A ‘care’ deficit is clearly attributed to homes that are subject to a high degree of mobility and uncertainty due to homemakers’ poor socio-economic circumstances. Drawing upon empirical research with 17 migrant families in Khulna city in Bangladesh we argue, non-human agencies of urban ecology are critical in ‘care-relations’ that contribute to migrants’ adaptation in the post-displacement context. These peasant-turned-migrant families are living on the urban fringes for 5-25 years. Their homes have shifted to multiple locations over time, based on the availability of vacant land and the informal consent of absentee landowners. In particular, this paper discusses three care relations – migrants’ relations with their absentee patrons, neighboring communities and non-government micro-credit lenders. Whereas, migrants’ marginalized status is found a precursor in initiating these care-relations, the specific skills inherited from migrants’ agrarian origins to engage with plants and animals convolute the humanized social relations of caregiver and care-recipient. It is rather some unique socio-ecological relations being assembled through these vulnerable migrants not only securing their home but also providing essential ecological services to the city. Hence, greater attention is needed to understand the role of non-human agencies of urban landscape towards more emancipatory marginal politics of ‘caring with.'

The ambivalent politics of volunteer-provided refugee resettlement is evident in the social science literature. On the one hand, for refugees, resettlement is a complex, difficult and often confusing experience. Volunteers provide a whole range of practical and emotional supports that are vital in the process of making a new place home. But, often their role is more problematic. Volunteers may reify powerful hierarchies, distinguish between 'deserving' and 'undeserving' clients, and reduce client agency through reproducing infantilising discourses. In practice, then, volunteers ride the awkward tension between care and control. This paper unpacks the politics of care in a volunteer-run community organisation that provides ‘friendship-based support’ to people from refugee backgrounds. Drawing on the work of Deleuze, I argue care is always a negotiated arrangement of material and social entities. First, rather than presupposing an already-existing idea of care, what is considered ‘caring’ and ‘uncaring’ is the outcome of a collective ideological process. And second, instead of reifying care as a one-way ‘practice’, the concrete achievement of care always occurs through the coming-together of many things. In this way, we can see that volunteers are engaged in the ongoing, often messy and unpredictable process of achieving working, living arrangements of care.

Research on the experience of people from refugee backgrounds in Western nations is dominated by investigations into negative representations, racism, assimilation, and a lack of appropriate settlement services and sense of belonging. While these studies are important, they neglect the experiences of many people from refugee backgrounds who are welcomed into communities and nations by people and organisations who care. Exploring experiences of care is as important as investigating injustice or negligence and offers different prospects for imagining the “hope residing in cities” (Fincher and Iveson 2012 p. 240).
Therefore, this paper focuses on the relational nature of care performances with refugees. Drawing on a case study from Penola House, a refugee support organisation in Newcastle, the paper will explore how volunteers and employees perform the practice of caring with people from refugee backgrounds rather than caring for them. This analysis provides a more nuanced understanding of who can give and receive care and what it means to give and receive care. The paper moves away from problematic representations of passive refugee subjects to provide a more hopeful account of caring with people from refugee backgrounds.

Forced migration is a global phenomenon with dire implications for those fleeing war and persecution. The government's response in Australia positions those legally seeking asylum as a 'threat' to national security and as a 'strain' on resources. These dominant narratives about who asylum seekers and refugees are and what they represent have shaped government policy and public opinion both of which vilify asylum seekers and refugees casting them in terms of deficits and deficiencies. The dominance of this approach means that the strengths and capacities of these communities, and what nurturing these could translate to in terms of contributing to Australia's socially cohesive multiculturalism, becomes seen as an incompatible alternative policy platform. And yet, despite the government's position, Asylum Seeker and Refugee support and advocacy organisations carry on their work aimed at building on the strengths and capacities of those legally seeking asylum. This paper showcases research on the ways in which support and advocacy organisations are going about their caring work. The paper highlights the potential implications that emphasising positive projects and initiatives can make in challenging dominant narratives to bring about an altogether different public conversation and approach to migration and border protection policies in Australia.