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Permanent crises? Unlocking the protracted displacement of refugees and internally displaced persons
This policy overview considers how international actors should frame protracted displacements and the search for ‘solutions’ to such crises. It draws on the findings of three case studies (Central America during the 1980s and 1990s and contemporary displacements in Somalia and Iraq) as well as wider research on protracted refugee situations and the politics of refugee ‘solutions’.
Forced migration research and policy: overview of current trends and future directions
This paper provides a strategic overview of current developments in forced migration research and policy interests, concentrating on those areas in which the RSC offers its particular expertise to policymakers. It maps current research areas and policy trends as of the end of 2009, as well as identifying areas likely to demand attention in the future (April 2010).
Local faith communities and resilience in humanitarian situations
Local Faith Communities (LFCs) engage in a range of activities across the humanitarian spectrum and are often central to strengthening resilience and reinforcing the local processes of identity and connection that comprise the social fabric of communities disrupted by disaster or conflict. There is increasing recognition of LFCs’ roles by the mainstream humanitarian community, as evidenced by emerging research and international dialogues on faith, such as the UNHCR Dialogue on Faith and Protection in December 2012. However there are a number of challenges to establishing partnerships with LFCs. The Joint Learning Initiative (JLI) on Faith and Local Communities has sought to understand the role of LFCs in strengthening resilience, as well as addressing three challenges to full engagement with LFCs: a lack of evidence regarding the impact of LFCs on individual and community resilience; a lack of trust, knowledge and capacity for such engagement; and the need for clear, implementable actions to improve partnership and the effectiveness of humanitarian response. Under the auspices of the JLI on Faith and Local Communities, the Learning Hub on Resilience, made up of 20 practitioners, academics and policymakers expert in humanitarian services and faith community, has guided a scoping report on the question of evidence for LFC contribution to resilience. This note abstracts from that report, and summarises available evidence.
Children affected by armed conflict in Afghanistan
This discussion document results from the UNICEF ROSA Children Affected by Armed Conflict (CAAC), Part One Project. It relates how millions of children in Afghanistan have been affected by conflict and today suffer from the accumulated legacy of the loss of life, upheaval, destruction of infrastructure and material possessions entailed by the war. The paper urges that research into CAAC in Afghanistan must remain a matter of priority in order to raise the profile of the situation in Afghanistan and to contribute to better-informed intervention for children.
Children and conflict in the Chittagong Hills Tract, Bangladesh
In 2001, Bangladesh celebrated its 30th birthday as an independent nation state. In comparison with other countries in South Asia, it is still a relative newcomer, and yet the journey has been anything but smooth. For over 20 years, 10% of the entire country was effectively shut down as a bloody insurgency was fought by tribal groups from the Chittagong Hill Tracts region, who felt themselves to be severely threatened by the government's construction of a national, homogenous identity around Bengali Islamic values. 30,000 people lost their lives as the politics of ethnicity and its related issues of territoriality, religion and culture within a 'one-nation' context were played out among the thickly forested hills. Only recently was an apparent resolution reached, in the shape of a Peace Accord signed by both the Bangladeshi government and tribal leaders on December 2, 1997. Since then, the government has issued numerous assurances that "Absolute peace prevails in the CHT" and that "the people living there are not only happy, but jubilant. Life has returned to normal." This report sets out the refute these notions, not merely by examining the practical impotency of the Peace Accord itself, but also by showing how factors such as displacement, terrorism, communalism, militarisation, small arms and drugs have all continued to seriously destabilise the hill tracts. Even after apparent peace has been declared on paper, conflict still persists in various forms at the micro level: between January and June 2001 alone, 36 people were killed, 219 injured and 159 arrested in the region.i This report also seeks to highlight the Government of Bangladesh's continuing responsibilities towards the children of the Chittagong Hill Tracts as outlined in Article 39 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Voices out of Conflict: Young People Affected by Forced Migration and Political Crisis
This document is a report from the conference 'Voices out of Conflict: Young People Affected by Forced Migration and Political Crisis' held at Cumberland Lodge in March 2004. The aim of the conference was to increase understanding about young people’s experiences of conflict and displacement, and to generate ideas for more effective models of protection. It was proposed that there is an urgent need to move protection policy and practice toward a framework that engages young people as active participants in their own protection. Indeed, young people’s participation in protection mechanisms is necessary in order to make them more relevant, effective and sustainable, and to improve young people’s chances of survival and well-being in situations of extreme adversity.
The Role of the Military in Humanitarian Emergencies
This document is the report of a conference hosted by the RSC (then RSP) entitled 'The Role of the Military in Humanitarian Emergencies', which was held from 29-31 October 1995.
Refugee studies at Oxford: 'some' history
Barbara Harrell-Bond, the first RSC Director, explains the history of Refugee Studies at Oxford University at the conference 'The growth of forced migration: new directions in research policy and practice' at wadham College, 25-27 May 1998.
Refugee Status Determination and Rights in Southern and East Africa
On 16 and 17 November 2010, Dr Alice Edwards of the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre convened a workshop discussion on the state of refugee status determination (RSD) and refugee rights in southern and east Africa. The event, which was held in Kampala, Uganda, was coordinated by Oxford research student Marina Sharpe, with the assistance of the Kampala-based International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI), and generously funded by the Commonwealth Foundation and the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development.
Faith-Based Humanitarianism: The Response of Faith Communities and Faith-Based Organisations in Contexts of Forced Migration
The RSC hosted a one-day workshop (22 September 2010) The response of faith-based communities and faith-based organisations in the context of forced migration. The event brought together over 60 scholars and practitioners from different faith perspectives and diverse disciplinary backgrounds to explore the motives and practices of faith communities and faith-based organisations in their response to forced displacement. The workshop also examined the role of faith, religious conviction and spirituality in the experiences, practices and behaviours of forced migrants themselves. A selected number of papers will be included in a special issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies to be published in late 2011.
Aceh under Martial Law: Conflict, Violence and Displacement
This report is an outcome of the workshop "Aceh under martial law: Conflict, violence and displacement", held at the RSC on 20 May 2004. Coinciding with the announcement of the cessation of martial law in Aceh on the 19 May 2004 the workshop brought together academics and practitioners to exchange perspectives and expertise to focus analysis and debate on recent developments in Aceh. Participants explored obstacles and opportunities for the long-term resolution of this protracted conflict. The workshop format allowed for the kind of analytical reflection and advocacy orientation that, it is hoped, policy makers might find especially useful.
The role of legal and normative frameworks for the protection of environmentally displaced people
Gradual and sudden environmental changes are resulting in substantial human movement and displacement, and the scale of such flows, both internal and cross-border, is expected to rise with unprecedented impacts on lives and livelihoods. Despite the potential challenge, there has been a lack of strategic thinking about this policy area partly due to a lack of data and empirical research on this topic. Adequately planning for and managing environmentallyinduced migration will be critical for human security. The papers in this volume were first presented at the Research Workshop on Migration and the Environment: Developing a Global Research Agenda held in Munich, Germany in April 2008. One of the key objectives on the Munich workshop was to address the need for more sound empirical research and identify priority areas of research for policy makers in the field of migration and the environment.
Assessing the impacts and costs of forced displacement: a mixed methods approach (volume I)
Globally, over 40 million people have been forced to leave or flee their homes due to conflict, violence, and human rights violations either as refugees outside their country of origin or Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). A substantial number live in protracted displacement where return has not been possible.Forced displacement is a humanitarian crisis: but it also produces developmental impacts - short and longer term, negative and positive - affecting human and social capital, economic growth, poverty reduction efforts, environmental sustainability and societal fragility. A prevailing view is that refugees are a burden on the development aspirations of host countries and populations and that negative socio-economic and environmental impacts and costs outweigh the positive contributions (actual or potential) that forcibly displaced people might make. The losses incurred by the displaced populations themselves reinforce perceptions of vulnerability and dependency and thus assumptions of the burden they might impose. This study provides such a methodology. The development and drafting of the methodology and the state of the art literature review was conducted by the refugee studies centre, with valuable and constructive inputs from the partner organizations.
‘Future citizens of the world’? The contested futures of independent young migrants in Europe
Irrespective of their points of entry, for most young people subject to immigration control in Europe, turning 18 marks a significant repositioning of their relationship with the state and a diminution of rights and entitlements; they change from rights holders as ‘children’, for whom states must consider the ‘best interests’, to young people subjected to a varied array of classifications who are hard to position in the ‘national order of things’ (Malkki 1995). Young people frequently end up in limbo, uncertain of whether or not they will be able to remain in the country of immigration/asylum and for how long. This paper at once outlines and critically analyses the dissonance between how European policies formulate and impose a set of future options for independent migrant young people who are subject to immigration control as they transition to ‘adulthood’, and what is known about young people’s own conceptualisations of their futures and how they intend to realise them.