Roger Zetter

Emeritus Professor

Bio

Roger Zetter is Emeritus Professor of Refugee Studies, retiring as the fourth Director of the Refugee Studies Centre in September 2011. His long association with the RSC commenced in 1988 as Founding Editor of the Journal of Refugee Studies, published by Oxford University Press, a position held until 2001.

Following degrees from Cambridge and Nottingham Universities he completed his DPhil at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex; this research on the Greek-Cypriot Refugees from 1974 was the foundation for a career-long engagement with questions of institutional and bureaucratic power and the labelling of refugees. His 1991 paper ‘Labelling Refugees: Forming and Transforming a Bureaucratic Identity’ in the Journal of Refugee Studies is one of the most widely cited papers in the field of refugee studies. For the centenary of Oxford University Press Journals, the paper was selected as one of the 100 most influential papers published over the previous century.

Roger has written over 30 peer reviewed papers, over 20 book chapters, four books, 10 major research reports and numerous op eds. His academic work, motivated by a strong commitment to policy relevance, has been conducted in four broad contexts:

Impacts of the humanitarian regime on refugees and asylum seekers ‒ this first theme is reflected in research and publications on exile, reception and settlement, protracted exile and integration, repatriation and the concept of home, and post-conflict reconstruction. Roger's 1989-93 ESRC-funded research on 'Governments, NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance to Refugees in Central Southern Africa', based on the Mozambican refugee crisis, epitomises many of these concerns. He was a consultant to OXFAM in 1996-8 coordinating the Strategic Evaluation of their Great Lakes Programme in response to the Rwanda crisis. His current research for the World Bank is developing an economic methodology to assess the impacts and costs of forced migration.

Refugees, migrants and society ‒ the profound impacts which the rise of asylum seeking in Europe had on the political landscape of the UK and the EU, motivated a second theme at the end of the 1990s. Against the backcloth of deterrence and restrictionism, Roger's research funded by the ESRC, the Housing Corporation, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the EU investigated the associational life of refugees and migrants, integration, social cohesion and social capital. He was commissioned by the UK Home Office to conduct several research projects on the emerging policy framework.

Land and shelter ‒ shelter and settlement for the forcibly displaced, and urban housing, land and property issues, constitute a third and enduring theme of his work. Roger authored the landmark State of the Art Review for the first UNHCR workshop on Refugee Shelter and Settlement 1995. His work on this theme has culminated in his role as lead consultant, 2009-2011, for the development of the IASC Strategy for Meeting Humanitarian Challenges in Urban Areas. 

Environmental change, livelihoods and displacement ‒ the fourth theme, the focus of his current research, explores the linkages between environmental change, livelihoods and displacement, focusing specifically on the protection of rights of those vulnerable to displacement by the impacts of climate change. Funded by the John T and Catherine D MacArthur Foundation from 2011-2013, the project, Environmentally displaced people: rights, labels and policies embodies many of the questions that have motivated his academic career.

The diverse funders of his research and consultancy include: international agencies and organisations - UNHCR, UNHABITAT/IASC, UNDP, UNFPA, IOM UNDP, IFRC, World Bank, Swiss Agency for Development and Co-operation, OXFAM and Brookings-Bern Project; the governments of UK, NZ, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland and the European Commission; and research councils, trust and foundations such as the ESCR, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, MacArthur Foundation.

Publications

Show publications

Further Information

Doctoral Students

Narae Choi
St Antony’s College
Losers of development-induced displacement and resettlement: uncovering broader developmental impacts of urban infrastructure projects in the Philippines

Jane Chun
Green Templeton College
Environmental stress,health, and migration: A study of the Mekong Delta and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Co-supervised with Dr Peter Hornby (Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine)

Eveliina Lyttinen
Green Templeton College
Production of protection space: urban displacement and humanitarian action in cities
Co-supervised with Dr Patricia Daley (School of Geography and the Environment)