Living Refugee Archive Newsletter

Dear LRA Newsletter Reader,

Welcome to the latest Living Refugee Archive Newsletter. This is a newsletter documenting the latest news and developments in the fields of refugee and migration studies and also on how archives can be used to document narratives.

The newsletter is compiled by the University of East London’s Archivist Paul Dudman and Thushari Perera. If you wish to contribute an item to the newsletter or the Living Refugee Archive, please contact us at p.v.dudman@uel.ac.uk., thank you.

 

NEWS CLIPPINGS.

General

“Speculative Borders: China Miéville’s The City & the City.” Refugee Hosts. April, 2019.

United Kingdom

“UK Home Office changes to Immigration Rules on statelessness: a mixed bag”, European Network on Statelessness.  18 March 2019.

“Home Office cites violent Bible passages to reject Iranian asylum seeker”, The National (Scotland). 21 March 2019.

“Challenge to £1 an hour pay rate for immigration detainees ruled out of time”, Free Movement,  April 2019.

“New innovator and start-up visas launch today — but is anybody ready?”, Free Movement. April 2019.

“Helpful decision on evidential flexibility nevertheless demonstrates failure of Points Based System”, Free Movement. April 2019.

“Home Office has utterly failed in immigration detention, MPs find”, The Guardian.  21 March 2019.

“Gripping refugee tale wins Waterstones children’s book prize”, The Guardian. 22 March 2019

“Home Office makes £2m a month from child citizenship fees.” The Independent, 04 April 2019.

“Windrush victims will finally receive compensation – but payouts will be ‘surprisingly low’, campaigners warn.” The Independent, 03 April 2019.

Why are UK child citizenship fees much higher than the rest of Europe?” The Independent, April 2019.

“Home Office admits sharing details of hundreds of EU citizens.” The Independent, 11 April, 2019.

“Thousands of detained refugees at ‘serious risk’ as fighting engulfs Libyan capital.” The Independent, 12 April. 2019.

“Corrupt immigration officer jailed for trying to extort man facing deportation.” The Independent, 12 April. 2019

“Surviving and succeeding in the asylum and immigration system.” Right To Remain, 26 March, 2019.

“Home Office must scrap caps on Windrush compensation, demands David Lammy.” The Independent, 10 April, 2019.

EUROPE

Balkans

Frontex set to help Balkan states deport migrants”, EU Observer. 28 March 2019.

Malta

“Watch: Five arrested as AFM storms hijacked ship and escorts it to Malta”, Times of Malta. 26 March 2019.

Poland

“‘Refugees. Present/Absent.’ Escaping the traps of refugee (mis)representations.”  By Dominika Blachnicka-Ciacek for Refugee Hosts. 9 October, 2017.

WORLD

“Perfect Storm of Vulnerability Risks Leads People into Human Trafficking, New Study Finds”, ReliefWeb. 26 March 2019.

Jordan

“Refugee Hosts team at Mobilising Global Voices Conference 2019: Perspectives from the Global South”, Refugee Hosts. 25 March 2019.

Rwanda

“Rwanda’s Protection Lessons for Peacekeeping”, Political Violence at a Glance, 10 April, 2019.

Syria

What can past civil wars tell us about Syria and its road to recovery?” 10 April, 2019.

Events and Call for Papers.

EVENTS

Conference: Child marriage in forced migration: Social processes in-flux, May 2019, London

Dates:  16th-17th May 2019
Location:  The British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London, SW1Y 5AH

Forced migration does more than move people geographically; it changes how people function socially, and adapts the processes that hold people together. Through this conference, migration theorists, anthropologists, human geographers, development specialists and others will examine the impact of forced migration on child marriage through changes in gender dynamics and identities, place/home-making, people’s aspirations for the future and access to justice as well as conceptions of risk, vulnerability, protection, agency and resilience. The conference will also build on, and consolidate, this knowledge by considering how these social processes in-flux affect the approaches used in response. Speakers include world class and ‘active’ researchers from a range of disciplines and experienced practitioners.
The conference is being convened by Dr Aisha Hutchinson (University of Bedfordshire), Kristen Hope (Terre des Hommes Lausanne) and Prof Ravi Kohli (University of Bedfordshire).

Register at: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/events/child-marriage-forced-migration

Events: RLI/RECAP Seminar Series: Humanitarian Accountability in Displacement Contexts

The Refugee Law Initiative (RLI) is pleased to announce details of a new seminar series on ‘Humanitarian Accountability in Displacement Contexts’, related to our work on the RECAP project (Research capacity strengthening and knowledge generation to support preparedness and response to humanitarian crises and epidemics).

This series of three seminars examines humanitarian accountability in displacement contexts, and provides a forum for discussion open to academics, practitioners and those with an interest in humanitarian and forced displacement issues.

All seminars are free and open to the public. For more information please visit https://rli.sas.ac.uk/events

How to make the humanitarian system fit for purpose: A bottom-up approach
Nick Van Pragg, Executive Director and Founder, Ground Truth Solutions
28 March, 6pm | Woburn Room (G22), Senate House

Taking humanitarian accountability to the next level
Dorothea Hilhorst, Professor of Humanitarian Aid and Reconstruction, Erasmus University Rotterdam
4 April, 6pm | Senate Room, Senate House

Revisiting accountability of humanitarian actors and researchers: Lessons from field-research with refugee populations in East Africa
Naohiko Omata, Senior Research Officer, Oxford University
13 June, 6pm | Bedford Room (G26), Senate House

 

A ‘Hostile Environment’ for Migration Research? Debates Past and Present

by Centre for the Study of Migration, QMU and LIDC Migration Leadership Team

Date and Time: Tue, 23 April 2019: 15:00 – 17:00 BST

Location: Rm 2.07, City Centre Seminar Room, Queen Mary’s University of London

Knowledge (co)production and exchange on the causes and consequences of migration and forced displacement is undergoing a renaissance across academic sectors and disciplines. Artists, thinkers and researchers have probed questions of migration and forced displacement, many of them while ‘on the move’ themselves. This kind of knowledge production and exchange has often been at the frontline of political responses to migration, while also shaping policy, public debate and the development of the arts, industry and the media.

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-hostile-environment-for-migration-research-debates-past-and-present-registration-59380838687?__twitter_impression=true%2Famp&__twitter_impression=true

 

CALL FOR PAPERS (CFP)

Invisibility: The Absent, the Unseen, and the Forgotten.

One-day interdisciplinary conference. Hosted by SHSU Postgraduate Research Students’ Society, Sheffield Hallam University.

31st May 2019.

Keynote Speakers: Dr Eleanor Davey and Dr Ben Offiler

SHSU Postgraduate Research Students’ Society presents their third annual postgraduate and ECR conference, this year focusing on the invisible. Invisibility, absence, the unseen, and the forgotten are common themes in a variety of mediums. In literature, they are devices through which suspense is built around absent friends and relatives, horror through ghostly apparitions which question what it means to be present, and romance and mystery via lost or forgotten letters. In British politics, with the Brexit vote, we have been encouraged to think about what it means to be present and have a voice, and the concomitant responsibilities of speaking. And in contemporary discussions surrounding refugees and immigration, we find that so often the voices of those refugees are very much absent. This conference encourages discussion on what it means to be invisible, the responsibilities of being visible, and the politics behind forgetting and remembering.

Potential approaches to Invisibility and Absence may include:

Absent voices in political discourses, and how those voices are silenced.

Power relationships predicated upon the absence of voice of some of the participants.

The gaining of voice; making oneself visible.

The ontological status of the ‘invisible’.

Narratives of those who have been traditionally under-represented or oppressed: women, trans, minority narratives.

The ‘unseen’ consequences of political discourses on those without a voice.

Agency and visibility.•Age and invisibility.

Social media and presence.

The experience of being ‘invisible’ within discourse and its consequences.

Disempowerment relating to absence.

 

Invisibility: The Absent, the Unseen, and the Forgotten – deadline 1 April 2019

Sheffield Hallam Students’ Union will host the conference on 31 May 2019.

This is a free event for speakers, presenters, and attendees.

We welcome proposals from Postgraduate students and ECRs (who are within five years of completing their Ph.D.) for 20-minute papers and creative performances. We also welcome posters for a display during the event. Proposals should take the form of a 250 word abstract and short biography. This is an interdisciplinary conference, and as such we welcome entries from a variety of fields: English Literature, Linguistics, History, Psychology, Sociology, Film Studies, Tourism, Politics, the hard Sciences, etc.

Applications should be submitted to invisibilityconferenceshu@gmail.com by 1 April 2019. Follow our Twitter account @shsuprss for updates.

https://royalhistsoc.org/calendar/invisibility-the-absent-the-unseen-and-the-forgotten/

 

Call for abstracts: The Colloquium Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Migration Research: “Migration, Mobility and Inequalities”, University of Essex, 20 June 2019

Cross Institutional PhD Research Colloquium

Centre for Migration Studies (University of Essex)
Migration Research Network (University of East Anglia)
Centre for Migration Research (University of Sussex)

“Migration, Mobility and Inequalities”
20 June 2019, University of Essex, UK
Call for Abstracts 2019 is now open!

The Call for Applications is now open. Submissions are due by midnight GMT on 14.04.2019.

The Essex Centre for Migration Studies, UEA Migration Research Network, and the Sussex Centre for Migration Research, invite PhD Research students to submit papers for the second Colloquium on Conceptual and Methodological Issues in Migration: “Migration, Mobility and Inequalities.” The aim of the one-day colloquium is to explore issues on migration, mobility, and inequalities and, to discuss it in relation to longer-term impacts of immigration on sending, transit, and receiving societies. Much of the most exciting research in these fields is being conducted by emerging postgraduate scholars. Recognizing this, our three research centres are collaborating to bring together PGR students across the UK and beyond to a colloquium on Migration, Mobility, and Inequalities on 20th June 2019. The colloquium will allow students to present their work to other PGR students and senior researchers from various universities in a stimulating academic environment; and serve as a creative forum for academic exchange on contemporary challenges facing migration studies. We welcome research projects from all disciplines and using a variety of methodologies.
The day will consist of different panels of 4 presentations (15 minutes each), as well as a keynote lecture by Professor David Voas from University College London (UCL).
Who can apply?
PhD research students that are registered in Higher Education Institutions.

Please send the following via email to ss16365@essex.ac.uk with a subject line “Migration Conference” by midnight GMT on Wednesday, 14 April 2019.

Applicants will be informed of our decision by 26 April 2019.

The call for abstracts caqn be found online here https://sites.manchester.ac.uk/alc-grad-school/wp-content/uploads/sites/146/2019/03/Essex-CMS-2019-PGR-Workshop.pdf .  Please feel free to disseminate the call within your network!
 

Call for Papers: HOMING symposium (Trento, June 3-4, 2019): Displacement, suspension, projections and achievements in making home on the move

The HOMInG team – a research group led by Paolo Boccagni (University of Trento) investigating the home-migration nexus – will host a mid-term symposium in Trento next June 3-4.

The symposium will be on HomING: displacement, suspension, projections and achievements in making home on the move. This event aims to open up the conversation between HOMInG’s researchers, who will present their preliminary findings, and colleagues and practitioners interested in questions of home and migration across national and disciplinary borders. This symposium aims to address them through nine sessions (see them below).

Abstracts, 250 words long, with a specification of the relevant session, should be submitted to homing@unitn.it by next March 15. For more information visit https://homing.soc.unitn.it/2019/01/28/cfp-homing-mid-term-symposium-june-3-4-deadline-march-15/

THE SESSIONS OF THE SYMPOSIUM:

What moves and what stays put or behind. Revisiting the portability of home (Paolo Boccagni)

As much research shows, there are aspects of what used to be home that migrants or refugees can carry along with them, literally, metaphorically or virtually. Other aspects are left away in time and space, intentionally or not, but may still affect their life conditions and prospects. How the ones interact with the others, and what accounts for migrant (in)success in combining them, is the core issue of this session, which welcomes theoretically driven and empirically based contributions from across social sciences.

Home, Kinship and Mobility. Voicing Relatedness through Movements (Sara Bonfanti)

Kinship migration may involve the transfer of households, but also create a cultural idiom through which (factual or fictive) relatedness is un/made across moving social fields. This session invites to consider whether the use of kinship language within refugee/migratory experiences might articulate forms of relatedness otherwise invisible. Who’s a next of kin under conditions of mobility? Which duties and rights, deeds and reciprocities do kinfolk share when shifting roofs?

Lost homes? Investigating homing for refugees in Europe and their families back home (Milena Belloni)

This session explores refugees’ experiences of home. Rather than assuming a “typical refugee experience” (Stein, 1981), it aims to investigate whether or not the legal, political and social position occupied by refugees in the new country of arrival towards their homeland has specific implications for their homemaking practices and feelings. To what extent does the impossibility to return home influence refugees’ connections with their families back home and their homemaking practices abroad? Are there specific challenges – compared with other migrants – to their daily homing practices and those of their families back home?

Home and the senses (Alejandro Miranda)

In its various guises, home is constituted and experienced through its sensory, material and affective dimensions. This session invites presentations dealing with the making of home through these dimensions, including sensory aspects of domestic and non-domestic environments, as well as private and public spaces.

HomING in unhomely contexts. Studies from the margins (Aurora Massa)

Informal settlements, reception centres, ghettos and transit areas are common dwelling arrangements for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers, in Europe as well as elsewhere. This session aims at exploring how homing occurs in settings that, due to their material structures, location, symbolic values or the people one lives with, are considered “unhomely” by their inhabitants. What kind of practices and sense of home, familiarity and domesticity are developed there? The session is also interested in critically engaging with the notion of “unhomely” and the different factors which concur to its (emic) definitions.

Mobility, domesticity and sexuality on the move (Ilka Vari-Lavoisier)

Homes retain the imaginary of shelter or safe haven (Ley-Cervantes and al. 2015) – although, every day, three hundred women die of domestic violence, at home, and at least a third of sexual abuses would be perpetrated by relatives, inside homes (WHO 2015). However, researching transnational intimacies raises a series of methodological and ethical concerns. To reflect on the avenues available to researching sexuality in mobile settings, this panel invites contributions touching on the interrelations between mobility, domesticity, and sexuality.

Between choice and compulsion: Challenging migration categories through the lens of home (Luis Eduardo Pérez Murcia)

This panel aims to explore whether and how migrants and displaced people’s experiences of home and home-making practices provide a new conceptual framework to either sustain or challenge migration categories. We invite papers addressing (but not limited to) questions such as whether and how ideas of home make distinctions between the so called ‘forced’ and ‘voluntary’ migration meaningful or superfluous.

Architectures of displacement: material forms of refugees’ accomodations and its implications (Daniela Giudici)

The panel discusses diverse asylum seekers’ housing arrangements in contemporary Europe (from institutional reception centres to abandoned buildings, emergency camps and so on). How do these material forms affect asylum seekers’ lived experiences, as well as their relationships with the surrounding environment and social context?  How do asylum seekers themselves shape, transform or resist the accommodations they are provided with? Which kind of emotional configurations and, possibly, political engagements can emerge within and around such dwellings?

Housing pathways and housing temporalities: homemaking practices through displacement and time (Enrico Fravega)

“People are not paths, but they cannot avoid drawing them in space-time” (Hagerstrand, 1982). Migration involves the change of many different accommodations. The home-making practices associated with it allow (or prevent) the crisscrossing of both linear and cyclic temporalities as well as the connection of different types of home (i.e. the place where one is born, the place where relatives or parents are, the place where one can put his/her belongings, etc.). We invite papers dealing with these issues and the way the linkage between space and time affects belonging.

 

Call for Papers: Liminality and stuckedness in migration, Finnish Anthropological Society Conference, Helsinki August 29-30, 2019

Please consider contributing to our panel at the Biennial Conference of the Finnish Anthropological Society, On Time (Helsinki, August 29-30, 2019):

Panel Title
Out of place, out of time: Rethinking liminality and stuckedness in experiences of migration

Convenors
Francesca Morra (Oxford Brookes University)
Francesca Meloni (Northumbria University)

Abstract
Many scholars in anthropology and other disciplines have emphasized how migrants’ lives have increasingly shifted from experiences of mobility to conditions of immobility (Carling, 2002; Salazar & Smart, 2011). Migration policies, deportability and racial discrimination can confine migrants in an existential and temporal condition of indefinite waiting, liminality and stuckedness (Hage, 2009; Willen, 2007). Scholars have often described this liminal condition as detrimental to one’s sense of security and wellbeing, or as a failure to become ‘incorporated’ and to fully belong (Gonzales, Suárez-Orozco, & Dedios-Sanguineti, 2013; Sommers, 2012). In this panel, we seek to conceptualize and rethink the ways in which different temporal breaks and continuities affect migrants’ experiences of mobility and immobility, belonging and intimacy, in relation to the multiple factors and constraints shaping migrants’ possibilities of making a viable life. We particularly seek papers that draw on ethnographic engagements exploring migrants’ experiences of time that are in contrast, or misaligned, with the linear and progressive temporality of neoliberal societies – that is, the expected trajectories towards citizenship, social incorporation, and independence. For instance, how do migrants themselves understand dissonant experiences of time and emplacement? How do these understandings shape different experiences of im/mobility and imaginations of possible futures? What kinds of temporalities are possible, or are hindered, in migration? And how are these influenced by policies, and neoliberal imaginations of a ‘good life’?

Please send a short abstract of your contribution (max 250 words) to Francesca Morra ( francesca.morra-2015@brookes.ac.uk ) and Francesca Meloni ( francesca.meloni@northumbria.ac.uk ) by 1st April 2019.

For more information on the conference, please see http://www.antropologinenseura.fi/en/events/anthropology-conference-2019/ and for the list of panels and the call for papers, go to http://www.antropologinenseura.fi/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/Call-for-papers.pdf .

“Migration, Trafficking, Sex Work and the Law” that will take place in Campinas, Brazil, in July 2019

Thanks to the support of the British Council’s Newton Fund and the São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP), we are delighted to inform you of a workshop entitled “Migration, Trafficking, Sex Work and the Law” that will take place in Campinas, Brazil, in July 2019. This five-day workshop will bring together Brazilian and British early career scholars, policy makers and activists to critically consider the links between migration, human trafficking and sex work.

The Researcher Links programme will cover the travel and accommodation expenses of around 15 early career scholars/researchers from the UK (for definitions of these categories, please check the eligibility criteria in the link below).

Among the many themes we will investigate, we are especially interested in papers related to (i) Changes in governmental responses to sex-trafficking and human migration in the past 10 years (ii) the movement of Brazilians to Britain in the context of contemporary public policies regarding immigration and prostitution. We also hope to solicit papers that might shed historical light on these dual phenomena. Accordingly, a third theme of interest seeks to understand the moral panic surrounding European female migration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the international efforts to police and repress these population flows.

As part of this programme, we are now recruiting Early Career Researchers working in the following areas to participate in this workshop:

  • Sexual Trafficking
  • Prostitution, Sex Work, Sexual Labour
  • Sex Workers’ Rights
  • Female Emigrants
  • Labour Migration
  • Mobility
  • Migration Laws
  • Humanitarian and Anti-Trafficking Groups, Organisations, Individuals
  • International Protection
  • Anti-Sex trafficking policy
  • Public Health and Disease

The deadline for applications is 15 April 2019. Additional information and the application form can be found here: http://britishcouncilbrasil.nfrl-lee.sgizmo.com/s3/

The workshop is coordinated by Dr. Daniel Lee (University of Sheffield) and Dr. Adriana Piscitelli (State University of Campinas, UNICAMP, Brazil). Please direct all queries to Amanda Tavares: atavares1@sheffield.ac.uk

Calls for Chapters

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Refugee education across the lifespan: Mapping experiences of language learning and use

Proposal deadline: May 1, 2019

Editor:  Doris S. Warriner, Arizona State University

Contact Info: doris.warriner@asu.edu

Introduction and scope:
With dramatic increases in global conflict, war, drought and famine, the estimated number of refugees in need of resettlement during FY 2018 reached nearly 1.2 million and continues to rise. In response, Australia, Canada and many European and Latin American countries have launched or expanded their refugee resettlement programs. The U.S., on the other hand, has taken a large step back from its role as the world’s leader in refugee resettlement. The gap left by the U.S.’s significantly reduced role has not yet been filled (MPI 2017). Meanwhile, an explicit resistance to and hostility towards displaced persons (and the idea of demographic change) as well as a surge in far-right populism across the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union contributes to uncertainty in the policy realm, volatility in the political landscape, and unease among immigrant and refugee advocates.
This volume highlights work that demonstrates how an educational linguistics perspective might contribute to scholarship and/or educational innovations needed to advance the research base, inform professional development of teachers (in preschool, K-12, and continuing / adult education settings), and improve the educational, social and economic opportunities available to refugee-background children, youth and adults. With a focus on language learning and use among refugee-background learners across the lifespan, this proposed volume demonstrates that educational linguistics as an approach to inquiry is well positioned to identify, examine, and theorize the language and literacy dimensions of the refugee experience.

Authors are invited to explore how language ideologies, language policies, processes of language socialization, and dimensions of language use and language learning in a range of social spaces (e.g., K-12 classrooms, after-school programs, community-based programs, the workplace, spaces of healthcare delivery, online spaces, or nontraditional spaces of language use/learning) influence processes of learning, practices of teaching, and policies of language education  With attention to the creative use of existing or emerging resources as well as the dynamic and social nature of language learning, this edited volume promises to contribute insights and understandings that will be of interest to socially responsible language teachers, teacher educators committed to linguistic equity and diversity, curriculum developers, or those involved with language assessment.

Submission instructions
Proposals (due May 1, 2019) should contain the following information:
•       Proposed chapter title
•       Author name(s) and affiliation(s)
•       300-500 word chapter overview
•       50-100 word biography for each author
Proposals should be saved as a single Microsoft Word (.doc or .docx) or .PDF file and emailed as attachments to doris.warriner@asu.edu . Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by June 1, 2019.

This call for proposals has been developed in consultation with a leading academic publisher. Following the initial selection of proposals, a full book proposal will be sent to the publisher for review. Upon acceptance, chapter authors will be sent detailed guidelines, including specifications for images and other multimedia. Authors will be given approximately 8 months to contribute full chapters of approximately 7,000-8,000 words. Chapters must be original and should not be submitted for publication elsewhere. All chapters will be double-blind peer reviewed (contributors may also be asked to review).

Please send all inquiries to the editor at doris.warriner@asu.edu.

Timeline:
May 1, 2019: title + abstract (300-500 words) due
June 1, 2019: authors notified and proposal submitted to publisher for review
July 1, 2019: authors invited to contribute full-length chapter (7,000-8,000 words)
February 1, 2020: first draft due
March 1, 2020: feedback provided to authors
May 1, 2020: revised draft due

Summer School on EU Immigration and Asylum Law and Policy

1-12 July 2019

Brussels, Belgium

The Summer School has been designed to provide participants with a comprehensive understanding of the immigration and asylum policy of the EU from a legal perspective. All lectures are available both in English and French, and participants can choose which language to follow. On top of classes, evening debates and visits to the European Institutions, the course provides an excellent opportunity to spend an intellectually stimulating fortnight and to network among a group of around one hundred fellow participants specialised in the area of asylum and immigration.

Participants to the Summer School typically include PhD and graduate students, researchers, lecturers, EU and Member State officials, representatives from NGOs and International Organisations, lawyers, judges, social workers.

The closing date for applications is 15 May 2019.

Find more information on our website: http://odysseus-network.eu/2019-summer-school/eng/ or contact odysseus@ulb.ac.be

 

Research and Publications.

REPORTS

From the RRN Research Digest provides a synopsis of recent research on refugee and forced migration issues from entities associated with the RRN and others

Recent Publications and New Research

FitzGerald, D. S. (2019). Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers. Oxford University Press.

The author traces how rich democracies have deliberately and systematically shut down most legal paths to safety. Drawing on official government documents, information obtained via WikiLeaks, and interviews with asylum seekers, he finds that for ninety-nine percent of refugees, the only way to find safety in one of the prosperous democracies of the Global North is to reach its territory and then ask for asylum. The book identifies some pressure points and finds that a diffuse humanitarian obligation to help those in need is more difficult for governments to evade than the law alone. More information available at: https://t.co/BmD0KWoK0A excerpts from google scholar available at this link

Culcasi, K. (2019). “We are women and men now”: Intimate spaces and coping labour for Syrian women refugees in Jordan. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers.

Many Syrian women refugees have become income providers for the first time in their lives. Bringing literature from critical feminist and migration studies, the author offers the ideas of coping and coping labour as a framework to examine the intimate spaces of displacement. The paper shows that in the intimate spaces of displacement women have taken on traditionally masculine practices, but while their gendered performances shift, they are simultaneously entrenched as the ideals of appropriate feminine and masculine performances are recreated. Though these multiple gendered performances are creating numerous demands and challenges for Syrian women refugees, these women are also experiencing an increased sense of strength, confidence and respect as a result of their shifting performances. Available at:

https://rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/tran.12292

FMR 60 on Education – now online

Education is one of the most important aspects of our lives – vital to our development, our understanding and our personal and professional fulfilment throughout life. In times of crisis, however, millions of displaced young people miss out on months or years of education, and this is damaging to them and their families, as well as to their societies, both in the short and long term. In FMR issue 60, authors from around the world debate how better to enable access to quality education both in emergency settings and in resettlement and asylum contexts. Full articles available at: www.fmreview.org/education-displacement.

Naujoks. D. (2019). Refugee Camps and Refugee Rights: A simulation of the response to large refugee influxes. Journal of Political Science Education.

This article introduces and analyzes a one-class role-play simulation during which students engage in stakeholder negotiations on how to respond to a large flow of refugees between two fictional African countries. The simulation addresses questions related to courses on development, conflict and refugee studies, international organizations, human rights, and international relations. Based on six iterations of the simulation, the essay discusses specific design decisions in the preparation, interaction, and debriefing stage and their impact on the simulation, as well as principal learning outcomes. This includes detailed discussions of briefing memos, role sheets, role selection, and key questions during the debriefing session. The online annex contains the full role-play simulation that can used to replicate the simulation. Unfortunately, the article is not open access but more information is available at:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15512169.2018.1559066

Report, briefs and policy papers

“They don’t even understand why we fled’: the difficult path to reintegration in Burundi”, The International Refugee Rights Initiative, IRRI (February, 2019)

Based on interviews with returnees in Burundi, the report, describes the daily struggle of recently returned refugees from Tanzania to provide for their families. Most rely on the help of neighbours or local authorities, but this solidarity will be further strained as larger numbers are likely to return ahead of the upcoming electoral process. Available at:

http://refugee-rights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Burundi-returns-report-IRRI-Feb-2019-1.pdf also available in French at: http://refugee-rights.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Burundi-rapport-retour-IRRI-FR.pdf

Wilkinson, L., et al (2019), Yazidi resettlement in Canada, Final report 2018, Immigration Research West (IRW)

In 2017, Canada resettled 1,215 Yazidis refugees who have experienced extreme violence, torture, and displacement at rates that astonished the international community. Early reports from settlement agencies in Canada reveal that the high degree of trauma Yazidis have experienced has made their resettlement and integration very difficult. The study examines the following questions: 1) what settlement services do Yazidi refugees require? Do they have access to these services? 2) what has their experience in attaining language training been like? 3) what might their job prospects be? and 4) what are their housing conditions? Available at:

https://mansomanitoba.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/YAZIDI-FINAL-FEB14.pdf

Forced into Illegality: Venezuelan Refugees and Migrants in Trinidad and Tobago – Field Report by Melanie Teff, Refugees International

Based on the fact that Trinidad and Tobago has received more than 40,000 Venezuelans but has done little to support them, this report suggests several ways that Trinidad and Tobago can improve its response to the influx of Venezuelans fleeing their country and the dire circumstances they would confront upon their return. Among those discussed are: A special regularization process, which would allow the undocumented migrants currently in the country to apply for residency and work permits. Second, a government legislation on refugees and asylum that reflects its international obligations under the Geneva Convention on the Status of Refugees and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These include commitments to provide access to public education to all children, regardless of their legal status, and access to legal work by refugees. Finally, Trinidad and Tobago should also reduce its use of immigration detention and use alternatives to detention. Available at:

https://www.refugeesinternational.org/reports/2019/1/27/forced-into-illegality-venezuelan-refugees-and-migrants-in-trinidad-and-tobago

Policy brief: Mitigating the Effects of Trauma among Young Children of Immigrants and Refugees: The Role of Early Childhood Programs, by Maki Park and Caitlin Katsiaficas (April 2019), Migration Policy Institute.

This issue brief explores the types of trauma that may affect young children in immigrant Families within the US context, what the effects of those experiences may be, and what can be done to protect children against them. Among these opportunities: promoting the systematic use of mental health screening tools that are appropriate both for young children and for use across cultures, and boosting collaboration between ECEC providers, health services, and organizations that work with immigrants to ensure that young children and their families are referred to needed services in a timely fashion. Available at:

https://www.migrationpolicy.org/research/mitigating-effects-trauma-young-children-immigrants-refugees

Kordel, S. & Weidinger, T. (2019): Onward (im)mobilties: conceptual reflections and empirical findings from lifestyle migration research and refugee studies. Die Erde – Journal of the Geographical Society of Berlin. This article firstly aims to unravel mobility processes among lifestyle migrants and refugees after arrival in Spain or Germany. Secondly, it identifies how migrants’ mobility strategies counteract sedentarist logics of the state. Empirical data show that migrants’ onward mobilities vary at length and thus blur boundaries between residential and everyday mobility. While negotiating mobility and immobility, they develop agency and learn to decide whether, when and how to be mobile or to be fixed to places and establish strategies how to deal with territorially based logics of the state. Thus, state authorities are highly interested in regulations to identify where people reside. Apart from security issues, particularly welfare states have to find solutions how to be responsible for people in a way that goes beyond territorially based registrations. In conceptual terms, results finally provide empirical evidence for a broader understanding of migration, especially considering onward mobility and forms of desired immobility. Available at: https://www.die-erde.org/index.php/die-erde/article/view/408/pdf

New Book: Üstübici, A. (2018). The Governance of International Migration: Irregular Migrants’ Access to Right to Stay in Turkey and Morocco, Amsterdam University Press. As concerns about immigration has grown within Europe in recent years, the European Union has brought pressure to bear on countries that are allegedly not sufficiently governing irregular migration with and within their borders. This book looks at that issue in Turkey and Morocco, showing how it affects migrants in these territories, and how migrant illegality has been produced by law, practiced and negotiated by the state, other civil society actors, and by migrants themselves. The author focuses on a number of different aspects of migrant illegality, such as experiences of deportation, participation in economic life, and access to health care and education, in order to reveal migrants’ strategies and the various ways they seek to legitimize their stay. Available at:
https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=fulltext&uiLanguage=en&rid=32172

Ruhs, M. (2019) Can labor immigration work for refugees?, Current Histories
The author assesses the Global Compact on Refugees’ (GCR) recommendation that high income countries should take in some refugees as labor migrants. He argues that treating refugees purely as labor migrants without any recognition of their special status will not bene?t many because refugees would need to compete for admission with other migrants from all around the world. Instead the author proposes that a more effective approach would be to design a program that is based, as much as possible, on the key features of labor immigration policies but also includes special measures for refugees. He concludes that few policy designs will need to have an explicit dual purpose, combining the objectives of labor migration and humanitarian protection. This will inevitably involve at least some trade-offs between admission for refugee-workers and compliance with some of the protection principles enshrined in international asylum and refugee norms. Available at: http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/60384/Ruhs-CH-Jan2019.pdf

Güler, A., Shevtsova, M., & Venturi, D. (Eds.). (2018). LGBTI Asylum Seekers and Refugees from a Legal and Political Perspective: Persecution, Asylum and Integration. Springer. This book addresses the ‘three moments’ in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) asylum seekers’ and refugees’ efforts to secure protection: The reasons for their flight, the Refugee Status Determination process, and their integration into the host community once they are recognized refugee status. An intersectional approach is employed so as to offer a comprehensive picture of how a host of factors beyond sexual orientation/gender identity impact LGBTI asylum seekers’ journey. It includes a selection of legal, political, psychological and historical scholarly analysis to the perspectives of the practitioners working in the field. More available (with a free preview) at: https://www.springer.com/la/book/9783319919041. Some selections available on google books her

Immigration Detention in Slovenia: Where They Call Detention a “Limitation of Movement” (February, 2019), Global detention project. As a key transit country for refugees and migrants travelling the “Balkan Route,” Slovenia witnessed a significant increase in the number of border crossings during the “refugee crisis.” Citing fears of a “humanitarian catastrophe,” the country tightened immigration controls, erected wire fencing along its border with Croatia, and introduced stringent new asylum legislation. Non-citizens have a mere three days to appeal their detention and they are obliged to pay the costs of their detention. Also, unaccompanied children and families are regularly placed in the country’s sole immigration detention centre and non-custodial alternatives to detention are rarely applied because few non-citizens are able to afford it. Read the full report at: https://www.globaldetentionproject.org/immigration-detention-slovenia-2019

Factsheet: Dadaab Movement and Intentions Monitoring: Dadaab Refugee Complex (November 2018), REACH. A survey conducted by REACH, in partnership with the Norwegian refugee council, in Dadaab refugee complex showed that a majority of the households (39%) not willing to return to Somalia mainly due to fear of conflict. This factsheet provides an overview of the third round of assessment conducted in February 2019 across the three camps of Dadaab refugee complex. More details available at:

Olliff, L (2019). Time to Reimagine Asylum, Asylum Insights

The blog argues that reimagining resettlement should mean not only increasing the number of resettlement countries and places globally, but also amplifying its (potential) protection benefits through a more considered and ongoing engagement with people who have been through this process. It is also important to acknowledge the significant ways in which communities change as borders are crossed and displaced populations continue to connect with each other and create their own solutions in the context of the significant failings of the international refugee regime to ensure effective protection. Available at:

https://www.asyluminsight.com/c-louise-olliff#.XJwYkihKhyx

Selection on the Rohingya, The New humanitarian (March 2019)

The IRIN is now “The New Humanitarian” to signal its move from UN project to independent newsroom and more clearly communicate its role in covering humanitarian crises and the response to them. The section in the link below, offers a selection of IRIN’s reporting on the deep roots of anti-Rohingya violence; the ongoing emergency in Bangladesh’s refugee camps; and the next steps for Myanmar’s rejected minority. Available at:

https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/in-depth/myanmar-rohingya-refugee-crisis-humanitarian-aid-bangladesh

 

Multimedia and Social media

Podcast: Is it Time to Stop Putting Status Determination at the Heart of the Refugee Response?

This talk disentangles misconceptions about temporary protection and considers its relationship with a resettlement response and with definitions of a refugee, with reference to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa and the Cartagena Declaration. Available at: https://soundcloud.com/refugeelawinitiative/is-it-time-to-stop-putting-status-determination-at-the-heart-of-the-refugee-response

REPORTS

Refugee Rights Europe, (2019). At the western doorstep: Highlighting the human rights violations experiences by refugees and displaced people arriving in Europe through the western Mediterranean route.

Some of you might be interested in the report from our project – launched earlier this month – exploring the experiences of Bristol Somalis with FGM-safeguarding in the city. It contains important recommendations for policy as well as the implementation of that policy, which I’m sure will resonate with experiences in other locations. It also speaks to the ways in which such policies can directly undermine a sense of social inclusion and trust (including in statutory services).

You can link to the main report here: https://research-information.bristol.ac.uk/files/187177083/Karlsen_et_al_2019_When_Safeguarding_become_Stigmatising_Final_Report.pdf

This is a link to the readable summary we’ve produced: http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/policybristol/Policy%20Report%2046%20Feb%2019%20FGM%20Safeguarding.pdf

We are in the process of producing a Somali-language version of this which I’m also happy to circulate.

We are pleased that the BMJ has picked up on this work, following our response to a recent editorial. This is a link to a toll-free version of our letter, which contains a link to the longer rapid response: http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/bmj.l915?ijkey=0BFacJWuM7LzwZj&keytype=ref

Please feel free to circulate these.

ARTICLES

The Location of Hosted Asylum Seekers in OECD Regions and Cities

Paola Proietti

Journal of Refugee Studies, fez001, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fez001

https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrs/fez001/5374745?redirectedFrom=fulltext

This document provides a comparative assessment on the location of hosted asylum seekers in 18 European countries at the level of TL3 regions and in six countries at the municipal level. The assessment is based on an ad-hoc data collection from national statistical offices and governmental agencies in charge of monitoring the hosting of asylum seekers. The analysis aims to maximize data comparability across countries by focusing on those asylum seekers who are hosted in the reception system. Results show that, on average, asylum seekers are less concentrated in urban areas than the resident population. This result is robust at different geographical scales, namely at the scale of small administrative regions (OECD TL3), at that of functional urban areas—a comparable definition of cities applied to OECD countries—and at the municipal level. In the subset of countries where information was available, the share of asylum seekers in rural areas has on average increased between 2011 and 2015. The dispersal measures implemented in several of the countries considered might have played a role in this respect.

 

What Promise Does the Global Compact on Refugees Hold for African Refugees?

Fatima Khan Cecile Sackeyfio

International Journal of Refugee Law, eez002, https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eez002

https://academic.oup.com/ijrl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/ijrl/eez002/5393442

For too long, most refugees in Africa have been dependent on the care and maintenance programmes of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Critics have justifiably described refugees in Africa as ‘languishing in camps’1 for prolonged periods and have accused UNHCR of ‘administering human misery’.2 Regrettably, this has been the case despite efforts by host States and UNHCR to provide protection. Much of the assistance provided to refugees in camps in Africa has been dehumanizing, from group status determinations to mass warehousing. It has been more about crisis management than about addressing – or even recognizing – individual needs.

 

Effect of Armed Conflict and Displacement on Women’s Social, Cultural and Economic Roles and Responsibilities in Northern Uganda

Joanne N Corbin

Journal of Refugee Studies, fez015, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/fez015

https://academic.oup.com/jrs/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jrs/fez015/5419307?redirectedFrom=fulltext

This qualitative study explored the resettlement experiences of women who were internally displaced by northern Uganda’s 21 year armed conflict with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Exploration of the ways that women’s social, cultural and economic roles and responsibilities were affected by the experiences of armed conflict and internal displacement and women’s adaptations reveal profound changes in women’s relationships with men, their connection with other women, and challenges with cultural norms. Program developers will gain examples of how conflict and displacement related changes affect women’s socio-economic relationships, land rights, and families’ health and well-being.

Exhibitions and Multimedia.

 

Archives.

“The path to colonial reckoning is through archives, not museums.”  By Patrick Gathara for Al Jazeera English. 14 March, 2019.  https://aje.io/qb22n

“Vietnamese, Lao parties enhance archival cooperation”, VietnamPlus, Vietnam News Agency. 28 March 2019. https://en.vietnamplus.vn/vietnamese-lao-parties-enhance-archival-cooperation/149085.vnp

Oral History

 

Endnotes 

Stay up to date with the latest refugee and migration trends and developments, as well as the latest LRA blogposts by subscribing to the LRA Newsletter here.

Explore previous issues of the LRA Newsletter here.

Visit the LRA Website here.

Disclaimer

The material contained in the Living Refugee Archive Newsletter has been produced and edited by Paul V. Dudman (p.v.dudman@uel.ac.uk) and archive volunteer Thushari Perera at the Refugee Archive, University of East London (UEL). The Living Refugee Archive Newsletter is moderated by Paul Dudman, UEL Archivist for the UEL Library and Learning Service. It does not necessarily reflect the views of the Archive or the University. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this message please retain this disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources.