Research and publications

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10315/38507

Scholarship and research submitted to the Forced Migration Research Archive.

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Access status: Open Access ,
Enjeux et limites des catégorisations dans le contexte des migrations forcées. L’exemple des réfugiés palestiniens et syriens au Liban depuis 2011
(Université de Poitiers, 2025-11-01) Aumond, Florian; Doraï, Kamel
Cet article, croisant les approches géographiques et juridiques, vise à relire de façon critique les catégorisations dans le cadre des migrations contraintes, plus précisément dans des contextes de conflits et de déplacements multiples et secondaires. Il s’appuie sur trois populations : les réfugiés palestiniens du Liban et de Syrie et les réfugiés syriens déplacés au Liban depuis 2011. Ces trois groupes relèvent de deux agences de l’ONU : l’UNRWA et l’UNHCR. Toutes deux exercent dans un pays, le Liban, non-partie à la Convention de Genève de 1951 relative au statut des réfugiés et qui a produit depuis 1948 son propre cadre national de gestion des réfugiés. Il a ainsi adopté sa propre définition de cette catégorie et induit de facto une distinction dans le traitement des populations concernées. Cet article se base sur une analyse des textes et documents officiels produits par les deux agences onusiennes et l’État libanais ainsi que sur des données collectées auprès des trois populations concernées au Liban depuis 2011.
Access status: Open Access ,
Information dependency: understanding the communicative ecology of young refugees in Kakuma
(Springer Nature, 2025-12-12) Baú, Valentina
This article looks at the communicative ecology of young people living in refugee camps. Findings from research conducted in October 2022 in Kakuma camp, Kenya, with both humanitarian professionals and young people living in the camp are presented. The aim is to provide an understanding of the workings of this ecology and the role that humanitarian actors play within it. An illustration of the three layers of the communicative ecology of Kakuma youth—technological, social and discoursive—is provided in order to offer an understanding of the communication and information network that characterises young people’s lives. In the end, this paper demonstrates how information can be viewed as a form of aid that refugee populations rely on. Reflecting on this form of dependency is useful for humanitarian organisations to recognise their role and agency in the lives of young refugees. It is also helpful to re-design their communication effort, with a view to delivering critical information for young people while providing a parallel path to self-reliance in communication.
Access status: Open Access ,
Refugees, Family Dynamics, and Resilience: Integrating Systemic Disruptions and Individual Coping Mechanisms
(Sage Journals, 2025-12-30) Atay, Erhan; Bayraktaroglu, Serkan
Migration reshapes family dynamics, emotional well-being, and identity negotiation, disrupting caregiving structures, communication patterns, and intergenerational relationships. This study examines how refugees and their families navigate these systemic disruptions and employ coping mechanisms to foster resilience. Drawing on Family Systems Theory and Stress and Coping Theory, this research integrates macro- and micro-level perspectives to analyze migration as both a structural force affecting family units and an individual psychological challenge. Using a qualitative approach, the findings reveal how physical separation, caregiving reconfigurations, and intergenerational tensions redefine familial roles and emotional bonds. Refugees employ cultural frame switching, bilingual adaptation, and identity negotiation strategies to balance heritage preservation with host culture integration. Community support networks and emotional resilience emerge as critical factors in mitigating migration-induced stress. This study extends traditional models such as Berry’s acculturation framework and transnational family theories by emphasizing the interplay between systemic family disruptions and personal adaptation processes. The findings contribute to family research by bridging systemic and individual responses, offering policy implications for expediting family reunification, developing culturally responsive mental health services, and designing intergenerational integration programs. This study underscores the need for holistic, family-centered migration policies and support systems to enhance refugee family well-being and long-term resilience.
Access status: Open Access ,
Desires for In Situ Adaptation Versus Out-Migration? The Impact of Flooding and Cyclones on Polder Communities in the Bangladesh Delta
(Wiley, 2025-12-08) Stone, Emily; Holloway, Rebecca; Moore, Brendan; Steckler, Michael; Stojanov, Robert
In Bangladesh's delta, rural communities have long held lives inseparable from seasonal flooding, adapting their homes and livelihoods to the annual monsoon. However, land subsidence, changing seasons, severe storms, increased salinity, and rising sea levels are threatening local livelihoods. The objective of this paper is to understand rural residents' perceptions of climate impacts and adaptation measures, focusing on their mobility choices. Through 15 qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 22 representatives from two embanked polder localities in southwest Bangladesh, we explored the following questions: (i) How do local residents perceive recent climate and environmental changes? (ii) How are local residents coping with these changes and what external assistance do they require to maintain their livelihoods; and (iii) How do local residents perceive migration or partial migration as a potential adaptation strategy? While these communities report an increased frequency of extreme climate events and severe flooding, our findings also reveal a lack of external assistance for adaptation solutions. Moreover, most families are either unwilling or unable to completely migrate out of affected areas. Therefore, increased support—the provision of fresh drinking water, money to recoup lost income and assistance rebuilding or reinforcing homes—is essential for building adaptive capacity and increasing local resilience in the face of climate shocks.
Access status: Open Access ,
Roots and Wings of The Children Silent Odyssey: The Integration of Child and Youth Migrants in the Attica, Greece
(Taylor & Francis, 2025-07-16) Hrdinová, Lucie Michaela; Stojanov, Robert
Although the integration processes of migrants as such are often discussed, aspects of migration and integration of children and youth have not received much attention. This study examines the multifaceted process of integration of refugee and migrant children and youth in the Attica region of Greece. The main aim of the study is to analyze the current difficulties within the migration of children, and the means of their integration. To achieve the objective, qualitative research was conducted. The paper explains how different factors of a social, educational, and psychological nature converge in their experiences of integration. The results of the study highlight the crucial role of NGOs in facilitating non-formal education that supports children’s integration, however, the government funding of NGOs’ programs for immigrants is problematic. Because the majority of migrant respondents stated that they do not feel integrated at all in Greek society, the Greek government should support the integration process of migrant and refugee children and youth by providing them with better access to language learning, schooling, psychological support, and social services. We have found that other aspects, such as education, finances, or family reunification currently represent more significant factors for migrants’ decision to stay or leave Greece.
Access status: Open Access ,
‘The Concept of a Better Life’: The Transit of Bangladeshi Migrants to the Schengen Area via Central and Eastern Europe
(Wiley, 2026-01-18) Mucha, Zbyněk; Stojanov, Robert
This article investigates recent patterns of Bangladeshi migration to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), focusing on the Czech Republic and Poland as emerging destinations and transit spaces within broader European mobility systems. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research and 74 semi-structured and in-depth interviews conducted in Bangladesh, the Czech Republic, and Poland between 2018 and 2024, the study examines how aspirations, capabilities, and perceptions shape migration trajectories among young, educated Bangladeshis. The findings reveal that contemporary migration is increasingly driven by a middle-class culture of emigration, linked to aspirations for social mobility, security, and freedom. CEE countries are perceived as attainable and affordable entry points to Europe, often serving as temporary stops on the way to Western Europe. Three distinct modes of transit are identified: long-term strategies combining study and employment; interrupted trajectories resulting from debt, unmet expectations, or precarious work; and broker-mediated transits facilitated by recruitment agencies and informal networks. The analysis highlights the central role of intermediaries and digital platforms in shaping migrants' imaginaries and practices, leading to fluid transitions between categories such as student, labour migrant, and asylum seeker. The article argues that CEE countries function simultaneously as destinations and corridors, and that migrants' trajectories are deeply influenced by their moral obligations, indebtedness, and access to capital for mobility. Transit migration should therefore be understood as a dynamic and relational process, reflecting the fragmented and evolving nature of contemporary mobility from Bangladesh to Europe.
Access status: Open Access ,
Traveling Together, Traveling Alone: Experiences of Violence and Danger for Migrating Children and Families in the US–Mexico Borderlands
(MDPI, 2026-01-04) Mathis, Cherra M.; Huslage, Melody; Held, Mary Lehman
Decisions to migrate are based on individual and family assessments of risk and opportunity, shaped by economic conditions, risks and experiences of violence, resources, and networks, which interact with personal factors and opportunity. During the journey, migrating people may encounter threats to their safety and wellbeing from both human and natural hazards. This study drew on survey data from 305 Mexican and Central American participants who migrated into the US between 2013 and 2022 alone or with families and children. Respondents provided demographic data and answered questions about stressors that prompted their migration, dangerous experiences encountered on their journey, sources of support, and what they wished they had known. Factors that influenced migration included economic stressors such as loss of job and poverty, witnessing or experiencing interpersonal violence or state violence such as kidnapping or threats to self or family, and environmental factors such as natural disasters. Approximately a third of participants traveled with their children, parents or siblings. Younger migrants and migrating people traveling with children reported significantly higher likelihood of encountering dangers during migration. Implications for supporting migrating children and families who have encountered violence and trauma are discussed, as well as limitations of the research.
Access status: Open Access ,
Examining the Potential Challenges of Artificial Intelligence in Statelessness Determination from a Human Rights Perspective
(Brill, 2025-10-23) Enigbokan, Omotunde
Academic literature is scarce on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in statelessness determination and its human rights consequences. Most existing research in the migratory context focuses on the use of AI, machine learning, algorithms and automated decision-making in refugee status determination and temporary resident visa applications. Drawing on this growing body of academic literature, this article addresses this gap by examining the potential human rights challenges that could arise if AI machine learning algorithms completely replaces human decision-makers in the determination of statelessness. These challenges will be explored within the context of non-discrimination, procedural fairness, and privacy. The article also argues that, despite these challenges, the use of AI should not be entirely dismissed. It further proposes ways in which AI can assist human decision-makers in the statelessness determination process – particularly with tasks that do not involve the determination of an individual’s stateless status. The article, however, argues that the partial use of AI may still raise human rights concerns such as privacy risk and it proposes strategies to mitigate potential risks.
Access status: Open Access ,
“The revolution might be a start …” – gender norm change amongst Chin refugees in Mizoram, India
(Taylor & Francis, 2025-12-29) Myrttinen, Henri; Sangi, Lal Rin
Mizoram currently hosts the largest population of Myanmar refugees in India, mostly from neighbouring Chin State, who have predominantly fled in the aftermath of the 2021 coup d’état. Chin society has traditionally been marked by patriarchal and gerontocratic norms, but these have been increasingly questioned by activists in the aftermath of the Spring Revolution, as the opposition movement to the coup is locally called. Drawing on interviews with Myanmar women refugees and women’s rights activists conducted in 2024 in Mizoram, we argue that while there has been a perceived change among women toward more gender-equitable and inclusive norms, patriarchal and heteronormative practices continue to dominate. While the previous and current work of women’s rights organisations has been a key driver of change, faith-based spaces may also offer entry points for gender equality work.
Access status: Open Access ,
Urban Refugee Protection and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda in Ethiopia: Challenges and Missing Links
(Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa & University of the Western Cape, 2025-12-22) Desta, Chalachew G.; Akkaya, Gülcan; Alemu, Samuel T.
Urban refugees in Ethiopia face persistent challenges despite progressive legal and policy reforms, including the 2019 Refugee Proclamation, the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, and some alignment with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. This study examined the gaps between policy commitments and lived realities by integrating desk reviews, key informant interviews with government and humanitarian actors, and in-depth interviews with 21 refugees from diverse nationalities in Addis Ababa. Findings reveal partial successes in economic inclusion, education, healthcare, documentation, and social participation, yet structural, administrative, and legal barriers constrain meaningful access to livelihoods, housing, services, and social networks. Social capital mediates refugees’ ability to navigate these challenges, while disparities in documentation, language, and market access exacerbate vulnerability. The study concludes that Ethiopia’s urban refugee protection system exhibits implementation gaps that undermine Sustainable Development Goal-aligned outcomes and emphasizes the need for coordinated, inclusive, and context-sensitive policies that translate formal rights into substantive capabilities and equitable integration opportunities.
Access status: Open Access ,
The permanent few or the temporary many? Evaluating refugee integration obstructors through implementation of the Ethiopia and Jordan Job Compacts
(Oxford Academic, 2026-01-05) Almasri, Shaddin; Nigusie, Alemu Asfaw
Following the global re-emergence of refugee self-reliance narratives in the wake of the Syria refugee displacement, development aid took on new and experimental meanings in some displacement contexts. Jordan and the EU entered into a ten-year agreement known as the Jordan Compact, an aid agreement that supports trade and job creation for refugees and host communities, in 2016. Later that year, the Ethiopia Jobs Compact was agreed with the EU and other development actors. While inspired by the Jordan Compact, policymaking to support the compact implementation in Ethiopia vastly differed from that of Jordan. More specifically, Jordan immediately implemented policy changes to support the legalization of Syrian refugee employment, while this process was delayed in Ethiopia. In 2019, the Government of Ethiopia passed a progressive Refugee Proclamation, constituting a significant legal change and commitment—a change far more sustainable, from a legal standpoint, than any of those pursued in Jordan. Accordingly, this paper explores the differences in Jobs Compact implementation, the causes behind them, and the impacts these have had on outcomes. Relying on a comparative approach of the refugee governance frameworks in each of these respective contexts, this paper argues that the difference in compact implementation, from the perspective of governance, is rooted in policy and political strategies undertaken to mitigate local integration in Jordan and Ethiopia.
Access status: Open Access ,
Del territorio sumergido a la apatridia: lagunas normativas y soluciones jurídicas
(Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Jurídicas, Universidad de Jaén, 2025-10-28) Caller Tramullas, Lorena
El cambio climático impacta directamente en elementos constitutivos del Estado, como el territorio y la población, planteando un desafío relevante para el Derecho Internacional. El aumento del nivel del mar y fenómenos conexos amenazan la existencia de los Estados insulares, provocan desplazamientos forzados y generan un riesgo de apatridia. Este vacío normativo se debe a que ni la Convención de 1951 sobre los Refugiados ni los instrumentos internacionales sobre apatridia ofrecen protección adecuada a quienes deben abandonar su país por motivos ambientales. Ante ello, el Derecho Internacional explora soluciones innovadoras que aseguren la continuidad de los Estados y los derechos de sus habitantes. En este contexto, el principio "uti possidetis iuris," tradicionalmente aplicado en procesos de descolonización, podría adaptarse al ámbito marítimo para preservar la estatalidad. Su interacción con el principio de prevención de la apatridia permitiría afrontar una crisis humanitaria de alcance global priorizando los Derechos Humanos y la justicia climática.
Access status: Open Access ,
Chakma Refugees and Indigenous People of Arunachal Pradesh: A Field Report on Perceptions
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2023-12) Aboh, Panjang; Bath, Nani
This report is an attempt to know the perception of Chakma refugees and Indigenous people towards each other in the light of a long pending refugee issue. The study is primarily based on empirical data obtained from a field study in which an equal number of refugee and Indigenous respondents have been purposefully selected from eight villages each in the Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh where a maximum number of refugees are found.
Access status: Open Access ,
Higher Education Concerns for Young Afghan Refugees in Delhi
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2022-12) Anushka, Anushka
This article seeks to examine the challenges experienced by Afghan refugee students who have relocated to India and are pursuing higher education. The hardships of Afghan refugees are not adequately reflected since the government has skewed aspects of governance due to concerns for its own nationals. Given the current state of Afghanistan and the growing number of Afghans living in India, it is imperative to concentrate on the issues of young Afghan refugees.
Access status: Open Access ,
Janus Faced Migration Policymaking: A Case Study of Afghan-European Migration Policy
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2022-12) Schuster, Liza; Hussaini, Reza
This essay is structured around a series of questions that relate to migration policymaking in general, but more specifically to migration policy by, for and about Afghans. The examination of these questions indicates some of the problems with migration policymaking, especially when conducted at the supra-national level. The focus here is on state policies, European migration policies as they affect Afghans and the Afghan government and Afghan migration policies that have emerged in response to pressure exerted by Europe and Afghanistan’s neighbouring states, Iran and Pakistan. Migration policy serves to highlight the international character of states, since it is never simply national, and though driven by domestic pressures, always involves other states. The approach taken here is one of critical enquiry, in which the dominant framing of policy issues and its consequences are interrogated and questions of power and inequality are raised. The findings are based on an ‘interpretive’ analysis of official documents and interviews with Afghan and European officials in Kabul. As a result, the conclusions offered and the meanings attributed to actions and policy are authors’, based on ‘plausibility and the balance of probability’ and as such, open to argument and dispute.
Access status: Open Access ,
The Politics of Space: Refugees, Displaced and Stranded
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2023-12) Mohsin, Amena
This write-up is an attempt to traverse a personal journey at different phases of my life as an individual and a researcher. Though the three scenarios are different, but a common thread weaves them together, and this is the modern state. The situation of being “stranded,” “displaced,” and “refugee” or “forcibly displaced” are the consequences and creations of a state’s oppressive policies. However, land/territory and borders too are integral to these creations. Here I would juxtapose the concept of “space” to “territory,” which is otherwise a space as well; however, I would contend that space acquires a different and larger connotation in situations like this. While having a physical realm, it extends beyond the spatial and penetrates the cognitive. The latter becomes a site of defiance, empowerment, and identity formation at the individual and community levels. To take the cue from Nandy, I would argue the politics of territoriality and bordered spaces gives birth to the politics of cognitive spaces which are borderless, and have a timelessness about them, which makes it a much more powerful tool of resistance.
Access status: Open Access ,
Hybrid Ethnography and South Asian Migration Studies
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2023-12) Poyil, Shamna Thacham
Using the empirical context of the digital identity of Rohingyas languishing in camps in India and Bangladesh, this paper argues that the dichotomous approach towards the suitability of digital/online ethnography vis-à-vis conventional/offline in understanding the formulation/reformulation of refugee identity in forced migration research should be eschewed. It serves no purpose to treat the “virtual” world as a completely separate social area from the “real” as people’s “online” and “offline” social lives are inextricably intertwined with the ubiquitous nature of the internet and digital connectivity. This has occasioned the need to redefine not just the “field” in which the refugee dwells, interacts, and survives within the host state, but also the approaches used to study the field warrants a re-introspection. Negating the Eurocentrically conditioned “methodological nationalism” which underscores the qualitative approaches such as conventional ethnography in the region, the paper makes a case for the adoption of “hybrid ethnography” in forced migration studies in South Asia, that in turn provides an avenue to incorporate both the positionality and reflexivity of the researcher vis-a-vis the field participants.
Access status: Open Access ,
Geopolitical Framings of Subalterity in Education III: Context of Displacement
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2021-12) Basu, Ranu
This paper presents geopolitical framings of subalterity in education as an analytical framework to explore these questions by focusing on the spatial dialectics of peace, settlement, and welfare-state practices. I will argue that the project of education particularly as it relates to violence and displacement cannot be analysed in the absence of the geopolitics of imperial hegemony compounded by the logics of the neoliberal state. As the state reflects ‘the variety of geopolitical ways of viewing the world’–the institution of state-funded schools could also be assumed to reflect contrasting ‘geopolitical visions’ as they relate to the ‘geopolitical subject’. Hence, this paper attempts to understand how the provision of education, particularly as it relates to the question of forced displacement–beyond its literary component but as a radical strategy of transnational consciousness building–needs to be further analysed by examining the role of state-funded schools as sites for broader praxis and civic engagement.
Access status: Open Access ,
A Privilege That Can Be Withdrawn: Regulation of Exit in Russia and Other Post-Soviet Republics
(Wiley, 2025-12-24) Light, Matthew; Kosals, Leonid
The former Soviet Union's restrictions on citizens' foreign travel or emigration were notoriously draconian. Yet what replaced them in the fifteen independent states of the post-Soviet region has not been well analysed. Outside the Baltic republics, the monolithic and prohibitive policies of the Soviet past have given way to a patchwork of restrictions with more complex motivations reflecting the diversity of contemporary Eurasian states. However, while many more people in the region can travel abroad when they wish, exit remains a privilege, rather than an enforceable right. Post-Soviet states' exit policies increasingly resemble those in other primarily authoritarian contexts around the world, albeit somewhat marked by Eurasian regimes' high levels of both coercive capacity and informality and the weakness of labour and the left. We conclude that the USSR's fixation on preventing exit was historically exceptional as a policy on foreign travel, rather than paradigmatic, and severely limited the regime's own migration policy options. In a paradox, the relaxation of blanket prohibitions has only increased the post-Soviet state's freedom to tailor restrictions on exit to its interests far more effectively than the USSR ever could.
Access status: Open Access ,
Eurasian Economic Union: Problems and Perspectives of Labour Migrants from Kyrgyzstan to Russia
(Mahanirban Calcutta Research Group, 2023-12) Daniiarova, Gulzina Mamatalievna
Labour migration plays an important economic and social role in the Kyrgyz Republic. In 2015, Kyrgyzstan joined the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to benefit from its guarantee of the free movement of labour among its member countries, which include Russia. This article discusses the working conditions for Kyrgyz migrants in Russia, their rights under the EAEU Treaty, and the challenges they face.

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