Cookies on this website

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you click 'Accept all cookies' we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies and you won't see this message again. If you click 'Reject all non-essential cookies' only necessary cookies providing core functionality such as security, network management, and accessibility will be enabled. Click 'Find out more' for information on how to change your cookie settings.

Listen to the podcast of the 15 October seminar, part of the Michaelmas term 2014 Public Seminar Series.

Refugee and Forced Migration Studies has grown from being a concern of a relatively small number of scholars and policy researchers in the 1980s to a global field of interest with thousands of students worldwide studying displacement either from traditional disciplinary perspectives or as a core component of newer programmes across the Humanities and Social and Political Sciences. Today the field encompasses both rigorous academic research which may or may not ultimately inform policy and practice, as well as action-research focused on advocating in favour of refugees' needs and rights. This authoritative Handbook critically evaluates the birth and development of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and analyses the key contemporary and future challenges faced by academics and practitioners working with and for forcibly displaced populations around the world. 

In this talk, Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Professor Gil Loescher, two of the Handbook's editors, discuss how the book provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the key intellectual, political, social and institutional challenges arising from mass displacement in the world today. Laying out the thinking behind the Handbook, they examine how it addresses these challenges and attempts to unify a diverse, evolving and crucial field. 

Professor Loescher and Dr Fiddian-Qasmiyeh are joined by a number of the Handbook's authors, who reflect on their own contributions to the volume and highlight some of cutting-edge approaches and challenges emerging in their respective areas of expertise. 

00:00-03:18

Introduction by Professor Alexander Betts (Director, Refugee Studies Centre)

03:19-12:02

Comments from Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (Lecturer in Human Geography, University College London and Visiting Lecturer, Refugee Studies Centre)

12:03-19:17

Comments from Professor Gil Loescher (Visiting Professor, Refugee Studies Centre)

19:18-29:55

Comments from Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill (Senior Research Fellow, All Souls College, and Professor of International Refugee Law, University of Oxford)

29:56-41:36

Comments from Professor Alexander Betts (Director, Refugee Studies Centre)

41:37-55:55

Comments from Professor Oliver Bakewell (Director, International Migration Institute, University of Oxford)

55:56-1:03:56

Comments from Dr Kirsten McConnachie (Joyce Pearce Junior Research Fellow, Refugee Studies Centre and Lady Margaret Hall)

1:03:57-1:15:53

Comments from Dr Nicholas Van Hear (Senior Researcher and Deputy Director, COMPAS, University of Oxford)

related content

Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies now available! News & Media

Refugee and Forced Migration Studies: The state of the art News & Media