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RSC Public Seminar Series, Michaelmas Term: Refugee Economies

Conveners: Alexander Betts and Naohiko Omata

In recent academic and policy arenas in forced migration, the issue of how to understand refugees’ economic lives has emerged as one of the most pressing agendas. This seminar series will therefore gather leading scholars who have been working on related issues in order to consolidate the empirical and theoretical knowledge of refugee economies. Speakers will be convened from diverse and inter-disciplinary backgrounds from anthropology, economics, and political science. In addition to knowledge building, this seminar series is intended to initiate nurturing wider networks of researchers working on economic lives of refugees and to establish a common space for exchanging ideas, discussing findings and challenges.

This week Professor Amanda Hammar will speak on the topic 'Displacement economies: thinking through the paradoxes of crisis and creativity':

This lecture draws on and extends beyond the work captured in a recent edited volume on Displacement Economies in Africa (Zed Press, 2014). It continues with the ‘restorative ambition’ to make visible the various interactive spaces, temporalities, social and political relationalities and changing dynamics of production and exchange, that displacement paradoxically generates but which are often hidden from view. Attention will be given to the evolution of displacement economies as conceptual/analytical framework, and as empirical object. These dimensions will be illustrated primarily through examples from past and ongoing research in Zimbabwe. 

About the speaker

Amanda Hammar is Director and MSO Professor in African Studies at the Centre of African Studies (CAS) at the University of Copenhagen. Her core research interests combine political economy and cultural politics approaches, and the use of ethnography among other methods, to understand the dynamics and spaces of social, economic, political and physical exclusion/inclusion in both agrarian and urban settings, at smaller and larger scales. She is particularly concerned with how these processes unfold and generate change – both symbolic and material – in contexts of displacement and crisis. Within this general framing, she has a special interest in the relationship between sustained crisis and different dimensions of state making and citizen making. She is responsible for the Research Platform at CAS on ‘Sovereignties and Citizenship’. Geographically, most of her work has been focused on southern Africa, particularly Zimbabwe and to a lesser extent Mozambique. Her most recently concluded project has been on Political Economies of Displacement, culminating in an edited volume entitled Displacement Economies in Africa: Paradoxes of Crisis and Creativity. In addition to being a strongly empirically grounded collection (with cases from across the continent), its ambitions include a theoretical challenge to more classic conceptualisations of displacement.

Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture

The Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture is held in Trinity term. It is named after Professor Elizabeth Colson, a renowned anthropologist.

Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture

The Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture is named in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, the founding Director of the Refugee Studies Centre. It is held each year in Michaelmas term.

Public Seminar Series

Each term the RSC holds a series of public seminars, held on Wednesday evenings at Queen Elizabeth House. Click here for details of forthcoming seminars.

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Forthcoming events

Conflict Refugees: European Union Law and Practice

Wednesday, 13 November 2024, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

NGO Refugee Advocacy: Strengths, Weaknesses and Challenges

Wednesday, 20 November 2024, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

Anthropology of Good: Exploring Volunteerism in the 2015 European Refugee Crisis

Wednesday, 27 November 2024, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB

Rewriting Refugee Law: Centring Refugee Knowledges and Lived Experiences

Wednesday, 04 December 2024, 5pm to 6pm @ Seminar Room 1, Oxford Department of International Development, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB