In the shadow of uncertainity: Refugee protection, short-sighted pragmatism and the problem of mixed "ethnic" odentities

This article represents the analysis of the life history of one of the refugees from Bosnia and Herzegovina who came to Sweden with Croatian passports and, as such, initially received a negative decision to her request for asylum from the Swedish Government, then a temporary residence permission for a period of six months and eventually a final negative decision. The analysis covers three geographically and temporally separate phases of this refugee odyssey: life during the war and flight, then refugee life in Croatia, and finally refuge in Sweden. The main aims of this article are twofold. Firstly, it aims to show the way refugees themselves look at their refugee life and the role of the various macro-, mezzo- and micro-actors, who in every way influence their life. It also refers to the various strategies developed by refugees to cope with the situation in which all their expectations are crushed to pieces by the pragmatic political interests of the countries in which they seek asylum. Secondly, it tries to demonstrate all the possible strategies which the governments of Western Europe try to develop in ‘solving the refugee problems’ in situations where the gulf between their humanitarian rhetoric and real pragmatic politics becomes uncomfortably deep