Frontline Organisations as Sites for Political Learning: Managing Asylum Waiting Time in the Formative Years (1983–1988) of the Danish Asylum System

Abstract

The central aim of this article is to shed light on how frontline organisations, in addition to serving an essential role on behalf of the state in responding to the individual needs of vulnerable groups, can also be understood as sites for knowledge production and political learning: as producers of so-called “tacit frontline knowledge” downwards and influencers upwards on learning processes within the state bureaucracy. The article accentuates these analytical notions based on an empirical case study of a humanitarian organisation, Red Cross Asylum, which has served as a central operator of asylum centres in Denmark since 1984. It reveals how, during the 1980s – in addition to managing the daily operations of local asylum centres – Red Cross Asylum generated tacit frontline knowledge as attempts to mitigate social and mental health issues resulting from prolonged waiting times (e.g., by initiating various social and educational activities). The article also demonstrates how some of the tacit knowledge produced in the asylum centers ended up influencing central policymaking during the 1980s and, ultimately, the contemporary asylum system.