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Temporal and generational impact on identity, home(land) and politics of belonging among the Kurdish diaspora
The purpose of this article is to examine the experiences of two generations among the Kurdish diaspora in Sweden: those who migrated as adults and those who were born and/or raised in Sweden. The focus will be on issues of identity, home(land) and politics of belonging with regard to generational and temporal aspects. We will argue that there are significant differences among the older and younger generations with regard to their experiences that demand different theoretical and analytical conceptualisations.
The UK, the Common European Asylum System and EU Immigration Law
This policy primer examines the UK’s selective participation in the Common European Asylum System and EU immigration law. The UK has always maintained a distinctive position in the EU as regards border controls, opting out of the Schengen arrangements that abolished internal border controls across most of the EU. However, it participates selectively in some aspects of EU border policies.
The UK, EU Citizenship and Free Movement of Persons
To understand how EU membership shapes UK migration policy, one must distinguish between two distinct areas of EU law and policy. This policy primer examines EU citizenship and free movement of persons as part of the common market. At the core of the EU project remains a common market, which involves reciprocal commitments so that not only products (goods and services) but also the factors of production (labour and capital) can circulate freely. Free movement for workers and others exercising economic freedoms (e.g. service providers and recipients) has now largely been subsumed into the status of citizenship of the Union. As explored in the next section, movement and residence in all Member States for EU nationals remains a defining feature of EU citizenship, so that UK nationals may in principle live anywhere they choose within the EU, and vice versa. Citizenship of the Union and the internal market freedoms mainly confer rights on EU citizens (i.e. those holding the nationality of the Member States). These provisions also create some derivative rights for TCNs, such as TCN family members of EU citizens and TCN workers ‘posted’ from one Member State to another to as part of an intra-EU provision of services. While the UK’s commitments on EU citizenship and the internal market are part and parcel of its EU membership, the UK (together with Ireland, with which it shares a land border and a common travel area) has always maintained a distinctive position on borders and visas, as manifest in its opt-out of the Schengen arrangements. As explored below, the UK’s distinctive opt-out from Schengen has been legally controversial, yet it remains a defining feature of its EU relations.
Afghanistan’s displaced people: 2014 and beyond
2014 is widely seen as marking a watershed for Afghanistan with its legacy of 35 years of conflict and one of the world’s largest populations in protracted displacement. International military forces are being withdrawn and the country is ‘in transition’, and there is still considerable uncertainty about the capacity of the country to address the challenges of return, integration and reintegration, protection, access to rights, and continuing displacement. FMR 46 contains 21 articles on Afghanistan, plus a mini-feature on Statelessness.
United Glasgow Football Club: a study in sport's facilitation of integration
Around the world, sport has increasingly been touted as a vehicle for social change by organisations, academics and athletes alike. Contrary to the assumptions of many practitioners, however, research also suggests that sport can serve as a medium for inter-ethnic segregation and conflict (Krouwel et al. 2006). Responding to these various applications of sport, this study asks whether sport can facilitate the integration of refugees and asylum seekers, and seeks to identify the mechanisms through which this may occur. The study examines United Glasgow Football Club (UGFC), a team that competes in an anti-racist football league in Glasgow, Scotland, and is comprised of a mixture of Scottish nationals, refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. Drawing upon Putnam’s social capital framework, the authors find that UGFC serves as a platform for players to build social bridges and bonds, and its diversity contributes to a feeling of belonging that many team members do not find elsewhere in Glasgow.
Reframing displacement crises as development opportunities
The displacement of refugees and IDPs is pre-eminently a humanitarian and a human rights challenge. But large-scale displacement crises also present significant development opportunities and challenges, in addition to the humanitarian needs and the ‘humanitarian imperative’. Using a political economy analysis the policy note demonstrates the developmental impacts of displacement, highlights evidence-based arguments in favour of developmental approaches to assisting displaced populations and their hosts, and indicates the scope these approaches offer for sustainable responses that benefits not only displaced people but also host societies. It provides a systematic analytical and methodological framework for: mitigating the negative impacts, by improving strategies to tackle the economic costs and impacts of displacement; and maximising developmental returns from displacement.
The Palestinian Diaspora in Europe: Challenges of Dual Identity and Adaptation
The papers which make up this book were presented at a workshop held at the Middle East Centre at St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford, between 5th and 6th May 2000, but were later revised and updated. The papers by H.Schulz and S. Shawa were added later. The workshop on ‘Palestinian Communities in Europe’ was organised jointly by the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) at the University of Oxford and the Palestinian Refugee and Diaspora Centre (Shaml) in Ramallah. I would like to express my gratitude to the Organising Committee members for their efforts and invaluable help. In particular, I am thankful to Dr. Eugene Rogan of St. Anthony’s, Dr David Turton, the ex-Director of the RSC, Dr Dawn Chatty of the RSC, Dr. Nadje Al-Ali of Exeter, Dr. Nick Van Hear, Paul Ryder and Dominique Attala of the RSC. Also to Dr. Sharif Kanaana, the cofounder and ex-Director of Shaml and Judge Eugene Cotran, the Chair of the Board of Trustees of Shaml. To Said Kamal and Ghayth Armanzi of the League of Arab States (LAS) and to Ford Foundation in Cairo, for the financial assistance which made the workshop the success that it was. I would like to extend my thanks to the indefatigable researchers who contributed to this groundbreaking workshop, to the translators: Ramsey Amin, Ihsan Al-Kharouf, Rami Cheblak and to Genevieve de Winter who went through the English text and made useful stylistic changes.
Children and adolescents in Palestinian households: living with the effects of prolonged conflict and forced migration (Arabic)
This study bridges the theoretical and applied divide which is common to much of the research directed at Palestinian children and adolescents in the Middle East. It integrates a research design with a practical agenda to improve delivery, policy and programmes and thereby help train practitioners to provide better services. Current policy and programming was taken into account in designing a participatory research methodology. This research approach, which crosses a number of disciplinary divides, has been a positive learning experience for the researchers, practitioners and sampled population of children, adolescents and caregivers. Its findings, partially provided below in a lessons learned report, should result in improved project, policy and programming delivery as well as a transferable good practice guide for refugee children and adolescents throughout the world.
Children and adolescents in Palestinian households: living with the effects of prolonged conflict and forced migration
This study bridges the theoretical and applied divide which is common to much of the research directed at Palestinian children and adolescents in the Middle East. It integrates a research design with a practical agenda to improve delivery, policy and programmes and thereby help train practitioners to provide better services. Current policy and programming was taken into account in designing a participatory research methodology. This research approach, which crosses a number of disciplinary divides, has been a positive learning experience for the researchers, practitioners and sampled population of children, adolescents and caregivers. Its findings, partially provided below in a lessons learned report, should result in improved project, policy and programming delivery as well as a transferable good practice guide for refugee children and adolescents throughout the world.
The Afghan Crisis: The Humanitarian Response Emergency Roundtable
On the 2nd November 2001 the Refugee Studies Centre held a 1-day emergency round table to provide an opportunity for over 60 experts on forced migration, humanitarian aid and Afghanistan to discuss the causes and consequences of the humanitarian crisis in the region. Rather than focus on the September 11th terrorist attacks and the consequent military action, the round table addressed the challenges for and the barriers to effective solutions. This constructive exchange of experience and expertise was aimed raising issues of importance and areas for further consideration for actors involved in the provision of assistance. This document summarises the main points raised in the discussions under five broad and raises a number of key areas for consideration when approaching the humanitarian response to the crisis
Mobile Peoples and Conservation: Crossing the Disciplinary Divide
In April 2002, nearly 30 experts from around the world, with various professional backgrounds, attended a five-day conference in the Dana Nature Reserve, Jordan. They came together to address a difficult and sensitive issue, the relationship between mobile peoples and conservation. After intensive debate, in which contrasting perspectives were offered, common ground was successfully developed around an agreed statement – the Dana Declaration on Mobile Peoples and Conservation. This report gives a brief summary of the background to the meeting and the proceedings and introduces the Declaration. Annexed are the programme for the meeting , a list of participants and an action plan to carry forward the work.
Protection through participation
This paper is intended to provide background reading for the Cumberland Lodge Conference, “Voices Out of Conflict: Young People Affected by Forced Migration and Political Crisis.” It considers the situations of youth and adolescents affected by war and displacement throughout the world, and provides a summary of some of the key issues to be explored with regards to their protection. It draws upon insights and experience from researchers, practitioners and war-affected young people themselves in an attempt to better understand the challenges they face during war, and the resulting implications for policy and practice.
Environmental change and forced migration: a state of the art review
Interest in the link between environmental change and human migration has grown in the last five years, principally due to the mounting body of evidence on the likely impacts of anthropogenic climate change. This growing concern has led to widespread discussion of the potential for climate change to induce population movement. The drivers of such movement include the inundation of settled land due to sea-level rise, accelerated desertification among currently cultivated lands (leading to migration in search for food), and more frequent and severe climatic disasters such as drought, floods and tropical storms. This paper was prepared to compliment and develop earlier work of the Refugee Studies Centre on this subject (Boano, Zetter and Morris 2009) and to provide background analysis to the recent RSC Workshop on ‘Environmental Change and Displacement: Assessing the Evidence and Developing Norms for Response’ held from 8-9 January 2009. The aim of this paper is three-fold. Firstly, it seeks to outline the current debate on the relationship between environmental change and migration. Secondly, it outlines and interrogates the existing empirical data on the relationship between environmental change and migration. Finally, it highlights some existing gaps in the literature and considers methodological issues, making some suggestions for future exploration of the issue.
Environmental Change and Displacement: Assessing the Evidence and Developing Norms for Response
On the 8-9 January 2009 the Refugee Study Centre (RSC) and the International Migration Institute (IMI) of Oxford University convened a two-day workshop on Environmental Change and Displacement, with the support of the UNHCR. Attended by about 50 participants, the conference examined current research evidence on the relationship between climate/environmental change and migration, and the role the academic community should play in providing policy makers with guidance in forming policy in preparation for potential large-scale migration. The majority of participants were either academics or representatives from organisations engaged in research in the field of environmentally induced migration. Participants also included representatives from intergovernmental and international organisations and research students from various universities. The first day of the workshop focused on evidence and case studies as well as broader questions concerning the prediction of environmental migration and addressed methodological challenges. The second day moved on to consider legal and normative responses. The wide ranging discussion addressed many significant issues for future research and policy responses, yet clear answers were hard to reach.
UNHCR Ideas: Open innovation inspiring collaboration and new ideas within the UN
Since 2012 UNHCR and the Humanitarian Innovation Project (HIP) have been actively collaborating in several areas of thinking around innovation for the humanitarian world, and in this context HIP were invited to carry out an independent evaluation of the UNHCR Ideas pilot. ‘UNHCR Ideas’ is a tool for creating new ideas amongst an online community. Powered by SpigitEngage, the online platform is specifically designed to enable collaborative problem solving and idea generation. The platforms’ online community contribute ideas, solutions and discussion to a common problem statement posted on the site. The UNHCR Innovation team launched a pilot ‘challenge’ on the platform in August 2013 – intended to empower the participants to innovate for the organisation. The pilot involved 318 participants from over 50 counties – including employees from UNHCRs offices, partner organisations, and refugees. The platform aims to start building a culture of innovation within and around the organisation, and to help find new solutions for longstanding challenges in their global work with refugee communities. This pilot was used by UNHCR Innovation to learn whether, and how, the platform can be used more widely within the organisation, and beyond. This report summarises the set-up, output and inside workings of the pilot 'launch challenge'. This report specifically looks at the relationship between UNHCR and Spigit, and provides an overview of how UNHCR Ideas supports the wider process of innovation for the organisation. Future opportunities and recommendations for use of the platform, and collaborative innovation, within UNHCR and more widely for the humanitarian sector are discussed.
Revisiting therapeutic governance: the politics of mental health and psychosocial programmes in humanitarian settings
Over the last several decades, humanitarian programmes have increasingly sought to preserve not only physical life and health, but also to address psychological needs and to promote the social well-being of conflict-affected populations. This growing prioritisation of psychological issues in humanitarian settings can be seen in the development and widespread use of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) programmes. Such programmes have taken many forms, including the deployment of psychiatrists to emergencies, promotion of trauma counselling, establishment of supportive spaces for children, and longer-term community development and peace-building initiatives. Despite this proliferation, MHPSS programmes have been widely criticised, and the field marked by intense debate. In this paper, the author discusses the evolution of MHPSS programmes and the associated debates by analysing Vanessa Pupavac’s critique of psychosocial programming as constituting 'therapeutic governance', or the homogenisation, pathologisation, controlling and depoliticisation of affected communities. She then mobilises this framework to analyse current practice as represented by the 2007 IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support. She argues that the field has made significant progress toward a culturally-appropriate and empowering model of psychosocial programming within humanitarian interventions, but that individual programmes would still benefit from situation-specific evaluation. Though the critiques of homogenisation and pathologisation have been addressed by the IASC guidelines, she argues that there remains the potential for MHPSS programmes to contribute to the controlling and depoliticising nature of broader humanitarian programming.
Introduction: continuity and change in global refugee policy
This special issue of the Refugee Survey Quarterly brings together a selection of thepapers from the conference on “Understanding Global Refugee Policy” organized by the Refugee Studies Centre to celebrate its 30th anniversary. One of the many notable themes to emerge from the conference was the extent to which that period hasengendered continuity or change in global refugee policy. How has the agenda changed? Has the nature of the challenges facing policy-makers shifted over the last three decades? Has refugee policy become more politicised? Has finding solutions to refugee situations become more difficult? To what extent are main actors different? Is it still a fundamentally state-centric policy field? How have the main forums and institutions within which policy is made changed? The papers in this collection offer a window onto that question of continuity and change. In doing so, they address a range of important emerging themes and cover a wide set of geographical regions.
Reflections on an anniversary: EU citizenship at 20
I am writing this 20 years to the day after the Maastricht Treaty entered into force on 1 November 1993. ‘Economic and monetary union’ and ‘political union’ (coordinating foreign policy and ‘justice and home affairs’) were the main events. The Treaty also grandly announced: ‘Citizenship of the Union is hereby established’. The status was for those ‘holding the nationality of a Member State’. The rights attached were largely pre-existing and politically underwhelming. Without great fanfare, the weightiest of political concepts was uploaded into the EU Treaty, apparently an afterthought.
Asylum: principled hypocrisy
In January 2014, The Guardian newspaper reported that UK Border Agency (UKBA) staff received financial rewards for winning appeals against asylum seekers challenging negative decisions. This generated public controversy, because it suggested that the Home Office had a systematic bias against individuals being granted refugee status. No one who has followed asylum’s travails in western states could have been surprised. Academics have long described a ‘culture of disbelief’ pervading the UK government’s asylum decision-making processes, in which asylum claims are met with incredulity and cynicism. This culture seems merely an extension of the battery of measures and mechanisms – including visa regimes, carrier sanctions, and interdiction – that western states have put in place over the last three decades to stop forced migrants from places like Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria arriving to access asylum. If the UKBA’s offer was remarkable, it was only as the reductio ad absurdum of states’ current restrictive responses.