The Global Governed? Refugees as Providers of Protection and Assistance
Funded by the Economic & Social Research Council and the Arts & Humanities Research Council (2016-2019)
Examining the diverse forms of refugee-led social protection in Kenya and Uganda
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Evan Easton-Calabria
The global governance of forced migration is generally used to refer to the response of governments and international organisations to displaced populations; rarely do we think of refugees as the providers of protection and assistance. Yet understanding the ways in which refugees themselves engage in forms of refugee-led social protection offers an opportunity to fundamentally reconceive support for the displaced in more sustainable and empowering ways. This project involves inter-disciplinary, mixed methods, comparative research in Kenya and Uganda (across urban and rural areas) on the diverse and neglected ways in which refugees engage in the provision of protection and assistance to their own communities. Through ethnographic, historical, and quantitative research, it seeks to identify the diverse forms, scope, and functions of refugee-led social protection; to understand and explain the emergence and evolution of particular forms of refugee-led social protection; and to test the degree to which refugees’ sources of security are derived from external assistance or from their own community-led initiatives. The project has culminated in a book, The Global Governed? Refugees as Providers of Protection and Assistance, published by Cambridge University Press in early 2020, a series of forthcoming articles, and a ‘Research in Brief’ entitled ‘Refugees as Providers of Protection and Assistance’ (RSC Research in Brief No. 10).
Our team
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Alexander Betts
Leopold Muller Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs
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Evan Easton-Calabria
Senior Researcher, 4As Project, Feinstein International Center, Tufts University
