Introduction: Rethinking Refuge and Displacement

Book Review, 2022

Recently, with the activity of refugees and asylum-seekers in Europe, there has been a conceptional or terminological confusion, both in Europe and far beyond. While the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi, photographed beside a capsized boat, and the danger of the migration journey can be understood through news stories, in the 21st century, the term “asylum seeker” has become as common as “refuge”. The book titled, What is a refugee? written by William Maley, clearly explains in detail the concept of refugee and offers a guide to understanding migration.

International Journal of Refugee Law, 2019

Refuge in a Moving World, edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, is an open access book that can be read in several different ways. One important reading is the book’s display of the diversity and interdisciplinarity in the field of forced migration studies. The book is also a testament to the exciting development of innovative methods and approaches demonstrating a potential to move our field forward by expanding how knowledge is produced, particularly through creative methods and approaches. With this diversity and innovation, a third reading is that the book’s contributions form a more nuanced way of representing the experience of displacement away from the stereotyped and dichotomized figures of victim or hero (the ‘super-refugee’) (see Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s introduction, pp 1–19). Finally, an important lens through which to read the book is that it illustrates the need for always contextualizing the knowledge of displacement away from homogenizing and reductive descriptions. As contributor Nerea Amorós Elorduy writes: ‘I argue that detailed, specific information adds complexity and nuance to refugee-encampment studies, depicting a more realistic image of the varied situations of encamped refugees and underscoring the powerful agency of refugees and their direct local hosts’ (p 364).

Founded in 1981, Refuge is an interdisciplinary journal published by the Centre for Refugee Studies, York University. The journal aims to provide a forum for discussion and critical reflection on refugee and forced migration issues. Refuge invites contributions from researchers, practitioners, and policy makers with national, international, or comparative perspectives. Special, thematic issues address the broad scope of the journal's mandate, featuring articles and reports, shorter commentaries, and book reviews. All submissions to Refuge are subject to double-blinded peer review. Articles are accepted in either English or French. Refuge is a non-profit, independent periodical funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and supported by the membership of the Canadian Association for Refugee Studies (CARFMS). The views expressed in Refuge do not necessarily reflect those of its funders or editors.

International Migration, 2015

Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees, 2021

This paper aims to reflect from an anthropological perspective on the fact that, by taking the category of ‘refugees’ as both the primary focus and the boundary for its research, Refugee Studies is underpinned by definitions that originate from policy. It contends that the definitions of categories of people (such as “refugees”, “migrants”, “IDPs”, etc.) arising from the refugee and humanitarian regime are not necessarily meaningful in the academic field from an analytical point of view. Empirical research has demonstrated that in practice it is not possible to apply these definitions to separate discrete classes of migrants. They are policy related labels, designed to meet the needs of policy rather than of scientific enquiry. Moreover, as products of a specific system, they bear assumptions which reflect the principles underlying the system itself. For these reasons Refugee Studies needs to maintain analytical independence from the refugee regime. This would require inter alia disentangling the analysis from policy categories and including policy as one of the objects of study. The first section argues that in the context of academic research the descriptive scope of the term “refugee” is limited; in fact, empirical research shows that the refugee label does not define a sociological relevant group. The second section turns to the policy arena and to the shaping of labels by international actors. Two moments are analysed: the creation of a refugee regime separate from the one of migration after the Second World War and the current debate on the “asylum-migration nexus”. The third section presents the main assumptions conveyed by the refugee label as a product of the international refugee regime, that is a state centred and sedentary bias.

International Journal of Refugee Law, 2001

Refugee Review Volume 1, 2013

We welcome readers to the e-publication of the New Scholars Network's inaugural issue of the Refugee Review. This open-source, peer-reviewed journal—based at no particular institution and tied to no particular location—is the product of collaboration between a growing and global group of new scholars, practitioners, policymakers and activists in the field of forced migration and refugee studies. We are proud not only to introduce practice and theory being undertaken and considered in this field, but to do so in a way that is fully supportive of shared knowledge production.

2021

How and to what extent does religion play into the life-rupturing experiences that characterize forced migration? This article provides a novel look at how issues of religion and identity (re/de)constructions are entangled with the Syrian refugee crisis and mirrored in the diverse experiences relating to a sample of Syrian refugees now residing in Norway. The study aims to delve more deeply into the Syrian scene of war as a determinant backdrop to the Syrian refugee crisis, thereby tracing the intersection of religion in people’s experiences of conflict, displacement, and refugeehood. It argues for a lived dimension approach when analysing the variable ways in which empowering and disempowering aspects of religion cut into their migration trajectories. Additionally, it applies a theoretical lens derived from existential anthropology to explore how narrative negotiations veer between chaos, crisis, and disruption, on the one hand, and resilience, hope, and restitution, on the other. ...

Journal of Refugee Studies, 2022