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Special Issue: Refugee and Diaspora Memories
This special issue opens up a conversation between three multidisciplinary fields: memory studies, diaspora studies and refugee studies. The introductory paper articulates an analytical framework addressing various forms of memories of displacement. It defines the concepts of exilic and diasporic memories with regard to the classical and post-modern conceptions of diasporas and shows, beyond their formal opposition, the extent to which these two notions interrelate. The article continues by highlighting four themes that cut across the collection of papers in this special issue: the relationship between individual and collective memories; the diversity of actors (re)producing memory narratives; the transmission, negotiation and contestation of memory across space and between generations; and the confrontational and syncretic dynamics which between different types of memories. To conclude, the paper addresses the political implications of the production and dissemination of memories of displacement.
Refugee and diaspora memories: the politics of remembering and forgetting
This special issue opens up a conversation between three multidisciplinary fields: memory studies, diaspora studies and refugee studies. The introductory paper articulates an analytical framework addressing various forms of memories of displacement. It defines the concepts of exilic and diasporic memories with regard to the classical and post-modern conceptions of diasporas and shows, beyond their formal opposition, the extent to which these two notions interrelate. The article continues by highlighting four themes that cut across the collection of papers in this special issue: the relationship between individual and collective memories; the diversity of actors (re)producing memory narratives; the transmission, negotiation and contestation of memory across space and between generations; and the confrontational and syncretic dynamics which between different types of memories. To conclude, the paper addresses the political implications of the production and dissemination of memories of displacement.
Book Review: Human Rights and Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons and Migrant Workers: Essays in Memory of Joan Fitzpatrick and Arthur Helton
This book is both a tribute to the late Joan Fitzpatrick and Arthur Helton, and a reader comprising engaged, critical and policy-relevant essays on a range of contemporary debates on the protection and human rights of refugees, IDPs and migrant workers. At their best, the 22 essays contain high quality legal analysis, a strong normative commitment to protection and human rights, an awareness of the political context of the law, engagement with policy and practice, forceful critique of international institutions, and the attempt to propose and advocate concrete and realistic solutions to improve the human rights of refugees, IDPs and migrant workers—all of which reflect the values and approach of the work of Fitzpatrick and Helton.
Forced Migration Studies: ‘Who Are We and Where are We Going?’ Report on IASFM 12, Nicosia, Cyprus, June 28-July 2 2009
The theme of the conference—boundaries—reflected the venue for the conference. The call for papers and many of the presentations reflected the overall theme exploring boundaries across three areas: policy, identity and community. In many ways, though, what emerged from the conference was a reflexive turn and an introspection about what Forced Migration Studies is: it generated an analytical reflection on IASFM’s own identity, community and policies as the principal focal point for the meeting of academics, policy-makers and practitioners working on forced migration. Previous conferences had questioned and debated whether our field of study should be defined as Refugee Studies or Forced Migration Studies; at IASFM 12, the consensus had generally emerged in favour of the latter but this left open the question of what the contours of Forced Migration Studies could and should be. At a time when the dynamics of forced migration and migration in general are in transition—with declining asylum space in the North, diminishing humanitarian space in the South, and with the emergence of new meta-challenges such as the global economic crisis, the implications of climate change, and the transition in power towards China and India—the opportunity to reflect on the scope, focus, and boundaries of our own work, as an association, was particularly welcome. In offering an overview of the conference, this report therefore explores three questions: who are we, what did we learn from the conference, and where are we going?
The International Politics of Migration
International migration is an increasingly important part of world politics. However, despite its inherently political and inherently international nature, it remains relatively neglected by scholars of International Relations in comparison to other trans-boundary issue-areas. In particular, the international politics of migration remains under-theorized. Consequently, even basic International Relations concepts such as “power” and “interests” remain poorly developed in relation to migration. In order to address this gap, this article begins to develop the basis of a theory of the international politics of migration. It does so by laying out a series of heuristic frameworks for understanding the interests, interactions, and institutions that underlie state and interstate behaviour around international migration.
The International Politics of Migration
International migration is an increasingly important part of world politics. However, despite its inherently political and inherently international nature, it remains relatively neglected by scholars of International Relations in comparison to other trans-boundary issue-areas. In particular, the international politics of migration remains under-theorized. Consequently, even basic International Relations concepts such as “power” and “interests” remain poorly developed in relation to migration. In order to address this gap, this article begins to develop the basis of a theory of the international politics of migration. It does so by laying out a series of heuristic frameworks for understanding the interests, interactions, and institutions that underlie state and interstate behaviour around international migration.
ECHR and the European Union (In: ECHR and Irish Law)
Following the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 into Irish Law, legal developments in areas such as criminal, family and immigration law have raised serious questions of compatibility with the ECHR. Developments in the European Court of Human Rights have highlighted the increasing potential for using the ECHR to positive effect in Irish law. This second edition of ECHR and Irish Law examines the impact of the ECHR on Irish law and considers the actual and potential contribution of the ECHR Act to domestic law in a range of areas. The work begins with research on the impact of the Act and an examination of the relationship between the ECHR, Irish law and EU law. There follows an examination of the effect of the ECHR on individual areas of Irish law, combined with analysis of ECHR law on these subjects. The book has been revised to include new and expanded chapters on: Civil Proceedings Prisoners' Rights Suspicious Deaths and Policing Immigration, Refugee and Asylum Law Criminal law. Written by a team of leading experts in their respective fields, ECHR and Irish Law provides an authoritative account of the incorporation of the ECHR and its impact on Irish Law in practice.
Gender InJustice: Towards the Feminisation of the Legal Professions?
A comprehensive report on the rise of women in the legal professions in Ireland, and the implications for legal practice and the judiciary.
The Future of International Cooperation
Reflecting our aspirations for the journal, the inaugural edition invites empirical and theoretical consideration on the future of international cooperation. In the aftermath of the divisions created by the invasion of Iraq and the questions raised about the future relevance of the United Nations, mapping the contours of inter-state collaboration and identifying the bases of global governance is crucial to the prospects for peace and security. Whether ‘coalitions of the willing’ or regional structures will supersede global responsibility-sharing, whether religious divides will polarise the West from the Islamic World, or whether the United Nations will adapt through initiatives such as the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, are amongst the key questions that make ‘The Future of International Cooperation’ so germane for reflection and debate.
Human Security
The concept of ‘human security’ represents a challenge to the Cold War assumption that ‘security’ should be understood in purely state-centric and militaristic terms. Rather, it recognises, firstly, that the ultimate referent object of security should be the individual, whose well-being is not necessarily coterminous with the security of the state. Secondly, it highlights that the sources of threat to individuals go far beyond inter-state conflict to include, for example, internal conflict, human rights abuses, communicable disease, environmental disasters, poverty and malnutrition.1
Editorial Introduction: The International Politics of Oil
The papers [in this issue] are diverse and wide ranging, touching upon an array of seemingly unrelated themes from very different theoretical perspectives. Collectively, however, they highlight two things. Firstly, the range of approaches taken in this issue to analyse the international politics of oil highlights that the pursuit of sustainable and secure energy supplies is at the heart of world politics, intersecting with just about every significant contemporary global challenge. That a special edition on the international politics of oil can cover so much ground is an indication of how wide ranging the consequences of ongoing hydrocarbon dependence are and the challenges this presents for humanity. Secondly, and perhaps most significantly, it shows how much can be learnt about the changing nature of politics through the study of oil. Because oil represents a crucible for exploring the intersection of political economy, development, foreign policy, and international cooperation, it offers a starting point for asking more profound questions about the changing nature of contemporary world politics and how it should be conceptualised by academia. In that regard the papers in this special edition are as much about ‘international politics’ as they are about the ‘international politics of oil.’
Book Review: The Ethics and Politics of Asylum: Liberal Democracy and the Response to Refugees
As the first book length study engaging with the ethical and normative debates surrounding asylum, Matthew Gibney's work represents a significant and path-breaking achievement. Its clear focus on the competing moral claims of citizens and refugees within the context of the entrance policies of liberal democratic states, although inevitably Northern-centric and liable to treat the question of asylum in isolation from the rest of the refugee regime, allows the book to respond to an analytically distinct question in a highly nuanced way. Recognizing the politicized nature of such debates, Gibney goes beyond engagement with the questions posed by moral philosophy, integrating them with his equal mastery of political theory and the empirical issues raised by the forced migration literature, to produce a work which is not only intelligent, readable and provocative, but has genuine relevance and real-world applicability.
Conference Report: The Politics, Human Rights and Security Implications of Protracted Refugee Situations
The two-day workshop, sponsored by the Alchemy Foundation and the United Nations University, brought together a range of experts from UNHCR, the World Bank, NGOs, states and academia with the aim of developing a framework for comprehensive solutions to protracted refugee situations (PRSs). The eventual output from the workshop will be an edited volume and a policy briefing paper that is intended to influence states, intergovernmental organizations and the work of the new Peace-Building Commission. The workshop divided into two parts: the first day on thematic papers, and the second on case studies. The thematic papers considered the relationship between asylum policy and PRSs, historical precedents, durable solutions, the relationship between PRSs and conflict and security, and the roles of humanitarian actors, development actors, and civil society. The case studies included contributions on the situation of Afghan, Somali, Southern Sudanese, Palestinian, Bhutanese, and Burmese refugees. The papers themselves are to be published in book form by the middle of 2007. This summary highlights the main discussions and the way in which they have advanced the debate on PRSs. Reflecting the aim of the project, which is primarily to influence policy and to effect change, the summary divides into three areas: conceptual, normative and institutional, and political.
Logging and legality: state crime theory meets green criminology
Over the past decade, “crimes” against the environment have assumed, albeit falteringly, a new moral imperative. This article examines recent attempts to regulate, police, and criminalize one major environmental crime, the international trade in illicit timber, by contrasting local with global responses to the trade. The article examines issues of legality and sustainability; the role and sometimes problematic nature of civil society responses–domestic and transnational; and the impact of regulatory and state capture on the market. The focus of the article is an exploration of the interplay between the local and global in the context of a shifting moral and legal framework.
Integrative paradigms, marginal reality: refugee community organisations and dispersal
In Britain, the dispersal system for asylum-seekers, introduced in April 2000, has been widely criticised for its negative impacts, upon both asylum-seekers and the regions to which they were dispersed. This article addresses the effects of dispersal on refugee community organisations (RCOs) through two principal aims, the first of which is to outline the effects of dispersal upon RCOs in selected fieldwork locations. Three themes are examined: the growth in refugee communities outside London, the constraints of funding regimes and the politics of community representation in the local policy environment. The second aim, developed through the presentation of our fieldwork material, is to establish a critical perspective on the role and function of RCOs. We question the assumed integrative role of RCOs as interpreted in the policy and academic literature, and we underline the importance to the integration process of informal networks in refugee communities. A central strand of our argument is that the analysis of RCOs needs to be firmly anchored within the broader context of migrant incorporation operating in Britain. We conclude that the dispersal arrangements serve as a model of inclusion and representation for RCOs which is heavily conditioned by the broader race relations and multicultural framework. Far from promoting the integration of refugees, this framework may rather perpetuate a condition of institutionalised marginality for refugee groups.
Social capital or social exclusion? The impact of asylum-seeker dispersal on UK refugee community organizations
Based on UK fieldwork in the West Midlands, Manchester and Liverpool and London, the paper explores the impacts of asylum-seeker dispersal on the formation of refugee community organizations (RCOs). An outline of policy precedes discussion which demonstrates how dispersal has consolidated a solid core of established RCOs in London, whilst stimulating a regional periphery of volatile semi-secure and insecure RCOs competing for shrinking financial support. The main part of the paper challenges the prevailing paradigm of RCOs as formally constituted organizations of social capital which crucially mediate the process of integration. This traditional role and rationale has been sacrificed for largely short-term, defensive tasks in a hostile policy environment. Despite their proliferation, RCOs resist institutionalization within both the state apparatus and their community networks.