Forced Migration Online: Blog

The film ‘3 Years On’ is now available to view online. The film presents the views and experiences of representatives from NGOs working in Aceh on tsunami reconstruction in 2007. By this stage the majority of reconstruction and resettlement of residents of Aceh has taken place or was close to completion. The interviews offer reflections on the completion of this process and problems that still need to be overcome.

• 3 Years On

The film ‘Forgotten in the Mountains‘ is now available to view online. The film looks at the issue of forced displacement of indigenous Papuans in (West) Papua, Indonesia.

Papuan fears for their future have recently become focused on the issue of migration from the rest of Indonesia into their homeland. Following the failure of special autonomy since 2001 to deliver health, education and infrastructure benefits to Papuan villagers, or even a small measure of indigenous autonomy in key security and political matters, Papuans have come to feel that divide and rule sums up Jakarta’s approach across the board. Jakarta has been busily creating unwanted new regencies and provinces in Papua as well as pouring booming mineral revenues into the region. But this has merely succeeded in creating a few new elite Papuan beneficiaries of Indonesia’s endemic corruption and setting Papuans against Papuans for control of this corruption. More seriously it has been the pretext and occasion for bringing even more potential settlers—both bureaucrats and soldiers—into Papua as new military commands as well as bureaucracies proliferate. The new demographic balance in Papua pits a large minority of settlers—both “old”, officially sponsored transmigrasi ones and ongoing “spontaneous” ones (mostly traders and small bisnis people from eastern Indonesia)—against an almost dwindling Papuan one, beset by discriminatory birth control policies, an unchecked HIV-AIDS pandemic and 45 years of repression and displacement.

• Forgotten in the Mountains

Issue 30 of Forced Migration Review with its feature theme on Burma is now in the digital library. FMR is one of five journals available.

With the ‘Saffron revolution’ of September 2007, Burma was catapulted into the centre of international attention. It was briefly headline news as people monitored the regime’s response and watched for hints of progress towards democracy and the restoration of rights. With little action on either front (and no visible resurgence of violence or protest), interest has since waned. This issue of FMR aims to help bring the crisis of forced displacement of Burmese people back into the international spotlight.

The feature section on Burma includes 29 articles exploring the extent of the displacement crisis, factors affecting displaced people and the search for solutions. The issue also includes 19 articles on other aspects of forced migration.

• FMR 30: Burma’s displaced people

The film ‘West Bank Stories‘ is now available to view online. The film presents the views of three Palestinians living in the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank. The Dheisheh camp was established in 1949 within the municipal boundaries of Bethlehem on 430 dunums. It has a registered population of 12,045 of which approximately 6,000 are children. The camp’s residents were particularly active during the intifadah. The Israeli authorities built a fence around the camp and a metal turnstile for the main entrance, which were in place for almost eight years to prevent stone throwing at passing Israeli cars on the main Jerusalem-Hebron road. In 1995, the camp came under Palestinian Authority control, and the fence has since been removed.

The film offers tours of a disused Israeli military base, the Dheisheh camp and the Ibdaa (Innovation) cultural centre at Dheisheh which promotes cultural activities including a dance troupe and basketball team.

Attendees at the recent Dispossession and Displacement Conference were able to see a preview of the film as part of the film panel.

• West Bank Stories

The final podcast in the series recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) is now available online.

The fifth plenary event began with a commemoration of the Journal of Refugee Studies’ 20th Anniversary by Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond and Richard Black, followed by a review of the conference by IASFM 11 Rapporteur John Nassari. The video review of the event is also available on this blog.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

Between 21st April and 3 May 2008 the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) will be holding a photographic exhibition looking at the subject of Forced Migration in Guatemala, the venue will be The Gallery at Oxford Town Hall. The photographer Manuel Gil worked in collaboration with Oscar Gil, a Visiting Study Fellow at the RSC and doctoral candidate at the University of California at Santa Barbara. To find out more, you can download and view a PDF file of the RSC’s 2008 Programme of Events.

The latest podcast in a series recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) is now available online.

The fourth plenary event began with poetry readings by Mehmet Yashin and Stephanos Stephanides, followed by a panel discussion ‘The Voices of the Displaced in Forced Migration Research’ chaired by Elzbieta Gozdziak, with Eftihia Voutira, Giorgia Donna, Arild Birkenes and Zachary Lomo as the panelists.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

The latest podcast in a series recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) is now available online.

The third plenary event included a panel discussion ‘Regions at the Crossroads: Transregional Forced Migration’ chaired by Susan Martin, with presentations by Mark Schlakman, Aicha Belarbi, Jeffrey Crisp and Ahmet Icduygu and Susan Kneebone.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

The latest podcast in a series recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) is now available online.

The second plenary event began with the keynote address ‘Palestine refugees in the contemporary context: a view from UNRWA’ by Karen Abu Zayd, Commissioner General of UNRWA, followed by a panel discussion ‘The situation of refugees in the Middle East’ chaired by Maysa Ayoub, and including Helen Young, Patricia Fagen and Shahira Samy.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

As part of the London International Documentary Film Festival (29th March – 5th April 2008) will be screenings of four films were screened on the topic of forced migration.

Saturday 29 March, 8.00pm Renoir Cinema

“La Americana” (The American)

Dir. Nicholas Bruckman/ Co-Dir. John Mattiuzzi, USA/Bolivia/Mexico, 2008, Special Preview

October 2000, Cochabamba, Bolivia. Carmen, a young single mother, faces a life-changing catastrophe when her nine-year-old daughter is badly injured in a bus accident.

Unable to pay the hospital bills and for specialized care, Carmen makes the dangerous journey to the US to work illegally, staying for 6 years to raise what she believes will be enough money to support her daughter for life.

But when she returns home to Bolivia she discovers her savings are nowhere near enough. Should she stay with her ailing daughter, or make the perilous journey back to the US for a second time?

A portrait of the human side of the current immigration crisis in America.

Tickets £7/£6 Curzon members
Box office: 0871 703 3991, Renoir Cinema

Saturday 5 April, 11.05pm Stevenson Theatre, British Museum

Next Station (Próxima Estación)

Director: Estela Ilárraz, 2007, Spain, 69min, UK Première

A group of Ecuadorean immigrants in Madrid. They came to Spain to work, to support their families, but they desperately want to go home.

But if they go to Ecuador to visit their families, they know they will never again be able to get back to Madrid to work.

Ya Oromia

Director: Amanda Walsh, 2006, Australia, 5min, European Première

In the overcrowded housing estates of North Melbourne lives a young African woman, an Oromo, forced to leave her beloved homeland and family in fear of persecution.

Now she is reunited with her daughters, after more than six years enforced separation. The family must adjust to living together again in a new country.

For My Children (Por Mis Hijos)

Director: Aymee Cruzaleguí, Spain, 2007, 16min, World Première

What is a woman willing to do to make a better life for her children? Norma, a Latin American immigrant in Barcelona, struggles with the pain of solitude, forced to live away from her family in order to support them.

Tickets £3.00
Box office: 0207 323 8181, British Museum

For full programme see the LIDF08 website.

• London International Documentary Film Festival
• Forced migration films on FMO