Abstract:
This article argues that a normative figure of an “ideal refugee” operates as a Weberian ideal type in contemporary refugee governance, hierarchically ordering displaced people according to standards of conduct, affect, and political identity. Drawing on critical citizenship studies, the article traces how acts of citizenship and rightful presence produce legible and illegible refugee subjects across four disciplinary axes: managed passivity, performed gratitude, cultural legibility, and productive futurity. Empirically, I compare the recent cases of Syrian and Ukrainian war refugees in Poland to illustrate the effects of complying or failing to comply with the ideal, introducing the concept of “proximate humanitarianism” to capture how racial, religious, gendered, and geopolitical proximity are translated into institutional generosity or parsimony.
Keywords:
refugee, humanitarianism, Poland, Ukrainian refugees, Syrian refugees, ideal type
How to cite:
Butkovich Kraus, Nicole M. “Who Deserves Deliverance? The Ideal Refugee and Proximate Humanitarianism: Comparing Syrian and Ukrainian Refugee Reception in Poland.” Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture 10, no. 1 (2026): 184-215. https://doi.org/10.14394/eidos.jpc.2026.0009.
Author:
Nicole M. Butkovich Kraus
Department of Psychology, Sociology and Social Work, West Texas A&M University
Canyon, TX 79016, USA
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7253-5571
nkraus@wtamu.edu
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