Forced Migration

The number of forcibly-displaced people in the world now exceed 65 million, due primarily to violent conflict, persecution, and natural disasters. This course examines the hardships most refugees face during their journeys, in the process of resettlement and integration, and after return. It introduces students to the policies that govern the protection of and assistance to refugees, and the humanitarian responses by international organizations, nation-states, local governments, NGOs, and others in an effort to alleviate their suffering. The course also discusses the future challenges, such as climate-induced displacement.

There are more types of borders today than ever before in history. Borders of all kinds define every aspect of social life in the twenty-first century. From the biometric data that divides the smallest aspects of our bodies to the aerial drones that patrol the immense expanse of our domestic and international airspace, we are defined by borders. They can no longer simply be understood as the geographical divisions between nation-states. Today, their form and function has become too complex, too hybrid. What we need now is a theory of the border that can make sense of this hybridity across multiple domains of social life.

Rather than viewing borders as the result or outcome of pre-established social entities like states, Thomas Nail reinterprets social history from the perspective of the continual and constitutive movement of the borders that organize and divide society in the first place. Societies and states are the products of bordering, Nail argues, not the other way around. Applying his original movement-oriented theoretical framework "kinopolitics" to several major historical border regimes (fences, walls, cells, and checkpoints), Theory of the Border pioneers a new methodology of "critical limology," that provides fresh tools for the analysis of contemporary border politics.

The central problem of the case study is the after-effect of the last phase of the forced ethnic homogenization of Bosnia and Herzegovina, unintentionally caused by the peace accord, concluded on the American base in Dayton in the year 1995. By the border agreements, the competing parties were forced to hand over some lands they were so far controlling to the hands of the enemy. This caused another wave of involuntary mass migrations. The most controversial transfer of territory has been the handing over of five municipalities of Sarajevo with mostly Serbian inhabitants to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the first three months of the year 1996. The circumstances of how precisely the majority of Serbs had to leave their homes had so far not been fully clarified. This pilot study aims to investigate all different aspects which influenced the final decision of the Serbs from Sarajevo to leave en masse from their hometown.

Bu çalışmada, XIX. yüzyıl sonunda zorunlu göçe; 1923 yılında Türkiye ile Yunanistan arasında yapılan antlaşma gereğince de mübadeleye tabi tutulan Giritli Müslümanların iskân edildikleri yeni topraklarında karşılaştıkları uyum sorunu üzerinde durulmuştur. Bu anlamda özellikle sosyokültürel hayatta uyumu zorlaştıran dil meselesi üzerine odaklanılmıştır. Nitekim Girit’te gündelik hayatta yaygın olarak Rumca konuşan Müslümanlar, Türkçeyi çok az bildiklerinden veya hiç bilmediklerinden yeni topraklarında kendilerini ifade etmekte güçlük çekmişlerdir. Bu durum onların, görevlilerle ve özellikle de yeni komşularıyla sorun yaşamalarına neden olmuştur. Girit’te “Türkler dışarı!” sözlerine muhatap olurlarken, yeni topraklarında “yarım gâvur”, “gâvur tohumu!” gibi sözlerle itham edilmişlerdir. Bu süreçte toplumsal kabulün, sosyal bütünleşmenin sağlanamaması onlar için şartları daha da zorlaştırmıştır. Neticede bu çalışmayla hem zorunlu göç döneminde hem de mübadele sürecinde gelen Giritli Müslümanların karşılaştıkları dil sorununun, uyum sürecinde toplumsal kabul üzerindeki etkisi ele alınmıştır. Bunu yaparken de arşiv belgeleri, kaynak eserler, gazeteler, seyahatnameler, hatıratlar, edebi metinler ve araştırma eserler kullanılmıştır.

Facilitating access to asylum and other forms of refugee protection for the millions displaced by mass atrocities in Syria and Iraq is essential to the implementation of the international norm of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP). This responsibility, however, has been disproportionately shouldered by several states in the Middle East and Europe. This article explores the challenges associated with refugee responsibility-sharing in the context of RtoP and draws on work in climate justice and political realism to articulate a framework for integrating culpability as a key criterion in allocating states' responsibilities to protect refugees. An empirical and normative assessment of U.S. responsibilities to protect refugees in the cases of conflict-induced displacement in Syria and Iraq outlines several potential paths of culpability. The article ultimately argues for greater attention to culpability, equity, and legitimacy within the discourse surrounding RtoP and refugee protection. The article also advocates linking the benefits of refugee responsibility-sharing with states' national interests and highlights several such links with regard to U.S. responsibilities in Syria and Iraq.

In order to avoid displacement when possible, displacement and human mobility issues need to be better integrated within national and regional adaptation planning processes. When movement cannot be avoided, adaptation measures can help people to move voluntarily and with dignity long before a crisis situation occurs. National Adaptation Plans – established under the Cancun Adaptation Framework can play an important role in achieving this by incorporating human mobility within regional climate change strategies.

Die bewegten Biografien Geflüchteter in unserer Stadt
»Weißt Du, wer ich bin?« Diese Frage ist eine Herausforderung an uns alle, die geflüchteten Menschen tagtäglich begegnen.
»Wer bin ich? Wer bist Du?«, sind manchmal die ersten Fragen, die eine Tür zu einem Gespräch öffnen. Im Gespräch kommt man sich näher, baut Vorurteile und Unkenntnis ab. Bei der Begegnung mit Geflüchteten aus unterschiedlichen Kulturkreisen, mit unterschiedlichen Biografien, mit Andersdenkenden und Andersgläubigen,gibt es gibt viel zu entdecken: Unbekanntes und Fremdes, aber auch viel Gemeinsames.
Dieses Buch erzählt von den Lebenswegen und Geschichten 28 Geflüchteter.

Hrsg. von EMFA/Integrationsagentur
Autoren: Hidir Eren Celik, J. Michael Fischell, Christoph Gappa, Giorgia Sogos

While media and scholarly attention on the ‘clandestinity’ of migrants is commonplace, and while ‘visibility’ and ‘invisibility’ feature prominently in the vocabulary of migration scholars, it seems researchers rarely interrogate borders and migration from the angle of sociologies, anthropologies and geographies of secrecy. We use the analytics of secrecy when we debate the covert activities of spies, diplomats, bankers, conspirators,  not to mention the transgressive acts of whistleblowers, but arguably less so when we theorize migration control. In this essay I want to explore some connections between the politics of secrecy and the politics of migration control. My main argument is that it is fruitful to bring theoretical and empirical reflections on secrecy into the debate about borders and migration. I call this the secretization of migration.

In the face of the ‘refugee crisis’, many European governments, even in traditionally liberal states, unilaterally introduced a number of restrictive and, often, controversial migration, asylum, and border control policies. The author argues that past legal-bureaucratic choices on migration and asylum policies, ongoing developments in international relations at that time, the structural and perceived capacity of receiving states to cope with the refugee influx, and long-standing migration-related security concerns influenced the responses of many European governments amid the mass population movement. However, the author also suggests that the surfacing of particular policies across Europe was related to the newly elected Greek government’s attempted U-turn from similar repressive and controversial policies during that time. In this regard, the author maintains that repressive and controversial migration, asylum, and border control policies cannot simply be abolished within the cont...

Europe's Transforming Identity. Part 1 of the book Islam and Tolerance in Wider Europe (ed. Pamela Kilpadi) including the articles:
* 'What Values for Europe?' by Michael Emerson
* 'The Role of Islam in Europe: Multiple Crises?' by Amel Boubekeur and Samir Amghar
* 'The Southern Gate to Fortress Europe' by Rutvica Andrijasevic

In this article I explore how the child welfare system in Australia is a basis of governmentality, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted with 35 women resettled in Australia as refugees originating from African countries. Although the explicit aim of the child welfare system is to protect children from a risk of significant harm, the findings presented here suggest that such systems can concurrently operate to evaluate, monitor, and demand behavioural change from women who are the subject of intervention in accordance with logics of white neoliberal motherhood, in which parental merit is measured through, and problematised by, factors of racialisation, assumptions of cultural difference, counter-heteronormativity, and socioeconomic marginalisation. I argue that the child welfare system not only operates to protect children, but can also function as an instrument to govern women to 'fit' with an idealised standard of citizenship in Australia. Thereby supplanting maternal guardianship with the mandate of government institutions, operations of child welfare position the paternalistic authority of the state as absolute and render mothers who do not conform to white neoliberal motherhood as vulnerable to intervention. Motherhood is an arena in which national anxieties are imagined and played out on the bodies of women and the formation of families. Tensions concerning who is considered a 'good' mother, how the 'right' parenting is conducted, and what constitutes as a 'proper' family not only attach hierarchical frameworks of merit to motherhood and family, but also express – and co-constitute – shared anxieties about race and nationhood) emphasises, nationhood is not static: and it is through the bodies of women and their experiences of motherhood particular formations of civic belonging are both natur-alised and excluded. Drawing on research conducted with women from African refugee backgrounds who have experienced the removal of a child through the child welfare system in Australia, in this article I describe how 'good' citizenship is realised through formations of state governance over family life and, particularly, through the kinds of expectations that are attached to 'good' motherhood.

Prepared for the Northern Thailand Informal Discussion Group, April 19, 2016.  This is a further mulling on my book "Bureaucratizing the Good Samaritan" which was published in 2001.  I think that the argument continues to hold.  And I look forward to returning to the subject of refugees and refugee relief in coming years.

Forced migration is a global issue.
About 34 million of the world's inhabitants were identified in 2010 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees as either refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers or stateless people. Systematic inquiries are urgently needed to understand and improve the circumstances in which these people live, and to guide national and international policies and programs.
However, there are many ethical complications in conducting research with uprooted people, who have often been exposed to persecution and marginalisation in conflict situations, refugee camps, immigration detention settings, and following resettlement. This book brings together for the first time key scholars across a range of disciplines including anthropology, bioethics, public health, criminology, psychology, socio-linguistics, philosophy, psychiatry, social policy and social work to discuss the ethical dimensions, challenges and tensions of such research.
It encompasses the theoretical, conceptual, practical, and applied aspects of research ethics, while integrating different disciplinary perspectives. It is intended as a resource not only for researchers, students and practitioners but also for those conducting cross-cultural research more broadly. Many of its arguments, examples and concerns are pertinent to research with other vulnerable or marginalised populations.

Come nasce il termine rifugiato? Come si è giunti all'attuale definizione di tale categoria migratoria? Il presente articolo ripercorre la storia della sua evoluzione, analizzando processi e avvenimenti che hanno reso questa figura ciò che è oggi. Frutto di un cortocircuito del sistema politico westfaliano, lo sviluppo del suo profilo contemporaneo rappresenta per certi aspetti il "negativo" dell'idea occidentale di libera circolazione. Ripercorrere tali vicende, contribuisce a mettere in luce le debolezze alla base delle distinzioni fra categorie migratorie.

How the term refugee was born? How did this migration category become what it is today? This article retraces the history of its evolution, analysing processes and events that contributed to shape this figure as we know it. The refugee's contemporary figure emerged from a breakdown in Westphalian international political system and then it developed to some extent in opposition to the western idea of freedom of circulation. The historical path of this type of migration highlights how weak are migrants categories' distinctions.

This volume examines the relationship between imperial collapse, the emergence of successor nationalism, the exclusion of ethnic groups with the wrong credentials, and the refugee experience. It brings together a coherent range of essays, written by established authorities and emerging scholars, which offer a highly original and comparative way of examining the refugee experience on a global scale. The book is structured into three distinct sections. The first of these contains three overview pieces introducing the key themes in the volume. The second focuses specifically upon the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires at the end of the First World War, with individual essays on specific case studies. The third examines 'The Consequences and Legacy of British Imperial Collapse', with a particular focus upon the experiences of South Asians immediately after the partition of India and the specific case of Uganda.

The subject of the article is the mass exodus of the Italian speaking or Italian oriented population of Istria, a peninsula on the north-eastern Adria occupied by the Yugoslav Army of Marshall Tito at the end of WW2 and attributed to Yugoslavia with the peace treaty between Italy and the United Nations in 1947. The ‘exodus’ involved some 270.000 -300.000 people, corresponding to 85-100% of those who understood themselves as ‘Italians’. Therefore, although no official measures were taken to carry out an ‘ethnic simplification’ of the territory, the result was the disappearance of a substantial ethnic component, leading to an unchallenged Croatian predominance in ‘socialist Istria’. The authors assert that a crucial factor for the ethnic-national struggle in Istria and the subsequent abandonment of the peninsula by the ‘Italians’ was the uncertain attribution of the territory after WW2. The area was deeply fragmented; some sectors were occupied by the Yugoslavs and others by British-American troops. Both Italy and Yugoslavia claimed the territory for themselves. People rallied to the Italian or the Yugoslav cause and waged relentless battles. Of course,, the Yugoslavs were in a stronger position thanks to the Army, the secret police, the Communist administration, and Communist networks. Therefore, the struggle between Communists and anti-Communists which also affected the rest of Yugoslavia, did on the Italo-Yugoslav border take on the character of an ethnic
–national clash between ‘Italians’ and ‘Slavs’.

In the current context of the ‘migration crisis’, part of the migrants that reached the EU territory have been confronted with human trafficking by becoming victims or experiencing violence during their journey. The realization of a human security approach to trafficking in human beings could have the effect to enhance measures of prevention, protection and prosecution in the fight against this serious crime, addressing freedom from want, freedom from fear and strengthening the rule of law. The European Union approach is – in theory – characterized by the above mentioned elements and the general analysis of the paper will be on the comprehensive approach promoted by the EU legislation to human trafficking not only from a law enforcement perspective, but also considering the victims’ position and their rights. In particular, the central question touches upon the extent the approach in EU legislation and policy promotes and enables a human security approach to trafficking in human beings or if, in practice, a lack of human security still continue to exist. To that effect, the analysis will focus, on the one hand, on the ‘access to victims’ rights’ in relation with the possession of a residence permit; on the other, on the consequences of the problematic definition of ‘exploitation’.

Bangladesh has made significant improvements in reducing poverty since its independence in 1971, diverse developmental challenges remain. The role of public, private and non- governmental actors in poverty reduction has been widely recognized in the literature. Numerous private sector initiatives are proliferating within NGOs’ project portfolios as an opportunity for an innovative approach to poverty reduction. Despite this progress, studies have shown the degree to which households above the poverty line remain highly vulnerable and could slide back into poverty when faced with shocks such as the loss of working opportunities, food price inflation, illness, natural disasters and other crises. Attempts to alleviate poverty therefore need to look at household resilience if improvements are to be sustained. Using a case study approach, this study investigates how a private sector intervention undertaken by NGOs effectively helps extreme poor households build their livelihood resilience. This research is based on a case study involving collaboration between the Social and Economic Transformation of the Ultra-poor (SETU) project of CARE
Bangladesh and Classical Handmade Products-BD (CHP-BD), an export oriented rug manufacturing company. Under this collaboration in SETU (phase-1), nearly 270 females from
extremely poor households (i.e. SETU project beneficiaries) engaged in CHP-BD rug production activities. This resulted in more resilient livelihoods and helped move the women from lower productivity housemaid work to higher productivity rug factory work. The research will also focus on the impact of a temporary closure of the factory on the livelihoods of the women. It analyses the coping strategies adopted by the workers during the closure, and explores the ways in which workers learnt from this event and changed their behaviour in terms of savings, income diversification and strengthening social connections. The authors also analyse how this
change in behaviour helped the women build livelihood resilience against potential future shocks.

Over the past few years, increased ‘unauthorised’ migrations into the territories of Europe have resulted in one of the most severe crises in the history of the European Union. Stierl explores migration and border struggles in contemporary Europe and the ways in which they animate, problematise, and transform the region and its political formation. This volume follows public protests of migrant activists, less visible attempts of those on the move to ‘irregularly’ subvert borders, as well as new solidarities and communities that emerge in interwoven struggles for the freedom of movement. Stierl offers a conceptualisation of migrant resistances as forces of animation through which European forms of border governance can be productively explored. As catalysts that set socio-political processes into frictional motion, they are developed as modes of critical investigation, indeed, as method. By ethnographically following and being implicated in different migration struggles that contest the ways in which Europe decides over and enacts who does, and does not, belong, the author probes what they reveal about the condition of Europe in the contemporary moment.
This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of Migration, Border, Security and Citizenship Studies, as well as the Political Sciences more generally.

Drawing on recent interviews of Indian returnees from Burma, this article sheds light on a well-known yet understudied moment of Burma’s postcolonial history, the forced repatriation of Indian communities during the 1960s. The research has gathered first-hand narratives about the traumatic experiences shared by Indian repatriated families, from their much debated decision to leave Burma, to the perceived humiliation of departure and the dramatic (re)migration to India. The article builds on the scholarship on exile and nostalgia, which claims that repatriation processes often lead to a retrospective idealization by the returnees of what has been left behind. Interviews have indeed revealed how nostalgic memories of a “golden past” and a “paradise lost” in Burma have been shaped among the first generation of Indian repatriates ever since their resettlement in India. In contrast with the classic diaspora literature, which postulates that diasporic groups tend to idealize their homeland, Indians in Burma have tended to rather romanticize their Burmese host- land. They cherish the “golden days” they once lived in Burma, whilst expressing highly condescending feelings about their new Indian “homeland” where resettlement and re-integration to the Indian national space have proved harsher than expected.

Many return year after year to the same families. While in Spain they receive medical care, clothes, toys, gifts for their families in the camps, food items, school supplies and money. Most return home with cash and some families additionally send money throughout the year. Host parents report that children often come with specific family requests and may return home with pressure cookers, solar panels and sewing machines – provided either by host families or local solidarity associations.

California is home to approximately one-third of the Cambodian American population, many of whom came to the United States as refugees. In a chapter from her book, Southeast Asian Migration: People on the Move in Search of Work, Refuge and Belonging, BIMI-affiliate and Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies Khatharya Um, explores how Cambodian American youth participate in artistic expression and political engagement to navigate the burdens of transgenerational trauma and forced migration. Drawing on Prof. Um’s research, this policy brief makes recommendations for activists, educators, policy makers, and service providers to support the empowerment of young Cambodian Americans and other refugee communities.

This is an unusual book. Combining social science fiction, utopianism, pragmatism, sober analysis, and innovative social theory, the authors address one of the biggest dilemmas of our age – how to solve the problems arising from mass displacement. As early versions of the solution proposed by Robin Cohen and Nicholas Van Hear filtered out, their vision of a new, networked, transnational archipelago, called Refugia, was immediately denounced or met with scepticism by established refugee scholars. Others were more intrigued, more open-minded, or perhaps just holding their fire until this book was finally published. As it at least has the virtue of originality, why not judge the proposal for yourself? Read it and craft your own critique. The authors have initiated an openly pro-refugee vision that all can help to shape. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to scholars, students and practitioners, as well as to an informed public ready to engage with this pressing issue.

The article analyses Italian second reception system for asylum seekers and refugees (so-called SPRAR system), through the lens of psychosocial well-being. The author examines in depth the connections between migration, trauma and suffering, and proposes a
multidimensional definition of ‘psychosocial well-being’, by drawing on the conceptualization given by ‘Psychosocial Working Group’

Many of the studies on Palestinian Diaspora are connected to the Nakbah and to the refugee question. The fact that Christmas Lutheran Church is located in Bethlehem, and thus in the 1967 occupied Palestinian Land, gives us a different angle on the issue of Palestinian Diaspora. What this study shows is that the Migration of Palestinians in general and the Palestinian Christian in particular is connected to recurring empires and powers controlling and occupying Palestine and had mainly political reasons: Drafting of Christians to the military by the young Turks; The Nakbah and the loss of land and livelihood, the de-development of the West Bank under Jordanian rule, and the continued Israeli occupation of the West Bank.  While economic factors played an important drive for immigration, they were often a result of the political developments.  Devastating is the fact that Palestinian migration is not a onetime thing but an ongoing open wound that is still bleeding with no end in sight. Thus, this study shows that Christmas Lutheran Church provides a microcosm of Palestinian society and a mirror of the Palestinian history in the last 150 years. And last but not least this research shows that the diasporic experience of the Palestinian Christians is part and parcel of the larger Palestinian diasporic experience though there is uniqueness to the Christian experience.

Kidnapping, originally considered a problem for the super wealthy, has quickly spread to epidemic proportions among the relative poor, especially among clandestine international migrants. This article examines how people’s relationship to the US–Mexico border shapes their vulnerability to kidnapping. Moreover, through one long ethnographic vignette and survey data of deportees’ experiences with kidnapping, this article explores how the border helps produce and shape kidnapping. By exploring the
border as topological, based on the relationships created through clandestine migration and deportation, we can see how kidnapping operates to produce certain, highly varied subjectivities. Moreover, this article explores the contours of sexuality and masculinity for a feminist geopolitical take on some of the darkest chapters of the war on drugs in Mexico.

Alors que c’est souvent a la Seconde Guerre mondiale et a ses suites que sont associees les experiences des deplacements forces, des internements massifs de civils et de militaires, cet ouvrage propose de placer la focale sur un long XIXe siecle, de la Revolution francaise aux lendemains de la Premiere Guerre mondiale. Ce livre a pour ambition de proposer une analyse conjointe et comparee, a la fois diachronique et internationale, de trois grands types d’experiences a priori dissemblables, celles des refugies, des prisonniers de guerre et des deportes lors d’un siecle qui vit a la fois ces phenomenes se massifier et — lentement encore — se differencier. Ces trois formes de circulation transnationale contrainte — alors encore comparables a bien des egards — sont caracterisees par un moment d’arrachement qui se deroule dans un contexte de violence (guerre, revolution, crise), suivi d’une migration forcee et d’une implantation provisoire ou definitive. Ces deplaces subissent alors souv...

On the same day that a top UN official bravely called on Australia to end the harmful practice of processing asylum applications offshore in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, one of his colleagues announced his support for another proposed offshoring system – this time to prevent migrants reaching the EU. Journey stops here: African migrants rescued by the Libyan coastguard.

Las movilidades forzadas derivadas de situaciones de violencia como producto de un abanico multifactorial, son una constante en la historia de América Latina. Comprender sus causas y características, así como las variaciones de su acontecer en el tiempo, se ligan a la imperiosa necesidad de afrontarlas y buscar soluciones desde una ciudadanía consciente y comprometida

Practical cooperation has passed from the margins to the center of the migration and asylum policies. The operationalisation of the hotspot approach to migration management points to the emergence of an increasingly integrated European administration. We are witnessing patterns of joint implementation, with experts deployed by EU AFSJ agencies involved in search and rescue operations, the registration and referral stages, as well as in the processing of asylum claims. However, less attention has been dedicated to a parallel development, that of the expansion of the mandate of EU JHA agencies, and specifically the revamped FRONTEX and EASO agencies, to include monitoring-like functions, as well as functions which have the potential to steer policy implementation. This creates obvious tensions with the agencies’ internal governance structures which are largely intergovernmental. In this contribution, I first outline some of the novel (envisaged) functions, while critically assessing the challenge of independence. I then open the question whether social accountability arrangements could act as a counterbalance.