Panel: Cross-regional Dialogues on Refugee Integration – Part One

Organisers: Marcia Vera-Espinoza, University of Sheffield; Jenny Phillimore, University of Birmingham

Tina Magazzin, UNESCO (Harare SHS Unit)/ Human Rights Institute (University of Deusto)

Integration as an essentially contested concept: Zimbabwe’s management of refugees at the margins

Integration is a term that can fittingly be included in what W. B. Gallie labeled as “essentially contested concepts” (Gallie 1956). Essentially contested concepts are those notions “the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users” (Gallie, 1956, 169). Gallie warned that the indetermination suffered by this kind of concepts cannot be settled by appeal to linguistics or logic, since it is caused by a dispute, a substantive disagreement on the reasons to attribute any given meaning to the concept. Building on fieldwork in Harare (Migrants at the Margins project and Tongorara refugee camp), this paper analyses how refugee integration is used in radically different ways in the case of Zimbabwe: on the one hand, the Tongorara refugee camp (south from Harare) had gone from hosting 3,000 to approximately 10,000 refugees in 2017 with an influx of Mozambican refugees. On the other hand, an estimated 3.4 millions Zimbabweans have fled the country over the past decades and hold refugee status mostly in South Africa, Australia and the United Kingdom.

Marcia Vera Espinoza, University of Sheffield

Understanding ‘unsettlement’ as part of refugee integration: experiences from Chile and Brazil

Refugee integration has been largely discussed as a multidimensional ‘two-way’ process, placing the dynamics of integration within the nation-state by identifying two main broad actors: ‘them’ (the refugees) and ‘us’ (the receiving society). This paper argues that it is necessary to extend the conceptualisation of integration beyond the multiple dimensions identified by the literature to the multiple scales and spaces – and therefore the multiple actors, structures, negotiations and power relationships – embedded in the integration experience. By expanding our understanding about integration, this can be used to a better effect as an ‘umbrella term’, as suggested by Castles et al (2002), to explore the micro and macro dynamics and the multiplicity of linkages, actors, scales and dimensions that encompasses the refugee experience. In this context, the paper introduces the notion of ‘unsettlement’ to the analysis of refugees’ integration experiences. I suggest that unsettlement can be understood as the condition by which refugees’ feelings of uncertainty and instability extend and normalise, from the displacement, into de the settlement experience. Drawing from 80 semi-structured interviews with Colombian and Palestinian resettled refugees in Chile and Brazil, as well as other relevant decision-makers in each country, the paper argues that understanding refugees’ experiences of integration as ‘unsettled’ (as a result of uncertainty, precarity and translocality, as well as agency), it is possible to understand refugee integration as a dynamic and fluid process and as a constant negotiation, and not only as a target or necessarily as the end of the displacement’s consequences.

Panel: Cross-regional Dialogues on Refugee Integration – Part Two 

Panel Co-organisers: Marcia Vera-Espinoza, University of Sheffield; Jenny Phillimore, University of Birmingham

Glenda Santana de Andrade, CRESPPA-GTM (Université Paris 8) and Institut Convergences MIGRATIONS

(Non)Fitting-in: Social dynamics of Syrian Refugees in urban spaces in Turkey

Whenever refugees arrive, there are pertinent questions about how they will or not fit to the new society. These processes have been studied before through different examples, primarily as forms of acculturation and assimilation. More recently, notably in the humanitarian field, integration has been used as the key world to describe this process, as programs to promote integration are being developed and implemented by different organisations in the host communities. As the other two terms, « integration » has also been criticized, although yet very used, as unidirectional. Recognizing such weakness of these terms, but without miss-considering the importance of the refugee experience in exile, notably the process of adapting in the new society, this paper proposes to analyse how Syrians are “being made” into people who could fit into the Turkish society (considered to be the biggest host community in the world nowadays); and how by their own agency they are engaging themselves in “making it” a place for themselves in the new location, without neglecting the violence, whether symbolic or not, that they may suffer in this process, and what does it represent to them. The urban refugee experience of (non)fitting-in will be the object of this paper, by analyzing the social dynamics of this process, based on the Turkish exemple. In order to do so, this paper will be based on a series of semi-directive interviews with Syrian refugees in urban spaces in Turkey. The interviews will be conducted in several cities, with different profiles of Syrians. This methodology will be complemented by a more anthropological / ethnological approach ; in particular, accompanying the work of international organizations and local NGOs; observing spaces; making visits to neighborhoods, houses of families; engaging in discussions and conversations around an ordinary tea.

Megan Denise Smith, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Yara Chehwane, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)

Ripe for the picking: social tensions and legal exclusion as enablers for the exploitation of Syrian refugees in Lebanon – a case for the multiagency approach

Despite the 2011 adoption of a law criminalising trafficking in human beings, forced labour and sex trafficking in Lebanon continue to present a serious risk to all vulnerable groups, especially migrants and refugees. Smuggling has been on the rise since the closure of the Syrian–Lebanese border in 2015. Irregular migrants and Syrian refugees are confronted with numerous integration barriers, mainly restricted legal pathways, costly residency procedures, abusive sponsorship systems and a lack of livelihood opportunities. This has had a tangible effect on social cohesion, increasing tension between Lebanese and Syrian communities amidst an already deteriorating social environment and a complicated political relationship. It has also resulted in a rise in negative coping mechanisms, such as child labour and early marriage. This precarity has especially exacerbated the protection environment for unaccompanied and separated children. Based on primary research findings and protection monitoring data, this presentation evaluates the relationship between legal barriers, displacement and trafficking in Lebanon. Lastly, it will provide recommendations and lessons learned from the OSCE’s ‘Combatting Trafficking in Human Beings along Mixed Migration Routes’ training simulation. This will facilitate a normative and interactive platform for discussion on NGO-state coordination, rights-based approaches and institution building in anti-trafficking efforts.

Steffen Fischer, Graduate School of Architecture (GSA), University of Johannesburg

The Representation of Migrants: An Illustration of Some Uses for Architectural Drawings in the Communication of Relationships in Migratory Communities

Johannesburg is Southern Africa’s largest city for cross-regional migration; a place of settlement potential where 70 000 asylum seekers arrive annually to find better opportunities. Refugees are integral to the functioning of the city, contributing significantly to local economies. Recently Johannesburg has endured a wave of xenophobic attacks which has compromised refugees freedom within the city. The stance of Johannesburg’s Mayor Herman Mashaba is that “foreigners… are not the responsibility of the city”; this reflects the currently unsuccessful top-down approach to refugee integration. This complexity, coupled with a potential new bill by South African legislature, threatens the treatment and safety of refugees thus exacerbating their volatile presence. In response, this paper proposes an alternative integration of refugees through a medium of architectural representation at a grassroots level. Design acts as a tool for understanding current relationship dynamics and unpacks organisational and social structures. This provides a framework for human interaction, which investigates better integration in the city for refugees through programmes as an alternative solution, whilst defining the principles of social and political identities. The design is a conceptual space for research that generates and proposes new structures for the functioning of society.

Panel: Reimagining Refugee Response

Chair: Dorian Brown Crosby, Spelman College

In response to the IASFM 17 call for proposals, this panel addresses Theme 3: Changing Durable Solutions. Both the number of forcibly displaced persons globally and the length of time they are spending in exile follow increasing trends in recent years. This collection of studies in this panel examines the refugee journey from multiple angles: flight, reception, encampment, and resettlement. Each reflects on how response to refugee crises results in enduring impacts to refugees’ ability to attain a durable solution. Through critical examination and dialogue centered around the various stages in the refugee journey, the panel will explore what alternative durable solutions might look like in an environment of increased flows and enduring exile.

Changes to our understanding of durable solutions must occur at the early stages of the refugee journey—flight and reception—in order to recognize that the way in which we initially confront humanitarian crisis deeply informs the pathways available for refugees to pursue any solutions in the future. In this panel, de Kock and van Vuuren propose a model that helps predict where forced migrants will go, considering variability in the types of migrants in a population. They present a method for visualizing the global effects of individuals’ decisions about when and where to flee, focusing on the case of Syrian refugees. Haaland and Wallevik further this picture by arguing that effective refugee reception requires more attention to the Citizen Initiatives that emerge in response to refugee crisis, as occurred recently in Lesbos, Greece in 2015.

When response leads to containment policies, refugees spend decades waiting in protracted situations. As Frydenlund and Padilla suggest, food insecurity in long-term camp situations can further entrench protraction. Chronic health conditions may ultimately impact refugees’ ability to maintain employment upon return, local integration, or resettlement abroad, challenging the viability of current durable solutions. Bah carries the narrative of the panel into one of the durable solutions: resettlement. In her study, she challenges the prevailing policy understanding that resettlement is the end of the refugee journey. Bah describes the struggles of African refugees attempting to integrate into communities where they must confront historic race relations in the United States and the impact on resources and services that carries.

Comprised of four papers, this panel presents a complementary set of methodological approaches and diversity of geographical representation in terms of home institutions and areas of research. The panel also presents two graduate student-led papers and two established groups of researchers. Through this diversity of participation, we will engage in dialogue—rooted both in the studies and in the interconnectedness between them—by tracing the refugee experience from flight to resettlement in order to reimagine durable solutions in the changing global political climate.

Christa de Kock and BJ van Vuuren, Stellenbosch University, South Africa

Simulating the geographical flow of refugees using agent-based modeling

In the past decade, numerous calamities within the international community have led to phrases such as ‘refugee’ and ‘asylum seeker’ becoming commonplace in public discourse. In particular, conflict-induced forced displacement and the various challenges it creates has received notable attention. The challenge posed by the sudden migration of large groups of people lies in the ability to accurately portray and predict the scale and dynamics of such movement, since associated data pertaining to the migration are largely incomplete or untrustworthy. Currently, there exists a significant lack of data required to perform strategic, long-term planning with respect to both current and future crisis situations. One of the specific challenges faced by researchers and humanitarian support organisations addressing forced displacement is predicting the flight patterns of people. The ability to predict refugee movement is a critical input when planning logistics supporting those fleeing violence and persecution. Within this project, an agent-based model which employs real-world data detailing the geographic flow of Syrian refugees has been developed. This model seeks to better understand why, when, and where these displaced individuals may flee. It is anticipated that the model may assist in the planning and logistic strategies pertaining to facilities and resources required to accommodate incoming refugees in different areas, as well as predicting the population fluctuations in affected areas during times of conflict, natural disaster, or other refugee-causing events.

Hanne Haaland and Hege Wallevik, University of Agder

Beyond emergency management? Understanding the role of Citizen Initiatives during crisis 

During later years, what has been referred to as Citizen Initiatives for Global Solidarity have grown considerably in numbers across Europe (Pollet et al. 2014). Much research has been carried out on such citizen initiatives in a development context, especially in The Netherlands and Belgium (see for example Kingsbergen and Schulpen, 2011, 2016, Develtere 2012). Lately, CIs have also got attention as they are responding to humanitarian crisis across the world, such as the refugee crisis in 2015. In many European countries, citizens have been involved heavily in catering for incoming refugees, putting up loosely organised voluntary based initiatives such as the Refugee Welcome initiatives. At the same time CIs popped up responding to needs in hot spots, as was the case in Lesvos, Greece. In this paper, we discuss the role of CIs during crisis with examples from Greece and Norway. We argue that to meet the challenges of large scale population movements, a first step would be to understand and acknowledge the key role that CIs play in their immediate response to needs as well as their engagement over time during a crisis. Understanding properly the doings of CIs would facilitate co-operation and proper planning that enables a move from emergency and crisis management to long-term policy responses to large population movements.

Erika Frydenlund and Jose Padilla, Old Dominion University

Health Dynamics in Protracted Refugee Situations

Forced migrants—refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced, and stateless persons—would collectively constitute the 25th largest country in the world, according to UN estimates. Seventy percent of the 22.5 million refugees globally spend on average longer than 20 years without a long-term ‘durable solution’ to their situation. During that protracted time in limbo, reliance on limited food diversity and limited access to economic opportunities contributes to a chronic diseases that follow refugees even if a durable solution becomes available. This project collects primary data among protracted refugee situations in Rwanda (20+ years) and Turkey (5+ years) to develop models & simulations of health consequences of protraction derived from ongoing food insecurity and insufficient medical assistance. We focus specifically on chronic conditions, such as a childhood protein deficiency, kwashiorkor, that have direct implications for the success of the UNHCR’s ‘durable solutions’ strategies to resolve refugee situations. Examining health is one key component for understanding how situations become protracted, specifically how conditions in exile shape options for refugees to engage in and reintegrate into society after forced displacement. The complex nature of many actors and factors related to food distribution, use, and medical assistance lends itself to modeling and simulation as a way to study the dynamics of the process.

Janita Bah, Clark-Atlanta University

African Refugees Resettled in the United States: Is Integration Truly Possible?

This qualitative analysis discusses the challenges that African refugees experience as they integrate into the United States. African refugees resettled in the United States are racially categorized as black alongside African Americans. The article examines the convergence of African-Americans and African refugees resettled in the United States, specifically their living conditions and lived experiences, by examining housing policies that have adversely affected both groups. Results of the study show a correlation between ethnicity and integration difficulties. Qualitative interviews are used to analyze the perspective of African refugees receiving services from the U.S. government and the resettlement agencies, to determine if African refugees in the U.S. saw improvement in their lives, their quality of life, and their opportunities for upward mobility.

Roundtable: “Climate Refugees”: Beyond the Legal Impasse?

Thekli Anastasiou, University of Sheffield; Walter Kälin, Platform for Disaster Displacement; Michel Prieur, CRIDEAU/Université de Limoges; Mariam Traore Chazalnoel, IOM; Jolanda van der Vliet, Hague University of Applied Sciences/Leiden University; Camilla Schlos, Georgetown University, World Bank

Chair: Simon Behrman, Royal Holloway University of London

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) expects migration and displacement to increase due to the rise in the number of extreme weather events and other adverse effects of climate change. Current estimates of the numbers of people who will be forced from their homes in the context of the adverse effects of climate change varies, but even the most optimistic projections envisage unprecedented human mobility (migration, displacement and planned relocation) in the future. And yet attempts to develop legal mechanisms to deal with these impending challenge have reached an impasse that shows little sign of being overcome. This is in spite of the rapidly growing academic study and policy development in the area of climate change generally.

Yet, at the same time, there are reasons to be hopeful. The shift towards recognition of the issue of human mobility within the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), particularly as a result of the Paris Agreement in 2015, which has led to the setting up of a Task Force on Displacement is one example. In addition, the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants commits states to addressing the “drivers that create or exacerbate large movements”, including “combating environmental degradation and ensuring effective responses to natural disasters and the adverse impacts of climate change”. Hopefully, this broad statement will set the stage for the Global Compact to be agreed by the end of 2018. These potentially cap other recent developments such as the endorsement of the Nansen Initiative Protection Agenda by more than 100 States in 2015, and the increased attention to these issues at regional and sub-regional levels of Regional Consultative Processes on Migration.

Nevertheless, we are still a long way away from any substantive protection mechanisms for people forced to move across borders due to the effects of climate change. The recent decision in the New Zealand case Teitiota v Chief Executive of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment [2015] reinforces the view that the current framework of international refugee law is not accessible for these people. Nor, despite a number of proposals put forward for a new sui generis treaty to extend protection to those fleeing the effects of climate change, or more broadly environmental degradation, have policy makers begun even early stages of drafting such a document.

Indeed, there is not even general agreement about what category of persons we are concerned with, nor even how they should be labelled. While some see climate change as the key driver of displacement that needs addressing, others believe that one cannot isolate this phenomenon from other natural hazards such as earthquakes, or other non-climate change damage to the environment such as pollution of water supplies or damage to agriculture. And then there is the question as to whether people forced to move as a result of these factors are ‘migrants’, ‘refugees’, or ‘displaced persons’.

 

This roundtable will explore all of these issues, and also put forward a range of suggestions for how the legal impasse can be overcome. The participants include key actors from inter-governmental organisations (IGOs) involved in the UNFCCC Task Force and the Global Compact, leading academics in the field, and emerging scholars. All of them have also contributed to a collected edition “Climate Refugees”: Beyond the Legal Impasse? (Routledge 2018). In this roundtable, we hope to facilitate greater interaction between the various ideas put forward in that book, to stimulate much needed discussion between scholars and the IGO sector, and to engage with others as to how an effective protection agenda can be advanced for people forced to migrate due to the effects of climate change.

 

Jolanda van der Vliet, Hague University of Applied Sciences/Leiden University

‘Climate Refugees’: A Legal Mapping Exercise

The fragmented system of international law is struggling to protect environmentally forced migrants. The topic is simply too complex to be addressed under just one of the traditional specialisms in law. Human rights law, environmental law, liability law, the rules on state responsibility, rules on transboundary resources and migration law all contribute to solutions. Often only a selection of these rules is used, based on the approach of the problem (rights-based, security or responsibility). Awareness of these approaches can lead to more strategic choices on a legal and policy level.

 

With a flexible attitude towards the law, there is much more to gain. I propose to combine different approaches. Even though legally challenging, this opens up a whole new world of possibilities. The combinations of approaches can assist policy makers in creating future oriented policies that find their roots in various legal regimes. After all, the law is more than a set of rules that can be enforced. The law can give guidance for policy decisions and can add moral weight. Being aware of the different perceptions and their corresponding regimes allows for a sensitivity towards the perspective of different stakeholders and creates new ways of searching for solutions that fall outside the legal regimes that are introduced within the limited scopes of any individual approach.

 

Camilla Schloss, Georgetown University

Cross-Border Displacement Due to Environmental Disaster: A Proposal for UN Guiding Principles to Fill the Legal Protection Gap

A legal protection gap exists for cross-border displacement due to environmental disasters. The state-led Nansen Initiative on Disasters and Cross-border Movements represents an important first step towards closing this gap by bringing together states to adopt the Agenda for Protection in 2015. However, there is a need for further action.

 

Several researchers have suggested hard law approaches such as signing a new convention, extending the refugee definition in the 1951 Refugee Convention, or adding a Protocol to UNFCCC. After scrutinizing the formal question concerning the best structural framework, I propose the adoption of soft guiding principles under the auspices of the UN, which I will call the “UN Guiding Principles on Cross-Border Displacement Due to Environmental Disasters.”

This paper fills these UN Guiding Principles on Cross-Border Displacement Due to Environmental Disasters with content. It analyses the Agenda for Protection of the Nansen Initiative and engages in a comparative legal analysis of existing regulations and guidelines on the international, regional and state levels. By resorting to already existing texts, I develop a legal text that defines a “cross-border disaster displaced person” and establishes the legal conditions and legal consequences of protection. In doing so, I aspire to prove that we are not so far away from developing a legal text.

 

Simon Behrman, Royal Holloway University of London

 

Panel: Normative and empirical insights into resettlement – Part One (Normative)

Chairs: Johanna Gördemann, University of Duisburg-Essen; Mariana Nardone, Universidad Nacional de Lanús / Centre for Global Cooperation Research

 

Resettlement is a relevant tool of protection in seeking “durable solutions” And yet resettlement is a relevant measure only for a very small number of refugees.

This panel combines normative and empirical perspectives on resettlement across Europe and the Global South through inter-disciplinary dialogue by bringing together social scientists, practitioners and normative theorists from various regions. In the course of two sessions, we will discuss empirical research on resettlement, related actors, procedures and practices as well as theoretical perspectives on how to rethink the normative framework of resettlement programmes and other responses to refugees that are implemented by the global refugee regime.

 

The implementation of resettlement raises profound empirical questions as well as important ethical issues. For instance, on the one hand, the merits of resettlement programmes involve, among others, a commitment to refugee protection, international responsibility sharing, and the relocation of refugees from a first country of asylum to a third country. By contrast, most of the current developments in international refugee protection rather focus on efficient administrative procedures to manage and restrict so-called irregular movements of forced migrants without necessarily considering the particular rights of those concerned. What is highlighted is in many cases exclusively justice between states. Therefore, questions of legitimacy are not asked in a context of global justice but in the light of prosperity, stability and security of states. In addition to that, little attention has been given to the refugees themselves: are there active choices involved and how do they decide whether to apply for resettlement? Refugee resettlement also raises questions at an operational level, for instance about the challenges of integration, the scope of services available to assist the resettlement process, the achievements of the countries’ resettlement commitments, and the UNHCR’s roles in UNHCR’s supported resettlement programmes. Therefore this panel will tackle these issues under complementary perspectives.

 

Daniel Kersting, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena

Refugees are Persons. Towards an integrative understanding of “refugee”

 When discussing durable solutions for refugees, we must presume a particular concept of refugee, to whom these solutions apply. Within current political and juridical discussion in Europe the concept of refugee is predominantly determined unilaterally, i.e. entirely from the perspective of the actor providing assistance. The concrete experiences of the affected person is rarely considered or, if it is, is itself overly simplified and one-sided: refugees are considered as mere “victims” and this perspective ignores their agency and autonomous choices.

In this presentation, I will outline a more holistic concept of “refugee” that aims to connect two fundamental dimensions of personhood: persons are existentially dependent and vulnerable as well as autonomous beings, and so are refugees. In order to respect refugees as persons, we need to take into consideration these two fundamental dimensions of personhood when discussing durable solutions and shaping their political implementations. In my presentation, I will finally concretize this idea and explore its critical potential by analyzing a recent example of EU-resettlement.

 

Naoko Hashimoto, University of Sussex

 How Refugee Agent Challenges Japan’s Resettlement Structure?

In International Relations, the ‘agent-structure’ debate has been one of the persistent questions (Wendt 1987).  In the context of refugee resettlement, it is often argued that the resettlement structure is so state-driven that there is little room for refugee agent to operate in the process.  My presentation challenges this argument, based upon four empirical examples from the refugee resettlement programme to Japan, in which refugees’ agent influenced the Japanese resettlement structure.  Firstly, a sudden and physical arrival of nine Indo-Chinese refugees at the Japanese shore was the dawn for the subsequent establishment of refugee protection system in Japan.  Secondly, the boycotting of a privately-run integration course for Indo-Chinese refugees in 1979 forced the Japanese Government to establish a state-run integration assistance.  Thirdly, the zero application from Myanmar refugees for resettling to Japan in 2012 pushed the Japanese Government to relax the eligibility criteria.  Fourthly, some refugees who had come to Japan as asylum-seekers spontaneously came forward and started lending hands to facilitate integration of resettlement refugees.  Through applying the normative ‘agent-structure’ debates to the empirical cases, this presentation also aims at ameliorating the inadequacy of research on resettlement through refugees’ lenses.

 

Johanna Gördemann, University of Duisburg-Essen

What does the Global Compact on Refugees mean for the European Union? Some philosophical thoughts and cosmopolitan ideas on durable solutions

 Several, partly interconnected crises have profoundly challenged the European project in recent years. Among them especially the reactions to the arrival of 1.25 million refugees in 2015 called into question the idea(l) of a unified Europe. The EU’s ability to overcome its crises, particularly in the context of migration and integration policies, will not only depend on its provision of material benefits to states and individuals, it must also credibly claim the ability to establish conditions for legitimacy and justice within and beyond Europe. In this paper, I consider some future scenarios of the Common European Asylum System in the light of the Global Compact for Refugees.

 

Christoph Tometten, attorney-at-law (Berlin)

 The shift of European Resettlement policies after the EU-Turkey deal and its impact on protracted refugee situations in the Great Lakes Region

 

Resettlement is one of the three durable solutions proposed by UNHCR to address refugee situations. It is an instrument that should guarantee effective protection to persons who qualify for refugee status. At the same time, resettlement is a mechanism for responsibility-sharing between first countries of arrival and other countries. As a contribution to international refugee protection, the European Union has launched as Joint Resettlement Programme in 2012. However, following the Agreement between the European Union Member States and Turkey of 18 March 2016, most Member States do not resettle refugees from other countries than Syria. Thus, resettlement has arguably been subverted from an instrument of protection into a tool for containment.

 

The developments in Europe have a non-negligeable impact on other world regions in which protracted refugee situations persist, such as the Great Lakes region. The countries in the region are home to large refugee populations from, inter alia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Somalia. Recent developments in European refugee policy have led the Kenyan government, for instance, to consider withdrawing the protection it offers to Somali refugees. This would have serious implications for the international refugee protection regime. This normative shift in resettlement policies shall be discussed in this panel contribution.

 

Panel: Normative and empirical insights into resettlement – Part Two (Empirical)

Chairs: Mariana Nardone, Universidad Nacional de Lanús / Centre for Global Cooperation Research; Johanna Gördemann, University of Duisburg-Essen

 

Tatjana Baraulina, Research Centre on Migration, Integration and Asylum at the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees

How circumstances of forced migration influence the integration strategies of refugees: the case of refugees resettled to Germany

 Since 2012 Germany started a national resettlement program. Between 2012 and 2016 about 1.800 refugees were granted a special protection status in Germany through the resettlement program.

 

While there are numerous recent empirical studies on the refugees’ circumstances of life and/or on their integration into the German society, there is little research on the integration strategies of the resettled refugees in Germany. There is also lack of discussion on a theoretical level: Do the circumstances of forced migration influence integration strategies in the receiving countries? This presentation will refer to these essential questions.

 

The presentation is based on the analysis of the semi-structural biographical interviews with 100 resettled refugees who came to Germany in 2012 and in 2014. The analysis shows that the integration strategies of resettled refugees are strongly influenced by their individual migration histories. For example, some of the interviewees in this study told about years of waiting for a chance to build up a life while staying on temporary and insecure basis in the third countries under protection of the UNHCR. So after arrival in Germany they saw themselves under constraint to get started as soon as possible. Some of them very quickly made choices (e.g. earning money or pursuing further education), which affect their paths of integration significantly.

 

Irene Tuzi, Sapienza University of Rome

Resettlement of Syrian Refugees to Italy: Durable Solution or Protracted Temporary Situation?

 The increased number of displaced persons worldwide – more than 65 millions in 2015 – has shed light on the international protection dilemma. In particular, to respond to the so-called “refugee crisis”, UNHCR implemented the resettlement scheme in Europe. In Italy, resettlement involves mostly Syrian refugees from Lebanon and Turkey. Nonetheless, the programme has several limits in this country because Syrians do not perceive Italy as a desirable country of resettlement (Brekke and Brochman, 2014).

 

On the one hand, there is little knowledge of Italy as a country of resettlement and refugees do not particularly trust the country for its potential to create labour market inclusion and to deal with refugees’ issues. On the other hand, there is a divide between refugees’ expectations and the opportunities the country has to offer. Apparently, the Italian migration and asylum regime does not seem to be able to decrease refugees vulnerability nor to improve their empowerment due to the lack of follow-up measures from the asylum system to the integration.

 

Findings show that when conditions applied by Europe are not in line with refugees’ expectations and they do not match with their hopes and outlooks, insecurity towards the future prevails and refugees undertake secondary migration movements within a framework of insecurity. In this sense, the flows in the protection system challenge the purpose of resettlement as durable solution protracting refugees’ conditions of vulnerability.

 

Izabella Main, Centre for Migration Studies, Adam Mickiewicz University

Considering resettlement of refugees in Poland? Government’s refusal and social actions

 The presentation will explore the context of the present-day politics of the Polish government, i.e. refusal to accept refugees for resettlement, despite the legal action from the European Union, taken in December 2017. Since Poland’s 2015 general election the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) has objected refugee relocation, fuelled nationalist sentiments, manipulated media coverage of “refugee and migration crisis. Even though the previous liberal government committed to taking in 7,000 refugees from Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, when the current conservative government came into power it refused to follow the relocation plan and to accept any refugees (also increasingly breaking Geneva convention in respect to Chechen refugees). First, I will analyse the background of such political decision as well as its international and internal consequences. Second, the wide spectrum of social responses to government’s decisions and statements will be explored. These actions, mostly by the civil society in Poland address refugees in camps as well as Polish society, challenging the state’s decisions and narratives. This presentation offers a more nuanced perspective on state and local dynamics, attitudes towards refugees, and chances of resettlement in Poland. It is based on media coverage, documents and interviews with NGOs activists.

 

Mariana Nardone, Universidad Nacional de Lanús / Centre for Global Cooperation Research

UNHCR-Government-NGO Inter-Organisational Relations in South American Emerging Resettlement Countries for the Integration of Forcibly Displaced People

This field-level empirical study explores the three-sided interplay between international organisations, governments, and non-governmental organisations within resettlement programmes supported by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in “emerging” resettlement countries of South America. The focus is on the implementation of the Latin American Solidarity Resettlement Programme, which was adopted by some South American countries to resettle refugees (mostly of Colombian origin) coming from countries of first asylum in the region. In the present work, the importance and challenges of these tripartite relationships within the Programme are analysed. This study offers insights on resettlement by looking at how inter-organisational dynamics worked on the ground, and considering the viewpoints of the three main entities involved. The findings suggest that the efforts in a joint implementation of the Programme resulted often, in practice, in disagreements between them, mainly in selection criteria and the integration process, which constrained possibly broader achievements in protection and integration in these emerging resettlement countries.

 

Regional Perspectives: Africa

 

Naohiko Omata, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford, Noriko Takahashi

Refugee protection post-durable solutions: The role of vocational training for economic reintegration of repatriated refugees in Liberia

Drawing on studies conducted in 2014 and 2016, this presentation examines the impact of vocational training programmes on the economic reintegration of refugees post-repatriation.

The international refugee regime often considers repatriation to signal the end of their role for protection or assistance for now ‘former’ refugees. Nevertheless, a variety of sources indicate that refugees in war-devastated environments face a number of significant challenges during reintegration, with many returnees struggling to survive below the poverty line with few livelihood options. Most conflict-affected states with returning refugee populations also suffer from limited capacities and resources to offer support for formerly displaced and dispossessed returnees.

 

These daunting challenges have led to calls for continued international assistance to facilitate the economic reintegration of returning refugees. One common form of such support involves the provision of vocational and entrepreneurial training, which is increasingly mainstreamed by aid agencies as an intervention to develop livelihoods skills of returnees and to promote their economic engagement within their country of origin. However, there are relatively few follow-up studies that measure impacts for beneficiaries after the completion of training programmes, particularly over the long-term.

Against this backdrop, using vocational training programmes conducted by United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) for Liberian refugee returnees as a case study, we conducted two studies over a period of two years, tracing the former beneficiaries of the UNIDO’s training programmes.

 

In this paper, we present our main findings on the employment and livelihood outcomes of these beneficiaries and explore the impact of the training programmes on these returnees. Drawing on empirical evidence, this presentation aims to provide valuable insights into the role of training programmes for supporting economic reintegration and entrepreneurship of repatriated refugees and also offers practical implications for aid practitioners and policy-makers. 

 

This is a collaborative research project between UNIDO and academic researchers, which was initiated in 2014 in order to nurture a better understanding of the impact of vocational education for returnees. We believe that the scope of this study would contribute significantly to the sub-theme of ‘Changing Durable Solutions’ and hope that the findings can stimulate intriguing discussions for both researchers and practitioners working in the field of forced displacement.

 

Pedro Figueiredo Neto, Instituto de Ciências Sociais – Universidade de Lisboa

From refugees to development-induced-displaced-people. Which ‘durable solutions’ in the Meheba Refugee Camp, Zambia?

The UNHCR together with governments and institutions seek to promote ‘durable solutions’ for refugees. However, as evidence from Meheba Refugee Camp (Zambia) shows, in this new cycle refugees often experience renewed forms of forced displacement.

 

Created in 1971 as a result of the Angolan conflict (1961-2002), over time Meheba grew in size in order to accommodate further populations fleeing from neighbouring conflicts. In 2012 refugee status ceased for Angola, Rwanda and Burundi nationals — therefore disappearing from official statistics. ‘Durable solutions’ were met not without resistance for the voluntariness of repatriation, as well as local integration eligibility criteria and the conditions offered are worthy of analysis.

 

Meanwhile, the nearby Lumwana mine expansion reached the gates of Meheba. As miners started to live in the camp, real-estate speculation increased alongside with food prices. Gradually, demographic pressure wiped out the wild game that refugees and local populations depended on and mining activities compromised water supplies and contaminated streams. Furthermore, in 2014, the Zambian government declared the region an economic special zone in which a new city masterplan — involving the appropriation of Meheba’s humanitarian infrastructure — was to be set in place. The consequences for the remaining refugees and those who qualified for local integration are yet to be understood.

Based on extensive fieldwork conducted in Meheba since 2012, in this paper I will present a chronological unfolding of displacement-related events in order to challenge ‘durable solutions’, as well as the humanitarian and development policies involving refugees and refugee camps.

 

Adetola Elizabeth Oyewo, University of Kwazulu-Natal; Nokwanda Yoliswa Nzuza, University of Kwazulu-Natal

Foreigners’ , ‘scapegoat syndrome’ and social exclusion in South Africa

South Africa usually blame supposed migrants also called ‘foreigner’ for their social maladies. Asylum seekers in the undocumented catergory have had their share  of discrimination from few South African .Supposed asylum seekers have the right to ‘work and study’, but new proposed legislation proposal suggests that such right would be removed. To this end, the aim of the paper is to discuss the old and new asylum system and policies in South Africa. As well as  how the asyslum system is a tool of oppression and social exclusion on asylum seekers

 

Based on interview  and oral stories with twenty asylum seekers at the Desmond Tutu Refuggee Reception centre, the study found out that the asylum system is a means of social exclusion. The  rights of  asylum seekers exist only on theory. It is a norm to give asylum sekeers one month permit and during renewal, arrest them, which contradicts UN law.

Despite that South Africa is  member state of the United Nations, required to protect the safety, dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms of all immigrants, regardless of their migratory status, at all times ,this is only in theory in South Africa .

 

Markus Rudolf, Bonn International Center for Conversion GmbH (BICC)

Beyond care and maintenance – Revising pragmatic approaches towards durable solutions

Currently durable solutions focus on coping strategies. This means projects aim to foster resilience and diminish dependency. It is certainly not false to claim that needs of displaced persons have been misinterpreted and capacities overlooked in the past. Yet displacement is not about the reestablishment of livelihoods alone. It is, by definition, impossible for refugees to not fear persecution and avail protection for themselves. The idea to shift more responsibilities towards displaced persons therefore needs to take certain constraints into account. Resiliencies can only be strengthened step by step. The numerous studies on self-dependent, innovative, and skilled displaced persons, should be carefully distinguished from and framed within a policy discourse of resilience and coping strategies that derived from financial and political needs to pull humanitarian aid out.

 

International developments of concepts such as the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) have always been shaped and formed by the respective local political economy. In the arena of international humanitarian and development cooperation some political actors are more successful than others in fine-tuning their discourse with donors. Discourses directed at the international community nevertheless vary from those addressed to a national audience. Both, in turn, do not always fully coincide with the reality on the ground. The distinction of all three levels it not a merely analytical exercise. They do – though often in a contradicting way – converge in the everyday life of camp residents and host communities. They do also – as pre-existing frameworks – shape the form of local operation elaborated by the implementing agencies and their local counterparts.

 

In East Africa displacement has been a large issue for decades. Historically, the region played a major role in shaping responses to refugee crises. Tanzania and Uganda are pilot countries for the currently elaborated CRRF. The approach of local integration – allowing free movement and access to land – attracts attention by international actors. The paper will scrutinize a few cases where discourse and practice diverge to showcase challenges and shortfalls of the current model. But it also will look beyond and presents how actors in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda have been taking this into account and already implanted more durable solutions to some extent.

 

 

Panel: Daring Steps? Durable Futures? Or Enduring Solutions? The commodification of migration and pathways to protection

 

In this panel we seek to explore how different forms of ‘durable solutions’ – be they legal, social or political – are viewed and pursued by individuals displaced within and from Africa. We are particularly interested in the role of the commodification of the forced migration experience and how it has affected the way that people ‘value’ various legal statuses, as well as the expectations they have of what solutions could and should look like. Focusing on migrants’ experiences and perspectives on the different actors, spaces and opportunities they encounter on the move, as well as future mobility aspirations, the aim is thus to examine how people decide on and navigate the various durable solutions available to them. This enables the contributors to this panel to explore what ‘durability’ has come to mean for affected individuals. Ultimately, this will allow for fresh reflection on foundational questions within the forced migration literature, namely what form ‘protection’ and ‘support’ could take in various contexts in order to be both responsive and complementary to desires expressed by those on the move. It also contributes to a burgeoning field of inquiry exploring not only the role of a commodification of (forced) migration, but also what effects this can have on the dynamics and decision-making that governs these movements.

 

Nora Bardelli, University of Oxford

‘Is being a refugee still worth it?’ Commodification of Malian refugeeness in Burkina Faso

UNHCR’s modus operandi, at its various scales, is increasingly based on market logics and ideals, playing a significant role, I argue, in the commodification of refugeeness. In this paper I explore one specific instance of this commodification. Following the drastic end of the food and cash assistance that Malian urban refugees living in Burkina Faso received for four years, some of the forced migrants started ‘capitalizing’ on their refugee status. They did so by applying for facilitated return, renouncing their refugee status, and collecting the lump sum that was given to them by UNHCR to support their journey back to Mali – while often not actually moving back. This tactic was deployed in particular by the refugees with less means, who were especially affected by the end of the assistance. Yet the picture is more complex than this: in addition to socio-economic class influencing these processes, gender and race also play a role into deciding whether “being a refugee is still worth it.” Ethnographically analysing how forced migrants perceive, negotiate, and value the refugee status allows me to tackle important issues around the ‘durable solutions’ debate. I will eventually uncover divergences between international organisations’ understandings of durable solutions, and the practices and aspirations of forced migrants.

 

Agathe Menetrier, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology

Between durable solutions: planning the future while surviving in the present as refugees in an urban context

Over the past three decades, displaced persons from all over western- and central Africa have fled to Senegal. 19 different nationalities are today represented among the ‘urban refugees’ whose presence in Dakar ranges from a couple of months for some, to almost three decades for others. The UNHCR struggles to find ‘durable solutions’ for such a heterogeneous population. Refugees who have resided in the country of asylum the longest are expected to be ‘locally integrated’ and therefore deemed less worthy of assistance than asylum seekers who recently fled. Questioning the actual interest of refugees for these ‘solutions’ foreseen by the UNHCR, I followed refugee families of diverse backgrounds in their movements within Dakar, their city of exile. Their daily encounters uncovered a structured refugee-led network providing guidance and assistance to new comers. Long-term refugees discuss UNHCR’s and partner organisations’ programs as well as advise the more recently displaced in their choice of ‘durable solutions’. In this paper I mean to show that acquiring knowledge on qualification criteria for ‘durable solutions’ (as defined by the UNHCR) can be on the one hand constitutive of urban refugees’ collective mobilisation and on the other hand destructive for individual desires of stability. Looking at long-term solutions through the contradictory short-term entanglements they imply for refugees is part of a wider effort to analyse phenomena of protracted refugee situations and urban exile not only through international organisations’ responses but also through coping strategies developed by those who seek protection.

 

Marthe Achtnich, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology (ISCA), School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford

Commodified Mobility: migrants’ journeys in Libya

This paper examines the relationship between commodification and mobility that shapes sub-Saharan migrants’ and refugees’ journeys in Libya. Building on migrants’ narratives and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork tracing movements across the Sahara desert, detention centres and private houses, I show how different forms of value are linked to the mobility of migrants. Emphasising that migrants’ mobility experiences in Libya are shaped by different actors, from state authorities to criminal groups, I show how commodification is often necessary for mobility. I suggest that using the journey as an analytic enables a focus that transcends state-centric understandings of migrants’ mobilities. Ultimately, I argue that studies of migrants’ journeys in a context of crisis might be usefully expanded by focusing on how immobility and associated forms of commodification often become a necessary condition for mobility.

 

Georgia Cole, Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

Attitudes towards refugee status among Eritreans on the move

Drawing upon research with Eritreans within Eritrea, and with those who are on the move, this paper discusses how their evolving perspectives on various legal statuses and durable solutions mediates the journeys they take. Given the trends towards commodification seen throughout the refugee regime, it questions where the real ‘value’ of refugee status is seen to lie according to these individuals. For those still within Eritrea, it explores their perspectives on friends, family and co-nationals who have sought asylum elsewhere, and how this affects their own attitudes towards migration. Their answers are helpful not only for understanding the patterns of movement exhibited by this population over the past decade, and how and why these are attenuated once people cross the border. They also inform an attempt to reflect back on protection from a much more joined-up, transnational perspective as approaching it from this scale of analysis is argued to align much more with group’s needs and expectations.

 

Roundtable: Shaping the struggles of their times: Refugees, peacebuilding and resolving displacement

Megan Bradley, McGill University; Blair Peruniak, university of Oxford; Loren Landau, University of the Witwatersrand; Anna Purkey, University of Waterloo; Christina Clark-Kazak, University of Ottawa

Rising numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) and the increasingly protracted nature of displacement have generated significant interest in finding new approaches to resolving forced migration situations. On the policy level, the conversation has focused on ways to reinvigorate the three traditional “durable solutions” to displacement – voluntary return, local integration, or resettlement – while also exploring alternative avenues such as labour and educational migration and family reunification. A significant and striking gap in this policy discussion, and in scholarly research, is the absence of a systematic, rigorous, inter-disciplinary examination of the roles that forced migrants themselves can and do play in seeking solutions to their own displacement.

 

Since the early 1990s, a range of international norms have emerged that call for the active engagement of refugees and IDPs in peacebuilding and reconstruction processes, and in efforts to resolve displacement, rooting the need for participation and consultation in international human rights principles. Yet in the vast majority of cases, states, humanitarian agencies and other international actors fail to actively incorporate displaced persons in these processes or fully recognize the ways in which these processes are nonetheless distinctively shaped by forced migrants themselves. Instead, institutional actors often employ rhetoric that suggests that refugees and IDPs are simply “provided” a durable solution to their displacement once the conditions that pushed them from their homes have been resolved, and that states and international organizations are the actors best positioned to interpret the appropriateness of different solutions. This approach effaces the active and often significant roles refugees and IDPs play in the complex political processes surrounding efforts to resolve conflict and the predicament of displacement itself.

 

This roundtable seeks to respond to this important gap. It will bring together contributors to a recent project on this theme to explore the following questions:

 

1. How have refugees and other displaced persons shaped the pursuit of solutions to their own displacement, and to peace processes more broadly?
2. How can the field of refugee and forced migration studies more effectively and consistently understand and engage with the empirical and normative dimensions of refugees’ roles?
3. How can these contributions be more effectively and consistently incorporated into policy and practice?

 

While focusing on the processes of peacebuilding and the pursuit of durable solutions to displacement, the contributors will discuss how in many cases the “solutions” crafted by refugees and IDPs themselves may necessitate critical reconsideration of these very constructs. The contributors come from a range of disciplinary perspectives (sociology, anthropology, political science, philosophy, law and anthropology) and will address current and historical cases including the return of refugees to Mozambique in the 1990s, the involvement of Congolese refugees in Uganda and Tanzania in resettlement processes, and the efforts of refugees and other migrants in contemporary Johannesburg to strategically “shun” sedentary, theoretically durable solutions in favour of continued mobility, even in precarious conditions. Roundtable contributors will also explore how refugees leverage legal principles to influence the pursuit of peace, post-conflict repatriation and reconciliation, and some of the complex moral questions associated with the “shared agency” of refugees involved in efforts to resolve displacement.

 

Regional Perspectives: South America

 

Ileana Nicolau, European University Institute

National responses to internal displacement: the institutionalisation of IDP protection norm into perspective

While there are more than 40 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide, internal displacement has raised little interest among practitioners and academia. Unlike refugees, IDPs have not crossed internationally recognised borders and, therefore, in the name of sovereignty, remain under the responsibility of their state; the same state that was unable to prevent or even, very often, that was directly involved in their forced displacement. 

 

Notwithstanding this tension, at least 32 countries adopted policies and laws at national level on internal displacement before 2016. This being said, and despite the existence of an international framework, the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (1998), these national responses vary in the framing of the internal displacement problem as well as its solutions and, not least, in their practices. 

 

This paper proposes to explore the variation of national responses to internal displacement across countries, by providing a systematic analysis of policies and laws on IDPs protection worldwide. In addition, based on the comparative analysis of the processes of institutionalisation of the IDP protection norm since the 1990’s in Peru and Colombia, the paper aims to propose explanations to such variation. To do so, it draws from both international norms and policy analysis literatures as well as by using data collected during field work conducted in spring 2017.

 

Luciana Dias, Centro Universitario de Brasilia

Mud feet: displacement and prejudice after environmental tragedy in Brazil

This presentation is a case study about the internally displaced persons generated by what is considered the greatest socio-environmental disaster in Brazilian history and the largest in the world involving tailings dams. The rupture of the Fundão dam, located in the sub-district of Bento Rodrigues, 35 km distant from the center of the Brazilian municipality of Mariana/Minas Gerais, occurred in the afternoon of November 5th, 2015.

 

Most of the survivor victims of the disaster lost their homes, which they had to abandon and where they wish to return. Currently, the internally displaced persons of this disaster experience prejudice and mistrust in Mariana, since their children are called “mud feet” in school and the former residents of the sub-district of Bento Rodrigues – decimated in the disaster – are discriminated as if they were the cause of the tragedy that hit the municipality.

 

Brazilian internal regulation is still incipient when dealing with internal displacements and involuntary resettlements, since the legislative acts are merely punctual and casuistic.

 

In this scenario, the international disaster response laws, rules and principles (IDRL) – a new area of focus targeting states and humanitarian agencies operating in disaster areas –  may not only provide guidance on how to address internally such situations, but can also serve as powerful tools in advocating for, and achieving, the protection of affected civilian populations.  The paper aims to analyze the rupture of the ore tailings dam from the look of the various homeless and displaced people resulting from the tragedy.

 

Roundtable: Refugee Economies | Models for Economic Development & Social Integration

Abigail Blue, UC Hastings College of the Law; Carolyn Stevenson, Purdue University Global

This round table explores innovative models in refugee resettlement through a development lens; promoting the participation of migrants in host countries’ economies and labor markets through models of apprenticeship and alternative educational accreditation.

 

Recession, Brain-drain & Market Opportunity | How refugees could be the answer to Italy’s failing economy.

According to Eurostat, Italy’s current governmental debt is 134.7% as of August 2017. Unemployment has hovered between 11% -12% since 2012 and global economists see a national banking crisis on the horizon. A generation of Italians (now aging into, or solidly in, retirement) have watched the educated youth of the next generation leave Italy for better wages in other countries of the Schengen area. Add to that, nearly half a million forcibly displaced migrants seeking refuge on Italian shores since 2014 (less than 30% of whom apply for asylum, and fewer still are granted asylum protections – 60% of those who do apply are denied). Italy’s economic, social and political structures are bowing under the weight of these cumulative pressures.

 

But, what if refugees were the greatest asset Italy could have hoped for?

 

This round-table discussion explores the policies, mechanics and on-the-ground implementation of refugee resettlement programming models that seek to provide development opportunities for host countries with stagnant economies by shifting the focus from foreign aid to integration through meaningful employment and economic participation. Social, linguistic and cultural acclamation are secondary outcomes of a model that prepares immigrants to engage in small group apprenticeships, while offering “local mentors” monthly stipends to instruct and teach their trades and skills to refugee apprentices. Mapping the existing skill sets of migrants to mentors who are masters in their field, offers an opportunity for meaningful engagement and productivity for both host and migrant communities, fosters cooperation and empathy, and creates an exchange that is mutually beneficial, while stimulating the national economy. This round table discussion will explore durable solutions in refugee resettlement through educational and economic models.

 

Alternatives for Cross-Boundary Accreditation in Higher Education to Promote Economic Mobility for Migrants’ Employment in Host Countries

Studies show that a high percentage of migrants who have the resources to migrate out of their country of origin also have attained some level of higher education and experience in mid and highly skilled professional sectors. While public perceptions tend to characterize refugees and immigrants as low-skilled workers with little or no education, research shows the opposite to be true. Often refugees bring in a wide range of professional skills but may lack access to accreditation or credentialing in their host country. Institutions of higher education need to reach beyond traditional models and provide access and opportunity to marginalized populations such as refugees. The high cost and protracted time required to access accreditation in a field of higher education hinders immigrants with limited financial resources to gain credentialing, training and education in their chosen field. Educational leaders and policy makers, alike, need to consider leveraging non-traditional education models to allow for accreditation in fields where expertise/education is already attained. A focus on prior learning assessment (PLA), and the use of Open Educational Resources (OERs), can reduce barriers to attainment of higher education and credentialing in host countries, and provide an opportunity to earn credit for prior learning/life experiences at a lowered cost and shortened time period.

By enabling students to utilize competency-based learning systems, and complete training at their own pace, students (and foreign aid service organizations) save both time and money. This new approach to higher education can be viewed as a bridge program or initiative to support prior learning, earning credit for knowledge/life experience and is ideal for cross-boundary learners, providing credentialing in a short time period. This approach can also serve as the conduit for linguistic education of refugees in there host language as well as supplementary professional development for sector-specific skill requirements in host countries.

 

Through use of OERS, prior learning assessment, and credit for life experience, there lies an opportunity to re-frame refugees’ participation in formal economies by providing access to accreditation for higher education and mobilizing refugee labor to fill high-need vacancies across industries (such as healthcare) while stimulating economic growth through meaningful economic participation in their host country.

 

Hotspots, refoulement, assisted voluntary return: Individual Papers

 

Timokleia Psallidaki, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens

The hotspot approach and the extra-territorialisation of the right to asylum

The recent European migration policies persistently call us to seek the border beyond the narrow boundaries of nation-states across a glocal biopolitcal terrain; to reconceptualize it through its territorial, de-territorialized and extra-territorial dimensions. Adopting this idea of analyzing borders, I will focus on the recent implementation of the EU-Turkey Deal, which constitutes part of the Europe’s common way of extra-territorializing its control mechanisms and delegating the migration management beyond its geographical boundaries. In this negotiation and externalization of borders, the hotspots -although marginal at the edges of the Greek state- are becoming central for the new European enclosure policies by engaging more efficient mechanisms of detaining, deterring and filtering migration. These liminal places -where the microgeography of the migration body meets variously the hyperstate macrogeographies- are emerging as new forms of governance. In this presentation, I will attempt to depict the multiple interior re-bordering and understandings of the right to asylum that hotspots produce within Europe. More specifically, I will examine how the recent border policies are constantly reconstructing the geographical humanitarian discourses of “safety” and are redefining the “deserving” and “undeserving” bodies of international protection in European territory, by means of targeting the body and instrumentalizing on it the law.

 

Eleni Koutsouraki, European Centre of Research and Training on Human Rights and Humanitarian Action, Panteion University

The impact of the EU-Turkey deal on refugees and on Greece

Turkey is currently hosting the largest number of refugees in the world (over 3,4 million as of October 2017). On March 18th 2016, the Members of the European Council and their Turkish counterpart agreed that all new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greek islands would be returned to Turkey. Within the following days, the provisions of the Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection concerning the “first country of asylum” and the “safe third country” concepts were applied for the first time in Greece, in order to reject applications as inadmissible and return asylum seekers to Turkey. This paper aims to focus on violations of asylum seekers’ rights following forced returns to Turkey, with particular emphasis on possible violation of their right to asylum, refoulement, arbitrary detention, non-respect of social rights and ineffective judicial protection, especially after the failed coup attempt of July 2016. Following this analysis, we are going to examine if the Greek Authorities, which must assume this huge responsibility, should consider Turkey as “first country of asylum” and/ or “safe third country”. Potential violations of International and European Law shall be also discussed.

 

Stefanos Spaneas, University of Nicosia; Agamemnon Zachariades, University of Nicosia

Cyprus Assisted Voluntary Return Programme: Developing a Sustainable Pre-Departure Policy

Cyprus Assisted Voluntary Return Programme: Developing a Sustainable Pre-Departure Policy

Cyprus is one of the EU member states with the most significant increases in their foreign population as a percentage of the total population between 2001 and 2012. The foreign population rose by 8.8% to 21.59 %, out of which 37.63 per cent are non-European citizens. The pressure from European Union (EU) institutions in combination with the economic recession led the Republic of Cyprus to adopt a systematic effort to tackle the issue of migration, by developing processes to effectively manage legal and illegal migration (Solidarity Funds, 2010). More specifically the recent economic crisis (2013) led to an increase in unemployment and consequently to an increased negative portrait for migrants as competitive labour group and recipients of social welfare beneficiaries.

It is argued that those socio-political and economic conditions led the Cypriot government to adopt measures to facilitate unprecedented inflows of mixed migration (MIPEX, 2014). Regarding illegal migration, the decision was taken to implement relevant national legislation more systematically; deporting irregular migrants. More than 10,000 irregular migrants returned to their countries of origins following forced returned procedures. Only recently (2015), following the adoption of the EU Directive 2008/115/EC on the return of irregular migrants (Cyprus Ombudsman Office, 2013) in the national legislation, Cyprus began to develop and implement Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) actions as an alternative to forced returns.

 

The presentation draws attention to the Assisted Voluntary Return initiated policy. It is seen as an integral aspect of a wider migration policy which ensures the dignified and humane return of Third Country Nationals who have exhausted all options for legal temporary residence permit. It describes the design and implementation of the first AVR programme in Cyprus and reflects on the experience gained from the frontline. A number of prohibit and enabler factors both at strategic and operational levels have to be understood and procedures to be carefully designed, leading to more effective changes for achieving greater quality of services. A conceptual framework is suggested for setting up and implementing AVR pre-departure processes at national level to escalate multi-disciplinary responsiveness of key agencies taking under consideration three main pillars: (i) Structure-the need to develop a flexible hierarchical structure in collaboration with several organisations and employees; (ii) Assistance -the need to sustain quality professional practices; and (iii) Returnees -the need to understand a number of different It is anticipated that the construction of such framework will possibly lead to more effective changes in achieving greater quality of services.

 

Stephen Phillips, Institute for Human Rights, Åbo Akademi University

Europe’s proposed asylum processing ‘hotspots’ in Africa: in the shadows of Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’

Global movements of individuals seeking asylum are at their highest level since the years immediately following the Second World War, and recent increases in the number of unauthorised arrivals in Europe have seen existing reception and processing systems tested. In this context, extraterritorial measures aimed at deterring asylum seekers have come to be seen as favourable by states that wish to adopt responses to forced migration which are centred on notions of border security. Several European countries, led by France, have recently discussed the possibility of establishing processing ‘hotspots’ in North Africa, a proposal that seemingly draws inspiration from Australia’s ‘Pacific Solution’, which transferred asylum seekers to facilities in Papua New Guinea and Nauru.

 

This paper examines the extent to which international human rights norms, in their present state, enable the use of harmful extraterritorial deterrence measures towards asylum seekers by states. In addition, it looks at the human rights implications of EU states replicating deterrence measures used by other states, in this case Australia, that seek to punish and harm asylum seekers. The paper questions what current law and practice tells us about what the law does, and how this can be applied to the EU.

 

Finally, the paper questions the extent to which the relevant international human rights norms are complicit in the capacity of states to inflict harm on asylum seekers, and whether human rights norms provide sufficient limits to state actions.

 

Panel: Negotiating Mobility – What does protracted displacement in Afghanistan teach us?

Organizers & Chairs: Katja Mielke & Susanne Schmeidl

 

Afghanistan is a particularly compelling case study of intractable displacement. After four decades of conflict, Afghanistan remains one of the top six refugees and IDP producing countries globally. Especially internal displacement has been on the rise over the past few years with an estimated 1.5 million IDPs to date. This, however, might be simply the tip of the iceberg of displaced people in the country, most meeting up in fast growing urban areas where they compete for limited space and resources. In this panel, we wish to explore how different displacement trajectories lead to diverse categorization of displaced populations, which in turn influences levels of precarity and neglect, but also access to services and assistance. Guiding questions are: How is ‘displacement’ configured and who is deemed worthy to be assisted? Under which conditions can the displaced influence or react to their being categorized into specific target groups for assistance? By focussing on the role of the Afghan state and humanitarian organizations in shaping these decisions and the categorization who officially counts as IDP and why/why not (e.g., refugee returnees, rural-urban migrants, groups with a repeated displacement background), we intend to synthesize lessons learned from protracted displacement in Afghanistan.

 

Liza Schuster, University of London; Reza Hussaini, Kabul University

The evolution of an Afghan migration policy and the role of the EU

Even though migration has been a key characteristic of Afghan life for centuries, and over the past decades Afghanistan has witnessed the forced departures of millions of its citizens, the Afghan government has largely been unable or unwilling to control this movement. In recent years, much of the advocacy for and response to the needs of this population has been led by international agencies. The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation was assigned a coordination role, and has played a rather passive part in the evolution of policy. A sharp spike in the number of Afghans seeking refuge abroad and growing hostility to those forced migrants from host states led to the quest for a comprehensive migration policy. But the initiative for this policy came, not from inside Afghanistan, but from Europe. This paper explores the roots of this initiative, how it has been received by the Afghan government, how much progress has been made and with what implications for Afghan forced migrants.

 

Susanne Schmeidl, University of New South Wales

Untangling Afghan Displacement Trajectories

Afghans have a long history of using mobility as a survival strategy or as ‘social, economic and political insurance’ for improving livelihoods and to escape conflict and natural disasters. This has made it difficult to fit the different mobility trends into neat categories. The multiple, often overlapping, internal mobility categories in Afghanistan include: recurrent short-term disaster-affected displacement, conflict-affected internal displacement, secondary displacement of refugee returnees, rural-urban migration, rural-rural migration, urban-urban migration, development-induced urban-rural migration, seasonal labour migration, and the movement of migratory people (e.g., the Kuchi, Jogi/Jat). Alessandro Monsutti emphasizes the plurality of migration drivers, which helps to blur the boundary between what constitutes forced or voluntary migration, leaving the door open to classify population to suit different agendas.  These agendas include the classification of Afghan refugees as economic migrants, and IDPs as ‘simple’ rural-urban migrants. In this paper, I wish to explore how different displacement trajectories are used to shape the discourse around what displacement signifies, leading to what Ulrich Oselender recently described as ‘banality of displacement’ in the context of Colombia. Are we encountering something similar in Afghanistan and how can we shift how the story of Afghan displacement is told?

 

Dan Tyler, Will Carter, Norwegian Refugee Council

Yesterday’s refugees, today’s IDPs: Cross-border return to internal displacement?

 

Following a major campaign in Pakistan to push Afghan refugees back home, more than 600,000 registered and undocumented returnees arrived in eastern Afghanistan between July and December 2016. These large-scale unplanned returns, whether forced, spontaneous or assisted, have prompted humanitarian actors on the ground to warn that secondary displacement of returnees is likely. Undocumented and involuntary returnees are at particular risk because they tend not to be monitored or assisted, but rather fall off humanitarian agencies’ radar. Thus, they are far less likely to reintegrate into their communities. Afghanistan’s national policy on IDPs in clear that refugee returnees should be counted as internally displaced unless they are able to settle sustainably in their places of origin. New  research by the Norwegian Refugee Council and partners is seeking to assess the impact of these large scale returns and see if it is possible to record the extent of secondary displacement, as well as determine whether the experience of secondary or multiple displacement upon return presents specific protection and response needs. Drawing on field research focusing on this ‘returnee-IDP’ cohort, we will present recommendations to humanitarian and development actors intended to ensure this group do not fall outside the response net.

 

Elke Grawert, Katja Mielke, BICC Bonn (Peace and Conflict Research Institute)

Coping with protracted violent conflict: Trajectories of displaced Afghans in Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan

 

Focusing on agency of Afghans, the paper highlights the forms of interrelationships that have been contributing to securing livelihoods of displaced Afghans within and outside Afghanistan during forty years of armed conflict. Whereas previous analyses often neglected ‘class’ differences of displaced persons, we seek to clarify how displaced from a poor and middle class background cope differently. The analysis of examples of displaced people inside Afghan cities, Iranian rural and urban areas, and in Pakistan questions the distinctions between IDPs, returnees and refugees made in the realm of humanitarian and development agencies.  Our analysis of Afghan mobility confirms that trans-local networks form a viable strategy for scattered families to support members, adjusting to ever-changing policy conditions in different countries. The paper argues that providing assistance for communities as a whole will tackle the needs of conflict-affected groups better than particular aid programs to special target groups. Drawing on our empirical insights we conclude that facilitating and supporting trans-local networks in Europe and the region will help families to survive within Afghanistan. This will require new types of policy interventions.

 

Refugee Healthcare

 

Hannah Bradby, Uppsala University and Irini Anastassiou, Center for the Advancement of Research & Development in Educational Technology (CARDET)

Challenges and frustrations in providing good quality accessible healthcare for migrants to Europe

Most studies on migrants’ access to healthcare in Europe is fragmented making it difficult to understand the issue and compare across different countries. This qualitative study explored the barriers and facilitators to equal healthcare to migrants in ten European countries and was conducted by the MigHealthCare project’s consortium between the Fall of 2017 and the Spring of 2018, funded by the European Commission.  We built on a literature review by devising a common set of questions to interview health care professionals, service providers, policy makers and representatives from Non-Governmental Organisations across ten European countries (Malta, Austria, Italy, Spain, Greece, Germany, France, Cyprus, Sweden, Bulgaria). We identified healthcare providers as offering somewhat more critical assessments of the availability of accessible services for vulnerable migrants as compared with policy makers. Knowledge, language and communication issues were described for both healthcare users and providers, with mental health, with a particular focus on mental health issues. Examples of good practice are described.http://www.mighealthcare.eu/

 

Daniella Valentine, Coventry University

The experiences of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ accessing mental health services

Despite an increasing number of refugees resettling in the British city of Coventry, coupled with consensus that refugees experience high rates of emotional distress, there has not been an investigation of their experiences of accessing mental health services that are available to people living in the UK. This paper therefore addresses the experiences of refugees attempting to access, or successfully accessing mental health services in Coventry. A Thematic Analysis of semi-structured interviews with eight refugees of who had fled four different countries (Afghanistan, Cameroon, Syria and Iran) was undertaken. Interviews explored refugees’ understanding of mental health, their experiences of accessing mental health services, and their recommendations for service improvements.The analysis demonstrated that refugees have complex and diverse understandings of mental health. All participants had experienced mental health effects relating to their traumatic experiences, including depression, anxiety and/or physical health problems. Participants gave a varied account of those factors detrimental to their well-being including those that increased barriers to service access. A number of recommendations are made, including fostering a more caring and proactive approach to supporting refugees’ well-being and mental health, a clearer care pathway for refugees into mental health services, increased liaison between General Practitioner’s and mental health services, a more collaborative approach between different agencies regarding referrals to mental health services and greater consistency in the quality of care refugees receive.

 

 

Panel: Changing Durable Solutions in the Middle East

This panel considers changing durable solutions in the Middle East amongst refugees and IDPs.  It draws on the skills and knowledge of senior scholars with years of experience, as well as young recent graduates, who are working with NGOs in the region.  It thus invites deep academic inquiry to intersect with relevant policy and practice on the ever-shifting landscape of durable solutions in the Middle East.  The papers demonstrate that durable solutions are far more complex than often discussed, and the interconnectivity between scholars and practitioners.  A paper on internal displacement in Iraq examines tools for determining when displacement ends, complexities around solutions for Iraqi IDPs, and the broader approach to long-term solutions.  Another paper explores the failure of current western-driven conceptions of asylum, which have presented challenges in the Middle East.  Rather, in the view of changing durable solutions, a holistic approach that recognizes and supports the societal duty-based “presentations” (karam) alongside contemporary rights-based mechanisms derived from international law.  The third paper considers entrepreneurship as a tool toward social and economic integration as a durable solution.  It looks specifically at a new model in Iraq, which draws upon a start-up incubator for displaced entrepreneurs in Erbil.  The final paper considers draws on research regarding youth engagement in the Middle East, and examines how to better leverage the potential of young people to serve as active contributors to their communities and take ownership over their own “durable solutions.”

 

Katharine Donato and Elizabeth Ferris, Georgetown University

The Dynamics of Internal Displacement in Iraq

Internal displacement in northern Iraq is a dynamic process.  Although some IDPs find permanent solutions, new displacement often occurs and IDPs often move repeatedly in search of better circumstances. This paper will begin with an examination of two relevant tools that offer guidance for for determining when displacement ends: the IASC Framework on Durable Solutions for Internally Displaced Persons and IOM’s Framework for the Progressive Resolution of Displacement Situations. The paper will then explore the complexities around solutions for Iraqi IDPs by analyzing a unique source of survey and interview data collected in 2016-17 via a joint IOM-Georgetown University research project.  Using the survey data collected from approximately 3,900 Iraqi IDP households in four governorates, and interviews from a subset of persons in these households, we will examine the dynamics of displacement. We will assess the utility of the two relevant frameworks for Iraqi IDP households, especially when, where, and how displacement starts and ends. In addition, we examine shifts in IDPs’ intentions with respect to displacement and long-term solutions.  At the end of manuscript, we will consider how well the two relevant frameworks work as assessment tools for determining when displacement ends in the Iraqi case.

 

Dawn Chatty, Oxford University

“Incorporating duty-based asylum into international rights-based humanitarian solutions”

This paper argues that the template for international humanitarian aid delivery  developed over the past 70 years as a set of three durable solutions  – 3rd country resettlement local integration , and voluntary return –   requires reconfiguration  and contextual flexibility.  Contemporary refugee asylum has become a rights’ based mechanism for certain categories of people and excludes an unacceptable number of ‘others’. In the context of the Middle East, which currently contains more than 60 % of the world’s refugees,  many displaced and dispossessed individuals do  not want to be categorized as refugees; nor do they want to reveal their personal details for fear of ‘discovery’ by the state from which they fled.

On its own, ‘rights-based’ asylum is ‘unfit for purpose’ in the middle income countries of the Eastern Mediterranean where asylum and sanctuary are regarded as a duty despite the conflicted politics of gift and exchange (solidarity and hostility). Using as a case study the refuge which has been afforded displaced Syrians in the neighbouring countries of Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon, and the United Arab Emirates, I argue that the way forward – the changing of durable solutions – is a holistic approach which recognizes and supports the continuing existence of societal duty-based ‘presentations’ [karam as elaborated by Marcel Mauss] along-side contemporary rights-based mechanism derived from international law.

 

Alice Bosley and Patricia Letayf, Five One Labs (Iraq)

Five One Labs

While Durable Solutions create a helpful framework for humanitarian action, the current trend of long-term displacement illustrates the failures of this framework. When the security situation in the place of origin is still too volatile to repatriate, there is no option for local integration, and resettlement is often impossible, how can the humanitarian community ensure refugees a life with dignity?

 

This paper will seek to explore the use of entrepreneurship as a tool to address the challenges of displacement and reintegration. In doing so, it will answer the following questions: what are the benefits of using entrepreneurship and small business development as a means to facilitate social and economic integration? What are the challenges? What conditions need to be met in order to take advantage of this tool? How does one cultivate a culture of entrepreneurship among displaced communities? And what role do various actors (host governments, humanitarian organizations, civil society organizations, the private sector, and others) play in enabling the use of entrepreneurship as a tool to promote economic integration?

 

The paper will use the Five One Labs model in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq as a case study. Five One Labs is a recently-launched start-up incubator for displaced entrepreneurs in Erbil and provides training, mentorship and wrap-around support to refugee entrepreneurs seeking to launch scalable businesses as a means to restart their lives. It will identify lessons learned from the first incubator cohorts that can be applied to other contexts in the region.

 

Fatima Raza, Columbia University

“Engaging Youth in the Middle East as Partners in Seeking Durable Solutions to Displacement”

Conflicts in the Middle East have prompted mass displacement across the region– a significant proportion of which are young people, who often find themselves deprived of opportunities for education, livelihoods and civic engagement. This reality has contributed to a profound sense of exclusion and disempowerment among displaced youth. At the same time, it is increasingly recognized that youth engagement — increasing youth capacity and agency to make decisions over programs and policies that affect their lives — can have positive impacts on their personal, social and human development. International and local organizations can play a critical role in leveraging the potential of young people to serve as active contributors to their communities and take ownership over their own futures.

 

This paper is based on graduate research carried out by a team of students at Columbia.  It involved a multi-country study across Syria (remotely), Jordan, Lebanon, and Greece, and highlights the priorities and concerns of displaced youth and the challenges they face. While organizations working with displaced youth often recognize the value of youth engagement, many lack effective means to delegate decision-making authority and resources to youth in their programs as relates to durable solutions. Organizational strategies for youth engagement range from tokenistic involvement to meaningful partnership. This study highlights good practices for youth engagement in seeking durable solutions, and provides recommendations for organizations to adapt and design programming that effectively empowers and engages displaced youth as partners in change.

 

Panel: Probing Private/Community Resettlement for Refugees

Organizer: Jennifer Hyndman; Chair: Susan McGrath, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University

 

This session will examine the perks, perils and possibilities of private (sometimes called ‘community’) sponsorship as a unique form of refugee resettlement. A small number of countries are exploring ways of collaborating with private citizens and community groups to host or sponsor refugees. With few of the conventional ‘durable solutions’ actually working to protect the world’s refugees, private-sponsorship as a form of refugee resettlement, in addition to government-assisted refugees, provides permanent legal status, minimum entitlements, and a new home to a select few. How do private sponsorships compare with government ones? Canada has been using this approach widely for almost four decades. Groups of five sponsors contract to finance and provide settlement supports for 12 months to newly arrived refugees who live in the same communities as sponsors. The United Kingdom is exploring a community sponsorship approach where organisations must go through a complicated government permission process before they can support a family. Brazil is exploring a form of private sponsorship in which the private sector would play a major role; it has used humanitarian visas for Haitians, Syrian, and most recently Venezuelans as a protection strategy as well. Such pathways to permanent status provide additional protection space where so much more is needed but concerns about implementation and monitoring have also been raised. Is private sponsorship a sign that resettlement is being privatized? What about the sponsors? Is this a social movement by citizens to ‘do something’ in the absence of state initiative? These issues and preliminary data from various research projects will be addressed.

 

Michaela Hynie, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University

Settling Private Sponsored and Government Sponsored Syrian Refugees in Canada

Despite its commitment to private sponsorship as a strategy for resettlement, there are few longitudinal studies exploring the integration pathways of private and government sponsored refugees, or that take into account pre-existing differences between those accessing the different sponsorship paths. This paper reports on the first wave of data from SyRIA.lth, a 4-year longitudinal study with 1,932 Syrians who resettled in Canada’s 3 largest immigrant receiving provinces (British Colombia, Ontario, Quebec) between 2015 and 2016. Of these participants, 863 entered Canada through Government Assisted Refugee program and 976 through the Privately Sponsored Refugee program.  We will describe the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of participants of these two programs and how these characteristics relate to their early integration outcomes across the three provinces.

 

Jenny Phillimore, Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS), University of Birmingham

Establishing a community sponsorship programme in the UK

While the Community Sponsorship Programme is well established in Canada, it is under development in the UK.  Various organisations, generally faith-based, are seeking to apply to sponsor families but must engage in a complicated process in order to gain permission from the UK’s Home Office before they can support a family.  Focussing on the Methodist Church in England this paper examines the motivations underpinning organisations and individuals’ engagement with the Community Sponsorship process and the barriers that organisations have faced in try to establish programmes.

 

Jennifer Hyndman, Centre for Refugee Studies, York University with Jona Zfyi, Ryerson University and Shauna Labman

(co-authors not present include A. Macklin, K. Barber, L. Goldring, A. Korteweg)

Situating Private Sponsors as Citizens in Canada’s Syrian Resettlement Program

Faith-based and ethno-specific organizations have sustained a continual program of private refugee sponsorship in Canada for 40 years. The Syrian refugee exodus sparked a surge in interest among thousands of Canadians with little or no prior experience with refugee sponsorship. There is currently much enthusiasm for private refugee sponsorship in Canada and a move to extend the model for global adoption. Yet a significant knowledge gap concerns the sponsors themselves, their characteristics, motivations, experiences and insights. The research objectives are to: 1) map the demographic and socio-economic characteristics of private sponsors; 2) examine how private sponsors understand their role in the project of making refugees into citizens; 3) analyze sponsorship as a mode of civic engagement that potentially re-makes the citizenship of sponsors; and 4) situate current private sponsorship of refugees in historical, legal and theoretical perspective.

 

Regional Perspectives: South/Southeast Asia

 

Carrie Perkins, Southern Methodist University

Rethinking Repatriation on the Thai-Burma Border

This presentation will focus on data gathered during the summer and fall of 2017 while research was conducted inside Mae La Refugee Camp on the Thai-Burma Border. It aims to address the current state of voluntary repatriation programs and suggest alternative models for durable solutions in extremely protracted refugee situations, such as those experienced within the 9 camps along the Thai-Burma border. The researcher lived inside Mae La Refugee Camp for several months, which provides a unique and in-depth analysis that serves to elucidate both the reasons behind resistance to repatriate as well as what factors would actually drive a successful return.

Hugh Tuckfield, University of Sydney

How States Decide: Durable solutions, international norms and protracted refugee situations

This paper investigates the enduring question of how states decide to create and implement durable solutions and to follow or reject the international human rights norms of the international framework of the refugee regime in their decision-making behavior. It does so in the context of how and why the Himalayan states of Nepal, sandwiched between China and India, in 2006-07, decided to agree to a proposal by Washington to resettle the Bhutanese, but did not agree to accept a similar proposal to resettle the Tibetan refugees. To investigate this paradox my research has developed a conceptual framework grounded in international relations (IR) theory and the concept of socialization to ‘explain how state and non-state actors change their behavior and embrace new ideas’ to conform to international norms of the refugee regime. This research contributes to understanding how other states decide on modes of protection and durable solutions, whether to follow or reject international human rights norms, and how their decision-making behavior is shaped by other state (the US, China and India) and non-state actors (UNHCR).

 

Afghanistan/Afghan refugees

 

Waseem Ahmad, American University Washington College of Law

The Fate of Durable Solutions in Protracted Refugee Situations

A protracted refugee situation is always critical and challenging in terms of finding durable solutions. The Afghan population in Pakistan is complex and one of the world’s most protracted refugee case load. The response to Afghan refugees has almost always been structured within the framework of “Durable Solutions.” However, such traditional approaches are unable to overcome the specific challenges stemming from a refugee population that has remained in exile for over 37 years. This grave issue needs out-of-the box solutions. The international community has focused largely on refugee emergencies, but the complexity of a protracted situation is that it has moved beyond the emergency phase and no longer requires mere lifesaving protection and humanitarian assistance. Therefore, the political and strategic aspects must also be addressed. The return of Afghan refugees in 2002 was considered the single largest repatriation by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) as of that date. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of recycling remains a common practice in Pakistan. In this context, serious questions have been raised over the viability, sustainability, and durability of the return and reintegration of refugees in Afghanistan. The induction of Solution Strategy for Afghan Refugees (SSAR) as a regional approach is a constructive step, though the implementation could be challenging and would demand huge efforts. The Afghan case is most perplexing because of its long duration, and not because of the numbers of refugees involved. Despite the high level of response in terms of humanitarian aid, the issue was, and still is, the victim of power politics, as well as geopolitical and economic interests.

[Link to Article: http://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sjsj/vol15/iss3/10 ]

 

Mitra Naseh, Florida International University

Repatriation to Secondary Displacement: Case of Afghan Refugees in Iran

Due to more than three decades of conflicts, Afghan refugees have remained the world’s largest long-standing refugee population. According to the UNHCR’s latest global trend report, one in every nine refugees worldwide is from Afghanistan and more than one in every three Afghan refugees lives in Iran. Close to 40 years of hosting Afghans has depleted resources and caused security concerns in Iran. Consequently, in recent years, with an assumption that Afghanistan is safe for refugees’ return, Iran put policies in place to encourage voluntary repatriation and sometimes enforce return of Afghans to their home country. Afghan refugees’ return to Afghanistan has been promoted and facilitated by humanitarian organizations like UNHCR over the past decades with the premise that it will end prolonged displacement for this population. However, return has been far from being a durable solution for displacement for many Afghans. Large number of Afghan returnees have been forced to a secondary displacement due to an array of reasons, including lack of a decent accommodation in Afghanistan. This study reviews the rather stable housing situation of Afghan refugees in Iran and compares it with reported unstable shelter conditions in Afghanistan:  over 98% access rate to a private durable covered living space with 80% access rate to minimum standards of shelter compared to 35% access rate to a private shelter with low quality standards. Findings call for reevaluation of voluntary repatriation as a durable solution for Afghans’ displacement in the absence of decent accommodation for returnees in Afghanistan.

Nithya Rajan, University of Minnesota

The Paradox of Livelihood Initiatives: Afghan Refugee Women’s Experiences as Workers in India

This paper asks how Afghan refugee women labor in the absence of citizenship, class, gender and religious privilege in India. Refugees in India are subject to The Foreigner’s Act, which restricts them from seeking steady and long-term employment, forcing them to labor in a legal grey area. There is also no path to citizenship for Muslim refugees in India. Yet, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has sought to train refugee women to become financially self-reliant through ‘Self-Reliance and Livelihood Initiatives’. Located at the intersection of various structural, legal and discursive impediments, Afghan refugee women in New Delhi labor in extremely hostile conditions with no assurance of achieving economic self-reliance. I take up this paradox of global and state policies within which Afghan refugee women work in India to demonstrate the shortcomings and shortsightedness of such initiatives.

 

 

Panel: Design for Asylum: Architecture, Urban Space and Forced Migration – Part One

This panel focuses on the role that architecture and urban design play in addressing the forced migration in European cities. We invite contributions which analyze the new spatial phenomena that are emerging to control, deter, and accommodate refugees and asylum seekers arriving to Europe – ‘gated towns’, detention centres, temporary housing, camps, informal settlements and other. We also welcome papers that examine the ways in which refugees and asylum seekers appropriate, adapt and transform these places in their everyday lives, as well as the dynamics of their interaction with local communities in the city. This panel seeks to contrast the formal security and accommodation architectures and the informal migrant place-making practices in order to understand what the host governments, humanitarian agencies, and professionals at work can learn from the migrant ‘bottom-up’ spatial tactics. We call for proposals for empirical and theoretic papers from academics, architects, urban designers, planners, local government officials, NGOs, military agencies, refugees and other. They should address some of the following questions:

 

• How have cities responded to and been reshaped by the forced migration to the EU?
• What are the major issues that the design of the existing architectural and urban spaces for migrant occupancy raise?
• What are the major challenges – for instance, socio-spatial integration, inclusion and cohesion of refugees with the host communities, security, health, and other – that the forced migration poses for the city’s urban development?
• What impact do these challenges have on the urban morphology and spatial practices of everyday life in the city?
• How can architectural and urban design, planning and management practice address and respond to these issues and challenges?
• What theoretic concepts and methodologies have been deployed to analyze the ways in which the cities have dealt with the forced migration through architecture and urban space?
• What potential do research and design of spaces for migrant occupancy create for fostering socio-spatial integration, inclusion and cohesion and enriching our cities in the future?

 

Anoma Pieris, University of Melbourne

Domesticating Sovereignty: Australian camps for Europeans after the Second World War

This paper examines the refugee camp as a spatial border phenomenon that recurs throughout experiences of war-related immigration; recalling an earlier history of European refugee mobilisation. Introducing Rushworth, Bonegilla and Greta camps in Australia, it interrogates their military design. Given the circumstances of wartime dislocation, and the camps from which refugees are sent to Australia, it asks if regimented barrack accommodation is appropriate or humane. In raising these questions, this paper contrasts the internment camp and the refugee camp as precursors to current practices of mandatory detention. But it also highlights how refugees humanised their regimented surroundings. For men, the camp was a transient space layered with anxieties of finding labour, and temporary boredom. For women and children, it was a safe space, which due to refugee-run kitchens, simulated a community. 

Whereas the work of Giorgio Agamben has theorised the camp as an exception to sovereignty, where subjects are rendered stateless, and denied basic rights, this paper offers a different reading. The ethno-linguistic diversity shared by European refugees amplified their cultural complexity, and placed them in an environment more vibrant than the rural towns outside it, and less hostile than the national conflicts they had fled. The camps reflected in microcosm some of the tensions, collaborations and border crossings later politicised through the European Union. Their assimilation into Australia traded this spatially constrained diversity for pre-determined, mono-cultural freedoms. Whereas the camp grid was carceral from the outset, so were the suburbs outside.

 

Mirjana Ristic, TU Darmstadt

Temporary Urbanism and Forces Migration: Lessons from Belgrade

The ongoing migration crisis in Europe and beyond is an urban phenomenon. According to the UNHCR data, over half the world’s 10.5 million refugees live in cities rather than in camps, often occupying informal, temporary and liminal spaces. This paper explores the transformation of self-organized migrant spaces in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, since the closure of the Balkan Route in 2016. The event turned Belgrade from a transitory city into a confined city, where thousands of migrants were stuck neither wanting to stay nor being able to leave. In this context, the paper investigates the emergence, transformation and demolition of two migrant squatter settlements in the central Belgrade: “Afghan Park” and “Barracks”. Through fieldwork, it analyses how and why migrants appropriated, adapted and mobilized these spaces in the struggle for human rights and freedom of movement towards the EU. Through interviews and open source data, it also examines the ways in which the host community of the city perceived these spaces and how the migrants interacted with the local population, authorities and NGOs to negotiate xenophobia, opposition and exclusion. The paper raises lessons about what urban planners and designers can learn from the qualities of the informal migrant spaces about the challenges and opportunities for fostering mutual understanding, integration, and cohesion of the forced migrants with the host communities in cities.

 

Anna Marie Steigemann, TU Berlin and Philipp Misselwitz, TU Berlin

Architectures of Asylum. A glocal perspective from Zaatari, Jordan and Berlin, Germany

Although urban research began to address socio-spatial distribution and architectures of so-called collective accommodations for asylum seekers, their spatial agency within these processes has not been a subject of substantive research yet. Combining research methods from architectural and social sciences, the paper investigates various appropriation processes by Syrian refugees currently housed in humanitarian settings in Jordan and Germany. What spatial knowledge is mobilized at the place of asylum? How does this knowledge hybrizide practices of the place of origin, experiences made during the flight and the arriving and uncertain period of stay at an unfamiliar place of asylum? What is the relationship between these subjective experiences of space? How do hybridization processes change over time and what factors influence these changes? How do spatial appropriation processes collide with humanitarian logics and technocratic emergency management approaches?

 

The paper argues that arriving refugees mobilize spatial and urban knowledge at the place of asylum which can only be understood as a re-figuration process which is equally at work in the case of other migrants, migration and translocal processes. In particular, we focus on the ways refugees perceive, adapt to, appropriate, and alter their new urban environment physically and socially and on how they thereby draw on existing and evolving stocks of urban knowledge, urban experiences, and relationships. A study of these urban re-figurations explains how migration affects transformation of urban space – physically and socially, and how planning and the existing and evolving social and technical infrastructures affect migrants’ mobility – socially and spatially.

 

 

Panel: Design for Asylum: Architecture, Urban Space and Forced Migration – Part Two

Sara Willems, KU Leuven, Henk De Smet, KU Leuven  and Ann Heylighen, KU Leuven

Seeking a balance between privacy and connectivity in housing for refugees

After receiving protection from the arrival country, refugees can start settling again. Finding appropriate housing is a difficult process, however. To increase the availability of housing for refugees in Flanders several volunteers developed housing initiatives. We investigated to what extent these initiatives are in line with refugees’ wishes and needs. To grasp the intentions of initiators and the lived experience of refugees semi-structured interviews were conducted, once with initiators of three housing initiatives and twice with nine refugees living there. In the timeframe between the interviews refugees could further document their experiences themselves by using cultural probes. Comparison of intentions and experiences indicates that initiators and refugees search for built environments that support a balance between connectedness with others and privacy. Finding this balance seems to be difficult, however. Both groups mention that interactions are influenced by the living environment, the household structure the dwelling is designed for and the building style. Contact with other refugees and people from different cultures can be stimulated in order to build up and maintain a social network. On the other hand privacy inside dwellings creates the possibility to preserve aspects of one’s own identity and lifestyle, and to personalize the often western houses to make them feel more familiar. Furthermore the support of both aspects by the living environment is mentioned as helpful to deal with traumas. The insights gained in our study can contribute to architectural designs and design processes that support the integration of refugees, and therefore to a more inclusive built environment and society.

 

Simone Cecilie Grytter, Goldsmiths, University of London and Josefine Sarkez-Knudsen, University of Copenhagen

Living together and side-by-side. A comparative ethnographic study of how the local population in an urban and a rural scenery, received newcomers during the refugee influx in 2015, focusing on the importance of geography and local setting

We examine how the local population in the Danish village Egebæk-Hviding, and locals in Berlin, Germany responded to the newcomers arriving during the refugee influx into Europe in 2015. We believe that the local population is an important, but overseen group of actors in receiving and integrating newcomers. The aim of our research is to examine how locals, in these geographically and demographically different areas of Europe, received the newcomers. In Egebæk-Hviding we investigate how the local population experienced the presence of a large asylum centre. This part of our examination challenges the image, often portrayed in the mass media, that inhabitants in rural areas are often either highly pro or contra asylum centres. We found how the history and architecture of the asylum centre buildings, as well as the village’s infrastructure played an important role in this. In Berlin we focus on locals who, voluntarily and independently, housed newcomers in their own home. These acts of solidarity might be seen as different forms of welcome culture; a politically inspired concept that entered mainstream public discourse in Germany during 2015.

 

In Egebæk-Hviding the locals experience the asylum centre as a part of the village’s eco-system. However, the situation is not characterized by a strong sense of “living together”, – rather a sense of “living side-by-side”. In Berlin the situation is oppositely characterized by a strong notion of “living together”, and it is uncovered that housing and engaging with newcomers on a daily basis is complex and multifactorial, and may evolve into tension and conflict. In relation to each other, it becomes clear that the locals’ response to the newcomers in Egebæk-Hviding and Berlin are characterized by being multiple, and the locals’ individual experience can be complex and filled with paradoxes, but still make sense in their individual everyday lives.

 

Marianna Nigra, Politecnico di Torino

Managing Complexity: The Phenomenon of Migration as a Trigger for Change in Complex Urban Systems

Cities have been largely described as complex adaptive systems. Complexity theory is generally utilized to describe phenomena that do not respond to linear trajectories; show unique behavioral pattern; are composed by high degree of components and interconnections; and are highly responsive to external and internal input. These system are also characterized by the inner contradiction of fragility and robustness. The more complex the systems are and the more robust. Yet the more complex the systems are and the higher is the probability that a punctual failure could generate the entire systems failure. Yet, every change can represent both an advancement opportunity and a potential threaten to the system. The contemporary phenomenon of increasing migration towards the European Cities represents an input into the complexity of the urban context system, which, consequentially, might vary its behavior patterns, generating opportunities and/or criticalities. These patterns depend upon a number of variable which span from immigration policies, readiness of the urban morphology, availability of built environment, etc. This work is aimed at applying concepts of complexity management to the phenomenon of migration towards European cities, by proposing methods to map cities as complex adaptive systems (characteristics of the existing context), read the characteristics of the external input (migration characteristics), and understand the response of the system (cities strategies and responses). On the basis of this analysis, the critical characteristics of the complex system will be highlighted and provided as a base for the definition of future policies, design strategies, and social responses.

 

Panel: Transit migration, state legitimacy and urban impact. Findings from Mexico, Greece and Turkey

 Panel Organizer:  Karen Jacobsen, Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, Tufts University

 

This panel addresses two conference themes: both changing durable solutions and civil society, new humanitarianism and citizens’ mobilization, by looking at different ways in which “The current proliferation of inter-state agreements [and] regional mechanisms …  to manage movements across borders and protect refugees calls for an understanding of the emerging dynamics of institutional frameworks [and] renegotiations of modes of protection.”  The panel explores new frameworks of protection and governance that emerge in transit countries, particularly the cases of Mexico, Greece and Turkey.  We seek to understand the stresses and protection risks placed on migrants and refugees and how they respond, and the consequences for the legitimacy of governing authorities at the municipal, sub-state, and national levels.  The panel’s papers are based on both a two-year study being conducted at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy on transit migration, and on the “Refugees in Towns” project based at the Feinstein International Center (both at Tufts University, Boston, USA).  The panel presenters come from Tufts and other universities.

 

Eileen Babbitt and Marina Travayiakis, Fletcher School, Tufts University

Do migration flows affect state legitimacy?  Data from Mexico and Greece as “Transit” States.

This paper explores the ways in which the legitimacy of transit states changes as a consequence of migration and their citizens’ perceptions of how authorities are handling the refugee challenges.   Does citizens’ acceptance of the state’s right to exercise authority increase or decrease in transit settings, and in what ways?  What happens to perceptions of legitimacy of governance at the sub-state and local levels? Existing scholarship demonstrates the link between low state legitimacy and negative consequences such as regime instability, state decay, and internal conflict. By contrast, in states where legitimate political authority has been re-established, regimes gain resilience, internal conflict declines and state capacity grows.  Therefore, enhanced legitimacy may help to stabilize fragile states or prevent seemingly well-functioning states from beginning a slide to fragility and/or violence.  Factors such as transit migration that potentially influence state legitimacy are thus important to identify and explain. The study is based predominantly on findings from Mexico and Greece, as well as existing research in other transit countries.

 

Katrina Burgess, Fletcher and Noelle Brigden, Marquette University

Permanent Transience and Urban Citizenship at the U.S.-Mexico Frontier

The borders of the Global North are ‘thickening’ as policing extends beyond traditional destinations, migrants seek safe places to regroup, and mass deportation becomes an integral part of the global migratory system. The relationship between globalization and securitization becomes most visible where these flows converge in so-called transit countries in the Global South. In these de-facto destinations, migrants and locals alike come to experience a ‘permanent transience’ in which opportunities for future mobility are uncertain and the social environment is fluid, shaped by the mobility of others and without expectations of settlement. Building on scholarship that increasingly focuses on ‘fragmented journeys’ rather than migrant arrivals, this paper addresses the relationship between permanent transience, thickening borders, and urban governance. Analyzing these dynamics at the level of the city reveals how local politics and practice are both informed by and potentially transform un-bordering and re-bordering processes. How do the nation-state and local actors interface in these spaces of permanent transience, and with what consequences? To answer this question, we draw on a series of workshops that bridged academics, policymakers, and civil society groups engaged with multiple migratory flows intersecting within border cities: deportee flows south, international refugee flows north, and internal migrants drawn to the economically dynamic border zone for work. We put these workshop findings in the larger context of worldwide migration systems and border controls to better understand urban citizenship at the margins of the new global political economy.

 

Elizabeth H. Prodromou and Vasileia Digidiki, Fletcher School, Tufts University

Social Representations of Religion in Migration Flows in the Eastern Mediterranean: Findings from the Critical Case of Lesvos, Greece

In 2015, the Eastern Mediterranean was the site of unprecedented levels of migration flows from Asia and Africa into Europe, a phenomenon whose intensity, complexity, and composition provoked a highly contested, politicized, mediatized discussion about the impacts of “the migration crisis” on Europe, resulting in many European countries adopting unilateral, anti-migration measures. Yet, massive transcontinental movements of refugees, asylum seekers, and economic migrants across the Mediterranean Sea are nothing new to the region. So what accounted for the unique language that was applied to the 2015 events? Lesvos, a Greek island located within the volatile geopolitical environment of the Levant, has experienced migration arrivals disproportionate to the size of the local population, and the local population has demonstrated a unique response to these flows. Therefore, Lesvos presents a critical case for deconstructing and differentiating social representations of religion and, especially, for capturing the social interpretations of the religion-security nexus in explaining responses to the 2015 “European migration crisis.” Our study explored Lesvos as a critical case—a frontline point in a frontline state. In July 2017, we conducted 80 were conducted with locals to examine the dominant public discourse on migrant identity, human security and religion. Based on our research results, our presentation discusses the salience of the religion-security nexus in the Eastern Mediterranean migration phenomenon, explaining how social representations about the religious identity of the migrants construct the dominant discourse and shape  different reactions to the migration flows. 

 

Zeynep Butilgil, Northeastern University and Charles Simpson, Feinstein Center, Tufts

How refugees are influencing town governance and civil political action. The Refugees in Towns project and the case of Syrian refugees in Sultanbeylii, Istanbul.

This presentation explores different aspects of the urban impact of refugees on town governance and refugee political involvement. The presentation discusses findings from the Refugees in Towns project (https://www.refugeesintowns.org), and the case of Syrian refugees in Sultanbeylii, Istanbul. In Turkey refugees do not have the right to vote, however, that does not mean they are politically inactive. For example, Syrians in Sutanbeyli expressed their gratitude to President Erdogan by demonstrating against the attempted coup (July 2016) and in support of Erdogan. The presentation explores different aspects of political mobilization by urban refugees and town governance responses on the part of mayors, municipalities, community action groups and other local political organizations.

 

Panel: The Global Compact on Refugees:  Can it fix a broken international refugee regime?

Alex Aleinikoff, Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, The New School; Leah Zamore , Center for International Cooperation, NYU; Shahrzad Tadjbakhsh, UNHCR Representative; Susan Martin, Professor Emerita, Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University

 

As called for by the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants (Sept. 2016), UNHCR is drafting a Global Compact on Refugees for consideration by the General Assembly in October 2017.  The focus of the Compact will be a “Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework” (CRRF), which is intended to formalize a strategy for bringing together humanitarian, development and other actors in planning and implementing responses to refugee emergencies (and perhaps protracted situations).  UNHCR is piloting the CRRF in Uganda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Djibouti, Central America and states hosting Somali refugees and will use the results of those pilots in further developing the CRRF.  The panel will discuss the drafting of the Compact and its status under international law, examine the progress of the UNHCR pilots, and evaluate the CRRF. It will also raise other issues that could be included in the Global Compact, such as a global responsibility-sharing platform, the extension of norms of protection to forced migrants not embraced by the Refugee Convention’s definition, structures of accountability, and the role of development in responding to refugee situations. An overriding question will be whether the Compact likely to be proposed is of sufficient ambition to respond to the significant challenges facing the international refugee regime.  The panel will address the issues from academic and policy perspectives; we hope to be able to include a UNHCR or UN representative as well.

 

Resettlement/Integration of Syrian refugees

 

Abdullah Yassen, Erbil Polytechnic University

The Right of Syrian Refugees to Local Integration in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Today, the displacement from Syria constitutes one of the largest refugee populations in the world and risking to become another “protracted displacement” in the Middle East. To alleviate their protracted displacement, analysis of the perceptions of durable solutions among all concerned parties is urgently required. Just like many neighboring and European countries, Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) also host thousands of Syrian Refugees. At the end of 2016, KRI hosted approximately 250,000 Syrians, which constitute 98 percent of all Syrian refugees currently residing in Iraq. This is in addition to the 1.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) that KRI hosts. Together, they account for 28 percent of the increase in the population of the KRI. For example, One in four people living KRI are either refugee or IDPs and this is higher than Lebanon (1 in 6), Jordan (1 in 11) and Turkey (1 in 28).

 

The mentioned figure represents a much higher proportional inflow of refugees and IDPs to KRI than other receiving countries mentioned above. This is naturally has caused a dramatic change in the composition of the population and the very fabric of society, bringing with it tremendous challenges of integration of refugees to the local community. The emergence of IDPs in other parts of Iraq, due to ISIS brutalities, meant that international focus such as donations and funds has turned to IDPs on the expense of Syrian refugees who have yet to reach the phase of recovery. In fact, beyond the region, limited reference is made to the case of Syrian refugees in the KRI. Instead, the literature has focused on Syrian refugees in neighboring countries (Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey) and Europe. Hence qualitative and quantitative research on the rights of Syrian refugees is necessary and contributes to the scarce literature.

 

The research explores the legal status of Syrian refugees in the KRI and examines the current outflow of Syrians to Kurdistan. This research focuses on the local-level perceptions of practitioners, policy-makers, and Syrian refugees in KRI. This research is based on desk research and interviews in the field between January 2017 and May 2017.

 

The findings show that the preferred method of durable solution is resettlement to third countries among the overall majority of the Syrian refugees who have participated in this research. While both local integration and voluntary repatriation are largely unworkable since Kurdistan as part of Iraq has not signed the Refugee Convention. Therefore, the Refugee Convention and its legal provisions are not applicable to Syrian refuges in the KRI. In fact, the KRI has not incorporated any specific provisions in its domestic legislations to integrate refugees.

 

Dimitris Skleparis, University of Glasgow; Georgios Karyotis, University of Glasgow

Training Needs, Aspirations and Opportunities for Young Syrian Refugees: A Comparative Study

The protracted nature of the Syrian conflict has directed attention to policies designed to empower refugees to integrate socially and economically in host societies. Education and skills development for young people are at the heart of these efforts. Comparative research on forced displacement and education, in particular, is very limited; on youth it is almost non-existent. This paper proposes a new interdisciplinary theoretical synthesis to overcome this limitation. Theoretical approaches from education, economics and sociology will be explored for their relevance and utility in identifying and deconstructing young refugees’ past learning and training experiences, their acquisition of new skills, and their transition and integration into new learning and training situations. Empirically, original data are analysed from face-to-face interviews with 500 Syrian refugees aged 18-32 years in each of the following three host states: a neighbouring host state (Lebanon), the main entry point to Europe (Greece), and a north European destination state (the UK). By analysing in a comparative context the aspirations and training needs of young refugees, this paper aims to simultaneously fill a gap in existing knowledge and focus attention on a demographic whose skills are key to economic prosperity. Our comparative approach will allow us to explore whether the currently observed limited impact of Syrian refugees on the labour market, including in culturally similar countries, can be explained by their lack of required skills that would be suited to the opportunities that exist in host countries or by constraints and barriers they face when they get there.

 

Fatima Raza, Global Programs and Partnerships at Rice University’s Center for Civic Leadership

Engaging Displaced Youth in the Middle East as Partners in Change: Perspectives from Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Greece

(Mercy Corps Capstone Project: Alexander Cox, Susan Din, Akiko Kobayashi, Conor McCormick-Cavanagh, Fatima Raza, Indrani Sarkar, Rafael Schleicher, Kasumi Takahashi)

 

Conflicts in the Middle East have prompted mass displacement across the region– a significant proportion of which are young people, who often find themselves deprived of opportunities for education, livelihoods and civic engagement. This reality has contributed to a profound sense of exclusion and disempowerment among displaced youth. At the same time, it is increasingly recognized that youth engagement — increasing youth capacity and agency to make decisions over programs and policies that affect their lives — can have positive impacts on their personal, social and human development. International and local organizations can play a critical role in leveraging the potential of young people to serve as active contributors to their communities and take ownership over their own futures.

 

This project involved a multi-country study across Syria (remotely), Jordan, Lebanon, and Greece to examine: 1) youth perspectives and ideas on their engagement in existing programs and their own initiatives, and 2) organizational perspectives, strategies, and constraints to engage youth in the various phases of programming.

 

Although contexts vary from country to country, this study highlights the priorities and concerns of displaced youth and the challenges they face. While organizations working with displaced youth often recognize the value of youth engagement, many lack effective means to delegate decision-making authority and resources to youth in their programs. Organizational strategies for youth engagement range from tokenistic involvement to meaningful partnership. This study highlights good practices for youth engagement, and provides recommendations for organizations to adapt and design programming that effectively empowers and engages displaced youth as partners in change.