Refugees and Forced Migration Studies

Spaces of refuge represent the paradoxical encounters between a series of governmental forces, disciplinary knowledge, aesthetic regimes and spatial conditions that tend to arrest, fix in time and space forms of lives. Considering the fact that camps are meant to be the materialisation of a temporal status, spatial and political, the proposition posed by Benjamin Gray's Citizenship as Barrier and Opportunity for Ancient Greek and Modern Refugees, to look at "citizenship-in-exile" practices in ancient Greece and their forms of "improvised quasi-civic communities", is welcome as it is refreshing. This short response engages with Gray's text, addressing two different but interconnected points: in one respect, I hope to rescue Agamben's work from its linear reading by commenting on the depoliticization of the camp and the critique of its exceptionalism; and, in another, I wish to provoke reflection around the universalising claim of hospitality and full assimilation, by introducing the disruptive terminology of inhabitation. This critical insertion aims to redefine an ethical relationship with the space, as a space of and for life, that Agamben sees as the basis for a new ethics, reversing its status as a productive and active force where the camp, in its paradigmatic reading, and the form of life it generates, helps to think beside the exceptional and move to inhabit such indistinctions.

Este livro discute um tema ainda pouco abordado: estrangeiros/as que chegam ao Brasil e solicitam refúgio com a expectativa de vivenciar seus desejos afetivo-sexuais com maior liberdade, uma vez que tiveram que fugir de seus países de origem por terem sido perseguidos/as devido às suas orientações sexuais. Trata-se de uma etnografia que vai interessar a estudantes, pesquisadores/as, ativistas e profissionais das áreas de Migração Internacional e Refúgio, Gênero e Sexualidade, Antropologia, Políticas Públicas e Direitos Humanos.

https://www.livraria.ufsc.br/produto/1225/refugio-por-motivos-de-orientacao-sexual--um-estudo-antropologico-na-cidade-de-sao-paulo

Introduction
C. L. Crouch
University of Nottingham

The Imperial End: How Empire Overtakes Refugees in Jeremiah
Steed Vernyl Davidson
McCormick Theological Seminary

Embracing Asylum Seekers and Refugees: Jeremiah 29 as Foundation for a Christian Theology of Migration and Integration
C. A. Strine
University of Sheffield

The Art of Wounded Hope: Forced Migration, Prophecy and Aesth/ethics
Susanna Snyder
Catherine of Siena College, University of Roehampton

Temporality, Dispossession and the Search for the Good:
Interpreting the Book of Jeremiah with the Jesuit Refugee Service
Anna Rowlands
Durham University

The protracted structural crisis of Afghanistan has caused one the most important and lasting outflow of refugees in the world and Pakistan, who bears the bulk of the refugees with Iran, is in need of a long term vision to deal with such burden. This paper proposes to look for answers by in the strategies deployed by Afghans living in Peshawar. It shows how these strategies relate to long standing historical patterns of trade and migration in the region and how they have been modified by the history of the Pak-Afghan border. It argues for a borderland perspective in studying the evolution of this relation between the Pashtun tribes of Southern Afghanistan, the state and its borders, to see how this evolution has shaped the current crisis, but also the strategies to cope with it.

In thinking about the rise of the Anthropocene, an important facet of this looming new era remains under-explored: namely, how cultural identity, and its tangible and intangible markers, are to be renegotiated and protected. Notwithstanding that the origins of international heritage law lie in protecting heritage in times of crisis (wartime and natural or man-made disasters), regimes under UNESCO for safeguarding cultural heritage in international law are ill-prepared for the challenges of the Anthropocene. A particular question that needs to be considered is the protection in international law of cultural heritage and identity when communities are displaced from their homes. Because international cultural heritage law is connected to state territoriality, states have the ultimate authorizing power over the meanings and uses of cultural heritage. In the past, this power has at times been used to the detriment of minority groups contesting the majoritarian state. But how might this power play out in a context where communities are forced to move? What, if anything, can international heritage law do to ensure that these populations, who have already lost their homes and livelihoods, can maintain their cultural identity through the protection of their heritage? I argue that international law's separation between the cultural and biological facets of human existence presents a major obstacle to safeguarding the cultures of migrant and refugee groups, ultimately frustrating the very objectives that this separation was meant to achieve, namely, the protection of these populations. Only by reintegrating biology and culture can international law create the means for reimagining civilization in the Anthropocene.

Unprecedented levels of displacement make the return of refugees and internally displaced populations a critical challenge, with post-conflict minority return especially complex. This article investigates the return process in Kosovo to identify what supports and hinders sustainability. For nearly two decades the Government of Kosovo and international partners have supported the return of minorities displaced during the 1998–1999 conflict and March 2004 riots. We draw on interviews with all major stakeholder groups in return programming and on indicative survey data from 499 returnees. Using a framework adapted from Black, Koser and Munk (‘Understanding Voluntary Return’), we focus on the Kosovo return process in recent years. The survey results indicate some sustainability but high differentiation in returnees’ satisfaction. This warrants concern, as differences in returnee perspectives run along already conflictual ethnic and spatial fault lines. In post-conflict settings, sustainable return and reintegration require more than the provision of services – they require nuanced understanding of how the shadow of conflict shapes returnee experiences. Finally, we question the orthodoxy of return discourse and highlight critical factors to support sustainable return elsewhere.

Στο άρθρο αυτό διερευνώνται οι παραδοχές και οι στάσεις των εκπαιδευτών της ελληνικής ως δεύτερης ή ξένης γλώσσας σε σχέση με:
- τις μητρικές γλώσσες των ενηλίκων εκπαιδευομένων με μεταναστευτική προέλευση
- το βαθμό συμβατότητας της χρήσης της μητρικής γλώσσας με τη διαδικασία κατάκτησης της Γ2.
Η έρευνα πραγματοποιήθηκε στο διάστημα 2011-2013 σε δείγμα εκπαιδευτών διαφορετικών φορέων και δομών εκπαίδευσης ενηλίκων: στο πρόγραμμα «Οδυσσέας» της Γενικής Γραμματείας Διά Βίου Μάθησης και του Ιδρύματος Νεολαίας και Διά Βίου Μάθησης, στο Διδασκαλείο Νέας Ελληνικής Γλώσσας του Πανεπιστημίου Αθηνών, στο Σχολείο Νέας Ελληνικής  Γλώσσας του Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης και σε Κέντρα Επαγγελματικής Κατάρτισης. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό αξιοποιήθηκε ερωτηματολόγιο, που απαντήθηκε από 211 εκπαιδευτές και ημιδομημένες συνεντεύξεις με δείγμα 26 εκπαιδευτών. Εξετάστηκε, παράλληλα, ο λόγος των εκπαιδευτών του πεδίου για το θέμα που μας αφορά, όπως καταγράφεται σε επιστημονικά συνέδρια και ημερίδες.
Από την επεξεργασία των δεδομένων προκύπτει ότι ένα αριθμητικά σημαντικό μέρος των εκπαιδευτών της ελληνικής ως δεύτερης γλώσσας σε ενήλικες μετανάστες αναπαράγει νοητικά σχήματα μονοπολιτισμικής κατεύθυνσης, σύμφωνα με τα οποία οι εκπαιδευόμενοι «οφείλουν» να ακολουθήσουν μια διαδικασία έκθεσης ή και «εμβύθισης» στην ελληνική γλώσσα και τον ελληνικό πολιτισμό. Σε ένα τέτοιο πλαίσιο η χρήση της μητρικής γλώσσας γίνεται αντιληπτή περισσότερο ως «εμπόδιο»  για την επιτυχή ένταξη και, ακόμα και στις περιπτώσεις που περιγράφεται ως «ανθρώπινο δικαίωμα», περιορίζεται στον εκτός του εκπαιδευτικού πλαισίου χώρο.  Ως προϋπόθεση για την εκμάθηση της Γ2, έτσι, και για την εξασφάλιση προοπτικών κοινωνικής κινητικότητας περιγράφεται το αίτημα της εξομοίωσης με έναν ιδεατό «φυσικό ομιλητή»-πρότυπο, ως μια διαδικασία μετάβασης του εκπαιδευόμενου από τη μητρική στη δεύτερη γλώσσα και από τον πολιτισμό της χώρας προέλευσης στον «πολιτισμό–στόχο». Σε ένα τέτοιο πλαίσιο αφομοίωσης («βίαιης» ή «συναινετικής») αντικείμενο διαπραγμάτευσης αποτελεί μόνο το επίπεδο «ομαλότητας» ή εξασφάλισης της «συναίνεσης» στη μετάβαση.
Ειδικά οι εκπαιδευόμενοι με μεταναστευτική προέλευση περιγράφονται από την ομάδα αυτή εκπαιδευτών ως γλωσσικά και πολιτισμικά ελλειμματικοί,  στερημένοι από μορφωτικό κεφάλαιο, με χαμηλά προσόντα και δεξιότητες, και οι μητρικές τους γλώσσες ως αξιολογικά «κατώτερες» σε σχέση με την «πλούσια» ελληνική γλώσσα. Η γλωσσική ηγεμονία σε βάρος της αποδοχής του πολιτισμικού πλουραλισμού, της διαπερατότητας των ταυτοτήτων και της πολλαπλογλωσσίας, υποβαθμίζει τις ταυτότητες των εκπαιδευομένων από ομάδες «χαμηλού κύρους» και καθίσταται μια εμπειρία «αποδυνάμωσης» μέσω της γλωσσικής και πολιτισμικής προσαρμογής. Στο πλαίσιο αυτό, τα κίνητρα εκμάθησης της ελληνικής γλώσσας κατανέμονται σε «ευγενή-ανώτερα» (όπως οι ελληνικές σπουδές, η επαφή με τον ελληνικό πολιτισμό, η γνώση της γλώσσας με στόχο την ίδια τη γλώσσα) και σε «χρηστικά-κατώτερα» (όπως οι καθημερινές ανάγκες επιβίωσης). Τελικά, ενώ για το μετανάστη η χρήση της μητρικής γλώσσας περιγράφεται ως εμπόδιο, ως ένα βάρος από το οποίο χρειάζεται να απαλλαγεί στο βαθμό που επιδιώκει την επιτυχή κατάκτηση της γλώσσας της χώρας υποδοχής, για τον «πολιτισμικό επισκέπτη» η μητρική γλώσσα εμφανίζεται ως προσόν, στοιχείο υπερηφάνειας και εργαλείο για την εκμάθηση της δεύτερης γλώσσας.

Masters Thesis

This is a study, which combines personal experience with theoretical exploration in discussion of the researcher’s escape from Communist Romania. It uses personal data in the form of a memorised escape ‘diary’ as the basis for the study. Classic grounded theory is used to analyse the data and to generate a theoretical construct, which is then located within the relevant literature. The study suggests that escaping is characterised by a range of emergent variants including the need to escape, the drive to escape, and the compulsion to escape. The need to escape involves conscious awareness of and decision to escape, resulting in thinking and planning to escape. It provides focus, and directs energy and commitment to succeed. The drive to escape sustains the physical and mental mechanisms and stamina to move the escapee on, past the impediments encountered at all stages in the process of escape. The compulsion to escape helps maintain focus, and assists with the motivation to succeed despite the setbacks. The dynamics of escaping are controlled by two variables called turning point (TP) and the point of no return (PONR). The study argues for further research to extend these findings to the experiences of others with the need to escape from oppressive circumstances.

Recently, refugees suffer from most severe consequences of war and immigration, hence giving them the right to work will definitely will decrease poverty among them and their dependency on state support and further even reduces the risk that they will become a burden on public funds and it can be a key for their integration more generally and protected adequately. However, in between particularly, asylum seekers suffer hardly during the transition from the asylum system to being refugees even especially when they do not have sufficient protection from the leading Refugee Convention. Still, many refugees and asylum seekers not registered under the UNHCR mandates. Throughout this time, they typically do not have access to language courses and other training courses to receive any work and often live in remote and inadequate housing.

This article provides a detailed examination of the gap in international refugee law regarding burden sharing and reviews the measures on international cooperation in the Global Compact on Refugees. In doing so, the article seeks to establish the extent to which the Global Compact on Refugees will address the normative gap on burden sharing. By arguing, from the outset, the Global Compact on Refugees seems unlikely to fill this gap in an adequate and a comprehensive manner, the article concludes with a proposal on how to improve the burden sharing aspect of the Compact and its prospect of filling the gap on burden sharing.

This chapter argues that the major obstacle to a reciprocal transfer of knowledge from refugee and oustee settlement experience is not just conceptual, residing in one-sided research, it is institutional, originating in the practices of major agencies. There are separate bureaucracies operating under separate budgets that are responsible for these two categories of displaced people, and they maintain a radical division of labor between them. Moreover, they each define their roles and their relationships vis-a-vis the host and the donor states differently. They function under different legal and regulatory regimes, and, in some instances, promote incompatible long-term objectives as to what constitutes a "successful" solution for the particular beneficiary populations. Instances of good institutional cooperation, which overcomes the idiosyncrasies of separate bureaucracies, do exist, as Brown (see this volume) reports from post-conflict reconstruction work in Azerbaijan. However, we argue that such cooperation is not yet as frequent as it should be.

This paper examines the determinants and processes of cross-border migration of ECOWAS citizens into Nigeria. Data were gotten using open and close ended questionnaire surveys which were administered on 462 ECOWAS migrants based on chain referral approach and were analysed by descriptive analysis, mapping and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Descriptive analysis revealed that 66.02% of them were males while 33.98% were females. Mapping of migration flows showed that in theperiod under study (before 1984 to 2017), the highest migration flows were from the nearby countries of Benin, Togo and Niger which ranged from 9.31% to 30.30% for Benin and Togo and from 7.11% to 9.30% for Niger. However, in 1984 and earlier, there were more migrants from Ghana (21.22% to 45.45%) than any other country in the region. The PCA extracted a total of7 components from 18 variables and these 7 components accounted for 70.037% of the total variance. Socio-political factor with an eigen value of14.358 was discovered to be the most significant factor of the migration. Other factors of cross-border migration included inadequate infrastructure and public services, economic, ethno-cultural ties and family and social connections. Based on the findings, recommendations were made, such as curbing illegal migration and selective migration policy in Nigeria; providing adequate infrastructure and improving agriculture and economy of origin countries; and conflict prevention in the ECOWAS region.

The goal of this report was to determine bottlenecks to communication resources among refugees in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, with particular focus on pre-literate language communities. In the first phase of the study, ILAD conducted interviews with individuals and organizations in order to better understand the scope of refugee services being offered in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex. Through these interviews, ILAD identified the Rohingya of Myanmar as a community of focus and conducted a case study among other US Rohingya communities to observe effective strategies for successful integration.  Finally, the last phase of the report proposes solutions that aim to prioritize simplicity, sustainability, and scalability for use among the Rohingya in Dallas/Fort Worth and eventually the larger refugee community.