Forced Migration Online: Blog

Italy has been transformed in recent decades from a nation of emigrants to a destination country for mass immigration, receiving tens of thousands of immigrant from south-east Europe and north Africa each year.

Its long coast lines and developed economy make it both an attractive destination and an easy route into Europe. As immigration rates have risen sharply, relations between the Italian and immigrant population have often been tense.

FMO’s latest resource summary  highlights a selection of web-based resources that focus on Italy. Links are provided to full-text documents, journal articles, external resources, and organizations.

• Resource summary: Italy

‘Deportation, non-deportability and ideas of membership’ by Dr Emanuela Paoletti, the latest in the series of Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers, is now available online.

“The growing number of foreign nationals that find themselves in a legal limbo whereby they are not officially members of the host country, yet cannot be deported, raises a number of important questions. What explains the fact that the state is unable to deport a significant number of deportable people? How does this affect our understanding of the state’s social regulative function and capacity? What does this tell us about the rights and obligations that link the state and non-deportable people? How can the link between the state and non-deportability be conceptualised? These questions are the at the core of this paper whose starting assumption is that deportation and non-deportability can be treated as two distinct concepts which shed light on shifting notions and practices of membership.”

Read the paper:

• ‘Deportation, non-deportability and ideas of membership’ (PDF file 148 KB)
• Refugee Studies Centre Working Papers

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

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.

Human Security and Non-Citizens: Law, Policy and International Affairs is a new co-edited collection by Carla Ferstman, Director of REDRESS and Dr. Alice Edwards of the Refugee Studies Centre. The official launch will be on 24th February 2010 as part of RSC’s Wednesday Seminar series.

The past decades have seen enormous changes in our perceptions of ‘security’, the causes of insecurity and the measures adopted to address them. Threats of terrorism and the impacts of globalisation and mass migration have shaped our identities, politics and world views. This volume of essays analyses these shifts in thinking and, in particular, critically engages with the concept of ‘human security’ from legal, international relations and human rights perspectives. Contributors consider the special circumstances of non-citizens, such as refugees, migrants, and displaced and stateless persons, and assess whether, conceptually and practically, ‘human security’ helps to address the multiple challenges they face.

• Human Security and Non-Citizens

Applications are invited for this year’s International Summer School in Forced Migration, to be held at Wadham College, Oxford. Apply by 1 March (bursary applicants), 1 May (self-/employer-funded applicants).

Now in its 21st year, the course offers an intensive, interdisciplinary and participative approach to the study of forced migration. It aims to enable people working with refugees and other forced migrants to reflect critically on the forces and institutions that dominate the world of the displaced.

• International Summer School in Forced Migration

FMO has launched a series of podcasts recorded at the Romani Mobilities in Europe conference, held by the Refugee Studies Centre between 14th and 15th January 2010 at Harris Manchester College, Oxford. The event was made possible by a grant from the John Fell Oxford University Press Fund and the generous support of ERSTE Foundation. Further details about the event can be accessed on the Conference Blog.

• Podcasts
• Subscribe via iTunes

This podcast was recorded at the Refugee Studies Centre’s Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture which was on Wednesday 18th November 2009 at the Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford. The Harrell-Bond Lecture is held annually in honour of Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, founding former director of the Centre and of the academic field of refugee studies or forced migration studies. Jan Egeland, former UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator and currently director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs gave the 2009 lecture on the subject of political deals and durable solutions for the displaced.

• Podcast
• Subscribe via iTunes

Exchange of thoughts and recommendations

Some “reflections” (PDF file) on the key themes that emerged from the conference have been developed by Simon Addison, Senior Research Officer & Policy Programme Manager at the Refugee Studies Centre.

We invite you to share your thoughts and reflections on what were for you the most relevant and innovative themes and issues presented and discussed. We would also welcome receiving your suggestions and recommendations on how to move the protection debate forward at a research, policy and practical level. Please add your thoughts, suggestions and recommendations to this page.

• Leave a Reply
• Reflections on an International Conference (PDF file)