Roundtable: The Challenging and Evolving Nature of Methodological Approaches to Research on Forced Migration

Dacia Douhaibi, York University; Rumana Hashem, University of East London; Erika Frydenlund, Old Dominion University; Shailja Sharma, DePaul University; Amadu Wire Khan, Independent researcher and refugee scholar from Sierra Leone; Jaya Dantas, Curtin University; Christa de Kock, Stellenbosch University

This roundtable discussion aims to examine the challenging and evolving nature of methodological approaches to research on forced migration. Scholars and practitioners with expertise in various methods, including traditional interview, focus group, and ethnographic fieldwork as well as more recent technical approaches such as modeling and simulation, will discuss the research needs, data sources, and changing landscape of methodological approaches brought on by current modern innovations, with consideration of the relationship between research and policy. The discussion will increase our knowledge of new methods and tools, as well as discuss the implications, both positive and negative, of certain methods in the context of forced migration research and practice.

 

One decade ago, researchers cautioned the forced migration community about methodological approaches driven by policymaking. With ever more methodological approaches available to researchers, practitioners, and policymakers, we propose to revisit discussion on the dual imperative. The dual imperative is re-emerging as a central topic in methodological research given the advancements in data collection and availability, carrying with it the potential for both increased insights into forced migration, but also the potential to leave out critical populations and phenomena from inquiry, and in particular, the human face of forced migration.

 

Data driven research is an important part of both theoretical and policy development related to forced migration. With the increasing availability of remote based data, and the decreasing availability of direct, primary data as access to important research sites is limited, we must be sure to understand the methodological implications, including the limitations of new and innovative methods over more traditional approaches. In some cases, traditional approaches may be the most appropriate way to answer the question or challenge at hand. Only through discussion with researchers and practitioners can we fully understand the scope of the data, methods, and tools available to answer the most pressing forced migration challenges and questions, including to understand the value and limitations of various approaches.

 

An important goal of the roundtable discussion will be stimulating critical discourse surrounding the rapidly changing technological environment in which refugees, researchers, and practitioners exist. Though it seems we have access to more data than ever, there are still many things we do not understand about fundamental aspects of forced migration, such as push/pull factors of particularly marginalized groups, the impact of intersections between social, political, environmental and economic crises, what constitutes appropriate case specific humanitarian response that avoids contributing to conflict, the varied routes that refugees take to their destination country, or what truly constitutes a ‘durable solution.’ What remains crucial to critically grapple with it whether with access to more of some kinds of data and advances in methodological tools, we have the ability to increase our understanding of these phenomena, or whether this data obscures important detail. Discussion of traditional and new methods and where these may lead us in the future will help us explore the nuances of this issue.

 

The questions that we seek to address, and begin to answer, include: What new, innovative methods have emerged in recent forced migration research, literature, and practice? How we can use both traditional and new methods to solve the most imminent forced migration questions of our time? What topics are prioritized by certain methodological approaches? How can we combine some approaches by taking into consideration the limitations and/or complementary nature of those methods? What new ethical dilemmas arise from changing methodological toolkits? How are old ethical dilemmas changed by new approaches?

 

Areas of methodological discussion may include:

 

• Responding to challenging research contexts using innovative, mixed, methods
• Emerging visualizations and visual tools
• Social media, web scraping, and “big data”
• Traditional qualitative approaches: ethnography, interviews, focus groups, surveys
• Innovative participatory research methods
• Ethics of various methodological approaches
• Conveying research methods in ways that support practice
• Groups missing from refugee research

 

Workshop: The Past in the Present: Orienting Forced Migration Scholarship and Practice around History

Rumana Hashem, University of East London, Chair; Amadu Wire Khan, Independent researcher and refugee scholar from Sierra Leone; Marie Godwin, University of Oxford; Shailja Sharma, DePaul University; Julie Young, Department of Geography, University of Lethbridge, Canada

 

Panel: Transitional Justice and Forced Migration: Critical Perspectives from the Global South

This panel brings together scholars working on the transitional justice and forced migration nexus from four regions/continents: Africa, Middle East, South America and South East Asia. The discussion will highlight the challenges of bridging advocacy and scholarship in the context of ongoing conflicts and peace negotiations and offer a template of guidelines concerning doing work in the Global South.

 

Nasreen Chowdhory and Shamna Hussein, University of Delhi

The reconciliation and reconstruction in Post conflict Sri Lanka: Question of Agency and Empowerment of the former LTTE female combatants

The reconciliation and reconstruction in Post conflict Sri Lanka will remain an incomplete and non-inclusive process until the issue of transitional justice to ex-female combatants of LTTE is addressed.  This warrants the analysis of socio-political and cultural framework   that motivated these women to join LTTE .Were they credited the political agency  in their militant actions to achieve the goal of ‘Tamil Eelam’ ? How did they challenge the socially prescribed gender norms by being part of the conflict? Were they able to claim the promise of empowerment and equality that they would achieve as a part of  the liberation struggle? How did these gender relations transform in the aftermath of conflict? Why should they be re-integrated to Srilankan state by utilising their expertise so as to ‘re-empower’ them? How does their narrative of Tamil nationalism fit in the larger discourse of nationalism in post war Sri Lanka?  It is vital to answer these questions as the transitional justice for these ex- LTTE female cadre  rests on deconstructing  the transformation of the gender roles that these women underwent. Their consequent rehabilitation and integration in to the Tamil society in Sri Lanka also necessitates an attempt to answer the above questions.

 

Marisa O. Ensor, Georgetown University

IDP Georgian Youth between Reintegration and Radicalization: Forced Displacement and Transitional Justice in the Caucasus

 Since Georgia’s independence in 1991, successive governments have struggled to address issues of endemic corruption, organized crime, and various disputes along its borders that resulted in significant displacement. In 2008, the Georgian government attempted to take back South Ossetia.  Russia intervened, devastating Georgia’s infrastructure and displacing 192,000 in what is regarded by some as an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Georgians living in the territory. Combined with the up to 300,000 uprooted by the 90s wars, the number of individuals internally displaced (IDPs) by conflict in Georgia total almost 500,000, a population larger than any city in the country outside of the capital. Most of them still lack permanent homes. After the 2012 parliamentary elections, there have been various attempts to address this past. These included a proposed commission on miscarriages of justice, the rehabilitation of victims of torture, and the creation of a unit for land restitution in the Office of the Prosecutor. These measures however proved to be mostly ineffective. The situation of Georgian IDPs came into focus in January 2016, when the International Criminal Court authorized an investigation into war crimes committed during the 2008 war fought in the internationally recognized territory of Georgia. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Republic of Georgia in 2016-17, this paper discusses the nexus between forced displacement and transitional Justice with a focus on the situation of youth.  The study tests the hypothesis that insufficient progress effecting the expected restoration of property, guarantees of non-recurrence, and institutional reform may lead displaced disaffected youth to espouse increasingly positive attitudes toward the use of violence for political aims.

 

Nergis Canefe, York University

Drowning by Numbers/Death and Disappearance in the Mediterranean

This paper discusses the recent surge in the number of death in the Mediterranean and Aegean refugee crossing roots and the normalization of ‘civilian casualties’ as part of a ‘dangerous journey’ scenario. It revisits the literature of states of exception and how what was once considered an outlier became a naturalized part of the denial of the right to move from the Global Southern conflict zones to centres of wealth and accumulation in the North.

 

Fabio Andres Diaz Pabon, Rhodes University and International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam

Beyond Agreements, The Necessity of Management Tools to Support Peace Agreements in the Case of Displaced Populations in Colombia

For more than 50 years, Colombia has suffered from internal conflicts between the government and different armed groups (guerillas, paramilitary forces, drug lords, private armies). Since 2014, the negotiation process between the main guerilla group (FARC) and the government has defined a broad 6-topic agenda which hopefully will lead to a peaceful end of war. A key component that must be addressed for the success of this negotiation is the development of public policies regarding the reparation of the victims of this conflict. Pabon’s paper focuses on evaluating possible tools that can be used to support the challenges related to the planning and assessment of the required resources for the implementation of a comprehensive policy towards the displaced population. He argues that the use of simulation tools and methodologies such as system dynamics can be an effective approach to learn about the effectiveness of those policies.

 

Galya Ben-Arieh, Northwestern University

The Politics of Rescue and the Ethics and Implications of the Rise in State Criminalization of Civil assistance for Refugees

Politics of migrant rescue have been playing out across Europe and in the United States. Individuals and organizations who provide food and shelter that, they say the government should be providing under constitutional and human rights law, are finding themselves in criminal courts across Europe. In the U.S. we see a similar trend in border states such as Texas and Arizona and the Trump administration attempts to criminalize individuals who harboring or facilitating unauthorized migrants. This study examines the ethics and implications of civil assistance for refugees in their passage across state borders and residence without proper documentation. While under international and national refugee law, a refugee ought to be protected for irregular entry and granted an administrative process to determine refugee status, the practices of solidarity are subject to an increasing array of criminal laws legitimized by the international laws to prevent smuggling. Legal ambiguity created by the contradiction between the humanitarian commitment to protect refugees who enter with the assistance of smugglers and the international sanctions against smugglers have necessitated a “humanitarian clause” that creates contestation and, ultimately, threatens to “disappear” civilian assistance through an increasing web of criminal laws. Through the lens of comparative constitutionalism and citizenship, the study examines these crimes of solidarity and state sanctions as acts of citizenship and a questioning of state constitutional authority as part of a broader debate about the limits of liberalism.

 

Roundtable: Supporting Emerging Migration Scholars and Practitioners

Claire Ellis, Emerging Scholars and Practitioners on Migration Issues (ESPMI) Network;  Anthea Vogl, University of Technology Sydney; Julie Young, University of Lethbridge;  Loren B. Landau,  African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand; Lisa Hartley, Centre for Human Rights Education,  Curtin University; Linda Kirk, The Australian National University; Johanna Reynolds, Managing Editor, Refuge; Linda Oucho,  Research and Data Hub, African Migration and Development Policy Centre

This roundtable brings together emerging and established practitioners and scholars of migration, as well as stakeholders, to discuss strategies that support emerging members of the migration studies community. We seek to stimulate dialogue around the challenges and best practices for: creating professional opportunities for those new to the field; encouraging spaces for communication among those with shared interests; and establishing meaningful connections between those early in their career and senior scholars and practitioners.

 

The topic of the roundtable is of particular importance as we observe increased student interest in migration issues. With over 40 migration-related academic programs globally, there is a growing student population of migration scholars seeking to interrogate the many nuances that impact mobility and migration and foster innovation in research, policy, and practice. These scholar-practitioners join the migration research and practice community with new insights, methods, and experiences to share such as new technologies, alternative sources of data, or emerging initiatives that are not widely known in the migration scholar-practitioner community. Yet often emerging scholars and practitioners have limited knowledge of how to effectively engage with and contribute to the broader community working on migration issues. The ESPMI Network provides online networking and promotional support for these early scholars. The roundtable will serve as an extension of this effort, providing space for dialogue between stakeholders and people with various experience levels to support the growth of meaningful work and professional connections, as well as potential opportunities for collaboration.

 

Areas of discussion may include:

 

• Current mentorship, publishing, and employment opportunities available to emerging scholars and practitioners
• Barriers that hinder the inclusion of emerging scholars and practitioners in migration discourses, policy development, and research innovations
• Inclusion strategies for networks and projects for emerging scholars and practitioners with lived experiences of forced migration
• Strategies to connect with stakeholders and/or established scholar-practitioners who have research needs that emerging members can provide
• Ideas about where the field of migration is headed in the next 10 years in terms of research needs, policymaker engagement, data requirements, and public outreach.

 

Panel: Between Camp and Campus: Mapping the Field of Higher Education in Refugee Protection

Andrea Kölbel, Institute for Innovation and Technology, Co-organiser: Eveliina Lyytinen, Migration Institute of Finland (MIF); Ayla Bonfiglio, Maastricht Graduate School of Governance and UNU-MERIT; Conflict and Education Learning Laboratory (CELL); Nina Weaver, Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU); Moise Dushime, SNHU/Kepler; Eugenie Manirafasha, SNHU/Kepler; Kalenga Mbonyinshuti, SNHU/Kepler; Camila Ríos Armas, Universités & Réfugié (UniR); Misty Adoniou, University of Canberra

Discussant: Linda Morrice, University of Sussex

 

The role of higher education in refugee protection is highly contested. On the one hand, access to higher education is promoted as a tool for refugee protection and integration, and as a way for refugee students and their families to become self-sustained. Various actors, including universities and policymakers, have therefore expressed their commitment to increase participation of asylum seekers and refugees in higher education. On the other hand, asylum seekers and refugees who want to access higher education are regularly confronted with numerous obstacles and forms of exclusion, partly because higher education initiatives and policies do not follow a coherent approach as regards the participation of forced migrants. This panel brings together researchers, practitioners and refugee students to spur a debate about the often divergent strategies, priorities and practices of actors involved in the provision of higher education to forced migrants. The papers discussed will use higher education as a vantage point from which to engage with conceptual debates about refugees’ resilience and choice, transitions and pathways, as well as mobilities and immobilities. In this way, we will outline a research agenda for an under-researched field in studies of forced migration with a view to understanding the role of higher education in refugee protection.

 

Understanding refugee agency and mobility patterns through higher education

The literature on refugee higher education is dominated by program evaluations, most often of universities within developed, resettlement country contexts. There are, however, a growing number of studies that examine the experiences of refugees who attempt to access and pursue tertiary education. While not the focus of these studies, they nevertheless reveal that higher education can be linked to specific displacement patterns related to educational mobility during displacement, access to resettlement and other durable solutions, as well as greater wellbeing and integration during displacement. These studies also link the attainment of higher education to refugees’ increased agency. This paper examines how refugees’ pursuit of higher education can help us understand how they express their agency in shaping their displacement patterns and accessing protection. Using Emirbayer and Mische’s (1998) concept of agency and Bakewell and Bonfiglio’s (2013) adaptation of their concept to examine mobility in conflict settings, as points of departure, this study analyzes more than 100 semi-structured interviews with Somali and Congolese refugees and migrants who are living in Kenya, Uganda, and South Africa on their education and displacement trajectories. Briefly, this paper finds that respondents expressed their agency through higher education in determining the timing of their displacement, the destination, the channels of movement, and the modes of movement.

 

The far-reaching higher education in refugee protection

This presentation will explore the role of higher education in protection by focusing on a case study of a higher education program for refugee students and their communities in Kiziba refugee camp, Rwanda. Speakers in this presentation will share findings from a recent impact evaluation that measures the indirect effects of higher education initiatives on primary and secondary educational outcomes, using data collected from surveys and UNHCR’s education partner in Kiziba refugee camp. Often higher education is overlooked in humanitarian responses that tend to prioritise primary and secondary education. This research argues for the inclusion of pathways to higher education as an important part of humanitarian response, highlighting broader indirect effects on protection and educational outcomes. This study finds that increased availability of higher education opportunities and the visibility of the program in Kiziba refugee camp has led to improvement in refugees’ belief in the value of education, thereby increasing enrollment and attendance outcomes at primary and secondary school levels. In addition, higher education and other tertiary education programs can play an important role in improving quality of teaching at primary and secondary school levels through the inclusion of teachers in higher education programs. Two of the panelists will also offer qualitative insights into the role of higher education for refugee protection and the importance of access to higher education for improved life and employment outcomes, drawing on their experiences both as refugee students in a higher education program and as former secondary school teachers within the camp.

 

NGOs filling-in the gap? Blended learning programs:A way to overcome refugees and asylum seekers barriers to access to higher education in Europe

Only 1% of refugees follow university courses, compared to 34% of young people worldwide, according to UNHCR. While we see a lack of coordinated political efforts in the integration of a rising number of refugees, how are NGOs bringing innovative solutions to this issue? Through education, civil society plays a key role in the integration of refugees in European countries. New forms of learning have appeared to improve the educational experience in refugees, including the blended learning approach, which combines online courses with traditional offline methods. In this paper, I will argue that NGOs-led initiatives to provide higher education to refugees need to be made in cooperation with public policies and state authorities in order to foster long- term solutions that truly empower refugees. I will divide the paper in three parts. Firstly, I will review existing literature on the concept of integration from the state and refugee perspective; secondly, I will show that by using technologies, NGOs can challenge the barriers refugees face when accessing higher education (tuition fees, documentation, language and enrolment capacity, UNHCR); and thirdly, based on my professional experience at Kiron Open Higher Education, I will share some of the difficulties NGOs still have in aligning with national public policies and working in cooperation with state authorities. I will conclude that NGOs innovative solutions are not enough if they are not part of a broader policy making process that include the state’s key actors in education.

 

The necessary conditions for successful transitions to higher education for refugee background students

I present the combined work of five Australian academics working across three university campuses who conducted a two year study of young refugee background students transitioning from schools to universities in urban, suburban and rural contexts in Australia. The study was conducted to investigate the low numbers of refugee students completing higher education studies in Australia, despite their high aspiration levels to complete university in their secondary school years. In short, we identified the need for schools and universities to reconceptualise transition as a holistic process which extends beyond classroom walls, and to actively build upon the resilience and assets refugee background students bring to learning. We pursued a narrative methodology enabling us to listen to their voices and thus understand the barriers, challenges and opportunities that faced them. For those who successfully made the transition, we listened to what their experiences had been. Their voices, from Afghanistan, Burma, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, and Sri Lanka provide the context for the presentation. The lessons the researchers learned about the conditions for successful transitions into higher education provide the framework for the presentation. Strategies for actively engaging in an assets-based approach are also shared.

 

Panel: Bridging the ‘evidence’ divide: Reflecting on arts and social sciences interventions in Refugee Studies

Laura Hammond, SOAS University of London; Kavita Datta & Elaine Chase

 

Panel: Exploring the complexities: the conceptual, methodological and ethical challenges of research with refugee women and refugee students in Australia

Chair: Professor Jenny Phillimore, University of Birmingham

 

At a time of unprecedented global migration, with over a million people on the move in 2015 and 2016, and with Australia’s recent commitment to resettle an additional 12,000 Syrian humanitarian entrants, contributing robust understandings of the experiences of refugees is vital. Supported by federal funding (through the Australian government’s Office for Learning & Teaching), and Healthway (the health promotion foundation of Western Australia), the research presented in this panel has significant implications for educators and policy-makers globally and across sectors through its impact on, and contributions to, practice, conceptual understandings, research methodologies and resources in the context of Refugee Women and Students from Refugee Backgrounds (SfRBs). The insights offered in this panel have emerged from multi-sited, longitudinal, research projects.

 

The three objectives for the panel are: firstly, to engage in a theoretical discussion about transition in the context of our participants, seeking to examine how the dominance of linear notions of ‘transition as induction’ poorly reflects the experiences of the participants in our study. Secondly, to offer a methodological discussion of the affordances and challenges of engaging in research with refugees as they transition into new cultural and linguistic spaces, both in terms of living in Australia and engaging in higher education. Thirdly, we will examine the ethical considerations and concerns raised through undertaking research with refugees.

 

Anita Lumbus, Curtin University

Our images and voices: Using photovoice to explore refugee women perspectives of resettlement in Western Australia.

Researchers: Professor Jaya Dantas, Anita Lumbus, Shelley Gower

Funded by Healthway (The Health Promotion Foundation of Western Australia)

Psychosocial wellbeing and mental health are key concerns in refugee populations. During resettlement, refugee women experience multiple stressors, including discrimination, gender issues, family conflict, changing family roles and lack of language proficiency, requiring extraordinary resilience and coping strategies. The main objective of this study was to use the participatory empowerment tool of photovoice to explore refugee women’s perspectives of resettlement in Perth, Western Australia (WA) and improve health and wellbeing, by discussing facilitators and barriers to successful settlement. The researchers worked in partnership with a multicultural women’s health centre in Perth’s northern suburbs. 43 refugee women took part in photovoice workshops where they presented their images and stories. In-depth interviews with 11 of these women explored their reflections on participating in the project and their settlement experiences. Analysis revealed the need for ongoing and sustained support in the initial two years of resettlement. The need for language support was significant and the importance of programs which support social connectedness was highlighted. Policy recommendations for supporting settlement of refugees especially women will be proposed.  Photos selected by the women along with their stories have resulted in an exhibition to increase community perceptions of refugee lives. This travelling exhibition banners will be displayed during the Panel Session and the ‘Photovoice’ as a participatory empowerment tool will be explored.

 

Shelley Gower, Curtin University

Reclaiming Social Capital: Transitions of refugee students into Australian Higher Education – Pathways, Pedagogies, & Practice.

Researchers: Professor Jaya Dantas, Shelley Gower

Funded by the former Australian Office of Learning and Teaching

Australian universities are receiving increasing numbers of students from refugee backgrounds, whose educational histories vary from considerable schooling to disrupted schooling due to protracted conflict. There is relatively little research that addresses the educational, health and socio-cultural experiences of the refugee students. Students from refugee backgrounds have complex needs that remain unmet. This project aimed to identify the expectations, aspirations and academic preparedness of refugee students seeking to enter undergraduate study from Intensive English Centres (IECs) based in secondary schools in Western Australia (WA), and to highlight effective support and transition pedagogies for this cohort.  We will present research findings from an Australian Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT)-funded project with students and key informants from three IECs in WA. Through analysis of focus group discussions and interviews, emergent themes have revealed refugee students are motivated and hold aspirations for further education and career development. However student concerns around lack of personal confidence, and academic language and culture, are salient. Recommendations for further research will be highlighted along with the resilience that refugee students exhibit.

 

Sally Baker, Newcastle University and University of New South Wales

Challenging dominant ‘linear’ notions of transition: what can research with students from refugee backgrounds tell us about how transition is experienced?

Researchers: Sally Baker, Evonne Irwin

Funded by the former Australian Office of Learning and Teaching

Although journeys through higher education can be challenging, students from refugee backgrounds (SfRBs) face additional difficulties, as most SfRBs come from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds, and have experienced instability, trauma and disrupted schooling. Education is fundamental to effective resettlement, leading to better employment and health outcomes; however, schools, colleges and universities often struggle to provide resources to fully support SfRBs, and fail to recognise the rich and diverse languages, cultures, knowledge and practices that refugee students possess. This paper presents findings of an OLT-funded project that explored the pathways taken and experiences of transition of SfRBs into Australian higher education.

 

Fuelling these challenges are two key issues. Firstly, the dominant discourses—tacit beliefs and assumptions—about the linearity of transition are limiting, meaning that iterative, fluid and circular experiences of transitions into and through higher education are rarely supported. Secondly, there is a critical absence of nuanced, contextualised and detailed accounts of how refugee students make their journeys from pre-university studies into, and through higher education. In particular, there is scant empirical research on how SfRBs experience the cultural and language transitions necessary for (a) adapting to the culture(s) and language(s) of the settlement country, and (b) the expectations and practices of institutions. Viewing SfRBs’ adaptations to academic language exposes inconsistencies that exist at the level of texts, tasks and practices, and in ways that language and culture are experienced by individuals. We present a workable conceptualisation of transition that can account for the trajectories of SfRBs into higher education.

 

Jaya Dantas, Curtin University

Navigating ethical considerations, implications and challenges in research with refugees.

This paper critically examines the theme of ethics in research with refugees by drawing on our research projects undertaken by three Australian universities. Several key ethical considerations and challenges will be explored, contributing to literature that has addressed ethical issues in refugee research. We will discuss international and national instruments: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, The Helsinki Declaration and the Australian National Health and Medical Research Guidelines on Human Research that frame Institutional Human Research Ethics Approval processes. The need for understanding language, translation and interpreting will be debated.

 

The four ethical principles of Autonomy (including confidentiality), Beneficence, Non-maleficence and Justice, shared by all individuals regardless of values and beliefs as ‘a common set of moral commitments, moral language, and moral issues’ will be presented. As cross-cultural issues are at the heart of refugee research, we will critique the notion of cultural relativism which holds the premise that different cultures have different codes of morality and challenges the notion that there is universal truth in ethics.

 

Strategies will be presented, focusing on (a) partnerships with stakeholders across the three research sites that allowed their knowledge of social, cultural and linguistic influences to be incorporated into the research; (b) dissemination of the findings to and with participants and the important implications for participant involvement in future research; and (c) An Ethical Reasoning Model designed to enable researchers to make conscious ethical decisions as an integral part of research and practice.

 

Panel: Gender, Violence and Psychosocial Well-Being in Humanitarian Settings

Historically, the international humanitarian community has made many assumptions about what gender, violence and psychosocial wellbeing look like in refugee and IDP settings, yet these assumptions are rarely tested against contextual realities. Questions such as, ‘What are the risk factors for negative developmental outcomes in children exposed to conflict?’ and ‘Which interventions are the most promising to prevent violence?’ remain unanswered. Recognizing these gaps, this panel will explore recent empirical evidence on gender, violence and wellbeing from Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan, Colombia, Haiti, Nigeria, Italy, and the US. The goal is to distill what the data say in each setting and how this challenges practitioners’ approach to design programs and policies for vulnerable populations. The panelists’ expertise spans violence against women, violence against children and mental health and the studies rely on a mix of both qualitative and quantitative methods. A special effort was made to foreground the voices of women and children because these groups are often marginalized in program planning and policy implementation. Successful partnerships between academics and practitioners are also highlighted.

 

Khudejha Asghar, Family Violence Specialist; Kathryn Falb, Research Advisor, International Rescue Committee

Preventing Violence Against Conflict-Affected Adolescent Girls: Findings from Ethiopia, DRC and Pakistan

Interpersonal violence is a major public health concern in humanitarian contexts, and adolescent girls are uniquely vulnerable. However, there is little evidence on effective violence prevention programs targeting this population. We therefore investigated the efficacy, feasibility and acceptability of a life skills and safe spaces program to reduce violence exposure for conflict-affected adolescent girls in three humanitarian settings: Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Pakistan. In Ethiopia and DRC, the program was evaluated via cluster-randomized controlled trials in refugee camps. The primary outcome was girls’ exposure to sexual violence. Secondary outcomes included girls’ exposure to physical and emotional violence, early marriage, and transactional sex. In Pakistan, a mixed-methods evaluation design focused on feasibility and acceptability. Primary outcomes included perceptions of program content and changes in freedom of movement, safety, self-esteem, and hope. At 12-month follow-up in Ethiopia and DRC, the intervention was not significantly associated with reduction in exposure to sexual violence, physical or emotional violence, or transactional sex. The intervention was significantly associated with improvements in supportive parenting behaviors (DRC) and improvements in girls’ feelings of safety in the home and girls’ social support networks (Ethiopia). In Pakistan, program content was perceived as acceptable and freedom of movement, safety, self-esteem and hope increased over time. While the intervention caused improvements in potential mediators on the pathway to violence reduction in DRC and Ethiopia and was feasible and acceptable in Pakistan, further research and programmatic adaptations are needed to prevent adolescent violence in humanitarian contexts.

 

Mendy Marsh, The Equality Institute; Beth Rubenstein, Columbia University

Mapping Linkages Between Humanitarian Emergencies and Household Violence in Colombia and Haiti

Humanitarian emergencies, including conflict and natural disasters, may result in changes that exacerbate women’s and children’s exposure to interpersonal violence in the household. However, the relationships between emergencies, household structure and composition, and household violence are not well-understood. In addition, because the household is generally considered a private sphere, violence between family members remains a relatively neglected topic. To address this gap in knowledge, Columbia University, Universidad de los Andes in Colombia and UNICEF conducted a qualitative study on the influence of conflict (in Colombia) and natural disasters (in Haiti) on household structures and relationships. The study was based on a photo elicitation methodology. This approach used participants’ own photos as a tool for facilitating a series of guided interviews on sensitive topics related to family and gender roles, such as household violence. In order to capture a wide range of perspectives, respondents included adult men, adult women, adolescent boys and adolescent girls. Data collection is complete, and results from preliminary analyses are expected by December 2017. Findings from this study will illuminate the extent to which the makeup of, and relationships within, households may have been affected by emergencies, and how these changes may relate to exposure to violence within the household. This learning will inform development of holistic interventions to address household and family violence in emergency settings.

 

M. Catherine Maternowska, Data, Evidence and Learning, Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children; D. Fry, University of Edinburgh, Preventing Violence in Childhood Research work at Moray House School of Education, Co-Lead Safe Inclusive Schools Network  

The Drivers of Violence Applied Research Approach: Girls on the move from Nigeria to Italy

Violence affecting children (VAC) manifests differently in every society. Unequal power dynamics operate across gender, age and other status markers creating the circumstances within which violent acts occur. Violent acts are not merely an interaction between a child and one or more other individuals, but rather a socio-ecological phenomenon. The ‘drivers’ of violence, refer to the factors at the institutional and structural levels that create the conditions in which violence is more or less likely to occur. Risk and protective factors reflect the likelihood of violence occurring due to characteristics most often measured at the individual, interpersonal and community levels.  Drawing on findings from studies on the drivers of violence in Nigeria (and Italy) and the integrated child-centred framework, this paper will address the complex interactions of drivers and risk factors behind forced migration among children in Nigeria.  The presentation will discuss  three related research and practice issues: (1) how structural determinants—often invisible forms of harm such as poverty, gender Inequality and migration work against children broadly in Nigeria, and particular in the North where Boko Haram is active; (2) how the using the Integrated Child-Centred Framework can help visualize the data and make apparent where multi-stakeholder interventions are needed; (3) how implementation that integrates these findings and addresses  INSPIRE strategies (norms and values, education and life skills and safe environments) may bring improved outcomes to children living in conflict or on the boundaries of conflict in Nigeria.

 

Mark Canavera, CPC Learning Network, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health; Sabine Rakotomalala, Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children

INSPIRE: Seven Strategies for Reducing Violence Against Children

 

INSPIRE represents a select group of seven evidence-based strategies to help countries and communities scale up prevention programs and services with the greatest potential to reduce violence against children. WHO initiated preparation of the INSPIRE package, in collaboration with the CDC, the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children, PEPFAR, Together for Girls, UNICEF, UNODC, USAID and the World Bank. The seven strategies are: Implementation and enforcement of laws; Norms and values; Safe environments; Parent and caregiver support; Income and economic strengthening; Response and support services; and Education and life skills. All seven INSPIRE strategies could be applied in settings affected by conflict or natural disaster, and the package includes several interventions shown to be effective in such situations. However, the feasibility of successfully implementing the strategies in humanitarian settings will vary. Interventions delivered through self-contained programs can be delivered in any setting. These include, for example, parenting programs, life skills training programs, and services for victims of violence. By contrast, interventions involving the enforcement of laws by functioning police and justice systems will be difficult to implement where conflict or natural disaster have destroyed or severely eroded these structures. What is lacking in humanitarian contexts is robust evidence of impact of interventions to reduce violence against children, but there are solutions and interventions that can and should be built off to end violence against children. This presentation will discuss ways to leverage INSPIRE to expand current multisectoral efforts to prevent and respond to violence against children in humanitarian settings.

 

Panel: Cooperation between scholars, practitioners and civil society actors for the coproduction of knowledge in forced migration. Five case studies in Colombia, Ecuador, Spain, Morocco and Lebanon 

María Fernández, University of London; Claudia Viviana Díaz García, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales- EHESS; Felipe Aliaga, Universidad Santo Tomás; Hafsa Afailal, Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon; Stéphanie López Villamil, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá, Colombia); Marco Romero, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá) and Consultoría para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento-CODHES (Bogotá, Colombia); Farah Salka, Anti-Racism Movement (Lebanon); Abderrahman Tlemsani, Migrants’ Human Rights (Morocco); Cristina Churruca, Institute of Human Rights of the University of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain)

PANEL PRESENTED BY THE WORKING GROUP FOR KNOWLEDGE’S CO-PRODUCTION IN FORCED MIGRATION (http://iasfm.org/working-groups/knowledges-co-production-forced-migration )

 

This panel seeks to generate a space for reflection and joint construction between scholars, practitioners and civil society actors, based on experiences of cooperation and articulation between academia and non-governmental organizations (including civil society organizations, international cooperation agencies and groups of migrants and refugees) which have been made in Colombia, Ecuador, Morocco and Lebanon. The panel addresses the theme: Civil society, new humanitarianism and citizens’ mobilization.

 

The discussion will focus on a balance of theoretical, conceptual and methodological approaches and concrete mechanisms and strategies, which have been adopted among scholars and practitioners -in Colombia, Ecuador, Morocco and Lebanon- for the co-production of knowledge in forced migration. The discussion will be enriched by analysis and experiences from scholars, practitioners and civil society actors that will assist at the panel, in order to find out good practices, concrete strategies and tools for a better articulation between academia and practitioners for the co-production of knowledge in forced migration.

 

The panelists will focus on these two main objectives:

• Analyzing, from a comparative perspective, four case studies in Colombia, Ecuador, Morocco and Lebanon on co-production of knowledge in forced migration.
• Identifying lessons learned, achievements and failures, as well as possibilities, restrictions and resistances around the legal framework, the sovereignty of the States nation and the Humanitarian system, comparing and exchanging experiences from four countries.

Chairs: Wooldy Edson Louidor, Professor at Instituto Pensar-Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia) and María Fernández, University of London (Tripoli, Lebanon)

 

1. Camila Espitia, Consejería para los Derechos Humanos y el Desplazamiento- CODHES (Colombia) and Marco Romero, Professor at Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá)

Victims of the armed conflict abroad: Case study in Colombia. The experience of Comisión Migración Forzada, Exilio y Reconciliación (CER)

 

This paper will present the experience of articulation that has been made in recent years between universities, victims of the armed conflict abroad, returnees, and civil society organizations in Colombia and international cooperation agencies in Colombia, around Comisión Migración Forzada, Exilio y Reconciliación (CER). It will analyze the mechanisms and strategies within and outside Colombian territory, by which CER has become an articulating space for all these actors to produce innovative academic reflections, which has resulted in the realization of an academic Forum in 2016 and the writing of a book (the first on the subject in the country) in 2017.

 

In this way, the CER has become the first group that has evidenced the multiple faces and edges of the reality of the victims of the Colombian armed conflict abroad, for example:

1. Legal and political difficulties for the recognition of those victims in the architecture of transitional justice and the international protection of victims (particularly in neighboring countries, such as Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica),
2. Implications of this lack of recognition for the construction of peace in Colombia;

iii.            Experiences, struggles and transnational proposals of groups of victims abroad in favor of a complete peace; such groups cover a wide range of actors: women victims’ movements, the Patriotic Union, homosexual groups and refugees, among others.

 

2. Claudia Viviana Diaz Garcia, PhD Fellow at École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris) – EHESS and Felipe Aliaga, Professor at Universidad Santo Tomás (Bogotá)

Defense of Migrants’ rights: Case study in Ecuador on the self-reflection of the NGO’s about their role

This paper will present the experience of articulation between two Colombian universities (Universidad Santo Tomás and Pontificia Universidad Javeriana) and several civil society organizations in Colombia and Ecuador on a joint research project. Scholars of both universities encourage and help those organizations to self-reflect on their role in defending the human rights of the migrant population in both South American countries.

This panel will focus on the specific case of Ecuador. It will analyze the experience of this articulation and its results in terms of co-production of knowledge, specifically on the following aspects:

1. i) Description of the organizations, in terms of their activities and histories in Ecuador;
2. ii) Importance of the migratory issue for the organizations;

iii)           Advocacy actions in favor of the rights of the migrant population;

1. iv) Philosophical or political positions on the migration issue;
2. v) Successes and difficulties in working with the migrant population, other organizations and the Ecuadorian State;
3. vi) Strategies, Expectations and prospective.

 

3. María Fernández, Humanitarian worker and student in the MA in Refugee Protection and Forced Migration Studies at the University of London

Domestic Migrant Workers’ rights: Case study in Lebanon on the strategies of their resistance

 

This paper will present the experience of the articulation between domestic migrant workers (DMWs) in Lebanon together with international and civil society organizations in the fight to defend their rights. Middle Eastern governments restrict freedom of association, but the limitations increase for DMWs. In addition, reports from local and international organizations on the work and life conditions for DMWs in Lebanon present a disturbing image of their situation, talking about violations on fundamental labour and human rights.

 

In light of this situation, DMWs in Lebanon established a union in 2015 under the umbrella of a local union, after a process led by the International Labour Organization (ILO) combining the efforts of female DMWs, local NGOs and the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), aiming at increasing the participation of DMWs in advocacy campaigns, harmonising the priorities and methods of intervention of all these organisations and adding this initiative to the global domestic workers’ movement and its struggle. Since the constitution of the union, an increasing trend in the deportation of prominent migrant activists is taking place, leading local and international human rights organisations and activists to believe that these DMWs are being deported because of their activism in Lebanon, as no accusation by their employers is found in their records.

 

The paper will present:

1. i) An analysis of the existing legal framework for DMWs in Lebanon
2. ii) Life stories that help contextualise their activism

iii)           A description of the main organizations created from the articulation of DMWs, local and international actors

1. iv) Strategies of resistance, successes and failures
2. v) The intersectionality of their fight with other fights (refugees, feminist groups, etc.)

 

4. Hafsa Afailal, Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences – University of Lisbon.

Morocco’s Migration Policy: Between Migrants’ Human Rights and Security considerations

 

In a regional post-Arab Spring context, after a significant change in the Moroccan Constitution in 2011 as a response to the strong popular mobilisation led by the youth of the 20 of February Movement, in 2013 a new migration policy sees the light as an innovative experience in the region.

 

The implication of the civil society in the start-up process of the new migratory policy, led to a new phase in its relationship with the authorities, especially for those associations working in a relatively “clandestine” manner. The follow up of this process of inclusion of the CSOs quickly showed its flaws and the limited political willingness from the Moroccan government to establish a real process of agreement at the different stages of the new migration policy.

 

This paper will analyse the selective implication of the CSOs, the persistence of raids, arbitrary detentions and the continuous negotiations with the European neighbours around the consolidation of control and readmission, as the high-risk elements conditioning the success or failure of a policy that was born after many years of resistance of the civil society.

 

This paper will analyse:

1. i) The actual legal framework related to migration and freedom of assembly (related to CSOs working in the field of migration)
2. ii) The contradiction and the resistance of the Moroccan authorities towards abandoning the security approach on migration management

iii)           The trajectory and the role played by Moroccan CSOs, as well as initiatives led by migrants themselves

 

5. Stéphanie López Villamil, Professor at Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá) and Wooldy Edson Louidor, Professor at Instituto Pensar-Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia)

Co-production of Knowledge on internally displaced persons (IDP): Case study in Colombia

This paper will contribute to define the concept of “co-production of knowledge”, through the production of a case study on IDP’s in Colombia. The armed conflict in Colombia has produced forced migration, in particular internally forced displacement, since 1960. For example, despite a peace agreement signed last November between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the phenomenon of internal displacement continues at increasing rates.

However, the Colombian State recognised the DIP until 1990 (after 30 years), due to the knowledge some civil society organisations have produced through innovative Methodologies, specialised publications, articulations with academic experts and advocacy actions, in order to make visible, measure, analyse and explain the internal displacement (its causes and effects).

The paper will present:

1. i) A definition and a characterization of the co-production of knowledge in internally forced displacement.
2. ii) An analysis of the experience of CODHES, in order to identify lessons learned, achievements and failures for the co-production of knowledge.

 

Roundtable: Bridging Forced Migration Research to Policy and Practice

Krystyna Wojnarowicz (Chair), Emerging Scholars and Practitioners on Migration Issues (ESPMI) Network; Linda Oucho, Research and Data Hub, African Migration and Development Policy Centre; Kuda Vanyoro, African Centre for Migration & Society, University of the Witwatersrand; Jayantha Ramasubramanyam, Carleton University; Dacia Douhaibi, York University; Petra Molnar, Refugee Lawyer, University of Toronto Faculty of Law 

 

Discussants:

Jay Shastri, Carleton University; Shreya Sen, University of Calcutta, ESPMI Network;

Zean Dunbar, ESPMI, Petra Molnar, Refugee Advocate – Toronto; ESPMI Network

 

The Bridging Forced Migration Research with Policy and Practice roundtable will interrogate how research can be used more robustly to inform policies and practices that improve the conditions of the displaced. If the ethics of forced migration research is to make a positive contribution in the lives of forced migrants, how can we better achieve this objective?

 

Although forced migration research has long been concerned with the elements and implications of refugee policy, our understanding of the process that leads to these policies at the global level, and the factors affecting practice at the local level is limited. As such, how can a stronger understanding of the process of policy-making and implementation better help migration researcher effectively engage with policy and policymakers? Furthermore, refugee policy is one among many factors influencing protection outcomes at  local, national and global levels. As such, how can we develop more holistic approaches in refugee studies that effectively inform policy and practice ? How can we localize and diversify refugee policy studies? 

 

Secondly, the roundtable will revisit the debate between policy-relevant research and academic soundness. Should the goal of our research be activist in orientation and rigorous in knowledge production? Scholars have expressed concern with the unintended consequences of policy relevant research, which privilege the world views, categories and paradigms of policy makers and limits researchers in terms of the questions posed, methodologies used, and analysis adopted. As such, what constitutes relevance to policy? How can policy irrelevant research produce new knowledge on peoples and processes? How can we better bridge the tension between scholarly and practical impact?

 

Lastly, the roundtable will discuss practical ways in which researchers can engage and affect policy. How can researchers produce knowledge and mobilize it in a way that affects change? How can research be more accessible and understandable for policy-makers and practitioners? Where should scholars direct their activism?  What are realistic expectations we should have of research in influencing policy?

 

 Specific areas for discussion:

• The responsibility of researchers to the academic world and world outside university
• Policy relevant research vs. challenging dominant paradigms
• Categories, labelling, stereotypes and exclusion
• Areas for directing advocacy- local and global actors
• Refugee agency in influencing policy and practice

 

 

Research & its Dissemination

 

Edmund Hamann, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Loukia Sarroub, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The Educational Work Related to Forced Migration

As the foundational premises of IASFM affirm, there is much scholarly work to be done to better understand the circumstance of forced migrants in sending regions, receiving regions, and in transit. Similarly, it is important to capture the perspectives of those engaged in various practices to support/protect forced migrants.  However, it is the claim here that there is a third, less-attended-to task that merits further explication and development: education and migration. One part of this is a popular education task: How do and how should the findings of the scholars associated with IASFM (and other scholars of migration) get shared with the larger public? How does our collective knowledge as scholars and practitioners circulate and become meaningful? The second part of this task relates to the formal educational services and infrastructures that intersect with forced migration. We can ask how ready are schools for forced migrants? Is enrollment easy or difficult? How do answers vary if we are discussing refugees versus those who are being trafficked? If child migrants move with parents/guardians or are unaccompanied? Ultimately, this paper describes the development of a new course, called ‘Education and Migration’, that assembles information related to these questions. While describing a course may same modest, we argue that it allows for multiple subthemes to be juxtaposed and a range of readings to be considered, while taking on perhaps the weightiest question our interdisciplinary field faces: How do others learn/apply what we have learned/discovered/know about forced migrants, particularly those who are school age?

 

Cory Rodgers, Keble College, University of Oxford

The Uses and Abuses of the “Host Community” Label in Kakuma, Kenya

 

Mona Hossaini, Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University (ACKU), Razia Rezaie, ACKU

The Challenges of Conducting Qualitative Research on Forced Migration in a Country in Conflict: A case study of Afghanistan

Afghanistan has been in conflict for almost forty years, and during that period has been one of the main refugee and IDP producing countries. Inevitably, it has also been the focus of research into forced migration. During these years, there were only a handful of studies conducted inside Afghanistan (Monsutti 2005, 2009; Harpviken 2009), most work was done on Afghan refugees in Pakistan and or Iran.

 

More recently, there has been a resurgence of research inside Afghanistan, but this is frequently quantitative and applied and carried out by local and international research consultancies for Government departments and or international agencies. These research projects are led by international scholars, who employ Afghans mostly as data collectors.

However, given that the security situation is unlikely to improve, it is now more important than ever that research into the situation of Afghan forced migrants is conducted by Afghan researchers with the necessary skills and experiences. We have been engaged in a longitudinal study of 18 families, investigating their plans, hopes and fears for the future, and whether or not those plans include migration.

 

In this paper, we discuss the challenges facing young, educated women from a particular ethnicity working with families from different ethnic groups, in very insecure conditions, and how to overcome them. We consider the ethical and emotional challenges of working with vulnerable research subjects, our responsibilities to our subjects and ourselves.

 

Panel: Changes in the Brazilian Refugee and Forced Migrants Law and Policy for the 21st Century

Chair: Andrea Pacheco Pacifico, Paraiba State University; Discussant: Eduardo Faerstein, State University of Rio de Janeiro

 

Under the Reflective Praxis thematic, this panel aims at discussing Refugee and Environmentally Displaced Persons (EDPs) Law and Policy changes in Brazil as a result of the 2017 New Migration Law, which, along with the 1997 Refugee Law, seems to bring a Human Rights Approach to the protection of refugees and forced migrants in Brazil. On one hand, the former 1980 Foreigner´s Statute (that is, the former Migration Law) was created during the Brazilian dictatorship and saw the immigrant in Brazil as a threaten to the State, that is, criminalising migration and going against the 1988 Brazilian Constitution with its Human Rights approach. On the other hand, the 1997 Refugee Law, could fill some gaps in the Brazilian Legal Order to protect refugees in a better way, enlarging the refugee´s definition to include, for instance, those persons fleeing from human rights violations. However, new categories of migrants have arrived in Brazil since then, such as Haitians fleeing from the 2010 Earthquake and being unprotected by both regimes. Hence, this panel will discuss the role of state and non-state actors in assisting refugees and EDPs in different needs in Brazil, particularly after the changes made in the 1997 Refugee Law, which created the Brazilian Refugee Regime, and the new 2017 Migration Law, which provides protection for EDPs and many rights to other migrants in the country.

 

Andrea Pacheco Pacifico, Paraiba State University;l Danielle Annoni, Federal University of Santa Catarina and Federal University of Parana

The Brazilian Hybrid Regime of Refugees and Forced Migrants´ Human Rights Protection

Brazil has had a long history of hosting forced migrants and refugees. Before the military dictatorship, Brazil opened offices in Europe to bring refugees from the WW II and, during it, Caritas assisted many asylum seekers and refugees to the integration process. The 1988 Brazilian Constitution brought a Human Rights approach to foreigners living in the country, no matter their status. In 1997, the Brazilian Refugee Regime was created, becoming an example of protection for the Latin America and the Caribbean Basin. However, the Brazilian Migration Regime dated from the 80s, when the dictatorship was in power and securitisation of migration along with its criminalisation was the order of the day. At the beginning of this 21st Century, new categories of migrants and displaced persons started to come to Brazil, such as Haitians and Venezuelans. In these cases, the National Council of Immigration issued resolutions to give Permanent Visa for Humanitarian Purposes. However, the Brazilian Regime remained obsolete. Only in 2017, after public dialogues among state and non-state actors, a new Migration Law was published, based on a Human Rights Approach. It seems that Brazil will again be an example for Latin American region regarding the protection of refuges, non-convention refugees, and migrants in general, as the new Brazilian Regime has stretching the International Regime to adapt it at local implementation level (BETTS 2009). This article discusses its effects in the protection of refugees and environmentally displaced persons after the 2017 Migration Law and the perspectives for the near future.

 

Melissa Martins Casagrande, Federal University of Parana and Positivo University

Residency Visa on Humanitarian Grounds: an analysis and critique of the Brazilian practice

Abstract: This paper analyses the implementation, on an exceptional basis, of residency visas in Brazil granted on humanitarian grounds. In October 2012, by means of an executive order, Brazil recognized the right of permanent residency for a period of five years to Haitian nationals. In March 2017, through another executive order of similar nature, Brazil extended the right of permanent residency to Venezuelans for a period of two years. An analysis and critique of the theoretical framework as well as the programmatic resolutions and legal and political tools that guarantee the protection of vulnerable migrants in Brazil is proposed. The paper argues that the Haitian and Venezuelan migration trends, prompted by protracted humanitarian crises exacerbated by a rapid-onset natural disaster in the Haitian case, and deep political and economic turmoil in the Venezuelan case, have motivated the creation and repeated implementation of a new migration category/status in Brazil: the permanent residency on humanitarian grounds. The pros and cons of a migratory policy implemented on the basis of executive orders and the fragility of protection mechanisms it entails is scrutinized in light of the new Brazilian migration legislative framework enacted in May 2017. The paper also addresses the cause-effect phenomenon of the issuance of executive orders granting residency visas on humanitarian grounds following a spike in refugee status claims from a considerable number of persons of a given nationality that do not fully meet the criteria for refugee status but have, nonetheless, been displaced by circumstances of massive human rights violations.

 

Roundtable: Lives in the Balance: Conversations on Reflective Research and Practice in Information Provision and Information Needs of Refugees and Asylum Seekers

Natalia Bowdoin, University of South Carolina Aiken; Karen Fisher, University of Washington iSchool; Ashanti White Jackson, California Institute of Integral Studies; Julie Robinson, Kansas City Public Library

Refugees and asylum seekers have unique and challenging information needs, whether in the camps, on the move, facing legal bureaucracies, or navigating their new resettlement countries. Simultaneously, information about refugees and asylum seekers is often confusing, misleading, or incorrect, leading to increased political rhetoric, social tensions, and sometimes violence. This roundtable brings together information researchers and practitioners who have worked extensively with refugees or asylum seekers from Syria, Central African Republic (CAR), Congo, Somalia, South Sudan, Burma, and Southeast Asia. We will be discussing the lived experiences of these forced migrants, how they make sense of the information landscape, how they navigate language barriers during resettlement, the role of support networks, the role of libraries and other information providers and services, and the informal social settings that provide “information grounds” for crucial information survival needs. We will also be discussing the role of UN agencies in support of these information needs and practices, and examine the ways gender, race, or ethnicity intersect as they relate to information behavior and practices. Through this roundtable setting, we hope to have a participatory dialogue with audience members about strategies and possibilities for increased information provision and support for refugees and asylum seekers whether in their resettlement countries or their countries of transit. We also seek to explore the ways that information workers can influence the information environment about these populations in ways that promote dialogue rather than denigration or derision.

 

Roundtable: New Dissemination Practices & Public Engagement in Forced Migration Research

Paul Dudman, Emerging Scholars and Practitioners On Migration Issues (ESPMI) Network Discussants:

Clara Sandelind, Talking Migration, University of Sheffield; Bani Gill,  University of Copenhagen, Asha Siad, Documentary filmmaker, Global Affairs Canada; Marie Godin, Oxford Department of International Development

The purpose of the roundtable on New Dissemination Practices and Public Engagement in Forced Migration Research is to bring together both established and emerging scholars and practitioners interested in interrogating current methods of dissemination and public engagement utilized by migration researchers and practitioners, and discuss new opportunities for effective knowledge transfer. The roundtable will outline new or underutilized methods of dissemination and engagement such as podcasting, social media, art, film, and editorials.

 

Research has shown the most academic articles go uncited, which raises fundamental questions on the effectiveness of refugee and migration research in engaging with wider discourses. In particular, given ongoing divisive media stereotyping and political rhetoric on these issues, what roles do migration researchers have in challenging inaccurate or biased public discourse on forced migration? Further, this roundtable aims to investigate the ethical implications of disseminating research through new media channels, such as social media platforms, that can distort, amplify or silence the realities of forced migration issues. Other questions that this roundtable seeks to address include: What is the disconnect between current methods of forced migration research dissemination and public awareness of forced migration issues? What are the barriers faced by early career migration researchers in accessing effective dissemination practices? How is new media (websites, mobile apps, social media) currently utilized by migration researchers and what is the potential for innovation? What tools or frameworks can be utilized, both in the academic and policy spheres, to actively and positively engage with the communities and stakeholders they are researching?

 

Roundtable: Navigating Legal Aid in Asylum Procedures: Comparative Experiences and Practical Challenges in Four European Countries (Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom)

Nula Frei, Institute of European Law, University of Fribourg, Switzerland;  Constantin (Tino) Hruschka, Max Planck Institute of Social Law and Social Policy, Munich, Germany; Bonny Ling, Centre for Human Rights Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland  

 

Law & Policy

 

Leila Zhdanova, Civic Organisation “DESYATE KVITNYA”

Lost in translation: who is in need of international protection today?

The proposed paper explores the development of the definition of “refugee” and the mandate of the UNHCR, as a response to the recent humanitarian crises and human rights situation in different parts of the world.  Today, the word “refugee” has a much wider meaning than the one stipulated by the 1951 Refugee Convention, and those falling within this definition face with much more obstacles than conventional refugees over than 50 years ago. The challenges we meet in 21st century proves that the issue could not be resolved by the same means as before. The research studies the increasing role of governments, local self-governance and civil society actors during the mass influx of refugees or internally displaced persons and prospective for the transformation of the UNHCR and its mandate. It also analyses the evolution of the international protection instruments enshrined in international and regional treaties, soft law, EU regulations, as well as national legal frameworks and practices and difficulties associated with its understanding by persons of concern, lawyers and state officials.  Its findings call for a closer examination of the situation of today’s forced migrants, their legal status and actual situation. It stresses on the importance of promoting good administration, establishing effective referral mechanisms and all-inclusive service providers for ensuring the effective protection of forced migrants.

 

Nicole Hoellerer, University of Exeter and Daniel Fisher, University of Exeter

“Fair” and “consistent” asylum adjudication? A critical study of legal processes in the Common European Asylum System

In 2013 the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) was launched to standardise the procedures of asylum determination in Europe. In line with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (Article 47), CEAS aims to guarantee the right to a fair asylum hearing and trial, which should be consistent throughout the EU. But as yet no sustained multi-methodological assessment of the claims of consistency inherent to the CEAS has been carried out. An inter-disciplinary team at the University of Exeter have launched ASYFAIR – a project that offers the opportunity to assess progress towards harmonisation of asylum determination processes in Europe, and provides a new conceptual framework with which to approach the dilemmas and risks of inconsistency in bureaucratic and legal practices concerning asylum adjudication.

 

The paper presents preliminary data of this multi-sited project, to demonstrate that asylum determination processes are fraught with political controversy and uncertainty, and promises to debunk the myths surrounding the possibility of fair and consistent border controls and legal processes in Europe and elsewhere. The presented data is likely to be of interest to academic communities like geographers, legal and border scholars, and social scientists, as well as to policy makers and activists working in border control and asylum adjudication settings, as it provides an innovative lens through which to critique and inform policy and legislation during a crucial period of consolidation of the asylum system and border controls in Europe.

 

Margarita Fourer, Danube University Krems

Transferability of planned relocation practices: analysis of industry resettlement, environmental relocation and asylum seeker transfer agreements

Three of the fields involved the relocation and/or resettlement of populations are industry (eg, mining) resettlement, planned relocation due to environmental disasters (eg, floods) or slow-onset events (eg, rising sea levels) and transfer agreements (eg, Australia’s transfer of asylum seekers arriving irregularly by boat for processing and resettlement to Nauru or Papua New Guinea). The process of relocation and/or resettlement involves various actors: the relocating countries and/or companies, intermediaries (eg, international investment institutions (IFIs), or United Nations organisations) and receiving countries or communities.

 

All three fields relocate/resettle populations – who are a directly affected group – with varying degrees of consultation or agency (from guaranteed in environmentally-induced relocation to none in transfer agreements). Increased human rights protections of the affected populations are emerging. In industry resettlement, IFIs have introduced guidelines, eg the 2012 “Performance Standard 5: Land Acquisition and Involuntary Resettlement”, which are nonetheless facing issues of enforcement, including by the drafting IFIs. In environmentally-induced relocation, UNHCR published “Toolbox on Planned Relocation” in 2017, and the environmentally affected State of Fiji is developing its own “Relocation Guidelines”. Transfer agreements are limited to the 2013 UNHCR “Guidance Note on bilateral and/or multilateral transfer arrangements of asylum-seekers”.

 

By using a comparative methodology, putting into perspective recent developments, best practices and challenges, the paper hopes to find areas of commonality and equivalency between the three fields, intending to identify lessons industry resettlement and environmentally-induced relocation can learn from each other, and teach to the field of transfer agreements, for greater protection of the affected populations.

 

Challenges of Adaptation & Integration

Francisco Martin Ruiz, Complutense University of Madrid

Needed adaptation and inevitable integration of asylum seekers in Switzerland within a context of accelerated bureaucratisation

Switzerland has been testing since 2014 a fast-track asylum system at a new federal asylum centre in Zurich for over 300 applicants, as part of the restructuring of the Swiss asylum system approved by referendum in 2016, which also includes the free allocation of lawyers and legal advisors.

Newly arrived asylum seekers at the centre in Zurich are not only confronted with a turning point in their lives – the decision on their asylum claim will be taken within 140 days – but with the inevitable contradictions of sojourning at a place where strong organisational structures and individual agency interact. They find themselves in a kind of no man’s land: single persons, families and unaccompanied minors from very different cultural and linguistic backgrounds must be guided by the need for adaptation, beginning with coping with their own expectations about the living conditions and house rules. At the same time, the question of integration is, in an official sense, pushed into the background until the decision on the asylum claim is taken and the person is eventually transferred to a canton. However, in practice, it is an ongoing challenge to negate integration under the guise of accelerated bureaucratisation, while daily routines on any asylum centre imply subtle and not so subtle constant readjustments to local norms. In such a not-to-be-resolved contradiction, there are also several criteria to be explored that clearly draw a line between who belongs to Europe and who does not, who is worthy to be integrated and who is not.     

 

Vasiliki Mylona, National Technical University of Athens

The territorialisation of solidarity. Integration of refugees and asylum seekers living in self-orgnised communities in Athens

Migration and population mobility are fundamental parts of cities’ development worldwide. From the “Black Belt” in Chicago and the ethnic enclaves in the neighborhoods of Manhattan, to the Parisian “banlieues”, the urban environment seems to develop mechanisms that either achieve a regular assimilation of the migrants, or they fail and consequently, they tend to isolate the incoming population. Hence, the spatial and social arrangement of the cities is transformed and rearranged through the high ethnic and cultural diversity along with the difficulties that arise in cities to respond to these challenges (Castles and Miller, 2003). If we consider that space interacts with the society and it includes and is included to the social structure (Poulatzas, 1978, Harvey, 1973, Lefevbre, 1991), then we can assume that spatial integrations is connected to the composition of the local society, the characteristics of the incoming population and the national and local policies.

 

Nowadays, Syria’s war has spawned 4.8 million refugees in neighboring countries with hundreds of thousands in Europe. In order to escape the violence of the war and the impacts of the political crisis in the Middle East and Africa, many refugees are crossing the sea to seek asylum. Hence, Europe has and still is receiving the highest influx of refugees since World War II and the old continent confronts not only a shock on moral compasses, but also a hit on the social welfare. After seven years of economic crisis, Europe is under pressure providing effective and qualitative health care, housing or education to its own population. Especially, in the transit countries such as Greece and Italy, the economic crisis appends an extra obstacle to handling the refugees’ vast flows.

 

Greece, in particular, is the gate of Europe and the first country where the majority of refugees arrives. In addition, the European legislation indicates the transit countries as the responsible Member States for the examination of applications from asylum seekers seeking international protection. These two aspects have created a suffocating situation, mostly in the east and north borders of Greece and in Athens. As a response to this situation, refugees and asylum seekers, alongside with natives, have created self-organised communities in order to fulfill their fundamental needs (accommodation, health care, education, etc.). For the last two years, abandoned building in the center of Athens have been occupied and have been transformed into independent communities with their own approach on functioning and interacting with the local society, based on solidarity and self-organisation. At the same time, many other self-organised communities have been activated in order to support the housing squats by providing either food and medical supplies or any other kind of technical support.

 

In my research, I look at this network of self-organised communities and I investigate their impact on the city’s formation as well as on the local society. In order to achieve these research goals, the research draws from a wide range of disciplines including urban and human geography, sociology, anthropology and ethnographical approaches, urban planning and housing policy.