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Displacement, resistance and the critique of development: from the grass-roots to the global
12 November 2013
This paper explores the ways the rights, claims and visions of the development process that are expressed in the complex and multidimensional forms of resistance to development-induced displacement and resettlement become not only means to refuse relocation or claim compensation or better conditions, but also help to initiate and become part of a multi-level and multi-sectoral effort to critique and reconceptualise the development process.
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Experiences of integration: accessing resources in a new society: the case of unaccompanied minor asylum seekers in Milton Keynes
12 November 2013
This paper describes a project which explored the integration of unaccompanied minor asylum-seekers and refugees (UMAs) in Milton Keynes (MK). It argues that policy and practice concerning UMAs in MK are ill-defined and inconsistent. Institutional resources already in place are not being fully utilised as UMAs are often an after-thought in the service provision for citizen children. UMAs encounter difficulties in accessing education facilities, and living arrangements do not consistently meet protection requirements. As a result, UMAs frequently experience isolation and confusion about their present and future in the UK. Based on these findings, this paper makes recommendations for policy changes at both the local and the national levels.
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Addressing the root causes of forced migration: a European Union policy of containment?
12 November 2013
This paper examines whether or not European Union (EU) root causes policies are a desirable means to address appropriate ends. It analyzes the ways in which root causes policies interact with primary migration measures in its attempt to understand whether these policies seek to defend the right of people to remain in their country of origin by attenuating causes of departure on normative grounds or prevent and contain conflict to limit the influx of foreigners on its territory. It argues for a deepening and widening of the understanding of development, and for increased autonomy of human rights and conflict prevention policies. Moreover it suggests that the institutional structure of the EU and its multiple overlapping layers of competence and governance pose significant challenges to the effective and coherent co-ordination and implementation of root causes policies.
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Conceptualising forced migration
12 November 2013
To conceptualise something is to construct it rather than to define or describe it. In this way, the metaphorical language used to talk about migration carries with it certain implications for the way we think about, and therefore act towards, migrants. This paper explores the conceptual and practical difficulties involved in separating out forced from unforced migrants, and considers the main categorical distinctions that have emerged over the years within the broader category of forced migrants. These distinctions, like the term ‘forced migrant’ itself, are artifacts of policy concerns, rather than of empirical observation and sociological analysis. This paper suggests that this raises problems, both for the practical relevance of research and for the dialogue between policy makers and advocates in the field of forced migration.
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Refugees and ‘other forced migrants'
12 November 2013
This paper discusses a general problem that arises whenever one attempts to formalise and institutionalise a relatively new field of academic enquiry, such as forced migration, with the aim of having an impact on policy: namely, how to define the subject matter of the field. It argues that the scientific study of forced migration is, paradoxically, less likely to be ‘relevant’ to policy and practice, the more slavishly it follows policy related categories in defining its subject matter. This paper suggests that the main obstacle to what Cernea calls the ‘bridging of the research divide’ (1996) between these different populations of forced migrants is the over-reliance of refugee studies scholars on ad hoc distinctions which have important political and policy implications but which result in categories which are ill-suited both to comparison, and to the observation, description and analysis of empirical data.
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Financing matters: where funding arrangements meet resettlement in three Mexican dam projects
12 November 2013
This paper investigates the implications for resettlement of the financial involvement of the World Bank and a coalition of private companies, in three separate Mexican dam projects in the early 1990s. This paper argues that financing arrangements can influence a project’s resettlement conditions. In two of the projects, the World Bank’s involvement was important in determining the high level of attention paid to resettlement planning and monitoring and the positive resettlement outcomes. In contrast, the lack of resettlement standards among the remaining project’s private sector financiers and the unresponsiveness of this group to pressures for reform on resettlement issues resulted in poor resettlement conditions. In an era of privatisation, the implications of this are serious. As governments turn to the private sector, rather than multi-lateral or bilateral development agencies, for assistance in infrastructure development, the likelihood also increases that the rights and needs of displacees will be marginalised.
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Narrating displacement: oral histories of Sri Lankan women
12 November 2013
This paper examines how traditional discourses on repatriation and the return home have developed, whether they are accurate or appropriate, and subsequently suggests alternative perspectives on return (Black and Koser 1999). In particular, this paper focuses on the resettlement of internally displaced Sri Lankan women to their native villages, and argues that despite physical return, a “generalized condition of homelessness” (Malkki 1992: 37) persists due to physical, social and political forms of violence which obstruct the ability of many women to return ‘home’. It contends that for many Sri Lankan women, resettlement has meant merely the return to their geographical place of origin, and no more. More generally, this paper argues that both scholars of forced migration and the international humanitarian community are working amidst a conceptual framework that has yet to truly comprehend the complexity of experiences involved in return and reintegration.
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When forced migrants return 'home': the psychosocial difficulties returnees encounter in the reintegration process
12 November 2013
Since the 1980s onwards, voluntary repatriation has been promoted by governments, NGOs and UN agencies as the ultimate solution to refugees’ displacement. This paper draws attention to some of the psychosocial difficulties refugee returnees encounter. It argues that forced migrants’ notion of home is continuously challenged and transformed from the time of the events that lead to one’s flight, up until one’s return. The way returnees perceive ‘home’ and the way they define their identity will impact their reintegration process. The objective of this study is not to provide a typology of the meaning of returning home but a hint of its complexity.
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Refugees and their human rights
12 November 2013
This paper was originally presented on the 12th November 2003, as the 2003 Annual RSC Barbara Harrell-Bond Lecture. The paper discusses why, at the level of the individual refugee and asylum seeker, there is a need for a more radical, rights- and protection-oriented approach, and how this can serve the ends of government, provided that government is concerned with fulfilling its international obligations in good faith. It examines two areas which have attracted attention in the United Kingdom, and in which human rights can and ought to influence policy and practice: the treatment of asylum seekers and the interpretation and application of the refugee definition – the criteria that determines whether to grant protection.
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The meaning of place in a world of movement: lessons from long-term field research in Southern Ethiopia
12 November 2013
This is a revised version of the Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture, sponsored by the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford and delivered at Rhodes House, Oxford on 12 May, 2004. Turton discusses the need for a theory of place that applies as much to the world of late modernity as to the pre-modern world, and helps us to understand what happens when pre-modern meets, and is overtaken by, modern. To this end, he examines what are called the ‘spatial practices’ of a small group of people who live in Southern Ethiopia.
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Welcoming refugees is not just a humanitarian imperative, it is in our economic self-interest | Alexander Betts
3 November 2015
The RSC Director talks to World Finance magazine
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HIP refugee researcher Robert Hakiza featured in AFKInsider
8 January 2015
Article describes refugees’ eagerness for self-sufficiency
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Humanitarian Innovation Project featured in latest UNHCR Global Appeal
23 January 2014
HIP's research highlighted in chapter focussed on encouraging self-reliance
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Refugee or migrant crisis? Alexander Betts discusses the importance of language
26 August 2015
The RSC Director talks to The Washington Post
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Human migration will be a defining issue of this century. How best to cope?
21 September 2015
Alexander Betts writes in The Observer
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Networks and websites
9 November 2013
The RSC works with partner organisations around the world and supports several external websites:
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Apply
4 November 2016
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Democratizing Displacement: Proposal Submission
18 March 2019
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Beyond Crisis conference - Frequently asked questions
16 March 2017
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Home
10 January 2018
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Teaching and resources
3 September 2014
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Why study forced migration?
17 September 2013
We live in a rapidly changing world in which refugees and forced migration have a significant impact on the economic, political and social agendas of sovereign states, intergovernmental agencies and civil society groups.
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Short courses
9 December 2013
The RSC’s short courses, usually held over a weekend, give up to 50 people the opportunity to receive additional professional training and develop expertise in particular refugee-related areas.
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Barbara Harrell-Bond, founding Director
12 October 2018
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Events
6 December 2018
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Main
1 November 2018
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Policy & Impact
17 October 2013
A key aim of the RSC is to ensure that our work has a meaningful impact beyond the academic community. We deliver on this aim by combining our independent, objective and critical scholarship with an active role in engaging policymakers in governments, intergovernmental agencies and non-governmental organisations.
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Forms
6 November 2013
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People
1 January 2012
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Events
1 January 2012
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Images library
27 January 2017
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Site logos
26 September 2014
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About us
1 January 2012
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Impacts and Costs of Forced Displacement
2 January 2014
Developing a mixed-methods framework to measure the impacts and costs of forced displacement
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Burma's Refugees: Self-Governance in Comparative Perspective
12 September 2013
Examining how local, community-level governance can help refugees cope with the threats and dangers encountered in displacement
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Mobile Peoples and the Politics of Oil
12 September 2013
Exploring the relationship between resource-based multinationals and mobile indigenous communities
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Environmentally Displaced People
30 September 2013
Informing policy regarding a new category of involuntary migrants
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The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies
9 July 2014
Examining the origins of refugee and forced migration studies, and charting its future direction
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Becoming ‘Adult’: Conceptions of futures and wellbeing among young people subject to immigration control in the UK
23 February 2015
Examining the lived experiences and life-course aspirations of young people subject to immigration control in the UK as they become adult
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The Syrian Humanitarian Disaster
12 September 2013
Understanding perceptions, aspirations and behaviour in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey
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Ensuring Quality Education for Young Refugees from Syria in Turkey, Northern Iraq/Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), Lebanon and Jordan
14 August 2014
Mapping exercise on promoting education for Syrian young people (aged 12–25)
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Climate Change, Human Migration and Human Rights
2 January 2014
Examining the complex relationship between environmental change and human displacement
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Migrants and Refugees at Work
17 September 2013