Author: Sarah Taylor

The Refugee Studies Centre, (at the Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford) is pleased to announce that Professor Saskia Sassen will give the Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture on 26 May 2010.

Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and Member, The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University. Her latest books are “Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global” “Assemblages” (Princeton University Press 2008) and “A Sociology of Globalization” (Norton 2007). She has recently completed a five-year project for UNESCO on sustainable human settlement, the results of which have been published as one of the volumes of the “Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems” (Oxford: EOLSS Publishers).

The lecture will be entitled “The complexity of Powerlessness: What makes human rights law perform?” Saskia Sassen will speak about the limits of power and the complexities of powerlessness – the direct or mediated resistances that the powerless can deploy knowingly or not.

Immigration and human rights help to explore these more abstract issues – especially in powerful countries vis-à-vis undocumented workers, who are among the most vulnerable subjects in those same countries. And yet, under certain conditions, the powerless can make history, even if they do not gain power in this process. She will discuss two institutional domains where powerlessness can become complex and the powerless have made history.

The lecture will take place at the Bernard Sunley Lecture Theatre, St Catherine’s College, Manor Road, Oxford (0X1 3UJ). The event will start at 5pm and will be followed by a drinks reception.

For more information or to reserve a seat, please contact Wouter te Kloeze: [email protected], +44(0)1865 281726

• The complexity of Powerlessness: What makes human rights law perform?

On 12 May Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, will be delivering a lecture entitled ‘Enriching the Arguments: the Refugee Contribution to British Life’.

Dr Rowan Williams will speak at UCL’s (University College London) Bloomsbury Theatres in London on the topic of: ‘Enriching the Arguments: the Refugee Contribution to British Life’. His talk will be followed by a drinks reception.

This event is organized by UCL, in partnership with the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA). To attend, please RSVP by 5 May. RSVP is essential and places will be allocated on a first come, first serve basis.

Programme:
18:15 Registration, UCL Bloomsbury Theatre
19:00 Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams
20:00 Reception
21.00 Close

Venue:
UCL Bloomsbury Theatre, 15 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AH

• Enriching the Arguments: the Refugee Contribution to British Life

Back issues of many working papers and policy briefings published by the Humanitarian Policy Group are now available from the Forced  Migration Online digital library.

Published between 2000 and 2009 by the Humanitarian Policy Group, part of the Overseas Development Institute, these documents focus on topics such as: aid coordination, cooperation with affected governments, security, terrorism, HIV/AIDS and land use .

The Humanitarian Policy Group is dedicated to improving humanitarian policy and practice through a combination of high-quality analysis, dialogue and debate.

• Browse documents from the Humanitarian Policy Group

The latest in FMO’s growing selection of podcasts focuses on a new Chinese government policy, recruiting young Uyghur women from majority Uyghur areas of East Turkestan, and transferring them to work in factories in urban areas of eastern China.

Under this policy, thousands of Uyghur women have been removed from their families and placed into substandard working conditions thousands of miles from their homes. Though official propaganda slogans promote the program as an overwhelmingly positive experience for these women, less than two years after the initiation of the policy, it has already left a history of broken promises and shattered families. Local leaders, who are subject to intense pressure from higher levels of the PRC government, have used deception, pressure, and threats in order to recruit women to participate in the program.

In this podcast, four experts talk about the impact this programme is having on these women:

• Dr. Michael Dillon, visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing
• Omer Kanat, Uyghur Service at Radio Free Asia
• Amy Reger, Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP)
• Enver Tohti, chairman of the UK Uighur Association

These interviews were recorded between September 2008 and July 2009, by film-maker Simon James.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

We are pleased to announce that the ‘photo gallery’ section of Forced Migration Online has been re-launched. In addition to enjoying an improved layout when browsing individual albums, users will also be able to search our full database of photographs.

There are now over 600 photographs in the FMO image database, including a new album of photos on the topic of “Self-Settled and Settlement Refugees in Uganda” (© Ayla Bonfiglio, 2008).

Uganda is one of the few countries to allow refugees to either settle themselves within the national population, or to live in a refugee settlement. This collection of photographs was taken during a comparative study on self-reliance among refugees from these two settlement contexts.

If you have a collection of photographs relating to forced migration and are interested in submitting them for inclusion on FMO please visit our submissions page.

• FMO photo gallery
• New album: Self-settled and settlement refugees in Uganda

The right to work is a fundamental human right recognized in many international and regional human rights instruments. However, in many countries, refugees are denied access to the labour market and opportunities for self-employment.

The Fifth Michigan Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law (November 2009) has produced a set of guidelines with the aim of assisting states in the proper implementation of the right to work for refugees and other similarly situated persons. The guidelines are intended for use by national policy and decision makers for example, those responsible for designing and implementing national asylum laws and national labour law.

Writing in the Michigan Journal of International Law (Vol.31 No.2), Penelope Mathew said:

“Unable to return to their country of origin or nationality, and being without the protection of their own country, refugees must have rights to work in the country of refuge. … Yet, the right to work is often denied to refugees and others seeking protection, compounding the persecution, fear, and displacement they have already suffered. … In order to uphold the right to work for refugees and others seeking protection, we have engaged in sustained collaborative study and reflection on the international legal norms and state practice relevant to refugees’ right to work.”

The guidelines were published in the Michigan Journal of International Law (Vol.31 No.2). A copy is available from the FMO Digital Library, where you can also read an explanatory note which accompanies the guidelines.

• The Michigan Guidelines On The Right To Work
• Explanatory note on the Michigan Guidelines

Hidden Voices: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya from International Rescue Committee on Vimeo.

A new collection of photographs, focusing on Tibetan refugees in the Indian town of Darjeeling, is now available to view in the FMO photo gallery.

Darjeeling is host to one of the oldest refugee centres in the Tibetan Diaspora. This collection of photos focuses on the work of Darjeeling’s Tibetan Refugee Self Help Centre (TRSHC).

Unlike the rehabilitation strategy for the permanent agricultural settlements in Southern India, the TRSHC began with the idea that no refugee could ever be rehabilitated in the fullest sense of the word without “Self-Help”.

The photographs in this collection were originally published in the article ‘Organizing for exile! “Self-Help” among Tibetan refugees in an Indian town‘ by Sudeep Basu, Assistant Professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion, National Law School of India University.

• “Self-Help” among Tibetan refugees in an Indian town

Archived issues of the ‘Refugee Participation Network’ are now available from the Forced  Migration Online digital library.

The Refugee Participation Network (predecessor to the current  Forced Migration Review) aimed to provide a forum for the regular exchange of practical experience, information and ideas between people working with refugees, researchers and refugees themselves.

Published between 1987 and 1997 by the Refugees Studies Centre at the University of Oxford, issues focus on topics such as: communities, protection, the role of the military, children, the elderly, and international organizations.

• Full-text copies of issues 1-24 of the Refugee Participation Network

Issue 34 of Forced Migration Review (FMR) is now available in the digital library. This issue focuses on the topic of “Urban Displacement”.

Articles explore the complexity of the challenges faced by those displaced into urban areas and by those seeking to protect and assist them, and argue for the need for a radical rethinking of approaches by the international community.

The issue also includes a spotlight on Haiti and the use of standards to shape response and recovery after the earthquake in January, plus a selection of articles on subjects such as Mauritania, South Africa, Timor-Leste, Colombia, Pakistan, the new Kampala Convention, family separation in the UK, cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees, and maternal mortality among conflict-affected populations.

FMR is also published in French, Spanish and Arabic.

Forced Migration Online’s latest resource summary, which complements FMR 34, is also available to view online. It provides links to key resources, websites and documents exploring contemporary debate on these issues, as well as links to wider issues concerned with human rights and displacement.

Full Issue

• FMR 2010, No. 34:  Urban Displacement
  

Resource Summary

• Urban Displacement

Individual Articles

• Adapting to urban displacement
• Meeting humanitarian challenges in urban areas
• Protection challenges for persons of concern in urban settings
• Urban displacement and migration in Colombia
• Invisibility of urban IDPs in Europe
• Profiling urban IDPs
• Improving living conditions in Bossaso, Somalia
• The poor and the displaced in Khartoum
• The journey towards social exclusion in Colombia
• Desperate lives: urban refugee women in Malaysia and Egypt
• Urban refugee health: meeting the challenges
• Support systems among urban IDPs in Georgia
• Education and self-reliance in Egypt
• Urban shelter and the limits of humanitarian action
• Refugees and space in urban areas in Malaysia
• Urban IDPs in Uganda: victims of institutional convenience
• Transition, connection and uncertainty: IDPs in Kampala
• Urban Somali refugees in Yemen
• Displacement within the city: Colombia
• The role of municipal authorities
• Surviving in the city
• ATM cash assistance: does it work?
• Cities of Solidarity: local integration in Latin America
• City of Sanctuary – a UK initiative for hospitality
• Hosting ‘the enemy’
• “Legitimate” protection spaces: UNHCR’s 2009 policy
• Using standards to shape response and recovery in Haiti
• Beyond good intentions: implementing the Kampala Convention
• Norwegian Refugee Council: Shade netting: simple design – effective relief
• RAISE Initiative: The blind spot of the Millennium Development Goals
• International Displacement Monitoring Centre: Displacement in urban areas: implications for humanitarian action
• Cross-border mobility of Iraqi refugees
• Non-nationals displaced in South Africa
• Social mobilisation in IDP camps in Pakistan
• Flexible mandate for protection
• IDP camp closure and gender inequality in Timor-Leste
• Family breakdown in Bogotá
• Living death: separation in the UK
• Voluntary repatriation and the participation of Mauritanian refugees

A new short course on Statelessness and International Law is a  2.5 day course for experienced practitioners, graduate researchers, parliamentarians and staff, members of the legal profession, government officials, personnel of intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations, advocates and stateless persons.

The course was devised by RSC staff member Dr Alice Edwards, in close cooperation with the Statelessness Unit of UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva. The international legal framework will be led by Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill.

This short course will be facilitated by some of the leading experts on this issue, including:

• Dr Alice Edwards, Lecturer in International Refugee and Human Rights Law, University of Oxford
• Dr Matthew Gibney, Reader in Politics and Forced Migration, University of Oxford
• Professor Guy Goodwin-Gill, Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Public International Law, University of Oxford
• Gábor Gyulai, Refugee Programme Coordinator, Hungarian Helsinki Committee, Budapest
• Bronwen Manby, Senior Programme Adviser – Africa, Open Society Justice Initiative
• Mark Manly, Head, Statelessness Unit, UNHCR Geneva
• Abbas Shiblak, Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford; working for several years on the issue of statelessness, in particular in the Middle East.

Personal and professional interest and commitment are the key criteria for participation.

Apply online, or visit the Refugee Studies Centre website for more information.