Refugia - a reflection five years on

Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement was first published in English by Routledge in 2020. That short book was conceived as a challenge to the conventional arguments of the time, which, we thought, gravely underestimated the gravity, magnitude, and increasing salience of mass displacement caused particularly by conflict, persecution, and other factors. At the same time, advocates for refugees and many scholars misjudged the extent of the shift to the populist right that was already evident in many receiving countries, a shift that has accelerated and resulted in the increasingly harsh treatment of refugees, asylum-seekers, and irregular migrants. We proposed an innovative solution – a transnational network of many refugiums, collectively described as Refugia, where, alongside existing nation-states, displaced populations could develop their own self-organised and self-governed polities. Several responses to this idea were sceptical, as was only to be expected, but we had a good reception in the Global South, a Turkish translation, and some useful critiques, most of which are posted at this URL: https://www.compas.ox.ac.uk/project/the-refugia-project. This Working Paper comprises the English version of the Afterword to a French edition, to be published five years after the original edition. We review the continuing deterioration of the global landscape, including the impact of COVID-19, the increasing restrictiveness of national immigration policies, and the extensive conflicts driving migration. The responses by refugees and their supporters are also discussed, including the use of digital networks, the rise of refugee-led organisations, the development of cities and universities of sanctuary, and the emergence of nascent Refugia-like polities. We continue to affirm the relevance of radical ideas, such as Refugia, and briefly suggest ways in which they might develop.