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.
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.
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.
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.
FMO has launched the first of a series of podcasts recorded at the bi-annual conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM), held in Cairo between January 6th and 10th 2008. The 11th IASFM conference was hosted by the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program of the American University in Cairo. A large proportion of those attending and giving presentations were researchers and practitioners from the global South. The FMO team made audio recordings of the conference’s plenary sessions and these will be launched gradually over the coming weeks. The further details about the conference can be accessed on the FMO event page.
Between January 6th and 10th 2008, the 11th International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) conference was hosted by the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program of the American University in Cairo. The Forced Migration Online team attended to participate and record audio at the plenary events for the FMO podcast series. Details of the podcastswill be have been posted on this blog in the next few weeks.
Our conference round-up begins with a video review of the event produced by the IASFM rapporteur John Nassari. The video is a part of the rapporteur’s conference report, along with a more traditional oral report which was delivered in the final plenary session of the conference. The video report features participants reading quotes which were originally spoken by others during the conference.
In this podcast Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond and Prof Roger Zetter discuss the evolution of the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) and of the academic field of refugee studies or forced migration studies. As the founding former director of the RSC and the current director respectively, and with a long shared history of collaboration since the centre was established, Harrell-Bond and Zetter are well placed to discuss its early years and the changes it has undergone. In this conversation, they also talk about the current state of refugee protection and the asylum process, and examine the responses of the international community, particularly UNHCR.
