Forced Migration Online: Blog

‘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

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
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The film ‘Silk Road to Guantanamo: The Story of Adel Hakimjan‘ is now available to view online. Silk Road to Guantanamo shows the plight of ex-Guantanamo Bay inmate Adel Hakimjan, a Chinese Uighur, who was abused, persecuted, traded, and falsely imprisoned. There will be a screening of the film at the Blue Boar Lecture Theatre, Christ Church College, University of Oxford, on Tuesday, 17th November 7.30pm-9.30pm. After the screening there will be a Q & A with the film’s director S L James and Enver Tohti, chairman of the UK Uyghur Association.

• Silk Road to Guantanamo: The Story of Adel Hakimjan
• Screening in Oxford
• Subscribe via iTunes

This podcast was recorded at the Refugee Studies Centre’s Astor Lecture which was on Thursday 5th March 2009 at Rewley House, University of Oxford. Professor Audrey Singer, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution gave the lecture on the subject of Obama’s policy challenges and the future of US immigration.

• Podcast
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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, Oscar 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 Oscar F. Gil-García is interviewed about his work on the project.

• Photos and descriptions
• Podcast