she is making in seeking refugee status. This is compounded primarily by an official demand to reject her student subject position, which she has proudly cultivated since her departure from Gaza. What makes the process so traumatic is that the bureaucratic rules of the game defining student and asylum-seeker are incompatible subject positions. Furthermore, every interaction is defined by mistrust on the part of the official bureaucratic ring of reference. Upon interpreting this it is always important to remember that this is not random domination, therefore we must not read this as a Manichean story of oppressive (evil) dominators and their victims. The bureaucrats are acting within two-dimensional structural constraints that limit their conditions of possibility.

Hannah encounters the pervasive atmosphere of mistrust in one of her first encounters with bureaucratic officials: registering as an asylum-seeker with ORAC. In this registration procedure the applicant fills out a general form containing biographical details and hands over any official identification documents for verification, that is, one’s passport or birth certificate. On the registration form, she is asked to fill in her mother’s maiden name:

Hannah begins to feel the authoritative positions of those who discipline what it means to act as an asylum seeker. Her passport is no longer for her own sole possession. She is under the authority of those who determine whether she is a Y, as a genuine refugee or a Z as bogus asylum seeker. Ultimately, in this action of authority, or indeed symbolic violence (the woman held the passport), she begins to feel subjection by the other (she had an attitude now).

This incident is followed by another similar scenario, when Hannah meets the Community Welfare Officer (CWO) in Western City. It is necessary for all asylum-seekers, once they have been dispersed to a direct provision centre, to meet with a CWO to ascertain their details within the locality, and register for their subsistence payment. The encounter proves controversial for Hannah as she presents herself to the CWO as a student and an asylum seeker.

At these initial stages of Hannah’s entry into the refugee recognition process she is unaware of the way in which the asylum-seeker subject Y position is to be articulated and performed. Identifying oneself as a student, coming from another residence, with means and independence, is not considered the ‘normal’ condition of a refugee. Refugees are considered to have fled their homeland in often drastic and violent persecutory conditions and are in need of fundamental assistance. Therefore, in essentialised terms, they are expected to be miserable, poor, and destitute. As indicated by the CWO above, her case is different. The two-dimensional bureaucratic rules of the game begin to rearticulate Hannah’s four-dimensional subject position. They begin to hone her identity as one of an asylum seeker, one in which she must show that ‘I am poor, that I am miserably poor. I need your money, I need your €19.10.’ In the same encounter she sought travel money to visit her solicitor in Dublin for advice now that she had been dispersed to a Western City: In the above we see the enforced transition to asylum-seeker subject. The criteria are unclear, and she is caught in a double bind. Although she successfully acts on the directions given by gaining proof of her appointment with her solicitor in Dublin, her performance is deemed infelicitous because implicitly you cannot be an asylum seeker and be someone (a Y) who travels. The broader context is an institutional rule for the subject position asylum-seeker, precluding movement beyond locality. The system is so structured that asylum seekers are isolated through dispersal into a direct provision system with a minimal weekly subsistence payment that is insufficient for travel, so they remain where they are dispersed. The inability to meet the demands of these incompatible rules: being allowed to apply for travel assistance because one is entitled to legal representation, but being denied this assistance as one should not have the means to travel, ultimately angers Hannah (I was so angry  … I hate her now  … ) because she feels her powerlessness, her lack of agency.

The encounter between Hannah and the system illustrates the uni-linear nature and asymmetrical power relation of asylum-seekers’ interactions with authoritative positions. They figuratively turn their backs, rendering many of their performances infelicitous and powerless. Thus the contesting other is rendered speechless and, by implication, ignorant (Davies, 2008). This form of abjection initiates the search for a degree of ontological security. In this guise, Hannah returns to the direct provision centre and retells her encounter with the CWO above to the other girls in her room, seeking them as a ring of reference:

Hannah is presenting herself within the asylum system, to immigration authorities, social welfare authorities and other asylum seekers as a student, as an individualised identity, which is different from the collective identity of asylum-seekers. What her roommates display in the comment – ‘If you met her as a student all her attitude will be different’ – demonstrates awareness that the subject position student and that of asylum-seeker elicit entirely different reactions from those within the bureaucratic ring of reference. Significantly, her roommates point out to her that being a student is not commensurate with being an asylum-seeker, within the three-dimensional dominant discourse. These subject positions constitute an either/or choice, not both/and, hence you cannot be an asylum seekerandbe a student.

Interestingly, in observing the difference ‘a latent conceptual agreement’ among the participants in the interaction is taking place. They are developing mutual trust, and Hannah moves towards the collective identity with the assertion ‘I believe them … now I am an asylum seeker.’ Recognising herself in the same position as other confers some ontological security.

As Hannah becomes more knowledgeable about the process, she begins to strip away her previous positions. She becomes cognisant and reflective of her changing self-perception as she interacts with events around her in the direct provision centre, and from her interactions with fellow asylum-seekers. What emerges as her self-perception aligns to the Yness of an asylum-seeker: the powerless, miserable, victim-type status that she is expected to perform, leads to fluctuations in the stability of her sense of self. This is compounded with a realisation of the passing of time, and the inevitability of that duration.

Hannah has moved from the position of ‘I am not like them’ to one of ‘I am like them.’ Saying ‘I am like anybody else here’ reveals a strategy to create an autonomy that is aligned to the collective identity of asylum-seekers. The assertion ‘I don’t feel like my education helps me here’ is curious in that it can be interpreted as part of her new collective identity: she is not setting herself apart from the rest based upon her education. Is this the beginning of a psychic attachment (Butler, 1997) to a fourth-dimensional subject position? To echo the title and recurrent theme of Said’s Memoir (Said, 1999), maybe Hannah is seeking to overcome constantly feeling ‘out of place’ whatever she does.

There is also another aspect to this shift. Education is usually seen as a source of agency – as a form of cultural capital in Bourdieu’s sense. However, this resource is rendered useless relative to her new ring of reference and subject position. This is a further manifestation of her lack of power as an asylum seeker, reinforced in the following:

Writing a thesis does not change her powerlessness as an asylum seeker, because that is what she is. It is not about your past Yness, your past experiences, but who you are now and will be in the future in light of the common goal of refugee status. Hannah also acknowledges the idea of asylum-seeker as an objective subject position, as something that is in the world, like apples and oranges, which is the force of three-dimensional power – although we know from previous dialogue that she is aware of its social constructedness. The above speech-act is an acknowledgement of a harsh reality of structural constraint (two-dimensional power), which points toward an instability and loss of control of her sense of being-in-the-world. She has little four-dimensional power over her own social subject formation. This tension is apparent in the following quotation: These utterances reflect how she is made insecure by the shifting relationship with her Irish friends brought about by her own move of subject position. As a student they were simply, and straightforwardly, her friends. They were collective ‘we’ subjects. Now, as an asylum seeker she also has a new ‘we,’ which makes her Irish friends ‘them.’ Facets of identity are constantly adjusted and reworked in response to one’s interaction with others and the environment within which others are encountered.

Hannah is deeply uncomfortable with the subject position asylum-seeker because she knows what it means relative to the Irish ring of reference. It suggests someone to be pitied, who is disempowered, without agency. In contrast, she sees herself as an agent trying to get her life together. As she explains:

Hannah’s speech is evident of attempted emancipatory four-dimensional self-subjectification of self, in the context of dominating four-dimensional objectification by other people. She does not want to present herself as an asylum-seeker in everyday life to her Irish friends because she does not want to deal with preconceptions, including a certain pitying condescension. Said describes this condescension in his account of Orientalism, whereby even compliments, given by the powerful, can have a deeply objectionable condescending quality that is often invisible to the powerful, but highly visible to the less powerful (Said, 1985, p. 7).

Hannah’s reflexive awareness of the effects of her asylum-seeker status upon other people inadvertently creates a relationship of uncertainty, although the uncertainty felt within this dyadic relationship can be alleviated to a certain extent by a shared notion of friendship. At the same time, these performatives point toward the instability of her sense of being-in-the-world: Hannah displays fluctuations between an ontologically secure sense of self and an unstable sense of self. As Hannah moves through the refugee recognition process she struggles to perform the miserable victim status of an asylum-seeker. Significantly, this struggle emerges in her discussion of her preparation for her official interview with ORAC:

Hannah is not only worried and nervous, but also has a low level of motivation for the outcome of the interview. She experiences conflict between her prior knowledge of what an interview entails in ‘normal’ circumstances ( … I bought new clothes for that. I wanted to look good) and what is expected of her in an interview as an asylum-seeker; someone who is abject (Why should I just look miserable?). She is conscious of self-representation: how to manage the impressions that will be formed of her, how she will be interpreted or objectified by the interviewer. By ‘looking good’ she is reverting to a normal ‘front stage’ which in turn may reduce her proximity for psychological penetration and lessen her vulnerability given ‘the situation’ (Goffman, 1971). However, she is unsure whether or not the front stage smile of the interviewer is genuine. It could mask a ‘backstage’ rejection (Goffman, 1971). The perception that the interviewer may be false is reinforced by the fact that the normal state of being-in-the-world for an asylum seeker is relative to a ring of disbelief from officialdom (Conlon et al., 2012). Perhaps there is also an expectation of disbelief because Hannah knew that she should have acted miserable, like an asylum-seeker, not as an everyday person going to a normal interview.

Deception is often prevalent among asylum-seekers. This is not necessarily because they want to be deliberately deceptive, or are ‘bogus,’ but because they have to perform relative to official expectations, which are often out of sync with the reality refugees come from. While dissimulation is necessary, even among asylum-seekers themselves, this fact is still largely kept backstage, rather than openly acknowledged. Yet it is tacitly known and common in certain backstage moments shared amongst asylum-seekers.

Registered letters bring official communication to the direct provision centres. These letters are usually either a positive or negative determination of some point in their case. Following the interview above, a registered letter brings Hannah a refusal of refugee status at first instance. She is annoyed and perceives the reasons for refusal as constructing her as a liar. This is a common perception by asylum-seekers and, arguably, one derived from the official legal process. She reacts:

The above reaction alludes to the attributes of the collectivity of asylum-seekers, both of a collectivity whose members recognise their own membership and norms (After being in the hostel  … You can’t just realise that someone is lying), while it is also a collectivity that is identified and defined by others (It is how people think about you). Hannah then states that this definition/rejection means ‘You are literally thrown away.’ The idea of being thrown means infelicity and abjection. The actor performs Yness, yet the ring of reference rejects it – you are not a Y but a liar. The audience deems the performance bogus relative to the actor’s performative being-in-the-world. It renders the actor powerless, a non-social agent (thrown away). Metaphorically this constitutes social death (Patterson, 1982).

As a qualifier, it must be remembered that from the perspective of the bureaucrats, they have been tasked with distinguishing between bogus asylum-seekers and genuine refugees. If they are not perceived to accomplish that, their own performance is infelicitous, relative to their ring of reference, which includes the Minister for Justice, Equality, and Law Reform. Everyone, including the more powerful, is structurally constrained to some extent. Nonetheless, they also have some responsibility for how the structures are interpreted (Davies, 2008)

As argued by Jenkins (2000, p. 9), authoritative categorisation produces the consequential ‘identity effects’ of both internal and external labelling, which in turn can evoke resistance. In this instance, the refusal determination instigates a reflection upon the attempted subjectification of the asylum process – being deemed a liar, in a harsh and difficult living situation, being a subject and object that is disposable. This reflection upon the authoritatively generated external definition in turn provides reaction and need for reinforcement of group identification (Jenkins, 2000). The view and seaside of Western City is not sufficient, Hannah requires the reinforcement of others, now that the authorities have refused to give her a status and ring of reference. She retells her personal experiences, which generates and reinforces we-relations, or the collective action of the group.

The collaboration and sense of camaraderie from other asylum-seekers is a ring of reference that moves Hannah towards ontological security. However, it is not enough, she desires the assurance of the student ring of reference, of her friends from Dublin. In this we see that her Yness of student trumps the Yness of asylum-seeker, which is instrumentally counterproductive, yet ontologically logical. As a ring of reference the other asylum-seekers are perceived as only capable of reflecting the Yness of asylum seeker. Hannah needs more. As argued by Giddens (1984) and Jenkins (2008), identity, ontological security, and agency are tied. The lack of satisfactory identity, through non-recognition of desired identity and recognition of undesired identity, leads to a sense of powerlessness. Power in this sense is power-to, the capacity for action, which makes it possible to control the world around one. As she observes: ‘What am I supposed to say, and what am I supposed to do? It’s basically, I felt like I am stuck.’

The performance of social roles for recognition takes place within systemic constraints. In the direct provision centre there is a sheet at reception with their name and room number, which residents must sign. It is tolerated to be absent two out of five nights in any one week; being absent more than this incurs disciplinary action by the management. In order to overcome this restraint, collaboration with others is required: they sign secretly on each other’s behalf.

While it is possible to cover for one another, Hannah was not careful enough in the case of this visit to Dublin. Consequently, she was subject to disciplinary action: her subsistence payment was cut off. She goes to the Post Office with her ID card to collect her €19.10, but there is nothing for her to collect. She assumes it is a mistake and so calls the Social Welfare office to speak to the CWO in charge of her case file, whom she would have registered with. The CWO responds: From the perspective of the official interpretative horizon, an asylum-seeker position presupposes a performance that excludes travelling, as we saw previously. This is not only ontologically the case, but is structurally the case, as an asylum-seeker does not have the material resources to travel (‘This could not be possible that you are funding yourself’). So Hannah has to prove that she is no longer a student, because she is performing like one. As she prefers the role of student, this is humiliating for her. It is not so much the necessity for the money that bothers her: Instead of going to the college for proof that she is no longer a student, she decides to confront the bureaucracy. In other words, she tries to confront those in power. She returns to the hostel to confront management: Hannah then attempts a strategy to divide the bureaucracy against itself. She insists on seeing someone else. What is interesting here is that the authoritative role, or the subject position, of the deputy manager of the hostel constitutes a signifier that entails the capacity to create reality. As argued by Bourdieu (1991), this capacity to create reality is experienced as symbolic violence by the subject. This links to Foucault’s (1971) account of a one-way judgmental definition of the world by reason, while the other, classified as unreason, remains agentless. Within this framework ‘madness’ constitutes a social construction, which reflects one-way, or non-reciprocal, interaction. Interestingly Hannah uses a signifier of madness in her comment upon the exchange, as she continues: This is our first time speaking about it. She wouldn’t believe it. For the first time I felt I had to defend even my sanity.

The position of being considered ‘insane’ is a reaction totally powerless to make her version of reality count as felicitous. She is also caught in a Catch 22-type double bind. Hannah’s conception of herself is as a subject who attempts to socially integrate with Irish people. She really values her Irish friends. In the official discourse, integration is considered to be an advantage. However, it is precisely Hannah’s integration with Irish students that makes her suspect. Her mistake is to consider integration in terms of interacting outside the asylum process. As she observes:

Social integration is what those wishing to enter the system should be doing, even according to official discourse. However, social integration is not something that agents can define for themselves. It must be validated by a ring of reference that counts in terms of the authoritative power structures of the system. This is not a phenomenon of individual blame. As individuals, those in power are not entirely hostile to Hannah. One of the officials in the hostel becomes a confidante, giving advice to Hannah that she should have lied about being a student to begin with: If social integration means being-in-the-world, or not speaking a socially private language (Haugaard, 1992, p. 189), then Hannah is really facing an ontological and existential crisis. She wants to integrate, become an ordinary Irish person, which to her means being a student. However, from the official perspective in order to become an Irish agent, she must deny being a student, and perform correctly as an asylum-seeker. However, to Hannah being an asylum-seeker means being abject, being pathetic, which is the very definition of a non-agent. In response, she can, of course, reject all expectations and make war on the whole system of meaning, giving her a momentary feeling of agency by being true to herself, but such an act would kill any chance of obtaining social agency (recognition of refugee status). Thus, such a counter-hegemonic move or which means conflict across all four dimensions of power, has the potential for (metaphorically speaking) an interactive social death. In short, caught betwixt and between identities, the predicament of Hannah A. is reminiscent of Hamlet’s conundrum:

We ended this article with a Shakespearean existential choice, between powerlessness while being who one wants to be, or empowerment by playing the rules of the game but being who others want us to be. In confronting the bureaucrats, Hannah was taking the resistant path of self-subject-creation, coupled with powerlessness or social death. The suggestion is that she would be deemed bogus, which she was at that point in time. However, the story went another way after four years, as she slowly learned how to renegotiate the successful performance of a genuine refugee. This, however, is another story, a different story, of persistence and contestation. In her own words, in a recent interview:

In conclusion, the object of this article has been to understand the complex process of identity-cum-subject formation. In that story we can see how social actors have some agency: they make choices. We also see how they are limited by the conditions of possibility that surround them. These constraints are not some force of nature, as envisaged in structuralism, but a complex set of overlapping audiences who have the power of legitimising social-world creation. The four dimensions of power are not separate entities but nested within each other. The interaction of these levels is always a complex one of subtle nuance, which we hope has been made manifest by our examination of the skilful, although resistant, performance of a social actor, first acculturating to Irish society as a Palestinian-Gazan-female-Muslim-student and then as an asylum-seeker.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.