Forced Migration Online: Blog

Increasingly, there is widespread recognition that the environment, people’s lives and livelihoods are being transformed as a result of climate change. This has been linked to increased levels of environmental and weather-related disasters and higher levels of displacement. The RSC has produced a set of resources which debate the issues - including numbers, definitions and modalities - and the tension between the need for research and the need to act. Prepared to complement Forced Migration Review 31 and the FMO Research Guide on Climate Change and Displacement, FMO also hosts a new Resource Summary on the topic which provides links to many key resources, websites and documents related to climate change, environmental change, disasters and forced migration.

• Resource Summary
• Research Guide
• Forced Migration Review 31

This research guide provides an in-depth examination of local integration as a durable solution and focuses on three key developments within research, policy and practice. Firstly, it looks at local integration at a policy level, as a potential durable solution to the impasse of protracted refugee situations. Secondly, it examines the increased policy, scholarly and advocacy interest related to the issue of self-settled refugees. Thirdly, contemporary work on ‘refugee livelihoods’ has revealed that integration can be a form of livelihood strategy for refugees.

• Local Integration Research Guide

The film ‘Iraqis in Egypt: Time is Running Out’ is now available to view online. The documentary looks at the lives of six Iraqi families who have been forced to flee their homes and are now living as refugees in the massive urban sprawl of Cairo. As the years pass by, their situations are becoming increasingly desperate, with little or no rights in their country of first asylum.

• Iraqis in Egypt: Time is Running Out

UPDATE: Visit iraqisinegypt.org for the latest media releases, films, podcasts and more.

The film ‘Lost Nation: Stories from the Uyghur Diaspora’ now includes an interview with Rabiya Kadeer. Ms Kadeer had been a successful business woman in China before her views on human rights issues caused her to be imprisoned by the Chinese authorities. Ms Kadeer left China in 2005 for the United States where she is now the president of both the World Uyghur Congress and Uyghur American Association, becoming the most prominent Uyghur in the world today.

In this recording Rabiya Kadeer talks about how and why she left China and her hopes for the Uyghur people in Xinjiang (East Turkistan).

• Lost Nation: Stories from the Uyghur diaspora
• Interview with Rabiya Kadeer
• Subscribe via iTunes

The photographic exhibition Guatemalan forced migration: the politics of care in representing refugees explores the mechanisms of representation used for forced migrants that stage appropriate refugee identities to justify the need for humanitarian care. The exhibition explores these issues through photo-documentary work with indigenous Guatemalan forced migrants living in the former refugee camp of La Gloria in the state of Chiapas in Mexico. The project is a collaboration between photographer, Manuel Gil, and doctoral research student in Sociology, Óscar F. Gil-García.

The photos and descriptions are now available to view on Forced Migration Online. The photos are complemented with a podcast in which Óscar F. Gil-García is interviewed about his work on the project.

• Photos and descriptions
• Podcast

This podcast was recorded at a lecture organised by the Refugee Studies Centre and sponsored by Clifford Chance, the event was held on Wednesday 18th June 2008 at the offices of Clifford Chance, London. Lord Malloch-Brown, Minister of State for Africa, Asia and the UN gave the lecture which was entitled ‘Reputational Hazard: Rescuing Refugees in the Era of Illegal Immigration and Terrorism’.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

This podcast was recorded at the Refugee Studies Centre’s Annual Elizabeth Colson Lecture which was on Wednesday 21st May 2008 at Somerville College, University of Oxford. The Elizabeth Colson Lecture is held annually in honour of Professor Elizabeth Colson, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science, Yale University gave this years lecture on the subject of Zomia.

“Zomia is a shorthand reference to the huge, massif of mainland Southeast Asia, running from the Central Highlands of Vietnam westward all the way to northeastern India and including the southwest Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, and western Guangxi.”

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

This podcast was recorded by Radio Netherlands Worldwide at the first of The Hague Debates on Thursday, 22 May 2008 in the Peace Palace and is entitled ‘When home gets too hot: Human Displacement and Climate Change in International Law’. The debate features Professor Roger Zetter, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

This podcast was recorded in Amman, Jordan in December 2007 with additional interviews recorded in February 2008. The Amman recordings include interviews with a number of Iraqis now living in Jordan from a range of backgrounds and current situations. The podcast includes comments from Rana Sweis UNHCR, Amman and Dana Graber Ladek International Organisation for Migration (IMO), Iraq.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

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