Handbook on Forced Migration 1839104961, 9781839104961

Table of contents :
Front Matter
Copyright
Contents
Contributors
Preface
Poem: Mazen Sleeps With His Foot on the Floor
Part I Introduction
1. Introduction to the Handbook on Forced
2. Negotiating ambiguous status: Mixed migration in theory and practice
3. Migrant categorization under the patchwork of international, regional, and national law
Part II Philosophy
4. Philosophy of forced migration: Sit at the table or knock it over
5. Labels, norms: The illusion of control
6. Thinking without ‘fixing’: Towards a feminist political geography
7. Ethics, globalization, counter-narratives: Confronting structural injustice
8. Dissensus, fictions, emancipation: The struggle for a world to come
9. Securitization, decriminalization, resistance: From old fears to new values
10. Otherness, language, exile: Expressing the poem of the Relation
Poem: Floaters
Narrative: Crossing borders
Part III History
11. Historical perspectives on forced migration
12. Historians and forced migration: A persistent feeling of disconnect?
13. Reckoning with refugeedom: Historical perspectives
14. History, memory and the ethics of asylum
15. The roots of asylum
16. Historical process tracing and forced migration: Re-examining the creation of the refugee definition
17. Historiographies of early modern forced migrations in Europe and the Atlantic world
18. The antecedents of forced migration in the Middle East
19. The ‘home-coming’ of the refugees: Narratives of partition-induced forced migration in South Asia (1947-1971)
Poem: Asking Questions of the Moon
Narrative: Enclave dwellers and proxy citizens in Bangladesh and India
Part IV Climate change and environmental mobility
20. Climate change, population, environment and forced migration
21. Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India
22. Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean
23. Theorizing mobility justice in contexts of climate mobilities
24. Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration
25. Climate mobility and accountability
Poem: I Would Steal a Car for You
Narrative: Waiting in transit
Part V Urban settings
26. The urbanisation of displacement
27. If not camps, then … cities?
28. Aid-induced informal settlement creation following disaster: The cautionary tale of Port-au-Prince’s Canaan slum
29. Reconstruction as violence and forced displacement in Syria
30. Self-reliance in urban contexts for displaced people
31. Framing urban displacement economies
32. From integration to conviviality: Syrian refugees in London and Berlin
33. National and local orders in the response to Venezuelan forced migration in Colombia: Perspective from urban settings
34. The value of mayors in urban displacement settings: The case of Amman, Jordan
Poem: Not for Him the Fiery Lake of the False Prophet
Narrative: Markets of displacement
Part VI Solutions
35. Putting people back into place
36. Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement: What are the alternatives?
37. Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda
38. Displacement limbo: Durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine
39. The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America
Poem: I Now Pronounce You Dead
Narrative: Return after interrupted migration cycles
Part VII Lived experiences: The views of refugees and practitioners
Refugees
40. Narrative: Life in South Africa: Irresistible soft power meets the hard reality
41. Narrative: We escaped in seconds … it then takes four years to become a refugee
42. Narrative: A Malawian in South Africa - the good and the bad
43. Narrative: I have always felt like I am not a forced migrant … enough
44. Narrative: When a new chapter in my life began as a ‘forced migrant’
45. Narrative: The second time I became a refugee
Practitioners
46. Narrative: A few thoughts about UNHCR and the UN
47. Narrative: A discredited model of refugee response
48. Narrative: A more realistic conversation on solutions
49. Narrative: Moving beyond emergency assistance
50. Narrative: Forced migration - a personal view
Part VIII The future
51. Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration
52. Conclusion: A call for ethical standards in forced migration research
Index

Citation preview

Handbook on Forced Migration

HANDBOOK ON FORCED MIGRATION

ELGAR HANDBOOKS IN MIGRATION The Elgar Handbooks in Migration series provides a definitive overview of recent research in all matters relating to the study of Migration, forming an extensive guide to the subject. This series covers research areas including internal migration, the global impact of human trafficking and forced labour, and international migration policy, and constitutes an essential new resource in the field. Each volume is edited by an editor recognized as an international leader within the field and consists of original contributions by leading authors. These Handbooks are developed using an international approach and contribute to both the expansion of current debates within the field, and the development of future research agendas. For a full list of Edward Elgar published titles, including the titles in this series, visit our website at www​.e​-elgar​.com​.

Handbook on Forced Migration Edited by

Karen Jacobsen Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, USA

Nassim Majidi Co-Founder and Executive Director, Samuel Hall, Kenya; Research Associate, Tufts University, USA; Wits University, South Africa; and Université Houphouët Boigny, Côte d’Ivoire

ELGAR HANDBOOKS IN MIGRATION

Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Karen Jacobsen and Nassim Majidi 2023

Cover image by Pippa Skotnes. Image is of a sculpture by David Brown, set against a sky of flocking quelea birds in Namibia (photo by Pippa Skotnes). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2023943034 This book is available electronically in the Political Science and Public Policy subject collection http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781839104978

ISBN 978 1 83910 496 1 (cased) ISBN 978 1 83910 497 8 (eBook)

EEP BoX

Contents

List of contributorsxi Prefacexix Nassim Majidi POEM: MAZEN SLEEPS WITH HIS FOOT ON THE FLOOR Martín Espada PART I

INTRODUCTION

1

Introduction to the Handbook on Forced Migration: A critical take on forced migration today Karen Jacobsen and Nassim Majidi

2

Negotiating ambiguous status: Mixed migration in theory and practice Katrina Burgess

3

Migrant categorization under the patchwork of international, regional, and national law John Cerone

PART II

3 21

34

PHILOSOPHY

4

Philosophy of forced migration: Sit at the table or knock it over Hervé Nicolle

46

5

Labels, norms: The illusion of control Interview with Oliver Bakewell

59

6

Thinking without ‘fixing’: Towards a feminist political geography Interview with Jennifer Hyndman

67

7

Ethics, globalization, counter-narratives: Confronting structural injustice Interview with Serena Parekh

77

8

Dissensus, fictions, emancipation: The struggle for a world to come Interview with Jacques Rancière

86

9

Securitization, decriminalization, resistance: From old fears to new values Interview with Seyla Benhabib

93

v

vi  Handbook on forced migration 10

Otherness, language, exile: Expressing the poem of the Relation Interview with Tanella Boni

101

POEM: FLOATERS Martín Espada NARRATIVE: CROSSING BORDERS Fırat Bozçalı and Rebecca Galemba PART III HISTORY 11

Historical perspectives on forced migration Susan Martin

116

12

Historians and forced migration: A persistent feeling of disconnect? Jerome Elie

134

13

Reckoning with refugeedom: Historical perspectives Peter Gatrell

142

14

History, memory and the ethics of asylum Tony Kushner

149

15

The roots of asylum Ninette Kelley

155

16

Historical process tracing and forced migration: Re-examining the creation of the refugee definition Phil Orchard

162

17

Historiographies of early modern forced migrations in Europe and the Atlantic world Susanne Lachenicht

168

18

The antecedents of forced migration in the Middle East Dawn Chatty

19

The ‘home-coming’ of the refugees: Narratives of partition-induced forced migration in South Asia (1947–1971) Anindita Ghoshal

176

182

Contents  vii POEM: ASKING QUESTIONS OF THE MOON Martín Espada NARRATIVE: ENCLAVE DWELLERS AND PROXY CITIZENS IN BANGLADESH AND INDIA Md Azmeary Ferdoush PART IV CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL MOBILITY 20

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration Jennifer Ventrella and Michael Cohen

193

21

Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India Kavya Michael and Juhi Bansal

208

22

Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean Maiara Folly and Adriana Erthal Abdenur

216

23

Theorizing mobility justice in contexts of climate mobilities Mimi Sheller

227

24

Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration Anne Hendrixson

234

25

Climate mobility and accountability Karen Jacobsen and Susan Martin

245

POEM: I WOULD STEAL A CAR FOR YOU Martín Espada NARRATIVE: WAITING IN TRANSIT Antje Missbach PART V

URBAN SETTINGS

26

The urbanisation of displacement Lucy Earle

258

27

If not camps, then … cities? Dyfed Aubrey

272

28

Aid-induced informal settlement creation following disaster: The cautionary tale of Port-au-Prince’s Canaan slum Christopher Ward and Louis Jadotte

279

viii  Handbook on forced migration 29

Reconstruction as violence and forced displacement in Syria Deen Sharp

285

30

Self-reliance in urban contexts for displaced people Kellie C. Leeson, Paul Karanja, Galo Quizanga Zambrano and Dale Buscher

293

31

Framing urban displacement economies Alison Brown, Peter Mackie, Patricia García Amado, Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher and Engida Esayas Dube

299

32

From integration to conviviality: Syrian refugees in London and Berlin Deena Dajani

308

33

National and local orders in the response to Venezuelan forced migration in Colombia: Perspective from urban settings Carolina Moreno, Gracy Pelacani and Laura Dib-Ayesta

315

34

The value of mayors in urban displacement settings: The case of Amman, Jordan Yousef Al Shawarbeh (Mayor of Amman) and Samer Saliba

320

POEM: NOT FOR HIM THE FIERY LAKE OF THE FALSE PROPHET Martín Espada NARRATIVE: MARKETS OF DISPLACEMENT Luigi Achilli and Kim Wilson PART VI SOLUTIONS 35

Putting people back into place Cathrine Brun

332

36

Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement: What are the alternatives? 350 Cathrine Brun, Anita H. Fábos, Maha Shuayb and Nicholas Van Hear in conversation

37

Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda Eria Serwajja and Hilde Refstie

363

38

Displacement limbo: Durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine Sean Loughna with Olga Ivanova and Julia Kharasvili

377

39

The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America Marcia Vera Espinoza

389

Contents  ix POEM: I NOW PRONOUNCE YOU DEAD Martín Espada NARRATIVE: RETURN AFTER INTERRUPTED MIGRATION CYCLES Maybritt Jill Alpes PART VII LIVED EXPERIENCES: THE VIEWS OF REFUGEES AND PRACTITIONERS REFUGEES 40

Narrative: Life in South Africa: Irresistible soft power meets the hard reality Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti

415

41

Narrative: We escaped in seconds … it then takes four years to become a refugee Hassan Hersi

42

Narrative: A Malawian in South Africa – the good and the bad Mwaona Nyirongo

419

43

Narrative: I have always felt like I am not a forced migrant … enough Yuliia Kabanets

421

44

Narrative: When a new chapter in my life began as a ‘forced migrant’ Saida Azimi

423

45

Narrative: The second time I became a refugee Zabihullah Barakzai

426

417

PRACTITIONERS 46

Narrative: A few thoughts about UNHCR and the UN Joel Boutroue

429

47

Narrative: A discredited model of refugee response Jeff Crisp

434

48

Narrative: A more realistic conversation on solutions Ninette Kelley

437

49

Narrative: Moving beyond emergency assistance Renata Dubini

441

50

Narrative: Forced migration – a personal view Richard Danziger

442

x  Handbook on forced migration PART VIII THE FUTURE 51

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration Evan Easton-Calabria

446

52

Conclusion: A call for ethical standards in forced migration research Nassim Majidi and Karen Jacobsen

464

Index469

Contributors

Adriana Erthal Abdenur is the co-founder and Executive Director of Plataforma CIPÓ. She is an adjunct lecturer at Sciences-Po Paris, a Senior Fellow at the UN University Centre for Policy Research, and serves in the UN ECOSOC Committee on Development Policy. Luigi Achilli is Senior Researcher at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and at the CMI in Bergen, Norway. His research and writing focus on irregular migration, transnational crime, refugee studies, and political engagement. Maybritt Jill Alpes is Senior Researcher at the Human Rights Centre at Ghent University (Belgium). Based on field research in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, her research examines the governance of migration from a Global South perspective. She is the author of Brokering High-Risk Migration and Illegality in West Africa: Abroad at Any Cost. Patricia García Amado is political scientist and human rights researcher. Her research focuses on refugees and IDP integration in urban settings through the realization of their housing and economic rights in the face of legal restrictions. Dyfed Aubrey is Inter-Regional Advisor at UN-Habitat working on forced displacement in cities. He coordinates UN-Habitat’s global flagship initiative, “SDG Cities”. He headed UN-Habitat’s Regional Office for Arab States and has worked on urban recovery and reconstruction with organizations in Iraq, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Kosovo. Saida Azimi is from Afghanistan and is now based in London where she works as a Senior Programme Associate for Chemonics UK. She is contributing to the deployment of the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine and hopes to return to Afghanistan to give back to her people and her country. Oliver Bakewell is Reader in Migration Studies at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester (UK). His work focuses on mobility and development, with an empirical focus on Africa. Bakewell has worked with migrants both as a researcher and as a practitioner with humanitarian agencies. Juhi Bansal is a human rights lawyer in the fields of environmental policy, sustainability and law. She is a climate change expert at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) working on low-carbon transitions and mid-century strategies for sustainable development including a focus on climate justice and equity. Zabihullah Barakzai is from Farah, Afghanistan. He spent his childhood as a refugee in Iran, before returning to Afghanistan in 2004. Since August 2021 has been studying at Sciences Po Lille, France. He hopes to return to Afghanistan one day to serve his country. Seyla Benhabib is Professor Emerita and Senior Research Fellow at Yale and Columbia Universities respectively. Her critiques of Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas, and feminist political theory address the study of migration and citizenship, gender and multiculturalism, and contribute to debates on human rights. xi

xii  Handbook on forced migration Tanella Boni (Ivory Coast) is a writer, philosopher and art critic. Her poems and philosophical essays focus on how women and men can live and maintain their dignity in the face of violence. Boni is particularly interested in the place of women in Africa, feminism and strategies of resistance. Joel Boutroue was the UNHCR Representative in Uganda from 2018 to 2022. He has worked with the UN (UNHCR, OCHA, UNDP, DPKO) and as an advisor to donors in conflict/disaster situations in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the Caribbean, since 1990. He was head of UNHCR in North-Kivu (DRC) after the Rwandan genocide, and Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator in Haiti. He was special advisor to the Prime Minister in Haiti from 2010 to 2011. Fırat Bozçalı is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM), Canada. His research concentrates on political and legal anthropology with a focus on smuggling economies, borders and techno-politics in the modern Middle East. Alison Brown is Professor of Urban Planning and International Development at Cardiff University (UK), and head of the Informality Research Observatory. Alison is an urban planner and development policy expert with research expertise on urban informal economies, post-conflict cities, refugee economies and rights-based approaches. Cathrine Brun is Deputy Director for Research at the Centre for Lebanese Studies at the Lebanese American University (Lebanon) and Professor of the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice at Oxford Brookes University (UK). She is a human geographer working on long-term displacement, home and home making, the temporalities and spatialities of displacement and the ethics and politics of humanitarianism. Katrina Burgess is Associate Professor of Political Economy and Director of the Henry J. Leir Institute for Migration and Human Security at the Fletcher School at Tufts University (Boston, USA). She has published on labour politics, migration, remittances, and diasporas, including her book, Courting Migrants: How States Make Diasporas and Diasporas Make States (2020). She wrote and produced Waylaid in Tijuana, a 2020 documentary about Haitian and Central American migrants stuck at the US–Mexico border. Dale Buscher, Vice President for Programs at the Women’s Refugee Commission, leads work on refugee livelihoods, youth, adolescents, and gender. Dale has worked in humanitarian assistance since 1988, managing programmes in the Balkans, the Middle East, and Asia. He has authored articles and book chapters on refugee protection, urban refugees, and gender issues. John Cerone is Professor of International Law, with appointments at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy, American University Washington College of Law, and the University of London. He has been a fellow at the Nobel Institute (Oslo) and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law. He is an elected member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (IIHL) and has served on expert groups for the ICRC and the UNHCHR. Dawn Chatty is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration and former Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Dawn was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2015. She is the author of Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East and Syria: the Making and Unmaking of a Refuge State.

Contributors  xiii Michael Cohen is Director of the Public and Urban Policy PhD program at the Milano School of Policy, Management, and Environment, and professor of international affairs at the New School, New York. From 1972 to 1999, he worked at the World Bank, including as Senior Advisor to the World Bank’s Vice-President for Environmentally Sustainable Development from 1994 to 1997. Jeff Crisp worked for UNHCR from 1987 to 2013, his final position being Head of Policy Development and Evaluation. He has also worked for NGOs and international commissions, and in journalism and the academic world. He is currently affiliated to the Refugee Studies Centre (University of Oxford) and Chatham House (London). Deena Dajani is Senior Researcher at the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (London). She has conducted ethnographic and participatory research with refugee and migrant populations in East Africa, Europe and the Middle East, and worked on building partnerships with civil society towards more inclusive urban spaces. Richard Danziger worked for 27 years for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), including as Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Regional Director for West & Central Africa and from 2020, Chief of Mission for Somalia. He currently works in the areas of migration and violent extremism. Laura Dib-Ayesta is the Venezuela Program Director at the Washington Office in Latin America (Washington, DC). She is a member of the Center for Migration Studies (Centro de Estudios en Migración – CEM) at Los Andes University (Bogotá, Colombia). Engida Esayas Dube is Assistant Professor of Regional and Urban Studies at Dilla University, Ethiopia. His research focuses on urban and regional studies, migration, and urban livelihoods. Dr Dube is the Ethiopia country lead and co-investigator on a protracted displacement project. Renata Dubini worked for UNHCR from 1988, concluding her career as UNHCR’s Americas Bureau Director (2015–2020). She was the UNHCR Representative in various countries, including Liberia and Syria, and served on emergency teams in Rwanda, Kosovo and Guinea, and in UNHCR’s Urban Refugee Policy technical mission to Ecuador in 2012. Lucy Earle is Principal Researcher and Director of the Human Settlements Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development (London), where she leads research and policy on urban crises and forced displacement. Her work focuses on urbanization, urban poverty and humanitarian crises, in particular forced displacement in urban areas. Lucy has a background working on low-income housing, urban citizenship and the right to the city. Evan Easton-Calabria is Senior Researcher at the Feinstein International Center, Tufts University (Boston, USA), and a Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on humanitarianism and development, including refugee self-reliance, technology and digital work, anticipatory action, urbanization, and localization. She is the author of Refugees, Self-Reliance, Development: A critical history, and co-author of The Global Governed: Refugees as Providers of Protection and Assistance.

xiv  Handbook on forced migration Jerome Elie has published in various outlets, including the Refugee Survey Quarterly, Forced Migration Review and the Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. He has worked on forced displacement for 15 years within academia, the UN and NGOs. Martín Espada has published more than twenty books as a poet, editor, essayist and translator. His books of poems include Floaters (2021 National Book Award), Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), Alabanza (2003) and Imagine the Angels of Bread (1996). He is the editor of What Saves Us: Poems of Empathy and Outrage in the Age of Trump (2019). He has received numerous poetry prizes and fellowships. A former tenant lawyer in Greater Boston, Espada is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Anita H. Fábos is an anthropologist and Professor and Associate Director of the International Development, Community and Environment Department at Clark University (Worcester, Massachusetts, USA). She has published on race, ethnicity, and gender identities for people on the move, Muslim mobilities, home and home-making, and the acoustics of diaspora. Md Azmeary Ferdoush is an Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Researcher based at the University of Eastern Finland. As a political geographer, he is particularly interested in borders, state, citizenship, and sovereignty. Maiara Folly is the Co-Founder and Programme Director of Plataforma CIPÓ, an independent, women-led research institute for issues of global governance, climate and peace. Rebecca Galemba is Associate Professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, and Co-Director of the Center for Immigration Policy & Research (CIPR). Her research focuses on Latin America, borders, smuggling, and migration and labour policies in the US. She is the author of Contraband Corridor: Making a Living at the Mexico-Guatemala Border and Laboring for Justice: The Fight Against Wage Theft in an American City. Peter Gatrell taught at the University of Manchester from 1976 to 2021. His books include A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War I (1999); The Making of the Modern Refugee (2013), and The Unsettling of Europe: How Migration Reshaped a Continent (2019). He is a Fellow of the British Academy. Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher is Professor at the Addis Ababa University, College of Social Sciences. His research areas include urban development and regional planning. He is a founding member of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences. Anindita Ghoshal is Associate Professor of History at Diamond Harbour Women’s University, Kolkata, India. Her area of research includes partition and refugee studies with special emphasis on east-northeast India and Bangladesh. She is the author of Refugee, Borders and Identities: Rights and Habitat in East and Northeast India and Revisiting Partition: Contestation, Narratives and Memories. Anne Hendrixson is Senior Policy Analyst for Challenging Population Control, a programme of Collective Power for Reproductive Justice. Before joining Collective Power, Anne was the Director of PopDev, the Population and Development programme at Hampshire College (Massachusetts, USA), and a lecturer in critical social inquiry.

Contributors  xv Hassan Hersi spent many years in Cairo as a refugee, where he also worked as an interpreter for UNHCR. He is now studying to get his Master’s in the United States. Jennifer Hyndman is Professor in Social Science and Geography and Director of the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University (Canada). Her research traverses political, economic, urban, cultural and feminist dimensions of migration, focusing on displacement and security. She also contributes to critical policy studies of refugee-migrant research in Canada. Olga Ivanova has been Director and Co-Founder of the Ukrainian Charity Fund Stabilization Support Services since 2016. She has worked on humanitarian programmes in Ukraine and Serbia to support the integration of internally displaced persons. She is an author of the concept of IDP councils in Ukraine as a tool to find durable solutions for the displaced. Karen Jacobsen is the Henry J. Leir Professor in Global Migration at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (Boston, USA), where she directs the Refugees in Towns Project. Her research explores urban displacement and climate-related migration, with a focus on cities. Her books include A View from Below: Conducting Research in Conflict Zones, and The Economic Life of Refugees. Louis Jadotte is Senior Project Manager with Habitat for Humanity Haiti. From Haiti, Louis worked abroad successively as a consulting engineer and in the financial services sector before returning to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake. He recently managed a land tenure security initiative in Haiti. Yuliia Kabanets is Associated Analyst in Cedos Think Tank. She was a postgraduate student at the University of Glasgow, with her Master’s programme being ‘Global Migrations & Social Justice’. She was internally displaced from Donetsk to Kyiv in 2014. At this writing, she was 25 years old. Paul Karanja is RefugePoint’s Program Coordinator of Urban Refugee Protection. Paul has also worked at UNHCR Nairobi and at German International Cooperation (GIZ) and Life Skills Promoters. Ninette Kelley served over 19 years with UNHCR, including as UNHCR Director, New York, and UNHCR Representative, Lebanon. She is the author of People Forced to Flee: History, Change, and Challenge. Ninette served eight years on the Canadian Immigration and Refugee Board and is the co-author of The Making of the Mosaic: The History of Canadian Immigration Policy. Julia Kharasvili is the founder of IDP Women’s Association Consent in Georgia, established in 1996, which works towards the achievement of a democratic and peaceful society with equal opportunities for IDPs, with a particular emphasis on women. Tony Kushner is James Parkes Professor in the Department of History, University of Southampton. He works on migration history, especially relating to Jews. His recent works include Journeys from the Abyss: The Holocaust and Forced Migration from the 1880s to the Present (2017) and Southampton’s Migrant Past and Present (2021).

xvi  Handbook on forced migration Susanne Lachenicht is Professor of Early Modern History at Bayreuth University, Germany. She works on Europe and the Atlantic World with a special focus on diasporas, religious migrations, knowledge transfer and transformation as well as temporalities in the early modern world. Kellie C. Leeson has worked with International Rescue Committee, NYU’s Development Research Institute, and UNICEF. She co-founded the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative and Empire State Indivisible and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at NYU’s Wagner School. Sean Loughna is a political economist who has worked for over 25 years on displacement. From 2015 to 2019, he was an Advisor to the Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories and IDPs of Ukraine. Since 2020, he has been a researcher/analyst for IOM in Ukraine. Peter Mackie is Professor of Human Geography at Cardiff University (UK), focused on achieving social justice through his research. Centring on urban livelihoods, he has explored child labour, rights to public space, and livelihoods during conflict and crises, particularly amongst refugees. Peter also undertakes research on the prevention of homelessness. Nassim Majidi is the co-founder of Samuel Hall, where she leads action research on migration and displacement to contribute to knowledge, policies and programmes. She is a research associate at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, USA, and at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. Her research focuses on return migration and reintegration, and the voices of migrants in countries of origin, conflict settings and border areas. Susan Martin is Donald G. Herzberg Professor Emerita of International Migration at Georgetown University. She was the founder and director of Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of International Migration and Certificate Program on Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies. Prior to joining Georgetown’s faculty, Dr Martin was the Executive Director of the US Commission on Immigration Reform. She has authored or edited more than a dozen books and numerous articles and book chapters, including A Nation of Immigrants: Second Edition and International Migration: Evolving Trends from the Early Twentieth Century to the Present. Kavya Michael is an environmental social scientist at Chalmers Technical University, Sweden. Her research examines environmental change and energy-related issues through a human rights and justice lens. She also studies the intersections of climate change, urban inequality, informality, and migration. Antje Missbach is Professor of Sociology at Bielefeld University (Germany), specializing in Migration and Mobility Studies. She is the author of Troubled Transit: Asylum Seekers Stuck in Indonesia (2015) and The Criminalisation of People Smuggling in Indonesia and Australia: Asylum out of Reach (2022). Carolina Moreno is Associate Professor and Head of Research at Los Andes University Law Faculty (Bogotá, Colombia). She is the Director of the Centre for Migration Studies (Centro de Estudios en Migración – CEM), and a co-founder and member of the Legal Clinic for Migrants (Clínica Jurídica para Migrantes).

Contributors  xvii Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti is a Zimbabwean based in South Africa where he is a PhD candidate in Art History at Rhodes University. He regularly writes on contemporary art and migration in the southern African region. Hervé Nicolle is a doctoral student in Philosophy at the University of Nanterre (France) and Paris I La Sorbonne (France), working under the direction of Judith Revel. Nicolle’s reflections are based on fieldwork in Afghanistan, Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia and Niger since 2008. Nicolle is also co-founder and co-director of the Samuel Hall research center which focuses on mobility and displacement in Central Asia and Africa. Mwaona Nyirongo is from Malawi, and a doctoral student at Rhodes University (South Africa) in Journalism and Media Studies. He moved to South Africa in 2018, and he has now returned to Malawi. Phil Orchard is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of Wollongong (Australia), and the Co-Director of the UOW Future of Rights Centre. His books include Protecting the Internally Displaced: Rhetoric and Reality and A Right to Flee: Refugees, States, and the Construction of International Cooperation. Serena Parekh is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northeastern University (Boston, USA), where she directs the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Program. She is editor of the American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy. Her interests are in social and political philosophy and feminist theory. Gracy Pelacani is Assistant Professor at Los Andes University Law Faculty (Bogotá, Colombia), and a member of the Centre for Migration Studies (Centro de Estudios en Migración – CEM). She is also the Director of the Legal Clinic for Migrants (Clínica Jurídica para Migrantes) that she co-founded in 2019. She holds a PhD in European and Comparative Legal Studies. Jacques Rancière taught philosophy at the University of Paris VIII from 1968 to 2000. His main concerns are social emancipation and modern revolutions of art, fiction and aesthetics. By assuming the equality of speaking beings, Rancière questions the positions of the expert, the thinker, the intellectual. Hilde Refstie is Associate Professor in Geography at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her work centres on urban governance, citizenship, and inequality, and forced migration in conflicts and disasters. She has worked in Uganda, Malawi and Ghana at the interface between academia and practice using participatory methods and action research. Samer Saliba has 14 years of experience helping over 50 cities become more inclusive of migrant and displaced people, first for the International Rescue Committee and now at the Mayors Migration Council. Samer is currently a PhD student at The New School (New York). Eria Serwajja is Lecturer at the Development Studies Department of Makerere University, Uganda. His research interests include land and agrarian issues in conflict and post-conflict areas, rural and urban livelihoods and extractive industry. Deen Sharp is Visiting Fellow in Human Geography & Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is the co-editor of Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings (2016) and Open Gaza: Architectures of Hope (2022).

xviii  Handbook on forced migration Yousef Al Shawarbeh became Mayor of Amman in August 2017 having previously served as Deputy Mayor. Mayor Al Shawarbeh received a PhD in Constitutional Law from Sudan’s Al-Neelain University. He is a founding member of the Mayors Migration Council. Mimi Sheller is Dean of The Global School at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (Massachusetts, USA). She was the founding Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy at Drexel University, where she was Professor of Sociology and Head of the Sociology Department. Maha Shuayb is the British Academy Bilateral Chair in Education in Conflict at the Centre for Lebanese Studies at LAU and the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on refugee education, the sociology and politics of education, particularly inequalities in education. Nicholas Van Hear is Emeritus Fellow at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), the University of Oxford. He has worked on forced migration, conflict, development, diaspora, transnationalism and the interplay between geopolitical shifts, mobility and political mobilization, as well as thinking about mobility futures. Jennifer Ventrella is a PhD Candidate in the Public and Urban Policy program at the New School (New York). Her work examines clean energy and climate adaptation policy through an equity lens. Marcia Vera Espinoza is a Reader at the Institute for Global Health and Development at Queen Margaret University (Edinburgh), where she leads the Psychosocial Wellbeing, Integration and Protection Cluster. She is a co-founder member of the research group Comparative Analysis in International Migration and Displacement in the Americas (CAMINAR). Christopher Ward is an international development researcher and practitioner, focusing on fragile urban contexts, and a postgraduate researcher at the Institute of Development Studies (Sussex, UK). Previously, he was a USAID foreign service officer with USAID and has consulted for the World Bank, the UN, and various international NGOs. Kim Wilson is Senior Lecturer at The Fletcher School, Tufts University. Since 2017, she has managed a portal called the Journeys Project which focuses on the financial portfolios of refugees and migrants as they move and settle. Galo Quizanga Zambrano is Global Director of Economic Inclusion at HIAS, and has worked for 14 years developing programmes across livelihoods, cash and voucher assistance and education sectors for vulnerable populations, particularly women, girls and LGBTIQ+ community members.

Preface Nassim Majidi

Karen and I met over email in 2016, when I wrote to ask her to participate as a key informant for a research study I was leading on refugees in the Horn of Africa. I have lived in Nairobi for the last nine years, as the founder and director of Samuel Hall, a research organization with offices in Kabul and Nairobi. Karen’s response was very clear: she was sceptical about the value of the research but would contribute to our study and charge for her time if the interview was serving a private, for-profit company. She would then donate the funds to an education project in the same region. I explained to her that we, at Samuel Hall, are a social enterprise that makes its research public, and that our profits go to funding research, training, and pro-bono projects that can advance knowledge and research uptake. Our two positions illustrate the spectrum of actors involved in the field of forced migration, and the need to question and clarify our positions and the responsibilities that come with them. Karen was right to express her scepticism and to want to clarify my position. In the years since that interview, we have continued to discuss the centrality of ethics in forced migration research, and the meaning of concepts and how they are used by policy makers, practitioners and other researchers. We have learned that we have to constantly protect our independence as researchers, so that facts and evidence are not politicized even when they are used to inform policies and programmes. We have learned what policy relevant and irrelevant research means, and of the importance of partnership to advance a common agenda on migration studies. We are at two ends of one research spectrum – Karen is a well-established, renowned academic scholar who has paved the way for researchers like me. Her contributions to this field were foundational to my own research. Her work on Research Methods in Conflict Settings: A View from Below, with Dyan Mazurana, led me to draft an entire chapter dedicated to the methodology of conducting research in Afghanistan, for my research project. Her thematic work on the economic lives of refugees and on urban refugees is also foundational to the strands of research that have since multiplied, and this Handbook is also a testament to that. Our positions also represent a geographic spectrum – born in South Africa, Karen has been working and living in the United States as a professor at Tufts University; on my end, born in Iran, I grew up in France, studied in the US, and lived in Afghanistan for seven years, followed by Kenya. We have learned to build on our experiences to speak a common language and support the need for ethical research on forced migration. Our discussions and the trust we have built led Karen to ask me to be her Co-Editor on this Handbook. Her request was a clear effort by a leading scholar to recognize the value of an early career scholar in a field that she excels in. She did not need to join forces with me, she did it because she wants to support others in this field, knowing that the field of forced migration needs a strong collective movement. She also did it because she knew we would need to trust each other to push back hard when we disagreed, and to navigate the treacherous shoals in the laborious and often risky journey of editing a book with so many contributors. It took us three years to finalize this project – with the delays wrought by COVID – but with more time to reflect on our project, our messages grew stronger. Our Handbook can be xix

xx  Handbook on forced migration summarized as our attempt to expand our years-long conversation to include historians and philosophers, urban planners and environmental experts, and forced migrants and practitioners. We have sought to take a critical view of forced migration studies, and to share our call for more ethical and collaborative research practices and exchanges.

 

Poem: Mazen Sleeps With His Foot on the Floor

Martín Espada For Mazen Naous Mazen sleeps with his foot on the floor, trailing off the bed. He does not dream of dancing in Beirut. He does not hear his mother’s oud, hanging on the wall, belly round like a pear or fig or tear drop, strings cascading the ancient music. Whenever the rockets and the bombs shook the house, Mazen and his brother would jump from bed and sprint to the basement. The first step could keep the boys one step ahead of the ceilings and walls collapsing in dusty clouds behind them. Mazen would sleep with his foot on the floor. So he slept for fifteen years in the roaring music of Beirut. I remember the air raid drills of my boyhood. The bald Russians would bomb us. The bearded Cubans would bomb us. We stood in the hallways at school, two lines facing the walls, because the bombs would fall between us, in the middle of the hallway. The teachers told us to be silent, and we were silent, except for the boy who chattered at me, until the music teacher who loved operettas and forced us to listen smacked the boy into the wall. He was the only casualty. The civil war in Lebanon is gone, and Mazen gone from Lebanon, another teacher walking his dog on campus, navigating between the chain-link fences with their cranes and boarded buildings, signs everywhere in red warning Danger. At the airport in Boston, Mazen’s skin will glow as if saying Danger, and the wands will pass over his body, scrutinized by agents who would rather scan his mind for the clouds of bombs and rockets he conspires to drop on them. Mazen still sleeps with his foot on the floor. He knows what we only think we know, the civil war gone but not gone, how the first step can save us when the walls dissolve like baking powder, even as we block out the rumbling, staring hypnotized by the icy pond of the screen.

PART I INTRODUCTION

1. Introduction to the Handbook on Forced Migration: A critical take on forced migration today Karen Jacobsen and Nassim Majidi

ANOTHER HANDBOOK ON FORCED MIGRATION? Books about forced migration usually begin with the numbers, and at the end of 2022, those numbers are astonishing. Globally, for the first time, the number of people who have been forcibly displaced exceeds 100 million people – one in every 78 people on earth.1 This global figure encompasses the dramatic displacement events that have occurred over the past five years: the war in Syria and the resulting 2016–18 European “migration crisis”;2 the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Venezuela; the August 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan, and the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia (which at this writing, October 2022, has displaced more than 12 million Ukrainians3). These numbers include only those people displaced by conflict and persecution; they do not include the millions who have been displaced by weather and climate-related disasters, or by the loss of livelihoods from the long-term impact of climate change. The challenges associated with migration of all kinds mean that its study is a growing field for researchers and policy makers. Several Handbooks have been published on forced migration in the past ten years, but we editors believe another is needed.4 Rather than casting a broad net, our Handbook is more concerned with taking a critical, in-depth look at the concepts, institutions, narratives and language that underpin the study of forced migration, and less about covering all aspects of forced migration in an encyclopedic way (the Oxford Handbook did that). Our Handbook focuses on three pressing problems related to displacement: the impacts of climate change and environmental degradation on migration; rapid urbanization and the impact of forced migration on cities; and the lack of solutions to the problems of forcibly displaced people, especially the millions living in protracted situations. Today millions of people live in what is termed “protracted displacement situations” – where they have been displaced, either externally or internally, for more than five years and live in a state of limbo, unable to return home because it is unsafe, or to move onward, or to become integrated into their host area. There are dozens of protracted situations in regions with ongoing violent conflict, such as the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC),

UNHCR Global Trends, 2022. See: https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​en​-us/​globaltrends​.html. We editors acknowledge that these two years were a migration crisis, but we see it as political and governance crisis for governments and their responsibilities. 3 New York Times, “Europe faces largest migration crisis since World War II”, 3 August, 2022. 4 For example, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., G. Loescher, K. Long and N. Sigona (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Gold, S.J. and S.J. Nawyn (2013). Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies. London: Routledge. 1 2

3

4  Handbook on forced migration South Sudan, Somalia, northern Nigeria, Afghanistan, Burma, several Central American countries and now Ukraine. Some of the displaced are in longstanding refugee camps, such as the camps for Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar, eastern Bangladesh, or for Somalis and South Sudanese in the Kenyan camps of Dadaab and Kakuma. Some live in protracted situations in towns and cities. Protracted displacement presents many challenges for the displaced and the non-displaced, and these challenges are magnified by the impact of climate change, rapid urbanization and the lack of solutions. We editors consider these three problems as currently the most pressing in the study of forced migration. To help frame these problems, we bring in the perspectives of philosophy and history, two neglected areas in the study of forced migration. In this Introduction, we take a critical look at forced migration. First, we look at who we are including when we talk about forced migrants. Then we consider how we talk and think about forced migration, what kinds of narratives control this discourse and who builds and shapes such narratives. Then we discuss the themes of our Handbook, and what important areas we did not include. Finally, we lay out and briefly describe each Part of the Handbook, and conclude with some parting thoughts.

A CRITICAL TAKE ON FORCED MIGRATION In the field of migration, there is no consensus or legal definition of “forced migration”. The only legal definition is that of a refugee, as enshrined in the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, the treaty that is the basis of international refugee law and the work of the Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The refugees who meet this formal legal definition are only a small proportion of the more than 89 million people caught up in forced migration. Our definition of forced migration goes beyond the definition of refugees. In this Handbook, we consider forced migration to occur when individuals and families find themselves in critical situations, when they confront threats to their lives and are unable to find protection from their government. The threats could arise from climate change and environmental disaster, persecution, violent conflict, exploitation, discrimination and violent abuse. The consequences of these threats are that people have to flee their homes to seek protection elsewhere, either within their own country or across borders. Forced migration occurs both as a result of sudden events (e.g. the outbreak of violent conflict, the rise to power of a murderous regime, an earthquake) and of slow onset processes (e.g. recurring drought that destroys agrarian livelihoods, the slowly growing violence and abuse of a regime or non-state group) that target specific groups. Our definition has time and space dimensions. During the course of their journeys, people’s situations can change – new threats or opportunities arise that drive people onward (or back to their countries), or enable – or force – them to remain where they are. We distinguish between displacement and forced migration as follows: ● Displacement occurs when people flee from an immediate threat (such as an earthquake, armed conflict, immediate persecution). Those who remain in their country are called internally displaced persons (IDPs); if they cross a border of their country they are usually referred to as refugees or asylum seekers.

Introduction  5 ● Forced migration arises out of people’s awareness that their place of residence is becoming inhospitable or uninhabitable to their lives and livelihoods and those of their children, and that they must move. Terms like “inhospitable or uninhabitable” refer to situations arising from the impact of climate change, prolonged violent conflict, and structural violence (by which we mean poverty and marginalization, denial of rights). In between the main Parts of the Handbook, we intersperse stories of people on the move. We want to remind our readers about the threats faced by migrants, their courage and agency in responding to these threats, and the people (and organizations) who help or hinder them. By “migrants” we mean individuals, but most of the time individuals are making decisions within the context of their households and families, and sometimes also their communities. Below are a few life stories of people we know personally, who were forced to move – either across a border or within their own country: ● An Iranian couple was forced to leave Iran after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, because family members who had worked in the Shah’s government were in prison, putting the couple’s lives and futures at risk by association. Their sources of income stopped overnight, as their jobs in central institutions and the private sector required them to follow new rules that they could not agree to. In the early 1980s, it was still possible for Iranians to seek safety in “the West”, that is, in the US, Australia, and Europe, although these countries had newly begun installing a visa system. Some of the couple’s visa requests were rejected, such as to the United States of America, but they eventually obtained the visa to travel with their children to a European country. There, they chose not to seek asylum. Being upper middle class meant they had enough financial and social capital to allow them to rebuild their lives without humanitarian or legal assistance. They could buy property and enroll their children in schools with their own means. They never identified themselves as refugees, but the experience of uprooting and forced migration stayed with them forever. ● A 12-year-old school-age girl in current Afghanistan is unable to attend school due to the Taliban’s nationwide ban on girls’ education, and she is unable to access her right to education. At the time this Handbook is being written, millions of Afghan girls have been out of the public school system for over a year, with no prospects for change. There is no internationally recognized government protecting them at home. The only hope for young girls to study is to seek protection – or asylum – as a means to study abroad. The girl’s parents and grandparents were able to seek asylum in Iran 30 years ago, but the current political climate in Iran and throughout the region does not provide the same welcome. They were forced to move, after the events of August 2021, to another location within their country to seek safety; they are in hiding. As a result, she is unable to leave her home – blocked in a situation of involuntary immobility. If she were able to enter another country, she would be eligible for refugee status as she is a member of a social group that is persecuted and discriminated against. At the moment, she remains internally displaced within her own country, with no solution in sight. ● A peasant family in a village in the Sahel faces the fifth year of drought, and their farm is turning to dust. Without their knowledge, one of their young sons decides to go to Europe to try to help his family by sending remittances home. The son’s journey takes almost a year. He is trapped in a detention center in Libya, sent back to Libya after his boat is intercepted on the Mediterranean, and experiences many of the grueling hardships well known to African migrants. Eventually he makes it as an Unaccompanied Minor to Marseille,

6  Handbook on forced migration France. There he receives help from local organizations (he lives in a group home (foyer) in Marseille), and from a family (famille d’accueil) who take him in and help him. He gradually finds a way to live in Marseille, is about to finish high school, and can tell his story. ● A Honduran family in San Pedro Sula has a gay teenage son facing gang recruitment and drug cartel dominance competition. His family wants him to leave because he is at risk of being forcibly recruited into a gang or persecuted and even killed by it. The son has additional reasons that would force him to leave, including the lack of acceptance or ability to reveal his own sexual identity to his community. These layered issues – from identifying as a gay man to being a potential victim of gang violence – mean that there are multiple reasons forcing him to move: lack of social or religious acceptance, persecution and the risks of recruitment or harassment if he does not join the gang. He feels he has no other choice but to leave, and his family tries to help him migrate abroad. ● A young Somali man leaves Mogadishu due to the increasing insecurity and repeated conflict at home, and is smuggled across Kenya to Nairobi. He lives there with his aunt for a year, then moves to Cairo, where he navigates the government bureaucracy and lives as an asylum seeker. He applies for resettlement and waits. Years go by. In Cairo, he works for a refugee agency run by a local church and meets a young American he gets to know and trust, who helps him apply to a university in the United States, and to get a scholarship when he is accepted. After another year of waiting for the student visa to come through, he manages – with the help of his social connections in the US – to obtain the student visa and eventually travel to the US. These stories span issues of race, age, gender, religion, class and nationality: the many sources of persecution that make people’s living situation “inhospitable or uninhabitable” – and that can lead to forced migration. It is important to remember that even in critical situations, individuals and families make decisions about whether to move or not, and who should move and who should stay. These decisions depend on a family’s assessment of the drivers, enablers and inhibitors characterizing their situation. Drivers include the threats they face at home and the opportunities that might exist in destinations. Inhibitors include such issues as “place attachment” – reluctance (or lack of family permission) to leave home, awareness of the risks of the journey or problems in the destination, and lack of ability to finance a journey. Enablers include a family’s “migration resources” – their available funds (including what they can borrow), and whether they have supportive family or contacts who can facilitate their journey and/or settlement in the intended destination, plus opportunities to move – a policy window opens, a financial windfall occurs. The many factors that influence the decision and ability to move mean most people at risk will never be able to move to another country. This means that models of future migration, such as predictions of climate-related migration, reflect the numbers of people who are at risk, but not necessarily the numbers who will be able to move. Mobility is both a strategy for survival and it reflects the desire to live freely, in accordance with one’s identity, be it religious, political, or gender. Migration is about the freedom of an Iranian or Afghan or Honduran family to protect themselves and their children’s future, and to claim rights that are threatened all over the world today. The family stories above and throughout our Handbook also illustrate the crucial importance of financial resources and social capital (networks and connections). Without these, people seldom have the means to seek and obtain legal status in safe countries – whether as ordinary residents, students, or asylum seekers.

Introduction  7 We want to stress that not all forced migrants are refugees, and that many migrants never have the opportunity to obtain protection anywhere. Restrictions on borders, immigration requirements and the exclusionary rhetoric of governments mean there are diminishing options for people to seek safety – while the drivers of migration are ever expanding. The factors influencing a person or family’s decision to move are also constantly changing. New or intensified risks over the past decade include the impact of climate change, increased border impermeability and an ever-shrinking asylum space, the growing financial costs of migration (such as smugglers’ fees), and persecution in countries that were once reasonably safe. As John Cerone explains in Chapter 3, refugees are part of a broader group of migrants, all of whom have rights, even if only some of them are formally defined as refugees and officially acknowledged. Displacement and forced migration are experiences of upheaval and loss – but they are also about assistance, solidarity, welcome and kindness. This Handbook reflects on the range of relationships between migrants, non-migrants, institutions, and states.

WHO CONTROLS THE NARRATIVES ON FORCED MIGRATION? “Narratives” are communicative practices that offer specific views or versions about a phenomenon, often simplifying them in the process by excluding or restricting the voices of particular actors.5 There are many forced migration narratives, and here we explore three of them: the narrative created by policy makers and governments; the narrative of humanitarian and development practitioners; and the narratives of researchers such as ourselves who span the spectrum from academic to action research. There are power imbalances between these three narratives. As Oliver Bakewell points out in his chapter, the policy narrative and the humanitarian and development narrative both govern the funding and hence often the content that is produced by the research narrative. We believe that it is important to recognize these three narratives, and their limitations and strengths, and we argue strongly for the need to keep them independent of each other. In the Conclusion of our Handbook, we lay out a set of principles to guide policy decisions, actions and research on forced migration.

THE POLITICAL AND POLICY NARRATIVE The policy narrative emerges from governments’ and policy makers’ approach to forced migration. Part III of this Handbook, History, describes how border controls were much less stringent until the 1970s, but political priorities have shifted since then. Today, states seek to limit access to their territories, and their policies are supported by a narrative of exclusion. At the global level there has been progress – such as the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees and the Global Compact on Migration6 – in how governments talk about the evolving protection of migrants and how governments could share responsibility (“burden sharing”). But at the regional and particularly the national levels, the principle of territorial sovereignty continues MINORITIES (Migration Narratives and Othering: Impact on Integration in European Societies) proposal. 6 See: https://​refugeesmigrants​.un​.org/​migration​-compact. 5

8  Handbook on forced migration to limit the application of global principles, treaties and agreements. The contemporary policy narrative is concerned with three issues: ● Preventing migration in the first place – by emphasizing what happens in the home country or region, including actions by the governments of sending and transit countries. Blaming sending country governments for not doing enough to stop out-migration is a part of the policy narrative, and those governments are supported with financial incentives and development aid to prevent out-migration. For example, the European Union (EU) works closely with – and provides much funding to – governments in Libya and Egypt to stop transit migration, while the US government works closely with Mexico. The European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) was set up to address “root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa … and to contribute to better migration management”. This Trust Fund was created after the 2016 European migration crisis, and targeted 26 countries across three migrant-sending regions of Africa: the Sahel and Lake Chad, the Horn of Africa and North Africa.7 The Trust Fund’s financing is now coming to an end. ● Controlling borders. The governments of destination (i.e. rich) countries want to control migration by hardening both their own borders and those of transit countries in order to prevent the entry of migrants. Their narratives reflect this desire. Several chapters in our Handbook explore how the construction of the border and border enforcement practices prevent forced migrants from crossing and seeking protection in destination countries. A related aspect of the narrative is the emphasis on the dangers of smuggling, and the conflation of smuggling and trafficking. ● Allowing in only the “good” or “worthy” forced migrants. The policy narrative includes efforts to define and filter “genuine” refugees, while screening and selecting those who fit a receiving country’s preferences (e.g. based on economic desirability, race or religion), and excluding those who do not (e.g. those who “jump the queue”). These narrative distinctions often lead to more welcoming attitudes towards some groups (first Syrians, then Afghans for a brief period after August 2021, and now Ukrainian refugees) and less welcoming attitudes towards others (Haitians, Sub-Saharan Africans). The policy narrative has become one of exclusion, exception and extraterritoriality. It leads to the imposition of quotas and “vulnerability criteria”, which in turn create confusion around the meaning of international protection – a rights-based framework. Neither international nor national legal instruments set quotas or numbers for how many people can be protected. For instance, the 1951 Refugees convention does not set a quota for how many refugees can seek asylum in a country – it provides a framework to ensure international protection is available to all those who require it. The power of the policy narrative and its persuasiveness for policy makers and the public serve to reduce the possibility that forced migrants ever make it to countries where they can receive protection. Millions of forced migrants who do not fit the narrative languish in camps and urban centers with little hope. Some will make it to a destination country either because they are assisted by humanitarian agencies or family in those countries, or because they have sufficient financial resources and connections to hire a smuggler who will get them there. But



7

EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, https://​ec​.europa​.eu/​trustfundforafrica/​index​_en.

Introduction  9 most forced migrants do not have these resources and are excluded from the international protection system. They are often the ones whose own governments do not protect them. The anti-immigration biases in the policy narrative mean the work of policy makers – to regulate the international system and to provide social security and protection – is often not fulfilled.

THE HUMANITARIAN PRACTITIONER NARRATIVE International humanitarian and development agencies promote a narrative about the needs of forced migrants, and the desirability of supporting the agencies who help them. The narrative presents the needs of forced migrants as beginning during an emergency and then progressing to development-related support. The language uses terms like the “vulnerability” of “populations of concern” and “beneficiaries”, and comes with specific visual imagery used in the communications strategies of organizations like the UNHCR, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and many international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) such as the International Rescue Committee. Images of poor refugee women and children either smiling or looking desperate are widely used to solicit funding from the public. (A more sophisticated version of the narrative, minus the imagery, is aimed at donors in annual reports or grant proposals.) Thus practitioners constantly remind the public and donors alike of a version of forced migration in which refugees are desperate and humanitarian agencies can help them. Of course, many refugees are desperate, and humanitarian agencies do help them, but the narrative is tightly controlled and often one-sided. The many forced migrants who do not qualify as refugees are not part of that narrative, and we rarely hear about or see them. Increasingly, UN agencies and NGOs seek to go beyond humanitarian aid towards development, peace building, and conflict- and market-sensitive approaches in the regions where most of the world’s forced migrants live. But development actors, such as the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and humanitarian agencies that promote development responses still have to work within the limits of what governments and non-government donors, such as the Gates Foundation, are willing to fund. Development and humanitarian agencies find it increasingly difficult to act independently from what donors want. They are afraid of losing donor funding or their “market share”. Very few humanitarian and development agencies are independent of government funding, with notable exceptions such as Médecins sans Frontières (MSF). This means the practitioner narrative is often aligned with the priorities of donors. Research and the resulting “evidence” – funded by donor governments – are used to support the humanitarian practitioner narrative. Humanitarian organizations commission research, but the data and reports that make it into the public domain are filtered, restricted or simplified; sometimes they are also retracted, blocked from publication or “sanitized” to remove those elements that practitioners and policy makers disagree with. We editors, along with many forced migration researchers and research agencies, have had the experience of being commissioned by a large organization to collect data and write reports, only to have the data and/ or reports embargoed, or removed from the public domain. Contracts with researchers often restrict ownership of the data to the commissioning organization, such as the World Bank or UN agency, rather than enabling shared ownership, intellectual property rights and open access data. In many cases, research on forced migration for humanitarian and development

10  Handbook on forced migration agencies is not an open process, and the knowledge produced by agencies is “owned” by the commissioning organization, rather than a public good for a wider community of practice. In one case known to the editors, the World Bank commissioned a research study in late 2021 to generate “evidence” (qualitative data) on women “left behind” in Afghanistan. Many men had been forced to leave the country, leaving their wives to stay in Afghanistan, either alone or with relatives. The study took months and involved the time and risk of a hundred Afghan women who were carefully interviewed by a team of local and international researchers. In the autumn of 2021, after the Taliban had returned to power, there were many exchanges between the World Bank and the researchers about how best to use the data, and ensure that the women’s lives and contributions would not be forgotten. A year after the data were collected, the Bank decided, without consultation, that its own team would conduct all analytics, that is, that they would analyze the data and mix it with other data they had collected, all without involving the original research team. As is well known, unlike with survey data, the analysis of qualitative data by those who did not collect the data can be unreliable and problematic when the researchers who conducted the interviews are not involved. When questioned about this, the Bank claimed ownership of the data to justify its unilateral decision to exclude the researchers and divert the use of the data from its original aim. The World Bank took further control of the narrative by integrating the study’s qualitative data from 2021 into a broader study in 2022 with different objectives that fit better the Bank’s priorities.8 Given the huge amounts of forced migration data collected every year, tight control by commissioning organizations serves to limit independent knowledge generation, and contributes to promoting one particular narrative in migration settings. Instead, evidence could be used to open a dialogue that could be the basis of programmatic and policy exchanges. In addition, from the perspective of the research participants, it is misleading and even unethical to use the data for a purpose that diverts or changes the original aim of the research, to which participants consented. Would they still give consent to their data and stories being used, by another team, and at another time? The question was not asked of the original 100 women interviewed in 2021; their opinion did not matter. The above example is not unusual. Much forced migration research is commissioned by global organizations, regional political entities, and donor governments. Some allow researchers to do their jobs: independent research using transparent methodologies and analyses that result in public reports. But some large, powerful organizations promote non-transparent research practices that raise ethical and methodological questions about how data are gathered and analyzed, and about who “owns” the data and reports. In this way, states and powerful organizations attempt to control the narrative by managing what the evidence says, instead of letting the evidence speak for itself. States, policy makers, humanitarian and development organizations all have their own political agendas and narratives – be they on women’s rights, climate change, market-based approaches or migration. Some seek to advance a new strategic position within their organization that requires controlling the narrative. An example, again from Afghanistan, occurred in 2022 when an international NGO commissioned a research study on self-protection. 8 We are taking this example from the editors’ direct experience. The final report was shelved by the Bank, and the data were combined with other survey data collected in a different time and place. All of this was a direct result of the fall of Kabul in August 2021. That political change resulted in a change of the Bank’s priorities.

Introduction  11 Hundreds of community leaders were interviewed, dozens of focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews occurred across numerous provinces. In the end, the INGO decided that the data did not reveal sufficiently strong evidence on self-protection (that would fit with the INGO’s own new strategy) and it decided not to publish the analysis. But those data would have been useful to others trying to understand self-protection – and to the organization itself. For forced migration issues that touch the lives of millions of people, there are few open access data sets available to the public. Two exceptions include the work of the Joint IDP Profiling Services, and the Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement, both of which make their methods and data public and transparent.9 But these examples are rare. Just as we have open access to census data, we should have open access to migration data, especially data collected using taxpayer dollars, such as by the institutions mentioned above. The Researcher Narrative For knowledge to grow, there has to be a neutral space that allows and enables policy irrelevant research.10 This kind of research creates new knowledge and can counter and critique the dominant narratives. But such research is often difficult to get funded if it is not specifically relevant to policy makers and practitioners. How have academics and research institutions contributed to new knowledge production, and has a third research narrative emerged? In recent years, there have been growing calls to decolonize migration research and promote the co-production and “localization” of knowledge production.11 At the time of writing, in late 2022, the state of co-production and collaboration on forced migration research remains limited, however, despite many efforts. Some recent initiatives include refugee-led research organizations and global research consortia that bring together academics from across the world, often themselves migrants.12 But these do not automatically lead to co-production. Beyond ensuring that “refugee voices” are represented, creating research that is truly collaborative is much more difficult, as we and other authors in this Handbook have written about elsewhere.13 Those researchers who are able to get their studies funded, publish the results, 9 See Joint IDP Profiling Services, https://​www​.jips​.org, and the Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement, https://​www​.jointdatacenter​.org. 10 Bakewell, O. (2008). “Research beyond the categories: The importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(4): 432–53. 11 See for example, Christian Ramirez (2020). “Decolonizing migration studies: A Chicanx Studies perspective and critique of colonial sociological origins”, Río Bravo: A Journal of the Borderlands, 24; Carpi, E. and P. Owusu (2022). “Slavery, lived realities, and the decolonisation of forced migration histories: An interview with Dr Portia Owusu”. Migration Studies, 10(1): 87–93; Vanyoro, Kudakwashe P. (2019). “Decolonising migration research and potential pitfalls: Reflections from South Africa”, Pambazuka News, 17 May 2019. https://​www​.pambazuka​.org/​education/​decolonising​-migration​ -research​-and​-potential​-pitfalls​-reflections​-south​-africa. 12 Such as The Refugee-Led Research Hub in Nairobi, https://​www​.rsc​.ox​.ac​.uk/​research/​refugee​ -led​-research​-hub. See also the September 2022 issue of Forced Migration Review (70), “Knowledge, voice and power”, which explores “representation, influence, privilege, access, and discrimination and how people with lived experience of displacement need to be heard. Their perspectives, strategies and solutions should be at the centre of discussions about policy and practice. The authors in this issue reflect on progress made but also on the road still to travel.” https://​reliefweb​.int/​report/​world/​forced​-migration​ -review​-issue​-70​-knowledge​-voice​-and​-power​-september​-2022. 13 Saltsman, A. and K. Jacobsen (2021). “Introduction by Editors: Power in forced migration research methods”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(3): 2511–21; Saltsman, A. and N. Majidi (2021). “Storytelling

12  Handbook on forced migration and access publications and data are mainly living in rich (destination) countries. There is only limited research that is planned, conceptualized and implemented by people with lived experiences of forced migration, who live in the regions most affected by displacement. Despite many researchers’ best efforts,14 there are still obstacles to recognize and overcome in ensuring co-production. One obstacle is language. In recent years we have seen forced migration research try to breach the North–South divide, but research reports are predominantly in English. Little funding goes towards the translation and dissemination of outputs, or to interpretation during meetings in the design phase of research projects. A quick perusal of the major forced migration journals suggests an additional bias: most articles are authored by and viewed online by researchers in North America and Europe. Another obstacle is funding. Forced migration research is still mostly funded and conducted by a relatively small set of players based in Europe and the US, working with partners in the countries affected by forced migration – in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. There are research organizations based in these countries, which are largely funded by donor governments and aid agencies. Few of these research outfits are independent of the pressures and priorities set by the funders, and some conduct research and gather data in ways that are potentially problematic. For example, they do not follow transparent and ethical standards of research, such as divulging the sources of funding, obtaining research authorizations from local authorities, and sharing the results of their work with a wider audience. In some cases, these independent research organizations use methodologies that are not adapted to the context of study. The World Bank study in 2022 mentioned above tried to obtain nationwide data on Afghan women – including on their mental health, among other sensitive topics – through a phone-based survey relying on a call center. There is little likelihood that women will speak openly about such issues, in an hour-long interview on the phone with a stranger, and if they do, the women risk exposing themselves to possible threats at home or from others in their vicinity. And yet donors such as the World Bank will always have research organizations ready to fill their demands without questioning or discussing their methodology. Nor is there independent, external and expert validation of the data. Thus does the development narrative come to control the research narrative. Forced migration researchers often work with governments and development or humanitarian organizations, but this does not mean we have to follow their demands. Instead, we need to work with those who commission our research: to shape their demands and guide them towards ethical standards and more transparent and open conversations about research on forced migration. The founder of refugee studies – or at least of the Refugees Studies Centre at Oxford University, and subsequently of refugee studies centers in South Africa, Egypt, and Uganda – is Barbara Harrell-Bond. As any reader, practitioner, or scholar of forced migration knows, her work was the foundation of action research. Barbara Harrell-Bond was a scholar who maintained her independence and called for greater independence from the dominant narratives on

in research with refugees: On the promise and politics of audibility and visibility in participatory research in contexts of forced migration”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(3): 2522–38; Shuayb, M. and C. Brun (2021). “Carving out space for equitable collaborative research in protracted displacement”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(3): 2539–53. 14 See for example, Shuayb and Brun (2021).

Introduction  13 forced migration. Her work began in the 1980s in the Horn of Africa, which resulted in her first and most famous book, Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees, a case study of Ugandan refugees in Sudan in early 1982, and the first independent appraisal of UNHCR’s work and humanitarian assistance. Using anthropological and participatory methods, Harrell-Bond interviewed over 6000 households. More than forty years ago, she scrutinized the humanitarian aid narrative, the first of many scholars to question the approaches and study of forced migration. Imposing Aid examined the tensions between governments, organizations and individuals over refugees as “problem or opportunity”, she explored the issue of “hosts”, of income generation, and survival when victims are seen as villains.15

THEMES OF THE HANDBOOK AND MISSING THEMES Framing a Discussion on Forced Migration – Language and Labeling How we study and talk about forced migration – our narratives – is one of the main themes of our Handbook. The language and terminology we use underpin the narratives of policy makers, practitioners and researchers, and the consequences of those narratives for forced migrants. Forced migration studies have a long history of taking a critical approach to language and terminology, beginning with the work of Harrell-Bond. In 1991, Roger Zetter began reflecting on how labels form and transform bureaucratic identities, and how the legal refugee definition led to labeling refugees in policy practices – in other words, how the policy narrative decides who is included or excluded from the refugee category.16 Zetter showed the consequences for both the labeled and the labelers, and the powerlessness of people in these bureaucratic processes. Zetter returned to this discussion in 2007 and showed how more labels had emerged over time, and at the same time there had been a reduction in the number of refugees who were legally recognized.17 Political and humanitarian narratives use particular definitions and labels in their narratives about forced migration. Our Handbook takes an inclusive approach that goes beyond the refugee label, akin to Jørgen Carling’s inclusivist vs. residualist definition of migrants which positions refugees as part of a broader population of migrants, rather than as a separate category.18 We all use and reproduce the language and labels that create policy categories, but we should recognize the implications for inclusivity and exclusivity. Terms like “refugee” have evolved in their connotation. Immediately after World War II, “refugees” and displaced people (then known as DPs) referred to the 60 million Europeans displaced by the war (as Susan Martin discusses in Chapter 11). Today the term “refugees” is much less likely to refer Harrell-Bond, B. (1986). Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees. New York: Oxford University Press. The book’s Appendix reflected on children’s conception of “refugee life” – Harrell-Bond’s attempt to look at how children experience forced migration. This was the first of much subsequent scholarship focused on children’s voices and experience. 16 Zetter, Roger (1991). “Labelling refugees: Forming and transforming a bureaucratic identity”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 4(1): 39–62. 17 Zetter, Roger (2007). “More labels, fewer refugees: Remaking the refugee in an era of globalization”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2): 172–92. 18 Jørgen Carling, https://​meaningofmigrants​.org. 15

14  Handbook on forced migration to Europeans – or it was until the Ukraine crisis that began with the Russian invasion on 24 February 2022. Today, Ukrainian refugees are received by neighboring host countries such as Poland and Hungary in ways that differ dramatically from how those same countries have responded to non-European refugees. For example, as of June 2022, Hungary had received over 1 312 550 refugees either directly from Ukraine or via third countries.19 Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, has adopted a hardline anti-immigration policy stance towards asylum seekers from countries such as Syria and Afghanistan. Hungary’s government, aid groups and private citizens have been much more willing to help Ukrainian refugees. As one Hungarian woman put it, “this case is, I think, is different because … they are like us.”20 The term “refugees” is often used to describe forced migrants, but many forced migrants do not see themselves as refugees or recognize themselves in the rhetoric and narratives used by governments and humanitarians. Many forced migrants who have sufficient resources choose to be independent of the welfare state and humanitarian assistance. Not all forced migrants want to be, or see themselves as, refugees, and there are many other kinds of forced migrants besides refugees. We should not label all forced migrants as refugees. “Mixed migration” is another term increasingly used in migration narratives. The term is a vexed one, as Katrina Burgess explores in her chapter in this Handbook. Mixed migration refers to “the intermingling of motives, pathways, strategies, and legal statuses of people on the move”,21 but the term also conveys the ambiguity of forced migrants’ identities and experience – how migration is truly a “mixed” experience for many people. In our Handbook, these mixed experiences are revealed in the accounts by actual forced migrants, including the refugee turned smuggler turned asylum seeker in Achilli and Wilson’s chapter, “Markets of displacement”, and in Part VII, “Lived experiences”. As Burgess suggests, the term “mixed migration” is poorly defined and hotly contested, but perhaps useful in its ambiguity, a state of affairs characterizing the experience of forced migration. Metaphors are important aspects of all discourses, but the hydraulic metaphors – floods, waves, inundation, “drowning in refugees” – of forced migration narratives contribute to alarmist, apocalyptic language. Populist, population-based arguments use alarmist language to warn about the impending “floods” of migrants. As Anne Hendrixson explains in her chapter on the lifeboats discourse, both government and practitioner narratives are shaped by language of population “timebombs” and imminent threats arising from youth unemployment and extremism in Africa, all at Europe’s doorstep. This Handbook encourages readers to be conscious and critical of such narratives and their metaphors. The information about migration and population growth available to the public is quite limited, and media commentators, journalists and other writers or decision makers freely use their own often inaccurate concepts and terms. Based on our desire to interrogate the language of forced migration, we have made some editorial choices about terminology. We do not use the following terms in the Handbook, or when we do, it is to critically analyse them: “Global South” and “Global North” (we prefer

19 Some 70 percent were women and children, and many refugees were older people and those with disabilities. See: UNHCR Hungary: Ukraine refugee situation operational update (7 June 2022). https://​ reliefweb​.int/​report/​hungary/​unhcr​-hungary​-ukraine​-refugee​-situation​-operational​-update​-7​-june​-2022. 20 As one Canadian news outlet reported. See: https://​www​.cbc​.ca/​news/​world/​hungary​-ukraine​ -refugees​-1​.6403263. 21 Burgess, this volume.

Introduction  15 to talk about specific host countries or regions); “host community” (instead we refer to host populations), and “climate refugees” (we use climate-related migrants). Important Issues Not Covered in this Handbook As noted, our Handbook is not an encyclopedic take on forced migration; other Handbooks have accomplished this. Instead, we editors chose to focus on two disciplines, history and philosophy, that help us take a step back and frame our understanding of forced migration, and on three main areas of enquiry related to forced migration: climate change and displacement, urban areas, and solutions to displacement. These editorial decisions mean our Handbook does not focus on other important areas. Some of these areas have been well covered in recent work, often in Special Issues of forced migration journals. A few are worth noting, and whether and where they have been covered elsewhere. One area not fully addressed in our Handbook concerns new protection threats that have either arisen for the first time in recent years, or which have been present for many years but have recently become much more salient. One such threat concerns LGBTQ+22 people both in their home countries and in first asylum and transit countries. A growing body of literature explores persecution based on people’s sexual orientation and/or gender identity. In 2013, a Special Issue of Forced Migration Review included a range of such articles, and since then the literature has grown; however a recent review found the issue to be understudied.23 A second important area not addressed is the psycho-social experience of uprooting and forced migration on people and families, and the related mental health issues. Again, we omitted this highly important area simply because it has been well and extensively covered in other publications, and by the World Health Organization.24 The coverage includes public health and mental health journals, as well as forced migration journals, such as the 2021 Special Issue of Forced Migration Review.25 We have not focused on the numbers of displaced, and how they are counted. These numbers fluctuate, depending on the definitions used by different organizations, and whose data are being used, both of which result in a range of sources of numbers. UNHCR puts out yearly statistics on their “People of Concern”, that is, registered refugees, returnees, stateless people and IDPs. UNRWA puts out its own statistics on Palestinian refugees, IDMC puts out yearly data on IDPs, and IOM tries to count “non-refugee” migrants. Those resources can be consulted for the figures. There is also a growing body of literature that critiques the methodologies that are used to come up with the numbers. Some of this critique is addressed in our chapters, particularly in the introduction to Part IV on climate change, by Jennifer Ventrella and Michael Cohen.

The acronym stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer people, plus those with other gender and sexual preference identities. 23 Yarwood, V., F. Checchi, K. Lau and C. Zimmerman (2022). “LGBTQI + Migrants: A systematic review and conceptual framework of health, safety and wellbeing during migration”. International Journal of Environ Research and Public Health, 19(2). 24 WHO, Mental health and forced displacement. https://​www​.who​.int/​news​-room/​fact​-sheets/​detail/​ mental​-health​-and​-forced​-displacement. 25 Forced Migration Review (March 2021), Issue 66: Mental health and psychosocial support, pp. 4–43. 22

16  Handbook on forced migration We have not taken an explicitly intersectional approach to the study of forced migration. Rather, many chapters embody an implicit intersectional analysis, that is, they explore in different ways how forced migration leads to overlapping and interdependent forms of discrimination and disadvantage, depending on people’s gender identity, sexual orientation, race, age, nationality, and other markers. Many of our chapters, as well as the personal stories dispersed throughout our Handbook and Part VII on lived experiences, explore how identity affects the experience of forced migration. We also call for more research on the elderly in forced migration. While we were preparing this Handbook, the COVID pandemic brought the world to a stop and continues to transform it in ways we are still coming to understand. The pandemic had serious impacts on all kinds of migrants, blocking some people at borders and forcing others to return home, with serious consequences for separated families, the care of the elderly and children, and the protection of women. Our Handbook does not have a specific section on the COVID impact on forced migration, but we asked our authors to consider whether and how COVID changed their perspectives, and some chapters address these changes. The consequences of the COVID pandemic and particularly governments’ policy response on forced migrants is also receiving much scholarly and researcher attention. Despite the importance of the pandemic, we editors continue to see climate and environment degradation, cities, and solutions to displacement as fundamental to the study and understanding of forced migration, and we elected to keep the Parts of this Handbook focused on these three issues. The Layout of our Handbook Our Handbook is organized into seven Parts, interspersed with shorter illustrations that include the haunting poems of Martín Espada, and ending with a chapter by Evan Easton-Calabria that explores what technology holds for forced migration in the future. Part I begins with this Introduction in which we editors describe our Handbook and raise some important issues around forced migration research and discourse. Chapter 2, by Katrina Burgess, explains and critiques the concept of “mixed migration”. In Chapter 3, John Cerone sets out a useful taxonomy of the terminology used in forced migration discourse, and the terms’ legal basis in international law and treaties. We will use this terminology throughout the Handbook. The remaining Parts are organized and introduced by scholars who are well versed in the topic. Each Part includes authors who bring a range of perspectives as academics, practitioners, and researchers. Parts II and III presents philosophical and historical perspectives on how societies shape and are shaped by forced migrants. Part II, Philosophy, is introduced by Hervé Nicolle, a doctoral candidate in philosophy at the University of Paris Nanterre (Sophiapol), who has been conducting field research on forced displacement in Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya since 2008. Nicolle’s introduction begins by questioning Hannah Arendt’s seminal views as well as the work of three contemporary philosophers, Michael Walzer, Christopher Heath Wellman and Joseph Carens. Nicolle analyzes why philosophers “all ignore the concrete experience of mobility and the political character of forced migration”, and instead focus on the limits and extension of sovereignty. Drawing on Judith Butler (relationality) and Hannah Arendt (political plurality), Nicolle raises the possibility of a philosophy that not only deals with migration as an object for reflection but that draws on the lived experience of forced migration. The six interviews with philosophers and scholars of forced migration then develop a “philosophical toolbox” of issues, concepts

Introduction  17 and methodologies that critically approach important issues in the study of forced migration: the instrumentalization of categories, structural injustice, and the struggles for emancipation and everyday forms of resistance. The interplay of questions and answers unfolds a field of critical questioning useful for thinking or rethinking a philosophical approach to forced migration. Part III, History, introduced by Susan Martin (Georgetown University), a historian by training, examines the historiography of forced migration and the historical antecedents of the causes and effects of forced migration we see today. Susan Martin’s introduction provides a global overview of the history of forced migration and suggests lessons from the past that can guide us today. The nine chapters show how history helps us understand current forced migration trends. The authors explore how and why forced migration has been neglected by historians, and what methodological barriers historians face. Similarly, few forced migration scholars take a historical perspective, and the chapter explores what can be done to improve our understanding of the history of forced migration. Parts IV to VI dive into our substantive themes – climate-related migration, urban areas and solutions – bringing a critical approach to these over-discussed but under-explored topics. Part IV, Climate change and environmental mobility, led by Jennifer Ventrella and Michael Cohen (New School), explores mobility and immobility in the context of climate change and environmental degradation. The Part’s six chapters begin with Ventrella and Cohen’s introduction, which provides an overview of how we conceptualize climate-related migration, and policy responses to date. The next two chapters examine regional climate-related migration issues, first in India and then in Latin America and the Caribbean, and how responses to climate-related migration have varied across governments, towns and organizations in those regions. The following two chapters bring a conceptual lens, exploring mobility justice in contexts of climate-related migration, and the “lifeboat discourse” around population and migration. The last chapter in this Part explores how the Conference of Parties (COP) has addressed climate-related migration at the global level, and raises the issue of how to hold governments accountable to their promises made at such meetings. Part V, Urban settings, led by Lucy Earle (International Institute for Environment and Development), explores displacement as an urban phenomenon. Some 60 percent of refugees have sought shelter in urban areas today (up from 15 percent in 2003), and internally displaced people are even more likely to move to urban settings. This Part focuses on the cities and towns of the countries where most displaced people live – in Africa, Asia and the Middle East – and the problems urbanization creates for both migrants and the towns themselves. The growing urban population of displaced people has not been accompanied by a shift in policy and programming by host governments, donors and humanitarian actors. Poor people, both displaced and local, mostly rely on the informal sector for housing, shelter, services and livelihoods. This urban gap in humanitarian response is examined in several of the eight chapters that follow Earle’s introduction. As the chapters show, some city mayors and city governments along with advocacy organizations are seized with the problems of urban displacement, but the issue is only slowly entering the orbit of donors and governments. What kinds of solutions could bring an end to the millions of displaced people living in protracted situations? Part VI, Solutions, led by Cathrine Brun (Oxford Brookes University), explains how return, resettlement and local integration – the three so-called “durable solutions” – emerged from the refugee situation in Europe after the Second World War. Today, for most displaced people, whether refugees or internally displaced, these durable solutions are

18  Handbook on forced migration out of reach. In this Part, the authors explore why the idea of the three “durable solutions” has persisted in the discourse on forced migration and bring a critical perspective – and alternative solutions – to the policies and discourses that surround those ideas. They show how displaced people themselves find ways to escape such situations, often through strategies of mobility.26 Part VII, Lived experiences, brings a change of perspective and tone. We have sought to ground our Handbook in the experience of forced migrants and their families and communities, as well as the organizations and governments with which they engage. We wanted people with direct experience of forced migration to speak directly to readers, so we asked some of the many forced migrants and retired practitioners we know personally to write about their experience. We asked our forced migrant colleagues to answer three questions: 1. What would you like to tell the world about your life as a forced migrant, both positive and less positive elements, that you would like to share? 2. What are the common terms, language or assumptions you would like to see challenged when speaking of forced migration? 3. What aspects of your experience as a forced migrant have had the most impact on your life? To get a practitioner perspective, we invited colleagues who are now retired, after spending most of their lives working in UNHCR and IOM where they reached high levels of responsibility. This year, 2022, marks the 72nd year since UNHCR was established, seven years since the European migration crisis, one year since the Afghan evacuation, and we are in the midst of the Ukraine displacement crisis. We wondered what our senior UN colleagues have learnt from their decades-long investment in the field of forced migration. Are we at another inflexion point for the response to forced migration?27 Is the international response changing? We asked three questions: 1. What are the main lessons you have learned working on forced migration, both positive and less positive elements, that you would like to share? 2. What are the common terms, language or assumptions you would like to see challenged? 3. What changes by governments or aid agencies could improve support for forced migrants? In offering their perspectives and insight, the people in Part VII, “Lived experiences”, also remind us about protracted situations that have dropped off the media and are at risk of being forgotten. From Zimbabwe to Somalia to Afghanistan, the world cannot forget what millions of forced migrants have experienced in the last decades. The last Part of our Handbook looks to the future with a chapter on technology and a call by us editors to expand current standards for ethical research. Evan Easton-Calabria’s chapter,

Further discussion can also be found in a 2021 Special Issue of Forced Migration Review, in which researchers from the Transnational Figurations of Displacement (TRAFIG) research project examine people’s mobility and agency in protracted displacement. Albert Kraler, B. Etzold and N. Ferreira (2021). “Understanding the dynamics of protracted displacement”. Forced Migration Review, 68. 27 An earlier inflexion point – where the field of humanitarian shifted its practice and priorities – was the period after the 1994 Rwandan genocide and the ensuing mass displacement and violent conflict in eastern Congo that continues today. An inflexion point before that was the war in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. For more on these issues, see Barber, M. (2014). Blinded by Humanity: Inside the UN’s Humanitarian Operations. London: I.B. Tauris. 26

Introduction  19 “Responsibility and trust: using digital technologies in forced migration”, explores issues of trust and responsibility in the “tech turn” in humanitarianism. Her chapter shows how digital technology increasingly informs the forced migration experience, from refugees using GIS and smartphones, to biometric identification at borders, and digital forms of control and surveillance. She shows some of the risks and the pitfalls, and suggests some ethical and practical considerations that could guide so-called “digital solutions”. Our conclusion is an open call for ethical standards in migration research and knowledge creation: we outline a way forward for the increasing number of actors engaged in shaping narratives on migration to abide by common standards. We suggest areas to be strengthened or added to existing ethical standards on migration research and knowledge creation. We hope this increases the awareness of our readers – whether policy makers, practitioners, researchers or students – of their own position vis-à-vis migration knowledge, and the standards they can promote to ensure a more open, constructive and collective conversation on forced migration.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bakewell, O. (2008). “Research beyond the categories: The importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(4): 432–53. Barber, M. (2014). Blinded by Humanity: Inside the UN’s Humanitarian Operations. London: I.B. Tauris. Carpi, E. and P. Owusu (2022). “Slavery, lived realities, and the decolonisation of forced migration histories: An interview with Dr Portia Owusu”. Migration Studies, 10(1): 87–93. Clark-Kazak, C. (2021). “Ethics in forced migration research: Taking stock and potential ways forward”. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 9(3): 125–38. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., G. Loescher, K. Long and N. Sigona (2014). The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gold, S.J. and S.J. Nawyn (2013). Routledge International Handbook of Migration Studies. London: Routledge. Harrell-Bond, B. (1986). Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees. New York: Oxford University Press. Kraler, Albert, B. Etzold and N. Ferreira (2021). “Understanding the dynamics of protracted displacement”. Forced Migration Review, 68. Mbembe, A. and S. Nuttall (2004). “Writing the World from an African Metropolis”. Public Culture, 16(3): 347–72. Saltsman, A. and K. Jacobsen (2021). “Introduction by Editors: Power in forced migration research methods”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(3): 2511–21. Saltsman, A. and N. Majidi (2021). “Storytelling in research with refugees: On the promise and politics of audibility and visibility in participatory research in contexts of forced migration”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(3): 2522–38. Shuayb, M. and C. Brun (2021). “Carving out space for equitable collaborative research in protracted displacement”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(3): 2539–53. Vanyoro, Kudakwashe P. (2019). “Decolonising migration research and potential pitfalls: Reflections from South Africa”, Pambazuka News, 17 May 2019. https://​www​.pambazuka​.org/​education/​ decolonising​-migration​-research​-and​-potential​-pitfalls​-reflections​-south​-africa. Verdirame, G. and B. Harrell-Bond (2007). Rights In Exile: Janus-faced Humanitarianism. Berghahn Books.

20  Handbook on forced migration Yarwood, V., F. Checchi, K. Lau and C. Zimmerman (2022). “LGBTQI + Migrants: A systematic review and conceptual framework of health, safety and wellbeing during migration”. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(2). Zetter, Roger (1991). “Labelling refugees: Forming and transforming a bureaucratic identity”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 4(1): 39–62. Zetter, Roger (2007). “More labels, fewer refugees: Remaking the refugee in an era of globalization”. Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2): 172–92.

2. Negotiating ambiguous status: Mixed migration in theory and practice Katrina Burgess

Although migration has always been heterogeneous and multilinear, the concept of “mixed” migration did not emerge until recently. It grew out of a scholarly critique of the dichotomy between “forced” and “voluntary” migration in the 1990s and spread to policy circles in the 2000s in response to growing pressures on asylum systems in rich countries.1 It has since become part of the academic and policy lexicon yet remains poorly defined and hotly contested. In this chapter, I review definitions of mixed migration, situate it within the spatial and temporal dynamics of human mobility, and examine its influence on the global governance of migration. I then present a case study of mixed migration at the US–Mexico border followed by a discussion of the informal strategies of protection adopted by migrants and their advocates. I conclude that migrants and refugees categorized as “mixed” are likely to become more prevalent in the wake of the pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and climate change.

WHAT IS MIXED MIGRATION? Mixed migration refers to the intermingling of motives, pathways, strategies, and legal statuses of people on the move.2 At the individual level, a mixed migrant is someone who moves for both economic and non-economic reasons, such as a small farmer whose livelihood was destroyed by civil war or a labor migrant who restarts her journey after experiencing violence in a third country. At the collective level, mixed migration consists of flows and communities that combine “different legal statuses as well as a variety of vulnerabilities”.3 For example, refugees fleeing persecution and migrants escaping poverty often travel along the same routes and rely on the same network of smugglers, shelters, and humanitarian organizations. These motives and flows can change at different stages of the migratory process and hence are dynamic, episodic, and often non-linear.4 Mixed migration challenges the artificial distinction between “forced” and “voluntary” migration that has informed law and practice for a century.5 The 1951 Refugee Convention

1 Nicholas Van Hear, Rebecca Brubaker, and Thais Bessa, “Managing Mobility for Human Development: The Growing Salience of Mixed Migration”, UNDP Human Development Reports Research Paper (New York: UNDP, 2009). 2 Van Hear et al. (2009). 3 MMC, “MMC’s Understanding and Use of the Term Mixed Migration” (Mixed Migration Centre, 2020), https://​mixedmigration​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2018/​07/​terminology​_mmc​.pdf. 4 Nicholas Van Hear, “Mixed Migration: Policy Challenges”, Policy Primer (Oxford: The Migration Observatory, University of Oxford, 2011). 5 Erika Feller, “International Refugee Protection 50 Years On: The Protection Challenges of the Past, Present and Future”, IRRC 83, no. 843 (2001): 581–605.

21

22  Handbook on forced migration led to a bifurcated legal regime and policy arena that mapped unevenly onto the lived experiences of people on the move and created artificial distinctions between those in the “refugee” category and everyone else in the “voluntary” category. In practice, only a small subset of displaced people ever qualify as formal refugees under the 1951 Refugee Convention, and the implementation of that Convention has often been highly selective and driven by geopolitics. Refugees from war-torn countries backed by the US (e.g., El Salvador and Guatemala in the 1980s) and most victims of non-state violence are treated as voluntary, often becoming “irregular” migrants without legal status.6 They are joined in growing numbers by people displaced by the impact of climate change or the consequences of economic development projects, such as dams and mining concessions.

SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS OF MIXED MIGRATION A defining feature of mixed migration is that it exists at the murky edges of laws, policies, categories, and communities where the status of migrants and refugees is ambiguous and often fluid. The costs of this ambiguity have grown in recent years in accordance with changes in the spatial and temporal dynamics of human mobility. Spatially, borders have hardened and expanded, and journeys are increasingly disrupted by unanticipated detours and involuntary returns. Temporally, migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are experiencing longer and more uncertain periods of waiting as policies shift and/or states prolong the vetting process for legal entry. Borders and border enforcement are nothing new, but how states manage borders has changed dramatically in recent years. One notable shift is the fortification of physical borders with walls, fences, drones, border patrol agents, detention centers, and other instruments of monitoring and control.7 In the last 40 years, borders around the world have been transformed from relatively isolated outposts to sophisticated and expansive security stations.8 This fortification vastly increases the costs to migrants and refugees of falling outside clearly protected categories. Either they must find a way to fit into these categories, often with long periods of detention and/or indefinite status, or they must resort to clandestine crossings, often facilitated by smugglers, that cement their irregular and thus unprotected status. An even more profound shift is the extension of border control beyond the lines drawn on the map. Relying on a mix of political pressure, security assistance, detention enclaves, and bilateral agreements, rich states have constructed mechanisms to keep migrants and asylum seekers from ever reaching their territory.9 In the process, they have multiplied the costs and

David FitzGerald, Refuge beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019); for a critique of the refugee label, see Roger Zetter, “More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization”, Journal of Refugee Studies 20, no. 2 (June, 2007): 172–92. 7 See, for example, Todd Miller, Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the US Border Around the World (Verso Books, 2019). 8 Michael R. Kenwick and Beth A. Simmons, “Pandemic Response as Border Politics”, International Organization 74, no. S1 (December 2020): E36–58. 9 Noelle Brigden and Ċetta Mainwaring, “Matryoshka Journeys: Im/Mobility During Migration”, Geopolitics 21, no. 2 (April, 2016): 407–34; FitzGerald, Refuge beyond Reach (2019); Bill Frelick, Ian M. Kysel, and Jennifer Podkul, “The Impact of Externalization of Migration Controls on the Rights of 6

Negotiating ambiguous status  23 frequency of ambiguous status by imposing their securitization agenda on countries with different rules and practices for governing mobility. Migrants who were previously protected – or more often just left alone – now face checkpoints, immigration raids, and detention farther and farther from the border they ultimately hope to cross. Meanwhile, deportation has become a global machine operating at a scale and with a diversity of methods not previously seen.10 The hardening and expansion of borders has major implications for how and where people move. What were once relatively low-risk, low-cost, and one-way journeys have turned into a zigzag of stops, starts, detours, and forced returns.11 Rarely able to navigate these complex and dangerous journeys on their own, migrants have become even more dependent on smugglers who, in turn, must cover greater distances and arrange passage with a wider array of actors (e.g., immigration agents, drug traffickers, militias, local officials). Smugglers are, in effect, service providers, usually with migration histories of their own,12 but this higher level of difficulty – and the corresponding spike in cost – has attracted transnational criminal organizations with fewer personal ties to the migrant’s family or community.13 Not surprisingly, kidnapping, sexual abuse, abandonment, and other forms of violence against migrants have increased. And, still, many migrants and refugees never reach their destination. Some try to make a life where they are; others return home, often to try all over again. Throughout, they must negotiate their ambiguous status to avoid deportation, access livelihoods, and/or overcome the stigma of return. These disrupted mobilities also have a temporal dimension. While protracted displacement has long been the fate of refugees in the Middle East and Africa, the experience of being stuck in transit has become more common and widespread. It is made worse by a disorienting mix of long delays, accelerated decisions, and sudden policy shifts that can trigger “temporal ‘angst’” among migrants and asylum seekers.14 This perpetual uncertainty imposes high psycho-social costs on those caught in its web, especially when living in substandard conditions with serious security risks. It can also inhibit investment in community-building or sustainable livelihoods. As long as migrants cling to the hope that their turn will come, their focus is likely to be on getting by until they can restart their lives elsewhere. The reality, however, is that most of them will not gain asylum or be resettled. They are far more likely to be “stuck in motion”15 as they search for safety and sustenance in a world of fortified borders.

Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants”, Journal on Migration and Human Security 4, no. 4 (December, 2016): 190–220. 10 Adam Goodman, The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020); Todd Miller, Empire of Borders (2019). 11 Brigden and Mainwaring, “Matryoshka Journeys: Im/Mobility During Migration” (2016). 12 Frank-Vitale, “Stuck in Motion: Inhabiting the Space of Transit in Central American Migration”, The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 25, No. 1 (2020): 67–83; Gabriella Sanchez, “Critical Perspectives on Clandestine Migration Facilitation: An Overview of Migrant Smuggling Research”, Journal on Migration and Human Security 5, no. 1 (March, 2017): 9–27. 13 Miriam Jordan, “Smuggling Migrants at the Border Now a Billion-Dollar Business,” The New York Times, 25 July 2022, sec. U.S., https://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2022/​07/​25/​us/​migrant​-smuggling​ -evolution​.html. 14 Melanie B.E. Griffiths, “Out of Time: The Temporal Uncertainties of Refused Asylum Seekers and Immigration Detainees”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40, no. 12 (2014): 1991–2009. 15 Frank-Vitale, “Stuck in Motion” (2020).

24  Handbook on forced migration

GLOBAL GOVERNANCE OF MIXED MIGRATION The concept of mixed migration emerged with the end of the Cold War, which destabilized the bipolar state system, and the global War on Drugs, which pushed organized criminal networks into new territories and disrupted daily life in many communities. Especially after the World Trade Center bombings on 11 September 2001, many governments conflated migration with national security, and xenophobic politicians and parties capitalized on anti-immigration sentiment to make electoral gains. Meanwhile, the mismatch between the drivers of displacement and the narrow category of refugee became even more severe, exposing a growing share of displaced people to the policy crackdown. Faced with dueling pressures of migration control and humanitarianism, states and the intergovernmental organizations to whom they have delegated migration governance – namely, UNHCR and IOM – latched onto mixed migration as a new frame for addressing these challenges.16 But rather than fundamentally rethinking their goals and procedures, they made only marginal adjustments based on partial definitions of mixed migration.17 One such definition is “the complex composition of migration flows” (i.e., who moves and how they move), which brings attention to the protection needs of all people on the move but does not challenge existing legal categories. Another is “individuals’ mixed motivations for moving”, which instead of justifying more inclusive protection regimes, has in practice made mixed migration increasingly synonymous with “irregular” migration.18 Because these flows do not conform to the kind of migration that is welcomed and even encouraged by receiving states, mixed migration becomes a “problem” or a “crisis” that needs to be “solved” by states, intergovernmental organizations, and/or humanitarian actors.19 UNHCR has been grappling with how to approach mixed migration since the early 2000s. Initially, it used the term “asylum–migration nexus” to describe the intersection between refugees and migrants, most notably in its 2002 Agenda for Protection.20 It backed away from this term a few years later, however, because of its strong association with South–North flows, irregular movements, border controls, and “abusive applications for refugee status”.21 In 2007, UNHCR embraced the term “mixed migration” in its 10 Point Plan of Action on Refugee Protection and Mixed Migration in which it reiterated the need to engage more broadly with international migration to fulfill its mandate for refugee protection and durable

The International Labor Organization (ILO) is also an important player in the global governance of migration, but its near-exclusive focus on migrant workers makes it less relevant to this discussion. 17 Marina Sharpe, “Mixed Up: International Law and the Meaning(s) of ‘Mixed Migration’”, Refugee Survey Quarterly 37, no. 1 (March, 2018): 116–38. 18 This understanding overlaps significantly with what Betts calls “survival” migration to escape dire circumstances regardless of legal status but with an emphasis on those deemed to be “illegitimate” asylum seekers. See Alexander Betts, “Survival Migration: A New Protection Framework”, Global Governance 16, no. 3 (September 2010): 361–82. 19 Ayelet Shachar, “Beyond Open and Closed Borders: The Grand Transformation of Citizenship”, Jurisprudence 11, no. 1 (January, 2020): 1–27. 20 UNHCR, “Agenda for Protection (3rd edn)”, UNHCR, October 2003, https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​ protection/​globalconsult/​3e637b194/​agenda​-protection​-third​-edition​.html. 21 Jeff Crisp, “Beyond the Nexus: UNHDR’s Evolving Perspective on Refugee Protection and International Migration”, Research Paper, New Issues in Refugee Research (Geneva: UNHCR, 2008), 2; See, also, Van Hear, “Mixed Migration: Policy Challenges” (2011). 16

Negotiating ambiguous status  25 solutions.22 Updated in 2016, the Plan’s glossary of terms includes a flows-based definition of “mixed movements” but makes no mention of an “asylum–migration nexus”.23 More recently, UNHCR abandoned even this cautious approach and returned to vociferously defending the legal category of refugee and reclaiming its place on the front lines of refugee protection through the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees. Meanwhile, IOM began to play a more active role in migration management with the launch of the Berne Initiative in 2004. The resulting International Agenda for Migration Management (IAMM) reiterated the importance of the asylum–migration nexus and took ownership of the management dimensions of UNHCR’s 2002 Agenda for Protection. Specifically, it called for “better identification” of asylum seekers and refugees, combating smuggling and trafficking, reducing irregular or secondary movements, and returning “persons found not to be in need of international protection”.24 By 2008, IOM had put “mixed migration at the centre of its migration management agenda”25 and shifted its emphasis to the mixed motives of individuals. In theory, this lens should broaden access to international protection for vulnerable migrants who would otherwise be classified as voluntary. In practice, IOM’s lack of a protection mandate along with its emphasis on border enforcement and cozy relationships with national governments did the opposite by weakening protections for all irregular migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers. To its credit, IOM adopted a protection policy in 2015 and reinforced its protection capacities after fully joining the UN system in 2016, but it remains an active partner in deterring migrants and asylum seekers through repatriations, transit-country detention, and publicity campaigns to discourage irregular migration.26 The global governance of mixed migration entered a new phase with two major agreements negotiated under UN auspices in 2018: the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) and the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM). Both Compacts grew out of the 2016 New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, which Chetail describes as “the most comprehensive soft law instrument endorsed by all UN Member States to address both migration and refugee protection”.27 Nonetheless, this bold attempt to institutionalize a mixed migration approach quickly crashed on the rocks of realpolitik and organizational rivalry. European states wanted to maintain “the distinction between refugees and migrants in line with their own migration and border policies” while UNHCR wanted to shore up the legal regime on refugee protection and retain “control over the drafting of the Global Compact on Refugees due to the fear of reopening intergovernmental negotiations on the Geneva Convention”.28 22 Crisp, “Beyond the Nexus: UNHDR’s Evolving Perspective on Refugee Protection and International Migration” (2008); Vincent Chetail, International Migration Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). 23 UNHCR, “The 10-Point Plan in Action, 2016 – Glossary” (Geneva: UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 2016), https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​59e99eb94​.html. 24 IOM, “International Agenda for Migration Management”, The Berne Initiative (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2005): 50. 25 Jonathan Kent, “Looking Back and Moving Forward: The Research Agenda on the Global Governance of Mixed Migration”, International Migration, 2020, 4, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​imig​.12722. 26 Sebastien Moretti, “Between Refugee Protection and Migration Management: The Quest for Coordination between UNHCR and IOM in the Asia-Pacific Region”, Third World Quarterly 42, no. 1 (January, 2021): 34–51. See also FitzGerald, Refuge Beyond Reach (2019, pp. 48, 145). 27 Chetail, International Migration Law (2019, p. 307). 28 Chetail (2019, p. 310).

26  Handbook on forced migration The result was two Compacts rather than one, thereby reaffirming the distinction between refugees and migrants. Analysts differ as to the consequences for those who do not fit neatly into these categories. Some praise the Compacts for expanding the scope of international protection for vulnerable migrants outside the refugee regime and containing “elements on which to build a comprehensive and integrated response” to mixed movements.29 Others critique the Compacts for leaving major protection gaps (especially for IDPs), for accepting deterrence and containment as the prevailing responses to mobility, and for shifting the burden almost entirely onto poor countries.30 Either way, the pivot to mixed migration by states and intergovernmental organizations was too little, too late. If anything, the disconnect between the interests of states in controlling their borders and the protection needs of people on the move who fall through the cracks of existing laws and policies has only become worse. To illustrate this failure and its harmful consequences, the following section provides a brief case study of mixed migration at the US–Mexico border. On the one hand, the explosive increase in requests for US (and Mexican) asylum reflects the heterogenization of the drivers of displacement. On the other hand, the near-dismantling of the US asylum system has thrown most asylum seekers into the same boat as everyone else arriving at the border without a visa. As a result, Mexican border communities have been transformed from temporary transit points for labor migrants into “waiting rooms” for migrants and asylum seekers with little recourse to international protection.

MIXED MIGRATION AT THE US–MEXICO BORDER For decades, migration across the US–Mexico border consisted predominantly of young Mexican men looking for work in the United States. Many would pause their journey at the border but only for a few days or weeks while they gathered resources or waited for the right moment to cross. Passage became more difficult and deportations increased in the 1990s when US immigration policy took a sharp restrictionist turn. The US government fortified the border with walls, fences, surveillance equipment, and a vastly greater presence by US Customs and Border Enforcement (CBP) while extending its reach into the US and Mexican interiors with checkpoints, immigration raids, and new detention centers. Nonetheless, the composition of cross-border flows remained relatively homogeneous, and unauthorized entries began to decline dramatically after 2000. Migrants were increasingly pushed into remote areas, where thousands of them perished, and Mexican border communities struggled to accommodate

Jane McAdam and Tamara Wood, “The Concept of ‘International Protection’ in the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration”, Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 191–206; Madeline Garlick and Claire Inder, “Protection of Refugees and Migrants in the Era of the Global Compacts”, Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 218. 30 See, for example, Nicholas Maple, Susan Reardon-Smith, and Richard Black, “Immobility and the Containment of Solutions: Reflections on the Global Compacts, Mixed Migration and the Transformation of Protection”, Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 326–47; Christina Oelgemöller, “The Global Compacts, Mixed Migration and the Transformation of Protection”, Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 183–90; Cathryn Costello, “Refugees and (Other) Migrants: Will the Global Compacts Ensure Safe Flight and Onward Mobility for Refugees?”, International Journal of Refugee Law 30, no. 4 (May, 2019): 643–9. 29

Negotiating ambiguous status  27 growing numbers of deportees, but, overall, migration-related pressures along the border appeared to be waning. This period of relative calm was short-lived and followed by a storm that few saw coming. Starting around 2010, undocumented border crossers began to include more non-Mexicans (mostly from Central America until 2021), more women, children and families, and more asylum seekers. The drivers of this change are complex but include non-state violence, natural disasters, corrupt governance, closure of other avenues of legal migration, and the globalization of migrant smuggling networks. Unauthorized crossings remained at historically low levels until 2019, but the changing composition of border crossers presented new challenges for which neither the United States nor Mexico was prepared. On the US side, immigration courts were already experiencing backlogs; asylum processing capacity was insufficient to meet the spike in demand; and detention facilities were not set up to receive families or unaccompanied children. On the Mexican side, the asylum system was in its infancy; the government had almost no support infrastructure for migrants; and Mexican civil society was not ready to handle much larger and more diverse populations for longer periods of time. Instead of investing in its asylum system and/or developing alternatives to detention, the US government made the situation worse by responding with a series of measures to slow – and for a time to stop – the entry of asylum seekers into the United States while substantially beefing up its remote-control policies south of the border. As journeys became more perilous, migrants and asylum seekers sought safer passage with smugglers or caravans, both of which triggered further crackdowns by the United States. The “threat” posed by mixed migration thus became a self-fulfilling prophecy that took on a life of its own. Three US policies in particular contributed to the bottleneck at the US–Mexico border: the metering system, the Migration Protection Protocols (MPP), and Title 42. The metering system was first introduced in February 2016 when thousands of Haitians arrived in Tijuana hoping to join their families in the United States.31 As their numbers grew, CBP required them to get a “ticket” from Mexican officials to request asylum while allowing only 40–50 interviews per day.32 Combined with the Obama administration’s decision in September 2017 to end humanitarian parole for Haitians whose family members had Temporary Protected Status (TPS), this led to a dramatic increase in the number of Haitians stuck in Tijuana. Regardless of their motives for migrating, they found themselves in similarly vulnerable situations without adequate protection from either state or intergovernmental actors. The Trump administration reinvigorated and expanded the metering system in 2018 as large caravans from Central America began arriving at the border. To gain entry, asylum seekers had to get on a list maintained by Mexican authorities and/or civil society organizations at multiple ports of entry along the border. The list peaked at more than 25 000 asylum seekers in August 2019 before falling to 15 000 in February 2020, with wait times of up to a year.33 The number stabilized during the COVID pandemic as waitlists closed and those already signed up were 31 Many of these Haitians fled to Brazil after the 2010 earthquake but then lost their livelihoods when the Brazilian economy collapsed in 2014. 32 Aída Silva and Katrina Burgess, “Pandemia oportuna. Asilo suspendido en Estados Unidos, y contención en México”, CLACSO Boletín (Trans)Fronteriza, 19 November 2021, https://​www​.clacso​ .org/​boletin​-11​-transfronteriza/​. 33 Stephanie Leutert, Arvey, Savitri, and Ellie Ezzell, “Metering Update: August 2020” (Austin: Strauss Center, University of Texas, Austin, August 2020), https://​www​.strausscenter​.org/​publications/​ metering​-update​-august​-2020/​.

28  Handbook on forced migration barred from entry. These restrictions remained in place until September 2021, when a federal judge in San Diego ruled that metering is unconstitutional. Nonetheless, new lists emerged in 2022 when asylum seekers thought Title 42 might finally be rescinded (see below), with one list in Tijuana ballooning to 50 000 people.34 The MPP imposed a new hurdle for those lucky enough to make it through the metering system. Starting in January 2019, the Trump administration required asylum seekers who passed their initial interview to return to Mexico to wait for each subsequent immigration court hearing. The program started out small, with a few asylum seekers returning through the port of entry in Tijuana, but grew rapidly over the next few months. By March 2020, over 65 000 asylum seekers had been sent back to Mexico, mostly through ports of entry in Texas.35 Besides living in unsafe conditions with inadequate access to livelihoods, they were far less likely to be granted asylum even if they made it through all their court proceedings, which often took more than a year. And, once again, Mexican border communities were tasked with feeding and housing thousands of people who should have been receiving protection but were instead being treated like any other irregular migrant. When the Biden administration tried to end MPP in early 2021, the courts intervened to force the program’s reinstatement pending a ruling by the US Supreme Court. In June 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that the Biden administration had the right to end the program under immigration law but sent the case back to the district court to determine whether the policy’s termination violates any administrative laws.36 Two months later, the district court lifted its injunction and cleared the way for the Biden administration to bring MPP to an end.37 Title 42 dealt the greatest blow to the distinction between irregular migrants and asylum seekers at the US–Mexico border. Title 42 refers to a rarely used section of the US Code (dating to 1944) that empowers federal health authorities to prohibit migrants from entering the country if it is determined that doing so could prevent the spread of contagious diseases.38 The Trump administration invoked the rule in March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID pandemic, to close ports of entry to asylum seekers and expel all migrants crossing the border immediately and without any hearing. The result was over two million expulsions, mostly of 34 Elliot Spagat, “Wait Lists at U.S. Border Frustrate, Confuse Asylum Seekers”, PBS NewsHour, 13 July, 2022, https://​www​.pbs​.org/​newshour/​politics/​asylum​-wait​-lists​-at​-u​-s​-border​-frustrate​-confuse​ -migrants. 35 TRAC Immigration, “Details on MPP (Remain in Mexico) Deportation Proceedings”, December 2021, https://​trac​.syr​.edu/​phptools/​immigration/​mpp/​. 36 Uriel J. García, “Supreme Court Rules Biden Administration Can End ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy, Sending Case Back to a Texas Court”, The Texas Tribune, 30 June 2022, https://​www​.texastribune​.org/​ 2022/​06/​29/​supreme​-court​-migrant​-protection​-protocols​-remain​-mexico​-biden/​. 37 Nick Miroff, “DHS to End ‘Remain in Mexico,’ Allow Asylum Seekers to Enter U.S.”, Washington Post, 8 August 2022, https://​www​.washingtonpost​.com/​national​-security/​2022/​08/​08/​mpp​ -biden​-asylum​-mexico/​. 38 Legal Information Institute, “42 U.S. Code § 265 – Suspension of Entries and Imports from Designated Places to Prevent Spread of Communicable Diseases”, LII / Legal Information Institute, 1944, https://​www​.law​.cornell​.edu/​uscode/​text/​42/​265; John Gramlich, “Key facts about Title 42, the pandemic policy that has reshaped immigration enforcement at U.S.-Mexico border”, 27 April 2022, https://​www​.pewresearch​.org/​fact​-tank/​2022/​04/​27/​key​-facts​-about​-title​-42​-the​-pandemic​-policy​ -that​-has​-reshaped​-immigration​-enforcement​-at​-u​-s​-mexico​-border/​. See also CBP, “Nationwide Enforcement Encounters: Title 8 Enforcement Actions and Title 42 Expulsions 2022 | U.S. Customs and Border Protection”, 15 June 2022, https://​www​.cbp​.gov/​newsroom/​stats/​cbp​-enforcement​-statistics/​title​ -8​-and​-title​-42​-statistics.

Negotiating ambiguous status  29 single, adult men but also of asylum seekers and families.39 Although the courts and the Biden administration exempted some vulnerable groups (e.g., unaccompanied minors), and Title 42 did not apply to those who could not be returned to Mexico or sent home (usually for diplomatic reasons), the rule eviscerated the US asylum system for Mexicans, Central Americans, and Haitians while forcing asylum seekers from exempt countries to cross “illegally” and turn themselves into CBP.40 Two years after a federal judge blocked the Biden administration’s first attempt to remove Title 42, the administration finally revoked it in May 2023 after declaring an end to the public health emergency. The sheer number of people stuck at the US–Mexico border for months and sometimes years with minimal resources and often no work authorization has overwhelmed local infrastructures, even in Tijuana with its well-established network of shelters and migrant advocates. These numbers have further compromised public security in cities already suffering from high homicide rates, entrenched criminal organizations, and corrupt law enforcement. Asylum seekers are a target for kidnapping, extortion and recruitment. The result is a humanitarian crisis that has received minimal attention in the United States – or globally. Although UNHCR was quite outspoken against MPP and Title 42, there has been a striking lack of international presence at the border. Both UNHCR and IOM are active in Mexico and have border offices, but their mandates are restricted to assisting those seeking asylum in Mexico (in the case of UNHCR) or assisting with voluntary repatriation and/or economic integration of Mexican deportees or third-country migrants hoping to settle in Mexico (in the case of IOM). A notable exception occurred when UNHCR, IOM and UNICEF partnered with the US and Mexican governments to process asylum seekers after MPP was briefly suspended in February 2021. Starting in the border city of Matamoros, they conducted in-person registrations, launched a pre-registration website, offered extra support to children and families, carried out COVID-19 tests, and coordinated transportation to the ports of entry.41 Their assistance contributed to the much faster pace of MPP processing in Matamoros compared to other ports of entry, but it abruptly ended after a US district court judge ordered the Biden administration to reinstate MPP in August 2021. As the political winds shifted yet again, US asylum seekers in Mexico fell back into the cracks of existing rules and institutions. As the US–Mexico border shows, providing adequate protection is especially challenging when the terrain keeps shifting in response to home-country conditions, policy shifts, court decisions, smuggling practices, and transit modalities. One day, an asylum seeker is allowed to stay in the United States to await her next hearing; the next day, she is sent back to Mexico to wait for up to a year. One month the shelters are empty; the next month, thousands of migrants

39 This number includes repeat attempts, which are especially frequent among single, adult males. CBP statistics show, for example, that 28 percent of individuals apprehended at the border in April 2022 had already been caught at least once in the previous six months. Adam Isacson, “Three Consequences of Keeping Title 42 in Place at the U.S.–Mexico Border”, WOLA, 23 May 2022, https://​www​.wola​.org/​ analysis/​three​-consequences​-of​-keeping​-title​-42​-in​-place​-at​-the​-us​-mexico​-border/​. 40 In April 2022, an estimated 37 percent of non-expelled migrants came from Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The others included nearly three thousand Ukrainians who were stuck in Tijuana until DHS exempted them from Title 42 that month. Adam Isacson, “Weekly U.S.–Mexico Border Update: Title 42 Politics, Ukrainian Refugees, Timid DHS Oversight”, WOLA, 8 April 2022, https://​www​.wola​.org/​2022/​ 04/​weekly​-u​-s​-mexico​-border​-update​-title​-42​-politics​-ukrainian​-refugees​-timid​-dhs​-oversight/​. 41 United Nations, “UN Agencies Begin Registering Asylum Seekers at US–Mexico Border”, UN News, 25 February 2021, https://​news​.un​.org/​en/​story/​2021/​02/​1085642.

30  Handbook on forced migration and asylum seekers show up, requiring tent cities and makeshift processing centers. The constant changes, together with the stress and anxiety caused by so much uncertainty, exacerbate the humanitarian crisis while also complicating the response.

INFORMAL STRATEGIES OF PROTECTION The protection vacuum left by states and intergovernmental organizations is only part of the story, however. Rather than being helpless victims, migrants improvise and innovate to survive and build community.42 They organize themselves in caravans, informal tent camps, urban settlements, or at the border when required to get in line. They make friends, share stories, play soccer, cook meals, and help each other with their children. In some cases, they even create social infrastructure: for example, two Central American asylum seekers sent back to Tijuana under MPP mobilized resources and volunteers from the community to build a new shelter for women and children.43 Activists, NGOs, and local businesses also provide assistance and critical services along the route and at fortified borders. Sometimes, they offer food and water to migrants traveling through hostile terrain, like the Border Angels in the Arizona desert and Las Patronas along the infamous train route (La Bestia) in Mexico.44 Other times, they offer protection from state officials, like the Al Otro Lado volunteers who accompany asylum seekers to US ports of entry to ensure they are treated properly by border agents. In addition, most well-traveled migratory routes have networks of shelters, some of which also provide legal counseling, employment assistance, and/or healthcare. They are joined by for-profit businesses that “tailor their services and wares to the needs of a transient population”.45 These services are rarely sufficient but they are vital to migrants and refugees who lack access to formal systems of protection.

CONCLUDING REMARKS Migrants and asylum seekers without regularized avenues of mobility fall through the cracks in the international protection regime and are under constant pressure to negotiate their ambiguous status in order to survive. It is this ambiguity that makes mixed migration so intractable for states, intergovernmental organizations, humanitarian actors, and the migrants themselves. Those responsible for the global governance of migration are constrained by rules and catego-

42 See, for example, Noelle K. Brigden, “Improvised Transnationalism: Clandestine Migration at the Border of Anthropology and International Relations”, International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 2 (June, 2016): 343–54; Noelle Brigden, The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018). 43 Gustavo Solis, “Fed up with Lack of Space, Migrants Build Their Own Shelter in Tijuana”, San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 September 2019, https://​www​.​sandiegoun​iontribune​.com/​news/​border​-baja​ -california/​story/​2019​-09​-04/​tijuana​-shelter​-migrants​-remain​-mexico. 44 Leopoldo Hernández, “These Women Are Feeding Central American Immigrants Atop a Speeding Train”, Vice (blog), 26 March 2015, https://​www​.vice​.com/​en/​article/​ypxj5v/​these​-women​-are​-feeding​ -central​-american​-immigrants​-atop​-a​-speeding​-train. 45 Ċetta Mainwaring and Noelle Brigden, “Beyond the Border: Clandestine Migration Journeys”, Geopolitics 21, no. 2 (April, 2016): 247.

Negotiating ambiguous status  31 ries that fail to capture the full range and variability of human mobility. As a survival strategy, migrants struggle to “fit” these categories, which further erodes the credibility of the system while leaving most of them without adequate protection. Meanwhile, states take advantage of this ambiguity to pursue their own political agendas at the risk of fueling humanitarian crises that generate backlash, especially in democratic societies. Recent events only complicate these challenges. The global pandemic exacerbated many of the pre-existing drivers of migration while reconfiguring migratory pathways and emboldening exclusionary nationalism. Meanwhile, the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine created millions of new refugees in need of international protection. The outpouring of support for displaced Ukrainians further exposed the fractures and injustices embedded in the global governance of migration, particularly along racial and ethnic lines. Moreover, as the costs to host communities accumulate, Ukrainian refugees find themselves in the same kinds of temporal and legal limbo experienced by other refugee groups (e.g., Syrians, Venezuelans, Rohingya), not to mention migrants who have been forcibly displaced yet do not qualify for refugee status. And these shocks may well pale in comparison to accelerating climate events sparked by global warming and the corresponding displacement of people with ambiguous status under the current legal regime. Mixed migration is here to stay; what remains unclear is whether states and intergovernmental organizations have the political will and imagination to rethink their rules and institutions accordingly.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Balaguera, Martha, and Alfonso Gonzales. “On the Migrant Trail, a Refugee Movement Emerges”. NACLA, 29 January 2018. https://​nacla​.org/​blog/​2018/​01/​29/​migrant​-trail​-refugee​-movement​ -emerges. Betts, Alexander. “Survival Migration: A New Protection Framework”. Global Governance 16, no. 3 (September 2010): 361–82. Brigden, Noelle. The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. Brigden, Noelle K. “Improvised Transnationalism: Clandestine Migration at the Border of Anthropology and International Relations”. International Studies Quarterly 60, no. 2 (June, 2016): 343–54. Brigden, Noelle, and Ċetta Mainwaring. “Matryoshka Journeys: Im/Mobility During Migration”. Geopolitics 21, no. 2 (April, 2016): 407–34. CBP. “Nationwide Enforcement Encounters: Title 8 Enforcement Actions and Title 42 Expulsions 2022 | U.S. Customs and Border Protection”, 15 June 2022. https://​www​.cbp​.gov/​newsroom/​stats/​cbp​ -enforcement​-statistics/​title​-8​-and​-title​-42​-statistics. Chetail, Vincent. International Migration Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Costello, Cathryn. “Refugees and (Other) Migrants: Will the Global Compacts Ensure Safe Flight and Onward Mobility for Refugees?” International Journal of Refugee Law 30, no. 4 (May, 2019): 643–9. Crisp, Jeff. “Beyond the Nexus: UNHDR’s Evolving Perspective on Refugee Protection and International Migration”. Research Paper. New Issues in Refugee Research. Geneva: UNHCR, 2008. Feller, Erika. “International Refugee Protection 50 Years on: The Protection Challenges of the Past, Present and Future”. IRRC 83, no. 843 (2001): 581–605. FitzGerald, David. Refuge beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Frank-Vitale, Amelia. “Stuck in Motion: Inhabiting the Space of Transit in Central American Migration”. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 25, no. 1 (2020): 67–83. Frelick, Bill, Ian M. Kysel, and Jennifer Podkul. “The Impact of Externalization of Migration Controls on the Rights of Asylum Seekers and Other Migrants”. Journal on Migration and Human Security 4, no. 4 (December, 2016): 190–220.

32  Handbook on forced migration García, Uriel J. “Judge Blocks Biden Administration from Lifting Public Health Order Used to Quickly Expel Migrants”. The Texas Tribune, 20 May 2022. https://​www​.texastribune​.org/​2022/​05/​20/​title​-42​ -border​-judge​-ruling​-migrants/​. García, Uriel J. “Supreme Court Rules Biden Administration Can End ‘Remain in Mexico’ Policy, Sending Case Back to a Texas Court”. The Texas Tribune, 30 June 2022. https://​www​.texastribune​ .org/​2022/​06/​29/​supreme​-court​-migrant​-protection​-protocols​-remain​-mexico​-biden/​. Garlick, Madeline, and Claire Inder. “Protection of Refugees and Migrants in the Era of the Global Compacts”. Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 207–26. Goodman, Adam. The Deportation Machine: America’s Long History of Expelling Immigrants. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2020. Gramlich, John. “Key Facts about Title 42, the Pandemic Policy that Has Reshaped Immigration Enforcement at U.S.–Mexico Border”. Pew Research Center (blog), 27 April 2022. https://​ www​.pewresearch​.org/​fact​-tank/​2022/​04/​27/​key​-facts​-about​-title​-42​-the​-pandemic​-policy​-that​-has​ -reshaped​-immigration​-enforcement​-at​-u​-s​-mexico​-border/​. Griffiths, Melanie B.E. “Out of Time: The Temporal Uncertainties of Refused Asylum Seekers and Immigration Detainees”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 40, no. 12 (December, 2014): 1991–2009. Hernández, Leopoldo. “These Women are Feeding Central American Immigrants Atop a Speeding Train”. Vice (blog), 26 March 2015. https://​www​.vice​.com/​en/​article/​ypxj5v/​these​-women​-are​ -feeding​-central​-american​-immigrants​-atop​-a​-speeding​-train. IOM. “International Agenda for Migration Management”. The Berne Initiative. Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2005. Isacson, Adam. “Three Consequences of Keeping Title 42 in Place at the U.S.–Mexico Border”. WOLA, 23 May 2022. https://​www​.wola​.org/​analysis/​three​-consequences​-of​-keeping​-title​-42​-in​-place​-at​-the​ -us​-mexico​-border/​. Isacson, Adam. “Weekly U.S.–Mexico Border Update: Title 42 Politics, Ukrainian Refugees, Timid DHS Oversight”. WOLA, 8 April 2022. https://​www​.wola​.org/​2022/​04/​weekly​-u​-s​-mexico​-border​ -update​-title​-42​-politics​-ukrainian​-refugees​-timid​-dhs​-oversight/​. Jordan, Miriam. “Smuggling Migrants at the Border Now a Billion-Dollar Business”. The New York Times, 25 July 2022, sec. U.S. https://​www​.nytimes​.com/​2022/​07/​25/​us/​migrant​-smuggling​-evolution​ .html. Kent, Jonathan. “Looking Back and Moving Forward: The Research Agenda on the Global Governance of Mixed Migration”. International Migration, 2020, 1–16. Kenwick, Michael R., and Beth A. Simmons. “Pandemic Response as Border Politics”. International Organization 74, no. S1 (December 2020): E36–58. Legal Information Institute. “42 U.S. Code § 265 – Suspension of Entries and Imports from Designated Places to Prevent Spread of Communicable Diseases”. LII / Legal Information Institute, 1944. https://​ www​.law​.cornell​.edu/​uscode/​text/​42/​265. Leutert, Stephanie, Arvey, Savitri, and Ellie Ezzell. “Metering Update: August 2020”. Austin: Strauss Center, University of Texas, Austin, August 2020. https://​ www​ .strausscenter​ .org/​ publications/​ metering​-update​-august​-2020/​. Maple, Nicholas, Susan Reardon-Smith, and Richard Black. “Immobility and the Containment of Solutions: Reflections on the Global Compacts, Mixed Migration and the Transformation of Protection”. Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 326–47. Mainwaring, Ċetta, and Noelle Brigden. “Beyond the Border: Clandestine Migration Journeys”. Geopolitics 21, no. 2 (April, 2016): 243–62. McAdam, Jane, and Tamara Wood. “The Concept of ‘International Protection’ in the Global Compacts on Refugees and Migration”. Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 191–206. Miller, Todd. Empire of Borders: The Expansion of the US Border Around the World. Verso Books, 2019. Miroff, Nick. “DHS to End ‘Remain in Mexico,’ Allow Asylum Seekers to Enter U.S.” Washington Post, 8 August 2022. https://​www​.washingtonpost​.com/​national​-security/​2022/​08/​08/​mpp​-biden​-asylum​ -mexico/​. MMC. “MMC’s Understanding and Use of the Term Mixed Migration”. Mixed Migration Centre, 2020. https://​mixedmigration​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2018/​07/​terminology​_mmc​.pdf.

Negotiating ambiguous status  33 Moretti, Sebastien. “Between Refugee Protection and Migration Management: The Quest for Coordination between UNHCR and IOM in the Asia-Pacific Region”. Third World Quarterly 42, no. 1 (January, 2021): 34–51. Mountz, Alison. The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago. University of Minnesota Press, 2020. Oelgemöller, Christina. “The Global Compacts, Mixed Migration and the Transformation of Protection”. Interventions 23, no. 2 (February, 2021): 183–90. Sanchez, Gabriella. “Critical Perspectives on Clandestine Migration Facilitation: An Overview of Migrant Smuggling Research”. Journal on Migration and Human Security 5, no. 1 (March, 2017): 9–27. Shachar, Ayelet. “Beyond Open and Closed Borders: The Grand Transformation of Citizenship”. Jurisprudence 11, no. 1 (January, 2020): 1–27. Sharpe, Marina. “Mixed Up: International Law and the Meaning(s) of ‘Mixed Migration’”. Refugee Survey Quarterly 37, no. 1 (March, 2018): 116–38. Silva, Aída, and Katrina Burgess. “Pandemia oportuna. Asilo suspendido en Estados Unidos, y contención en México”. CLACSO Boletín (Trans)Fronteriza, 19 November 2021. https://​www​.clacso​ .org/​boletin​-11​-transfronteriza/​. Solis, Gustavo. “Fed up with Lack of Space, Migrants Build their Own Shelter in Tijuana”. San Diego Union-Tribune, 5 September 2019. https://​www​.​sandiegoun​iontribune​.com/​news/​border​-baja​ -california/​story/​2019​-09​-04/​tijuana​-shelter​-migrants​-remain​-mexico. Spagat, Elliot. “Wait Lists at U.S. Border Frustrate, Confuse Asylum Seekers”. PBS NewsHour, 13 July 2022. https://​www​.pbs​.org/​newshour/​politics/​asylum​-wait​-lists​-at​-u​-s​-border​-frustrate​-confuse​ -migrants. TRAC Immigration. “Details on MPP (Remain in Mexico) Deportation Proceedings”, December 2021. https://​trac​.syr​.edu/​phptools/​immigration/​mpp/​. UNHCR. “Agenda for Protection (Third Edition)”. UNHCR, October 2003. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​ protection/​globalconsult/​3e637b194/​agenda​-protection​-third​-edition​.html. UNHCR. “The 10-Point Plan in Action, 2016 – Glossary”. Geneva: UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 2016. https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​59e99eb94​.html. United Nations. “UN Agencies Begin Registering Asylum Seekers at US–Mexico Border”. UN News, 25 February 2021. https://​news​.un​.org/​en/​story/​2021/​02/​1085642. Van Hear, Nicholas. “Mixed Migration: Policy Challenges”. Policy Primer. Oxford: The Migration Observatory, University of Oxford, 2011. Van Hear, Nicholas, Rebecca Brubaker, and Thais Bessa. “Managing Mobility for Human Development: The Growing Salience of Mixed Migration”. UNDP Human Development Reports Research Paper. New York: UNDP, 2009. Walters, William. “Aviation as Deportation Infrastructure: Airports, Planes, and Expulsion”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44, no. 16 (December, 2018): 2796–817. Zetter, Roger. “More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization”. Journal of Refugee Studies 20, no. 2 (June, 2007): 172–92.

3. Migrant categorization under the patchwork of international, regional, and national law John Cerone

Mixed migration has become a widely used term but one that is predicated on a false dichotomy between migrants in need of protection and other migrants. This false dichotomy is ubiquitous in migration-related discourse, particularly among states. For example, in the negotiations leading up to the adoption of the Global Compact on Migration, one diplomat commented: It’s important not to confuse the economic and humanitarian issues. What we’re witnessing now is many people mixing migration issues and refugee issues. We have to make sure that these two are very clearly distinguished, because these are two different areas, covered by different areas of the law – one by economic law and the other by the rights of refugees.1

This oversimplification creates an inaccurate legal binary, eliding the broad spectrum of legal protections applicable to all migrants. In so doing, it shifts the playing field away from protection and further entrenches this false dichotomy. Advocates find themselves in the position of having to reject the label of migrant, and to argue that the individual qualifies as a refugee “instead”. All migrants are entitled to the legal protection of their human rights. Certain migrants who face particular types of harms are entitled to additional specific protections in international law. International law has ascribed labels to some of these individuals. These defined categories of migrants who face particular types of harms are not mutually exclusive. Neither should they remove the individual from the broader category of migrant. An unfortunate tendency to do just that, as reflected in the quote above, has led to a world in which “mixed migration” is a commonly used, if ill-defined and understood, term. In order to better understand the breadth of possible labels and legal statuses that are applied to migrants, this chapter provides a taxonomy of terminology used to categorize different types of legal protections that may apply to migrants. These protections are additional to the protections of generally applicable human rights law, and depend upon whether the individual migrant’s situation falls within certain legally defined parameters. This taxonomy will be based primarily on rules of international law. Notably, however, many commonly used terms are not legal terms of art. Where international law is silent, the definitions of terms will be approximated based on usage, with the understanding that usage is not uniform, and then rationalized in an attempt to develop a coherent lexicon.

1 English translation of statement by delegate of Russian Federation, Preparatory (stocktaking) meeting of the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (Day 2, Action Group 6), 5 December 2017 (original available at http://​webtv​.un​.org/​ search/​day​-2​-action​-group​-6​-preparatory​-stocktaking​-meeting​-of​-the​-intergovernmental​-conference​-to​ -adopt​-a​-global​-compact​-for​-safe​-orderly​-and​-regular​-migration​-4​-december​-2017/​5676413910001/​; time-stamp 58:18), as translated by Anna Kramer.

34

Migrant categorization under international, regional, and national law  35 A few caveats must be borne in mind. Creating a legal taxonomy for migration issues is a complex undertaking for several reasons. First is the fact that in practice there is a great diversity of actors, motives, intents, and purposes within migration flows that would be difficult to capture within any single legal regime. Second, and probably for reasons related to the first, there is no discrete area of international law regulating migration. Instead, there is a patchwork of rules drawn from various substantive areas of international law, each with its different structure, including the identification of, inter alia, rights holders, duty bearers, remedies, and mechanisms for implementation.2 As such, the legal categories surveyed below were not developed as part of a larger coherent enterprise of migration governance. Instead, they were created on an ad hoc basis to deal with particular phenomena, and thus form a patchwork of norms that are neither comprehensive nor coherent. In addition, while some of the protections have acquired the status of customary law, and as such are generally binding on all states, most of these protections are exclusively treaty-based, and thus apply only to those states that are parties to the particular treaty. A further complication arises as a result of multi-level regulation. Legal rules exist on the international (universal) level, as well as on the regional level (i.e. regional treaties and other instruments) and the national level (i.e. domestic law). Not only do the applicable rules vary from state to state depending upon the treaty obligations of the particular state, they are then implemented in an even greater diversity of regimes within domestic legal systems. There are several consequences of this ad hoc, multi-level approach. One is the existence of normative gaps – situations where one would surmise that legal protection exists for some migrants based on the existence of legal protections for other migrants in analogously, though not identically, grave circumstances.3 Another consequence is the converse – there is considerable overlap within this patchwork. The categories are not mutually exclusive, and individuals, depending upon their circumstances, may benefit from several of these categories of protection, which may or may not entail the ascribing of various labels to those individuals (e.g., refugee, and trafficking victim, and person at risk of torture). It is also important to recognize that legal issues are always relative to a particular legal framework. As migration is regulated by multiple legal frameworks, it is possible to have apparently inconsistent classifications. For example, an individual might be a refugee with reference to a particular treaty framework or a particular set of rules of domestic law, and not be a refugee under other legal frameworks, whether another country’s domestic law or a different treaty regime. Lastly, even though a word may be a legal term of art, the same word might also be commonly used in a non-legal, non-technical, typically broader, sense. Hence, the term “refugee” is often used to describe anyone who is fleeing danger, even if the person does not legally qualify as a refugee under any applicable legal framework.

2 Under International Human Rights Law, for example, the duty-bearer is the state, the rights holder is the individual, and there are a multitude of monitoring mechanisms at the universal and regional levels. Under International Refugee Law, both the state and the individual are rights holders, and there are very few official monitoring mechanisms beyond the national level. Under International Criminal Law in the strict sense, the duty bearer is the individual. 3 For example, refugee status is accorded only to those who risk persecution for being a member of a particular set of protected categories. Those who fall outside of those categories are not protected even if they face graver harm or a greater probability of future harm.

36  Handbook on forced migration

CATEGORIES OF MIGRANTS IN INTERNATIONAL LAW AND PRACTICE Migrants There is no universally accepted definition of the term “migrant” in international law; nor is there a consistent practice in usage of the term. It can be understood in a very narrow sense, as individuals who are voluntarily relocating internationally for an indefinite duration, or it could be understood in a very broad sense, including anyone, in the words of the BBC, “on the move”.4 Organizations that work on migration issues have adopted their own definitions for purposes of their work. According to the International Organization for Migration, the term “migrant” is: “An umbrella term, not defined under international law, reflecting the common lay understanding of a person who moves away from his or her place of usual residence, whether within a country or across an international border, temporarily or permanently, and for a variety of reasons.”5 Like the BBC definition, this broad definition applies to everyone on the move, irrespective of motivation, voluntariness, or legal status. As international law provides no definition, and as usage is inconsistent, there is scope for choosing a definition. Why opt for a broad definition? First of all, it recognizes the reality that human motivations are complex and resist any clear categorization. Second, it recognizes that refugees are but one type of specially protected migrant, and that their situations are not necessarily more dire than the situations of other migrants. Third, it defies the false dichotomy between migrant and refugee that posits one as an economic issue and the other as humanitarian. The term “economic migrant” is sometimes used to describe migrants who are moving for economic reasons, and when the term is used, it is often for the purpose of precluding them from legal protections of a humanitarian nature. It is not a legal term. Nor is it a useful one, as it turns not upon an individual’s factual circumstances but on an individual’s motivations, which as noted above, tend to be multi-faceted. The fact that a migrant has an economic motive does not disqualify them from international legal protections if their circumstances otherwise render those protections applicable.6

4 See, for example, “Lampedusa: More than 1,000 Migrants Arrive on Italian Island”, BBC News, 9 May 2021, https://​www​.bbc​.com/​news/​world​-europe​-57049130., at “Note on Terminology”. 5 “Glossary on Migration”, No. 34 (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2019), 132, https://​publications​.iom​.int/​system/​files/​pdf/​iml​_34​_glossary​.pdf. IOM includes several caveats indicating that it is neither speaking ex cathedra, nor purporting to participate in the creation of a legal categories. Regarding this definition of migrant, the Glossary notes, “The present definition was developed by IOM for its own purposes and it is not meant to imply or create any new legal category”. 6 If an individual’s unwillingness to return to their country of origin is attributable exclusively to economic concerns, then they will be ineligible for certain humanitarian protections. However, this is not because of their economic motivations, but because of the absence of the requisite mental state, where such mental state is a required element for the legal protection to be applicable, as, for example, with refugee status.

Migrant categorization under international, regional, and national law  37 Irregular Migrants, or Migrants in an Irregular Situation The term “irregular” migrant also lacks a definition in international law. Nonetheless, there is consensus on its meaning, as reflected in international practice. All countries have established procedures regulating the entry and stay of foreigners. Where foreign migrants enter or remain in such countries without complying with those procedures, they are said to have entered irregularly or are said to be in an irregular situation.7 Whether, in so doing, they have also committed an illegal act is dependent upon the domestic law of that country. In those countries where such entry or stay constitutes a crime under domestic law, such migrants might be referred to as “illegal” migrants. However, even in such countries, it would be more accurate to refer to these individuals as migrants who have illegally entered or who have committed illegal entry, rather than using the adjective “illegal” to modify the noun “migrant”. Similarly, irregular migrants could more accurately be described as migrants in an irregular situation,8 or migrants without documentation – what are popularly referred to across much of the US media as “undocumented immigrants”. Migrant Workers There are several different definitions of the term “migrant worker” in international law, and these definitions vary among treaty regimes. The most significant of these treaties are Conventions 97 (1949) and 143 (1975) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (1990, also known as the “Migrant Workers Convention” or “MWC”). While none of these treaties count a majority of states among their parties, approximately half of all UN Member States are parties to at least one of these treaties. The term “migrant worker” does not appear in ILO Convention 97. The Convention instead uses the term “migrant for employment”, which it defines as: “a person who migrates from one country to another with a view to being employed otherwise than on his own account and includes any person regularly admitted as a migrant for employment”.9 The Convention notably excludes migrants in an irregular situation. ILO Convention 143 uses the term “migrant workers”, but the term has different meanings under different parts of the Convention. For the purposes of Part II of the Convention, Article 11 defines migrant workers using the same language as the definition of “migrant for employment” under Convention 97. However, Article 1 of Convention 143 uses the term “migrant

7 The terms “regular” and “irregular” in this context are synonymous with the terms “documented” and “undocumented”. 8 International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, 18 December 1990, 2220 U.N.T.S. 3. Preamble makes reference to migrant workers “who are in an irregular situation”. 9 Convention (No. 97) concerning migration for employment (revised 1949), art. 11(1), 7 January 1949, 120 U.N.T.S. 71. Article 11(2) excludes from the scope of the Convention “(a) frontier workers; (b) short-term entry of members of the liberal professions and artistes; and (c) seamen”.

38  Handbook on forced migration workers” in a broader way. It states, “Each Member for which this Convention is in force undertakes to respect the basic human rights of all migrant workers.”10 The MWC is explicitly a human rights treaty, and the monitoring body that it established, the Committee on Migrant Workers, is serviced by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The MWC utilizes a broad definition of migrant workers, including those in an irregular situation.11 According to Article 2(1) of the MWC, “The term ‘migrant worker’ refers to a person who is to be engaged, is engaged or has been engaged in a remunerated activity in a State of which he or she is not a national.”12 Asylum-Seekers and Asylees At first glance, the meaning of the term asylum-seeker seems straightforward. An asylum-seeker is simply a migrant who is seeking asylum, irrespective of whether they may have any other particular status under international law. It turns completely on the will of the individual, without regard to their factual circumstances. Defining the term “asylum”,13 however, is more complex. As with many of the terms surveyed, there is no single definition of asylum in international law. Indeed, there are various types and understandings of asylum under international and national law. At the most general level, the grant of asylum by a state entails allowing an individual to enter or remain within the state’s territory or jurisdiction (e.g., in diplomatic premises) rather than being sent to or left in a place where the individual faces harm. When someone is granted asylum, they are typically referred to as an asylee. However, the term “asylum” can have a narrower meaning, depending upon the context or particular legal framework. For example, in some national systems, the term “asylum”

Convention (No. 143) concerning migrations in abusive conditions and the promotion of equality of opportunity and treatment of migrant workers, 24 June 1975, 1120 U.N.T.S. 323. The remaining articles of Part I of the Convention, which is entitled “Migrations in Abusive Conditions”, but which is largely devoted to combating irregular migration, make clear that the term “migrant workers” in article 1 includes those in an irregular situation, and is thus broader than the definition in Part II, which is explicitly confined to that Part. 11 Nonetheless, the Convention affords greater rights to those migrant workers who are in a regular situation. 12 Notwithstanding the breadth of this definition, certain categories of migrants are excluded by article 3 of the MWC. Notably among the excluded groups are “[r]efugees and stateless persons, unless such application is provided for in the relevant national legislation of, or international instruments in force for, the State Party concerned”. See MWC, article 3(d). Note, however, that the Committee on Migrant Workers, the monitoring body established by the MWC, has adopted a narrow interpretation of this exclusion. It interprets the term “refugees” as including only those refugees who have been determined to be such under national law and where the state has afforded them all of the legal protections for refugees that are required under international law. 13 A number of terms are used to refer to asylum, some of which may be used to refer to different modalities of granting asylum, but, again, usage is inconsistent. The term “political asylum” is often used interchangeably with the term “asylum”, but it can also be used to refer to the narrower context of refusing an extradition request on grounds that a criminal offense was of a political nature. The term “diplomatic asylum” is sometimes used to refer to a grant of asylum on diplomatic premises, as opposed to on a state’s own territory, which is sometimes referred to as “territorial asylum”. A state’s fulfillment of an obligation of non-refoulement is also occasionally referred to as a type of asylum. 10

Migrant categorization under international, regional, and national law  39 refers only to the granting of asylum to certain categories of individuals, and this grant may also encompass a broad range of rights beyond the mere right to remain in the territory.14 The paradigm group of such individuals would be refugees. Refugees As noted above, there are many different legal definitions of “refugee”, depending upon the particular framework under consideration. There is variation within and among international, regional, and national legal systems. Within international law, the most widely applicable definition of the term “refugee” is found in the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, as modified by the 1967 Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (“Refugee Convention and Protocol”). Under this treaty regime, a refugee is defined as any person who: owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.15

According to this definition, in order for an individual to qualify as a refugee they must be outside their country of nationality (or, for stateless persons, habitual residence). Individuals who flee harm but do not leave their country are instead regarded as internally displaced persons (IDPs).16 Notably, this definition also requires that the individual fear a particular kind of harm – persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. The definition makes no mention of situations of armed conflict, rampant lawless violence, natural disasters, failed states, or other catastrophic situations. It is primarily

In the US legal system, for example, the term “asylum” is used to refer only to the durable protection that may be granted to refugees. The term is not used for protections based on other potential harms, such as the torture of individuals who do not qualify as refugees. 15 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, art. 1 A (2), 28 July, 1951, 189 U.N.T.S. 137 [hereinafter Refugee Convention], as modified by Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, art. I(2), 31 January 1967, 606 U.N.T.S. 267. Note that the 1951 Convention contained a temporal limitation, and also permitted geographical limitations, that essentially limited its application to the particular group of World War II refugees. This restricted definition remains applicable to those states that are parties to the 1951 Convention, but are not parties to the 1967 Protocol. In addition, the geographical limitation may be retained even by states that are parties to both the Convention and Protocol. For example, Turkey, upon acceding to the Protocol, opted to retain the geographical limitation restricting its application to persons who have become refugees as a result of events occurring in Europe. 16 While IDPs are certainly entitled to the general protections of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, they are not regarded as having a particular legal status under international law at the universal level, in the sense that no particular legal rights attach to this category of persons. However, specific protections are afforded at the regional level. The African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (“Kampala Convention”) provides a legal definition for IDPs and entails particular obligations for states parties in relation to their treatment. 14

40  Handbook on forced migration with respect to this element that regional and domestic legal definitions of refugee vary, typically by broadening the types of feared harm that will qualify an individual for refugee status. Examples of such regional definitions are found in the Organization of African Unity’s (now African Union) Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa,17 and in the Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, both of which include a much broader spectrum of harms.18 Although the Cartagena Declaration is not a treaty, and thus not a legally binding instrument, this definition has been adopted in the domestic law of a number of Latin American states. This further underscores the point that the definition of refugee also varies under national law. States are free to define the term “refugee” as they see fit, subject to their international obligations. As international law sets forth minimum standards, each state that is bound by international refugee law is free to adopt a broader definition than that set forth in the rules of international law applicable to that state.19 Of course, if a state adopts a narrower definition than that required by applicable international law, then that state would likely wind up in breach of its international obligations. Practice within a given legal system may also put a gloss on legal terminology, adding an additional layer of potential confusion. For example, within the US legal system the term “refugee” is used to refer to individuals abroad who have been determined to be refugees, typically by a third party such as UNHCR. Thus, when the US government speaks of “refugees” it is typically in the context of the formal process of resettling refugees from abroad, as opposed to those refugees who enter the US and who may apply for asylum. This latter group of individuals is typically referred to as “asylum-seekers” or, if granted asylum, “asylees”. Hence, when the US speaks of a “refugee cap”,20 it is referring only to the number of refugees being resettled from abroad through official channels, and does not include refugees who have entered or otherwise find themselves in the US. There is no “cap” on this latter group of refugees. International refugee law confers a broad range of legal protections on refugees. These obligations primarily apply to the state in which the refugees are located. The level of protection

OAU Convention governing the specific aspects of refugee problems in Africa, 9 October 1969, 1001 U.N.T.S. 45. According to art. 1(2), the term “refugee” also includes “every person who, owing to external aggression, occupation, foreign domination or events seriously disturbing public order in either part or the whole of his country of origin or nationality, is compelled to leave his place of habitual residence in order to seek refuge in another place outside his country of origin or nationality.” 18 Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama, 22 November 1984, The Declaration recommends that states in the region expand the refugee definition to include “persons who have fled their country because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.” 19 For example, the definition of refugee under US law includes, under certain circumstances, persons who have not crossed a border or are otherwise still within their country of nationality or habitual residence. See: Immigration and Nationality, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101(a)(42) (1986). 20 “Joe Biden raises Trump refugee cap after backlash”, BBC News, 4 May 2021, https://​www​ .bbc​.com/​news/​world​-us​-canada​-56975402; Sean Sullivan, “Biden says he will raise refugee cap from 15,000 to 62,500, after widespread criticism for extending Trump-era levels”, Washington Post, 3 May 2021, https://​www​.washingtonpost​.com/​politics/​biden​-refugee/​2021/​05/​03/​1b833126​-ac4d​-11eb​-ab4c​ -986555a1c511​_story​.html. 17

Migrant categorization under international, regional, and national law  41 varies according to such factors as whether their presence is lawful21 and the duration of their presence in the territory. One of the most important protections is the requirement of non-refoulement.22 In the words of the Refugee Convention, “No Contracting State shall expel or return (‘refouler’) a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.”23 However, refugees are not the only group to whom this type of protection applies. Victims (Actual or Potential) of Torture and Enforced Disappearance International law also expressly imposes an obligation of non-refoulement in relation to actual or potential victims of torture or enforced disappearance. In particular, this protection exists for individuals where “there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture”,24 and when “there are substantial grounds for believing that he or she would be in danger of being subjected to enforced disappearance”.25 For states to comply with their treaty obligations, they must determine whether migrants are potential victims of torture or enforced disappearance in light of the legal definitions of these crimes. Article 1 of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment defines torture as: any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.

The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance defines enforced disappearance as: the arrest, detention, abduction or any other form of deprivation of liberty by agents of the State or by persons or groups of persons acting with the authorization, support or acquiescence of the State, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person, which place such a person outside the protection of the law.

21 Lawful presence is determined by domestic law. Note that art. 31 of the Refugee Convention provides for non-penalization of irregular entry in certain circumstances. It is unclear, however, whether the obligation of non-penalization converts an otherwise unlawful presence into lawful presence. 22 This protection is particularly important in the absence of a grant of asylum. While refugees have the right to request asylum, they do not have the right to have asylum granted. The obligation of non-refoulement helps to ensure that they will not be expelled to a place where they would face persecution. 23 Refugee Convention, art. 33(1). 24 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, art. 3(1), 10 December 1984, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85. 25 International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, art. 16(1), 20 December 2006, 2716 U.N.T.S. 3.

42  Handbook on forced migration Notably, both crimes require some degree of state involvement, with acquiescence as the necessary minimum. While these crimes may overlap with the persecution feared by refugees, they are distinct in several respects. They are narrower by limiting the category to potential victims of a more specifically defined type of harm. Yet they are also broader by not requiring that the harm be inflicted on discriminatory grounds. Thus, it is possible to be a potential victim of one of these crimes and not be a refugee, and vice versa. In addition, most international and regional human rights bodies have found that the obligation of non-refoulement applies to all those who would face particularly serious human rights violations in the country to which they would be sent, even if the respective human rights treaty makes no express reference to such an obligation. According to these bodies, this obligation includes certain serious violations of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the European Convention on Human Rights, among others. This much broader swath of protections further demonstrates the false conception of refugees as the exclusive subjects of international legal protection of a humanitarian nature. Smuggled Migrant International law provides certain protections for smuggled migrants. Migrant smuggling is subject to a suppression regime set forth in the Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air (2000), which is one of three protocols supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. In addition to requiring the adoption of suppression measures under domestic law, the Protocol also imposes certain obligations of protection and assistance for migrants who have been smuggled, with a particular focus on positive obligations to protect them from violence that may result from having been smuggled.26 Article 3(a) of the Protocol defines “Smuggling of migrants” as “the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident”. The language “in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit”, is particularly noteworthy. The goal of obtaining a benefit is key to distinguishing migrant smuggling from humanitarian assistance measures that might also lead to illegal entry. A separate protocol to the same convention creates a suppression regime for human trafficking. Victim of Human Trafficking Victims of human trafficking are entitled to specific protections under Articles 6 to 8 of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which also supplements the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. As one might expect, the protections for victims of human trafficking are more expansive than those afforded to smuggled migrants, including an obligation to “con Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, art. 16, 15 November 2000, 2241 U.N.T.S. 480. See also art. 5. 26

Migrant categorization under international, regional, and national law  43 sider adopting legislative or other appropriate measures that permit victims of trafficking in persons to remain in its territory, temporarily or permanently, in appropriate cases”.27 Under Article 3(a) of the Protocol, “Trafficking in persons” is defined as: The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.

While the two protocols were drafted according to a conception that migrant smuggling and human trafficking are distinct phenomena, there is a considerable overlap in practice. A key distinction between human trafficking and migrant smuggling is the requirement that deceptive or abusive means have been employed against the victim, and that the traffickers must have an exploitive purpose.28 However, given the coercive circumstances in which smuggled migrants tend to find themselves, and the willingness of smugglers to exploit the resulting vulnerability, the line between trafficking and smuggling tends to blur. Despite this blurring, the determination of whether an individual falls under one, the other, or both of the Protocols has significant legal consequences, both in terms of available legal protections, as well as, of course, criminal consequences for perpetrators.

CONCLUSION A person on the move could be any or all of the following: a migrant, an irregular migrant, a smuggled migrant, a victim of human trafficking, a potential victim of torture or enforced disappearance, a refugee, a migrant worker, and an asylum-seeker. All are entitled to some degree of legal protection under international law, and individuals may fall into several of these categories at the same time. This spectrum of overlapping categories makes it clear that migration is more “mixed” than most would suppose. The various categories encompass a vast array of circumstances, necessitating individualized assessments to determine whether and to what extent a migrant is entitled to the protection of international, regional, and/or national law. Ultimately, “mixed migration” is not a particularly useful term beyond simply pointing out that people are complex creatures. Its importance lies mainly in signifying resistance to coarse characterizations of migrant groups, and in its insistence on the necessity of individualized assessments.

Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, art. 7(1), 15 November 2000, 2237 U.N.T.S. 319. 28 Note that in the case of children, article 3(c) removes the requirement that deceptive or abusive means be employed. It provides, “The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered ‘trafficking in persons’ even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article …”. 27

44  Handbook on forced migration

BIBLIOGRAPHY BBC News. “Joe Biden raises Trump refugee cap after backlash”. BBC News, 4 May 2021. https://​www​ .bbc​.com/​news/​world​-us​-canada​-56975402. BBC News. “Lampedusa: More than 1,000 Migrants Arrive on Italian Island”. BBC News, 9 May 2021. https://​www​.bbc​.com/​news/​world​-europe​-57049130. IOM. “Glossary on Migration”. No. 34. Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2019. Accessed 1 June 2021. https://​publications​.iom​.int/​system/​files/​pdf/​iml​_34​_glossary​.pdf. Sullivan, Sean. “Biden says he will raise refugee cap from 15,000 to 62,500, after widespread criticism for extending Trump-era levels”. Washington Post, 3 May 2021. https://​www​.washingtonpost​.com/​ politics/​biden​-refugee/​2021/​05/​03/​1b833126​-ac4d​-11eb​-ab4c​-986555a1c511​_story​.html. United Nations. Statement by delegate of Russian Federation. Preparatory (stocktaking) meeting of the Intergovernmental Conference to adopt a Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. Day 2, Action Group 6. 5 December 2017. http://​webtv​.un​.org/​topics​-issues/​global​-issues/​ refugees/​watch/​day​-2​-action​-group​-6​-preparatory​-stocktaking​-meeting​-of​-the​-intergovernmental​ -conference​-to​-adopt​-a​-global​-compact​-for​-safe​-orderly​-and​-regular​-migration​-4​-december​-2017/​ 5671060450001/​?term​=​&​lan​=​original.

PART II PHILOSOPHY

4. Philosophy of forced migration: Sit at the table or knock it over Hervé Nicolle

To speak of a philosophy of migration, and in particular of forced migration, seems perilous when the few courageous ones who have made the effort to tackle the subject note that philosophy has continuously ignored the question of migration. In a recent book, Donatella Di Cesare says, for example, that there is ‘still no philosophy of migration. We lack either a reflection on migration or a reflection that revolves around the migrants themselves […] Through disinterest, ignorance or amnesia, philosophy has not recognized the citizenship rights of the migrant.’1 This lack seems to mimic, provocatively, the politics of exclusion that are now the norm in an increasingly hermetic and exclusive Western world. Is this an oversight or underestimation of what the periphery can teach us about our political models? Or is the difficulty to address issues of forced displacement and mobility intrinsic to the discipline and the philosophical process? This Part addresses why, although philosophy – as a discipline – seems to be uncomfortable with migration and displacement, a philosophical perspective on migration is even more necessary today.

FROM THE FIGURE OF THE STRANGER TO TODAY’S FORCED MIGRANTS The philosophical tradition has often approached political questions through the figure of the exile or the foreigner. Rooted in the respect to ‘hospitable Zeus’ and the favorable welcome given to people from elsewhere (philoxenia), the figure of the Stranger is central in Plato’s philosophy, both in a text with a political scope like the Laws and in a dialogue with a more epistemological aim like The Sophist. In the first dialogue, Clinias the Cretan and Megillus the Lacedemonian build in words a just city under the guidance of an anonymous Athenian, a stranger to the city, and are confronted with the question of geographical but also political borders. Thinking about the stranger and citizenship, and the outside and the inside of the city, implies holding together the different and the identical, which exerts a constraint on the modalities of public hospitality reserved for the stranger. But the Stranger of the Laws comes from nowhere, just as Socrates himself is described as atopos in the Phaedrus2 or the Symposium.3 Donatella Di Cesare, Resident Foreigners: A Philosophy of Migration, Wiley, 2020. Plato, Phaedrus, 230c. Translation by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. From Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper. Hackett Publishing, 1997. Atopos can be translated as unclassifiable, placeless, or ‘not following the beaten path’. 3 Plato, The Symposium, 215a. Translation by Margaret C. Howatson, edited by Frisbee C.C. Sheffield, Cambridge University Press, 2008. In the Banquet, Alcibiades reproaches Socrates for his atopia (tên sên atopian), which can be translated as eccentricity, a central characteristic of the philosopher’s figure as well as of his philosophy. 1 2

46

Philosophy of forced migration  47 The Stranger is no one in particular, his is a theoretical and practical function, that of the difference, politically constitutive in Plato’s eyes, between being of the city and not being of it. The figures of the stranger, the exile, even the nomad are thus used as third figures, different from both the author and the reader, to reproduce the philosopher’s thought. Philosophy traditionally uses the stranger as a form of auxiliary, a useful periphery to think our centrality, our metaphysical dilemmas, our political problems, our moral incoherence. The stranger becomes a lens through which to understand the world and an actor that sets boundaries. The displaced person of our time is not the Platonic ‘stranger’, but a historically rooted figure, who demonstrates the limits of a national conception of citizenship. The crux of the problem can be summarized briefly. The universality of human rights requires every human being to be a citizen of a specific country (or countries). According to most countries’ constitution, each citizen can assert his or her rights before a political power, that of his or her country. But what happens when individuals are forced by the political or economic conditions of their country to seek elsewhere the conditions of a free existence – or even of a minimal survival? Outside the country of which he or she is a full citizen, every individual is de facto but also de jure a foreigner, left to the leniency or political calculation of governments. Hannah Arendt provided an essential problematization of this question, based on her personal situation (in the article ‘We refugees’4) and in the specific context of Europe after the First World War (in The Origins of Totalitarianism5). In the latter, Arendt uses the image of the ‘scum of the earth’ to imagine what has taken shape between borders, the dross of an earth now sculpted by borders: the stateless, the undocumented, the refugees, caught between two national borders, who appear as a surplus, as a remnant, as foreign or unwanted bodies. They have no right to any place in the new world order and give rise to what Arendt describes as a new race of ‘superfluous’. Arendt was the first to identify forced migration as a mass phenomenon. She reflected on what defined the era, at a time when the decline of the nation-state was not yet complete. The attempt to make the borders of European states conform to nations has led to profound contradictions: the impossibility of guaranteeing the rights of anyone who is not a citizen of a given nation. This is a problem for the global system of states, because it is precisely those who are condemned to statelessness and deprived of the rights guaranteed by citizenship who are most in need of defense and protection. When, in the course of the twentieth century, the masses of foreigners deprived of citizenship and legal protection burst onto the scene of history, the problem appeared in all its gravity. Arendt also warns us that between the totalitarian state and the democratic state there is only a difference of degree, not of kind, for the mass production of displaced persons in the limbo of international law is a particular feature of the nation-state itself. Arendt thus poses the question of the reception of those who are left on the margins of an increasingly globalized and global humanity – those who are denied the very possibility of participating in a common world. In the absence of a ‘right to have rights’, those who should be most protected are marked with the seal of superfluity. They are then turned away, deported and interned. Taking a critical perspective on Arendt, Megan Bradley questions the relevance of the representation of refugees as lawless and stateless, as ‘scum of the earth’. In today’s context, 4 Hannah Arendt, ‘We refugees’, in The Jew as Pariah. Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age, New York: Grove Press, 1978, pp. 55–66. First publication in The Menorah Journal, 1943, pp. 69–77. 5 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism. London: Penguin Modern Classics, 1951.

48  Handbook on forced migration this characterization has become anachronistic and inaccurate. Bradley notes that: ‘since the mid-1980s, states’ answer to this question has been to reframe the refugee problem so that the displaced are no longer seen as stateless and rightless, but as citizens of their state of origin, with the right to return in safety and dignity.’6 Drawing on case studies, including that of Guatemalan refugees who have fled to Mexico or the United States, Bradley shows how repatriation can become a source of empowerment for the displaced, but also how they contribute to political debates in their country of origin. As emphasized by David Turton, the danger of adopting the Arendtian position in an uncritical way is therefore to ‘treat the displaced as fundamentally flawed human beings, as lacking what it takes to be social agents and historical subjects. It is to see them … as a category of “passive victims” who exist to be assisted, managed, regimented and controlled.’7 At the heart of this critique lies what is at stake in any philosophy of forced migration: two ways of thinking about forced migrants. Arendt’s view sees forced migrants as reduced to simple naked lives, atoms of vulnerability deprived of their rights, of their political nature, of their very humanity. Bradley’s critique explores the forms of political subjectivation to which the lives of forced migrants bear witness, and takes into account the real experience of forced migration. In other words, the philosophical challenge is to imagine a philosophy from migration (and not only an analysis focusing on migration).

A DEBATE THAT IGNORES THE EXPERIENCE OF FORCED MIGRANTS The critical and constructive task of formulating a philosophy from migration has not been at the center of philosophical attempts to explain contemporary migration. We limit ourselves here to the analysis of the communitarian positions of Walzer and Wellman, and the so-called cosmopolitan approach of Carens. Their positions are indicative of the contemporary way in which issues of forced migration are treated – often in a partial or even biased way – by philosophers. (Their positions also reflect the ways in which governments, United Nations agencies, and non-governmental organizations approach the migration issue in strategic and programmatic terms.) Here I want to consider this unusual alignment of the philosopher and the politician, as a symptom of a critical deficit on the part of the former. In a world of well-ordered states, often quick to externalize asylum claims as well as erect walls, the critical question – philosophical or political – concerns the government of migratory movements. Should we welcome or not welcome migrants? How to distinguish between the refugees, and other migrants? Philosophers ask whether, and to what extent, the political contract can be extended to newcomers without undermining the welfare state, and the order, solidarity, resources and security of the national community. Michael Walzer has had lasting

Megan Bradley, ‘Rethinking refugeehood: statelessness, repatriation, and refugee agency’, Review of International Studies, 40(1), 2014, pp. 101–23. 7 David Turton, ‘The meaning of place in a world of movement’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 18(3), 2003, p. 278 (cited by Megan Bradley). This judgment could also be applied to Giorgio Agamben’s interpretation of the Arendtian theses in his book Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998. For a critique of his argument, see Patricia Owens, ‘Reclaiming “bare life”?: Against Agamben on refugees’, International Relations, 23(4), 2009, pp. 567–82. 6

Philosophy of forced migration  49 influence on this debate. He poses the question of whether countries are obliged to admit migrants. Out of the larger group of migrants, refugees pose a real philosophical question insofar as they ‘make the most forceful claim for admission. If you don’t take me in,’ they say, ‘I shall be killed, persecuted, brutally oppressed by the rulers of my own country.’ In other words, admission is the only recourse and the only way to honor our moral obligations to them: ‘claims cannot be met by yielding territory or exporting wealth, but only by taking people in’. As such, Walzer considers that we have an obligation to help strangers in need, an obligation that is rooted in the principle of solidarity or mutual aid, also known as the Good Samaritan principle: if two strangers meet and one needs help, the second should help if the need is urgent and the cost of assistance relatively low. Yet states retain control over immigration and admission, and have discretion over which forced migrants to admit and how many: ‘At some level of political organization, something like the sovereign state must take shape and claim the authority to make its own admissions policy’.8 The root of Walzer’s argument is that political communities9 need territorialized closure in order to preserve their fundamental character as a culture and group. Walzer writes: ‘The distinctiveness of culture and groups depends upon closure and without it, cannot be conceived as a stable feature of human life.’ Those outside the community are condemned to have nothing, while those inside, members of the community, can participate in distributive justice. Membership is the constitutive pillar of the community, a precious good whose allocation cannot be entrusted to any external authority. Contemporary positions, such as Wellman’s, present a deepening of Walzer’s position and the intellectual underpinning of widespread political narratives. Deepening, first of all. On other premises, since Wellman starts from a homology between the right of individuals (freedom of association, as in marriage or religion, cooperatives) and a right of states to free association. This allows, according to Wellman, to have ‘dominion over ourselves – regarding affairs’.10 Just as an individual has a right to determine who he or she wants to marry, citizens also have a right to determine who will share their political lives and can therefore legitimately choose to exclude those with whom they do not want to. Certainly, our duty to help the poor in other countries is rooted in our ‘natural duty to assist others when we can at no unreasonable cost to ourselves’. But these duties can be fulfilled without having to allow immigration to our countries and citizenship. Wellman uses an analogy: just as no one would demand that a person who wanted to fight poverty be forced to marry a poor person, so too rich countries cannot be asked to fight global poverty by admitting the world’s poor. Wellman insists instead that we can find other ways to help refugees than resettlement or integration: in particular, we can ‘export justice’, through military intervention to restore an unjust political environment and ensure the safety of potential asylum seekers. Wellman and Walzer provide an intellectual underpinning for today’s hegemonic narratives. One is surprised, as is Serena Parekh,11 that Walzer and Wellman never ask what happens to

Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality. Basic Books, 1983. The political community is understood as the sharing of a linguistic, historical, social, cultural world, as a set of goods both common and specific to the members of this community, which share constitution, laws, public goods and services, systems of social insurance and solidarity, and so on. 10 Christopher Heath Wellman, ‘Immigration and freedom of association’. Ethics, 119(1), 2008, pp. 109–41. 11 Serena Parekh, No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis. Oxford University Press, 2020. 8 9

50  Handbook on forced migration forced migrants whom states exclude on the basis of preserving communities of character. For them, forced migrants are those people who flee persecution in relatively small numbers and who can seek relief from states on the basis of mutual aid and affinity. Walzer remains silent about forced migrants who are de facto refugees but cannot appeal to rich countries on the basis of political, cultural or racial affinity. Prolonged encampment and long-term displacement, often the result of states working to preserve their ‘communities of character’, are never posed as moral problems. Do cosmopolitan philosophers have a different worldview today? Is their approach based more on the primacy of the universal over sovereign particularism? Joseph Carens’ essay, ‘Aliens and citizens: the case for open borders’, published in 1991, is a direct response to Walzer’s position.12 For Carens, the sovereign position is not tenable insofar as it contravenes fundamental individual freedoms and in particular the freedom of movement – to emigrate and to immigrate – marked by a dissymmetry between the right to emigrate and the right to immigrate: ‘Citizenship in Western democracies is the modern equivalent of feudal class privilege – an inherited status that greatly enhances one’s life chances.’ Place of birth is as arbitrary as skin color, family background, gender, and so on, and can contribute to creating or reinforcing inequalities between individuals, which is not morally acceptable. Carens is well aware that adherence to this position overturns not only the communitarian approach, but also opinion and common sense, through a delinking of nation (derived from the Latin nascor, to be born) and state framework. To support his point, he makes a theoretical gesture that takes up and extends John Rawls’ veil of ignorance13 beyond the framework of the nation-state: if one were to ask each person, under conditions of a veil of ignorance involving not knowing his or her place of birth and residence, what his or her position would be on the migration question, he or she would reply that residence is contingent and that citizenship is an artificial privilege comparable to class arbitrariness. Since immigration does not pose a threat to national security, Carens claims, only a maximalist position appears logically defensible: it is not legitimate to restrict or reduce entry from one territory to another. Carens provides diametrically opposed answers to Walzer or Wellman on the question of the right to migration, but one is struck by his abstract reduction of the migratory experience – ‘the pedestrian flatness of individuals moving back and forth’14 in the words of Donatella Di Cesare – without ever questioning the real conditions of mobility. Mobility and forced migration cannot be reduced to an abstract space of exchange between rational agents, equally informed, endowed with the same resources and able to achieve their objectives with the same ease. By interrogating forced migration only with the grammar of inclusion/exclusion and citizenship, both the sovereign and cosmopolitan positions ignore the concrete experience of mobility and the political character of forced migration.

12 Joseph Carens, ‘Aliens and citizens: The case for open borders’. Review of Politics, 49(2), 1987, pp. 251–73. 13 John Rawls, A Theory of Justice: Original Edition. Harvard University Press, 1971. 14 Donatella Di Cesare, Resident Foreigners: A Philosophy of Migration. Wiley, 2020.

Philosophy of forced migration  51

PHILOSOPHERS’ DENIAL AND THE EXPERIENCE OF FREEDOM Forced migration brings the conflict between philosophy and politics into sharp focus. Hannah Arendt, in Between Past and Future,15 says that political philosophy has been constructed as a theory to protect the philosopher from the experience of freedom and community. Political philosophy installs the philosopher in an ivory tower from which he can contemplate the world from an external point of view. In the essay ‘What is freedom?’, Arendt shows that the philosophical tradition has imposed a concept of metaphysical freedom distinct from the experience of effective political freedom. This importation from the metaphysical field into the political field has gradually replaced the actual political experience of freedom. The effects are damaging, because this philosophical experience consisted in positing that freedom was equivalent to self-determination, to the exercise of sovereignty over oneself, which gradually turned into domination over others. Inspired by Stoic, Christian, and in particular Augustinian thought, according to a genealogy that Hannah Arendt traces in her essay, this tradition identifies freedom with removing obstacles in the way of one’s will. Freedom is equated with the will; and the free act with the capacity to do what one wants. This import-conversion of the experience of freedom from the real political field to the metaphysical abstraction has important consequences. On the one hand, freedom becomes the attribute of an individual agent, a subject or a State and is no longer a relation to another. On the other hand, the great political question, which will find its almost complete formulation with Rousseau, becomes that of the general will, that is, of sovereignty. Thinkers as distinct as Walzer, Wellman and Carens, who between them cover all the possible nuances in the debate on forced displacement, are in this sense the heirs of this dominant anti-political tradition. I can only hint here at the fatal consequences for political theory of this equation of freedom with the human capacity to will; it was one of the causes why even today we almost automatically equate power with oppression or, at least, with rule over others.16

This abstract, metaphysical and anti-political understanding of freedom prevails in the analysis of migration by philosophers, but also in the sociological, legal or economic fields. For liberal philosophers – a spectrum that goes from the communitarian positions of Walzer or Wellman to the cosmopolitanism of Carens – freedom has different faces, whether it is self-determination, freedom of choice, deliberation, or agency, but it remains a sovereignty or co-sovereignty constitutive of identity. Their conceptual framework for thinking about national sovereignty as well as the place of migrants (acceptable or undesirable) is based on such an idea of freedom as free will. Against this conceptualization, Arendt summons another experience, that of Athenian democracy. Freedom is not the attribute of a subject, it is a political relationship that is situated with, by, for and from others. Arendt thus dissociates freedom from the will to associate 15 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. In a slightly different perspective, more focused on refugees’ subjecthood, see Cindy Horst and Odin Lysaker, ‘Miracles in dark times: Hannah Arendt and Refugees as “Vanguard”’. Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(1), March 2021, pp. 67–84. 16 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.

52  Handbook on forced migration it with equality. It is a question of rethinking freedom in terms of equality and no longer of sovereignty or omnipotence, of discretionary power over others. By thinking of freedom as the capacity to begin something rather than to dominate something, we realize that freedom is neither conceivable nor realizable without a relationship to a plurality of individuals. The field where freedom has always been known, not as a problem, to be sure, but as a fact of everyday life, is the political realm. And even today, whether we know it or not, the question of politics and the fact that man is a being endowed with the gift of action must always be present to our mind when we speak of the problem of freedom; for action and politics, among all the capabilities and potentialities of human life, are the only things of which we could not even conceive without at least assuming that freedom exists, and we can hardly touch a single political issue without, implicitly or explicitly, touching upon an issue of man’s liberty.17

From such a perspective, the ‘community of belonging’ of which Walzer speaks – and which contemporary migration management policies more or less echo – appears to be unpolitical, stuck on a conception of identity as a fence between a compartmentalized interior and a fantasized exterior. In this light, thinking about the transversality of migration is not only confusing for a philosopher, it is also threatening because it challenges the established frameworks of political philosophy, based on a Westphalian division of states, a sovereignist and territorial conception of politics, and an association of citizenship rooted in nationality, all of which are underpinned by an abstract, metaphysical and anti-political understanding of freedom. In order to defend its conceptual stock in trade, philosophy would somehow be doomed to think about forced migration, the status of refugees and stateless people, only in terms of sovereignty and inclusion/exclusion. A working hypothesis for thinking about philosophical embarrassment on the issue of forced migration thus leans towards a blockage, a denial18 inscribed in the philosophical gesture itself. Everything that should be critically questioned is instead taken for granted – borders, sovereignty, territory, citizenship, community, and by implication identity itself. Moreover, philosophy refrains from understanding, from a phenomenological, ethnographic or existential approach, the point of view of the displaced in transit through inhospitable corridors: ‘hence the absence of human feeling in a philosophy that exhausts itself in working on norms and definitions, without bringing out the existential nakedness of the one who arrives after having lived an extreme situation.’19 What is the use of philosophers then?

SEEING FORCED MIGRANTS FROM A RELATIONAL AND PLURAL PERSPECTIVE This overview of existing positions shows why it is urgent to give back to philosophy a critical efficiency by questioning its de facto legitimization of political powers as well as its alignment with the dominant discourses of neoliberal hegemony. The objective of this section of the book

Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought. New York: Penguin Books, 2006. 18 We borrow the idea of a denial at the heart of political philosophy from Catherine Malabou, Au Voleur! Anarchisme et Philosophie. Paris, PUF, 2022. 19 Donatella Di Cesare, Resident Foreigners: A Philosophy of Migration. Wiley, 2020. 17

Philosophy of forced migration  53 is therefore to explore how a philosophy of forced migration can be constructed according to a relational perspective, which starts from the very fact of plurality and goes beyond sovereignty and territoriality. Extending Hannah Arendt’s thought on the experience of freedom as plurality, Seyla Benhabib underlines that ‘peoples are radically and not merely episodically interdependent’.20 This existential interdependence creates a complex arrangement that links institutional systems, historical strata, but also individual destinies: ‘the international system of peoples and states is characterized by such extensive interdependencies and the historical crisscrossing of fates and fortunes that the scope of special as well as general moral obligations to our fellow human beings far transcends the perspective of the territorially bounded state-centric system’. Basically, it is a matter of understanding justice and obligations towards the displaced from a more global, interconnected, interdependent perspective, which deposes (but does not annihilate) the exorbitant privilege granted to stato-centric constructions. Judith Butler’s most recent works on vulnerability, inspired in particular by the work of Melanie Klein, refer to this same idea with relationality: ‘Let’s face it. We’re undone by each other. And if we’re not, we’re missing something.’21 Butler does not deny individuality, but she sees it as structurally made and unmade through a network of sensitive, embodied relationships. It is thus the relation itself that is ontologically primary and that allows the distinction between inside and outside. Such an approach allows the overcoming of the liberal theory, according to which the last constituents of the society are individuals understood as substances, in favor of a relational social ontology for which what are primary in the social reality are living sets of relations which are produced, made and unmade by their very relations. The subjects are not entities, separate substances, but the effects of a network of relations through which the subject and the object, the inside and the outside constitute and call each other. On the basis of this recognition of our experience of freedom as plurality (Arendt, Benhabib) and of our relational being (Butler) – that is to say of our fragility and precariousness, without real sovereignty or self-sufficiency – it is then a question of fighting together for the advent of more livable relational modes. From then on, the philosopher can neither adopt a position of overhang nor pretend to be the spokesman of the oppressed, the refugees, the subalterns. One thinks, for example, of the auto-ethnographic work of Shahram Khosravi, at the crossroads of anthropology, philosophy and migration studies.22 The author succeeds in showing how the experience of crossing borders has literally crossed his life, how the labels (asylum seeker, refugee) have modified his gaze and that of others, how bodies are penetrated by the feeling of illegality. It is a philosophical document about shame – the shame of the displaced, the shame of the reader, the shame that is not felt by institutional devices and state apparatuses. This concern for relationality is also what this Part of the book sketches out, by offering perspectives to nourish dialogue and reflection beyond disciplinary boundaries. The interviews in this Part propose a toolbox by using concepts and notions that encourage thinking about forced

Seyla Benhabib, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (The Seeley Lectures). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 21 Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. Verso, 2004. See also the collective publication by Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay (editors), Vulnerability in Resistance. Duke University Press, 2016. 22 Shahram Khosravi, “Illegal” Traveller: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders. Basingstoke, UK and New York, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. 20

54  Handbook on forced migration migration according to a practice of discontinuous questioning. This question-and-answer approach seeks to follow the rhythm of philosophical questioning to present some key concepts of each author, but also to exchange, dig, question, and open up new avenues. Epistemological issues: A first set of interviews brings together two figures of migration studies to discuss issues of knowledge and discourse. The ‘empirical social scientist’ Oliver Bakewell and the feminist geographer Jennifer Hyndman share a transdisciplinary and critical approach. In particular, Oliver Bakewell interrogates the words of migration, probing the relevance and legitimacy of key notions of forced displacement – starting with the voluntary/forced migration pairing. What is the danger of using categories such as ‘vulnerability’ or terms such as ‘migration management’ in an unreasonable way? The interview also analyzes the multiplication of ‘best practices’ in place of norms and law. Finally, through an interpretation of the narratives and storytelling of the different actors of forced displacement (displaced people, mediators, NGOs, police, government), Bakewell identifies the language games specific to the field of asylum and law. Jennifer Hyndman proceeds to a genealogy of the neoliberal turn and moment over the last twenty years, studying the symptoms of the progressive alignment of a political rationality that has become dominant with spatialization practices and geo-economic strategies. Faced with this, it is important to know how to suspend the desire to fix things by attacking superficial and apparent causes. Feminist geography, on the other hand, traces a possible path of resistance through the production of a situated, contextualized knowledge, a knowledge that allows transformations in the fields of practices and discourses. Ethical questions: The second series of interviews questions more directly the ethical issues of migration. The philosopher Serena Parekh, inspired by Arendt, seeks to situate our responsibility – in the double sense of this word (to answer for oneself and to answer for others). Serena Parekh notes that the vast majority of forced displacement (as well as so-called economic migration) is a legacy of the colonial past, imported wars, contemporary neoliberal reforms, as well as the consequences of climate change for which the most industrialized countries bear responsibility. In this context, the only legitimate question on which to base both a philosophy and a politics of migration must be: what do we owe to human beings, as human beings? In this interview, Parekh shows how critical it is to rehumanize the displaced by creating meaningful and life-giving interpersonal relationships, by putting her thoughts in dialogue with the contemporary feminist theories of Iris Young, Gillian Brock or Alison Jaggar. Political issues: The third series of interviews proposes to widen the analytical angle beyond the issues of forced displacement, in order to better diagnose this phenomenon as a symptom. Although he does not present himself as a specialist in migration, the thinker Jacques Rancière is here put indirectly in dialogue with Seyla Benhabib to think genealogically about the emergence of a rationality and political narratives concomitant with the ‘Age of Migrations’.23 Jacques Rancière invites us to place questions of forced displacement in a broader historical and genealogical perspective by questioning the co-emergence of ‘absolutized capitalism’ and a consensus that is both anti-democratic and racist in European countries, echoing Nancy

To use the title of the classic book by Stephen Castles, Hein De Haas and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration, International Population Movements in the Modern World, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 5th edn, 2013. 23

Philosophy of forced migration  55 Fraser on the North American continent.24 By extending the questions of migration to other struggles for emancipation and equality, Rancière highlights some of the forms of contemporary political action, underlining the intrinsic positivity of these moments and spaces of emancipation wrested from the unequal order of domination. Finally, he questions the capacity of fiction – and of cinema in particular – to politically represent the existence of migrants. Seyla Benhabib takes a critical look at the limits of the contemporary system of migration governance, emphasizing the imperative of decriminalizing displacement. Drawing in particular on the Kantian and Arendtian legacies, Benhabib deciphers the strategic and ideological implementations of states (or federations of states) to manage those they do not want to welcome on their territory. Whether it is a question of rebordering or crimmigration, the philosopher identifies the connections between neo-liberalism and practices of exclusion and rejection, in order to enable us to think on new bases, equipped with new values. Tanella Boni offers a philosopher’s and poet’s view to better highlight the link between human beings, a link woven of words and silence. She reminds us that the human being is a speaking being before being a politician or a citizen. This bond of co-responsibility from one human to another is also what Edouard Glissant called the relationship. Boni makes it the heart of our condition to others and the engine of a renewed theoretical and practical approach to issues of forced displacement. We hope that through the interdisciplinarity of the contributors, the multiplicity of points of view, the discontinuity of the remarks, the very rhythm of the interview, this section will show that philosophy is not meant to sit at the table of experts, taking up the concepts and frameworks of domination or sovereignty. This would be to forget that the determinants of forced displacement and the question of whether or not to accept refugees are simply the results of growing economic inequalities. From this point of view, it is probably more a question of turning the table upside down rather than sitting at it. In contrast to philosophical attempts marked by the primacy of the nation-state and a metaphysical understanding of sovereignty, it is increasingly urgent to think about the conditions of possibility of a real politics from migration, that is, based on a critique of hegemonic discourses and an attention to the relational character within a plurality of communities and individuals. All vulnerable, all precarious, all interdependent. This is the challenge and the urgency of the philosophy of migration today.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Agamben, Giorgio, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press, 1998. Agier, Michel, ‘La lutte des mobilités. Catégories administratives et anthropologiques de la migration précaire’, in La Crise de l’Accueil: Frontières, Droits, Résistances, edited by Annalisa Lendaro, Paris: La Découverte, 2019, pp. 81–95. Arendt, Hannah, ‘We refugees’, in The Jew as Pariah: Jewish Identity and Politics in the Modern Age. New York: Grove Press, 1978, pp. 55–66. First publication in The Menorah Journal, 1943, pp. 69–77. Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianism, London: Penguin Modern Classics, 1951. Arendt, Hannah, Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, New York: Penguin Books, 2006. Bagelman, Jen, Sanctuary City: A Suspended State, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.

Nancy Fraser, The Old is Dying and the New Cannot be Born, Verso Pamphlets, 2019.

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56  Handbook on forced migration Bakewell, Oliver, ‘Research beyond the categories: The importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 21(4), December 2008, pp. 432–53. Bakewell, Oliver, ‘Unsettling the boundaries between forced and voluntary migration’, Handbook on the Politics and Governance of Migration edited by Emma Carmel, Katharina Lenner and Regine Paul, Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021. Balibar, Etienne, ‘Is there a “Neo-Racism”?’, in Race and Racialization: Essential Readings, edited by T. das Gupta, pp. 83–8, Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2007. Bauman, Zygmunt, Liquid Modernity, Polity Press, 2000. Benhabib, Seyla, The Rights of Others: Aliens, Residents, and Citizens (The Seeley Lectures), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Benhabib, Seyla, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. Benhabib, Seyla, The end of the 1951 refugee convention? Dilemmas of sovereignty, territoriality, and human rights. Jus Cogens, 2(1), 2020, pp. 75–100. Benhabib, Seyla and Daniele Archibugi, ‘Toward a converging cosmopolitan project?’, with Mariano Croce. OpenDemocracy.org, 2010. Boni, Tanella, ‘Qu’est-ce qu’une vie digne?’, Diogène, 253(1), 2016, pp. 110–125. Boni, Tanella, ‘Les mots et les images de la relation entre l’un et l’autre’, Diogène, 267–268(3–4), 2019, pp. 140–159. Bradley, Megan, ‘Rethinking refugeehood: Statelessness, repatriation, and refugee agency’, Review of International Studies, 40(1), 2014, pp. 101–23. Brown, Wendy, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution, Zone Books, 2015. Butler, Judith, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, Verso, 2004. Butler, Judith, ‘Rethinking vulnerability and resistance’, in Vulnerability in Resistance edited by Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay, pp. 12–27, Durham, USA and London, UK: Duke University Press, 2016. Carens, Joseph, ‘Aliens and citizens: The case for open borders’, Review of Politics, 49(2), 1987, pp. 251–73. Castles, Stephen, Hein De Haas and Mark J. Miller, The Age of Migration, International Population Movements in the Modern World, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 5th edn, 2013. Darling, Jonathan, ‘Forced migration and the city: Irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence’, Progress in Human Geography, 41(2), 2017, pp. 178–98. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, University of Minnesota, 1989. Derrida, Jacques and Catherine Malabou, Counterpath: Traveling with Jacques Derrida, Stanford University Press, 2004. Di Cesare, Donatella, Resident Foreigners: A Philosophy of Migration, Wiley, 2020. Dixon, Deborah, Feminist Geopolitics: Material States, Farnham: Ashgate and Routledge, 2015. Dowler, Lorraine and Joanne Sharp, ‘A feminist geopolitics?’, Space and Polity, 5(3), pp. 165–76, 2001. Düvell, Franck, ‘Transit migration: A blurred and politicised concept’, Population Space and Place, July 2012. Foucault, Michel, L’Archéologie du Savoir, Paris, éd. Gallimard (coll. Tel), 2008[1969)]. Foucault, Michel, ‘Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire’, Dits et Écrits: vol. I, 1954–1975, Daniel Defert and François Ewald (eds), Paris, éd. Quarto Gallimard, 2001[1971], pp. 1006–1033. Foucault, Michel, The Birth of Biopolitics, Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979, Picador USA, 2010. Fraser, Nancy, The Old is Dying and the New Cannot be Born, Verso Pamphlets, 2019. Fukuyama, Francis, The End of History and the Last Man, New York: The Free Press, 1992. Glissant, Édouard, Philosophie de la Relation: Poésie en Étendue, Paris: Gallimard, 2009. Gregory, Derek, The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004. Gregory, Derek and Allan Pred (eds), Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror and Political Violence, New York: Routledge, 2007. Gregory, Derek, ‘Vanishing points’, in Derek Gregory and Allan Pred (eds), Violent Geographies, New York: Routledge, 2007.

Philosophy of forced migration  57 Gregory, Derek, ‘American military imaginaries and Iraqi cities: The visual economies of globalizing war’, in C. Lindner (ed.), Globalization, Violence, and the Visual Culture of Cities, New York: Routledge, 2009. Grotius, Hugo, Mare Liberum – The Free Sea, 1609–2009, Robert Feenstra, edition and translation, Brill and Nijhoff, 2009. Hamlin, Rebecca, Crossing: How We Label and React to People on the Move, Stanford University Press, 2021. Hannah-Jones, Nikole, The Problem We All Live With, One World, 2020. Haraway, Donna, ‘Situated knowledges’, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, edited by D. Haraway, pp. 183–201. New York: Routledge. Horst, Cindy and Odin Lysaker, ‘Miracles in dark times: Hannah Arendt and refugees as “vanguard”’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 34(1), March 2021, pp. 67–84. Hyndman, Jennifer, Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Hyndman, Jennifer, ‘The geopolitics of migration and mobility’, Geopolitics, 17(2), 2012, pp. 243–55. Hyndman, Jennifer, ’Feminist geopolitics revisited: Body counts in Iraq’, The Professional Geographer, 59, pp. 35–46, 2007. Hyndman, Jennifer, ‘Unsettling feminist geopolitics: Forging feminist political geographies of violence and displacement’, Gender, Place & Culture, 26(1), pp. 3–29, 2019. Ignatieff, Michel, American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, Princeton University Press, 2005. Jaggar, Alison, Gender and Global Justice, Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA. USA: Polity, 2014. Jaggar, Alison, ‘Arenas of citizenship: Civil society, the state and the global order’, in Marilyn Friedman (ed.), Women and Citizenship, Studies in Feminist Philosophy, Oxford, UK and New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 91–110. Kant, Immanuel, Toward Perpetual Peace, A Philosophical Sketch in Kant: Political Writings, 2nd edn, Hans Reiss (ed.), Cambridge University Press, 1991. Khosravi, Shahram, ‘Illegal’ Traveller: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders, Basingstoke, UK and New York, USA: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Macklin, Audrey, Kathryn Barber, Luin Goldring, Jennifer Hyndman, Anna Korteweg and Jona Zyfi, ‘Kindred spirits?: Links between refugee sponsorship and family sponsorship’, in Strangers to Neighbours, Refugee Sponsorship in Context, edited by Shauna Labman and Geoffrey Cameron, McGill–Queens University Press, pp. 177–97, 2021. Malabou, Catherine, Au Voleur ! Anarchisme et Philosophie, Paris, PUF, 2022. Miller, David and Christine Straehle (eds), The Political Philosophy of Refuge, Cambridge University Press, 2019. Owens, Patricia, ‘Reclaiming “bare life”?: Against Agamben on refugees’, International Relations, 23(4), 2009, pp. 567–82. Parekh, Serena, Refugees and the Ethics of Forced Displacement, Routledge, 2018. Parekh, Serena, No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis, Oxford University Press, 2020. Parekh, Serena and Shelley Wilcox, Feminist Perspectives on Globalization, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018. Plato, Phaedrus, 230c. Translation by Alexander Nehamas and Paul Woodruff. From Plato: Complete Works, edited by John M. Cooper, Hackett Publishing, 1997. Plato, The Symposium, 215a. Translation by Margaret C. Howatson, edited by Frisbee C.C. Sheffield, Cambridge University Press, 2008. Rancière, Jacques, ‘Who is the subject of the rights of man?’ The South Atlantic Quarterly, 103(2/3), Spring/Summer, 2004, pp. 297–310. Rancière, Jacques, The Edges of Fiction, Wiley, 2019. Rancière, Jacques, What Times Are We Leaving In? A Conversation with Eric Hazan, Wiley, 2020. Rancière, Jacques, Les Trente Inglorieuses : Scènes Politiques 1991–2021, La Fabrique Éditions, 2022. Rancière, Jacques, Penser l’Émancipation, Dialogue with Aliocha Wald Lasowski, Éditions de l’Aube, 2022. Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice: Original Edition, Harvard University Press, 1971. Said, Edward, Reflections on Exile and Other Essays, Harvard University Press, 2000.

58  Handbook on forced migration Schmitt, Carl, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, University of Chicago Press, 2006. Sharp, Joanne, ‘Materials, forensics and feminist geopolitics’, Progress in Human Geography, 45(5), 2021, pp. 990–1002. Sharp, Joanne, Condensing the Cold War: Reader’s Digest and American Identity, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Singer, Peter, The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas about Living Ethically, Yale University Press, 2015. Swift, Jeremy ‘Why are rural people vulnerable to famine?’ IDS Bulletin, 20(2). Vulnerability: How the Poor Cope, 2007. Turton, David, ‘The meaning of place in a world of movement’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 18(3), 2003. UNHCR RSD Procedural Standards – Processing Claims Based on the Right to Family Unity, Geneva, 2016. United Nations, ‘Global compact for safe, orderly and regular migration’, Final Draft, 2018. United Nations, ‘Global compact on refugees’, New York: United Nations, 2018. Van Hear, Nicholas, ‘Diaspora’, in M.J. Gibney and R. Hansen, (eds), Immigration and Asylum. From 1900 to the Present, 3 vols, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, volume 1, 2005, pp. 135–40. Van Hear, Nicholas, Rebecca Brubaker and Thais Bessa, ‘Managing mobility for human development: The growing salience of mixed migration’, MPRA Paper 19202, University Library of Munich, Germany, 2009. Walzer, Michael, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality, Basic Books, 1984. Wellman, Christopher Heath, ‘Immigration and freedom of association’, Ethics, 119(1), 2008, pp. 109–41. Young, Iris Marion, Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton University Press, 1990. Young, Iris Marion, Responsibility for Justice, Oxford University Press, 2011. Zetter, Roger, ‘Labelling refugees: Forming and transforming a bureaucratic identity’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 4(1), 1991, pp. 39–62. Zetter, Roger, ‘More labels, fewer refugees: Remaking the refugee label in an era of globalization’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 20(2), June 2007, pp. 172–92.

5. Labels, norms: The illusion of control Interview with Oliver Bakewell

12 June 2022 – Nairobi, Kenya In 2008, in a provocative article entitled ‘Research beyond the categories: the importance of policy irrelevant research into forced migration’, you denounced the growing obsession of researchers and academics to propose only policy relevant research.1 In trying to align the research agenda on mobility with the priorities of policy makers, we run the risk of accepting the categories, concepts and narratives of governments without questioning or criticizing them. Your diagnosis has never seemed more accurate. How do you see the relationship between research and policy evolving in your field of expertise today? What are the ethical issues for the researcher? What concerns me is that the focus is on the relevance of research to policy. And by ‘policy’, I do not just mean governments, but all institutional actors, whether they are governments, international organizations, NGOs or even community groups. They have a way of looking at things, a way of diagnosing problems, a way of framing debates that need to be examined. They share the same language, without questioning its validity, and it frames how they think. Let’s consider ‘durable solutions’, ‘mixed migration’, ‘forced displacement’, etc.: my argument is that for academic researchers, one of the privileges and duties we have is to be able to step away and challenge those concepts. For instance, what does ‘durable solutions’ mean? Why do we have to think in terms of the three durable solutions? Challenging this lexicon, these problems, is fundamental. At the same time, it is really important for research to have an impact, but the question is whether impact is something you can predict in advance and whether impact should be on policy. I think it is more important to have an impact that affects the lives of people for the better. This applies to forced migration as to any site of social or societal analysis. And those discussions need to come out better. I do not think that academics should just philosophize and sit in an ivory tower. No, they should not and cannot. These debates must be made public and discussed in an open way. The conceptual discussions, the complex discussions around migration seep into public discourse in different ways. Not always in a positive way, of course, often in a politicized, simplistic way; but sometimes in a richer, more fruitful way. Let’s take the example of the term ‘diaspora’. This term is a good example of an abstract, conceptual discussion that has moved from the political to the vernacular level. Nick Van Hear talks about the circularity of the term ‘diaspora’.2 It’s a fairly abstract idea, which then became the subject of questions, without a policy orientation. But the term has now become of concern to politicians, and frames decisions about resources and

1 Oliver Bakewell, ‘Research Beyond the Categories: The Importance of Policy Irrelevant Research into Forced Migration’, Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 21, Issue 4, December 2008, pp. 432–53. 2 Nicholas Van Hear, ‘Diaspora’, in Gibney, M.J. and Hansen, R. (eds), Immigration and Asylum. From 1900 to the Present, 3 vols., Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, vol. 1, 2005, pp. 135–40.

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60  Handbook on forced migration programmes. We hear ‘Let’s support the diaspora’. It has reached a wide audience, and people identify with the word: ‘I am part of the diaspora’. The term ‘diaspora’ was born in the realm of cultural studies in the United States. Nobody really used it much. And now it’s become almost inescapable. There’s a question of whether it still has the same use. So, it’s essential to understand the origin, the determinants, the evolutions of the term. We need to probe its historical roots. ‘Host community’ is also a problematic term insofar as it was created and tailored by policy makers to think about reality. Researchers cannot therefore use it without some suspicion, which also applies to all the terms in the migration lexicon. Concepts and frameworks must be questioned. When we do research, we are working on a problem, or a puzzle. Puzzle is probably a better word to describe what is at stake: thinking about what is new, what is not yet understood. The privilege and task of academics is to identify and explore these puzzles. That exploration will have a more profound impact in the longer term than research that is only directed at specific policy, programme or implementation issues. There needs to be space for research that is not framed by questions that come from an immediate problem that requires a solution. We cannot only be concerned with action and implementation. The impact might not be on immediate, expected and often superficial consequences; it is rather about new ways of thinking, changing how we identify problems, which will potentially have a much more profound and longer lasting effect. Concepts used today – such as ‘host communities’, ‘mixed migration’ or ‘durable solutions’ – seem ambiguous, and even contradictory. Is this due to their conceptual imprecision, or to their politicization? Is it because the issues are not well formulated, or because their agenda is so politicized? These notions and ideas are always going to be contested, even if they can be very valuable. What becomes dangerous or worrying is when they are just taken for granted. You can have a discussion on sustainable solutions with different people who use the language of sustainable solutions but have completely different things in mind. In this case, the discussion is not open. So conceptual vagueness can serve a powerful but also concerning purpose. If vagueness allows debate, this is positive; if it presupposes an agreement that does not exist between the parties, this is dangerous. If you look at the debates on the governance of migration, in particular around the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, you find terms like ‘safe’, ‘orderly’, ‘regular’, ‘responsible’ and ‘properly managed’ migration, which are all rather vague and fuzzy. But it has been used by the ‘migration management’ actors. It is as if such ideas produce a consensus by themselves and there is agreement on what they mean. There is little discussion about whether institution A and institution B actually mean completely different things by these terms. And that means you can have a conversation and use that language and even produce very valuable and progressive policy directions. But they will be developed on the basis of a vagueness that can then be used by different people who have taken two different paths. Secondly, historically, I’m not sure that the language used for forced migration and displacement has changed much in the last few years, if not decades. The discussions around the Global Compact on Refugees were a rehashing of debates that started in the 1980s – such as the refugee and development agenda, all the attempts to talk about self-sufficiency or resilience. It’s basically still the same thing – still about burden sharing. Maybe we have moved from burden sharing to responsibility sharing, but it does not feel like a profound change.

Interview with Oliver Bakewell  61 Going back to your 2008 article on categories, do you think that legal concepts and bureaucratic labels have become more of a political battleground? The refugees Roger Zetter wrote about in his 1991 article3 are no longer the same political reality in 2007, when he published a second article on this same label.4 Likewise, Nick Van Hear developed a detailed genealogy of the concept of ‘mixed migration’ to emphasize the subtle changes within the notion,5 as did Franck Düvell on ‘transit migration’.6 Similarly, the notions of ‘protection’, ‘asylum’, ‘persecution’, etc., and thus ‘denationalization’, ‘deportation’, are evolving as political issues. It seems that we cannot understand the categories of migration without putting them in a historical, and genealogical perspective. Do you agree with this diagnosis? How do you situate your own research in this context? The more academics and researchers step away from these terms, the better. Our role is to challenge them, to question their origin, their rigor, their legitimacy. Of course, we have to use those terms to get funding, or to be heard by policy makers or donors. You start with the concepts that are in use. So, for instance, you might say it is a study of mixed migration … probably using inverted commas. But when you come to do the research, you are simply looking at individual mobility and understanding the mix of reasons why and how people move. We academics then deconstruct the vagueness, inaccuracy, and even ethical issues that come with the notion of ‘mixed migration’. Much of our is work is about pulling the language to start and then pulling it apart. It becomes possible to make sense of the complex reality of individual and collective migration patterns, and protection issues, that the initial notion was hiding. Such analysis can help understand processes that are not captured or reflected in that initial terminology or conceptualization. It means we are better equipped to understand what is going on with these terms and the care we need to take when using them. As a researcher and empirical social scientist, I focus on how people make decisions and what they do. I am trying to understand how people move through their lives, how institutions evaluate situations when they make decisions, and how different actors influence each other. What drives people to migrate? What affects the outcomes of migration for people? How do we understand the difference between what people say about their decisions and what actually happens? But I am also interested in how these processes change over time, both in practice and in terminology. From an analytical point of view, I think they are equally important. So, when I read or discuss issues of ‘migration management’, my first question is ‘what does it look like?’ Same thing with ‘forced migration’. I should not assume that I know what it means but always question these labels and keep in mind that, at the end of the day, it is always about someone, about people’s lives. The people we talk about, the migrants or refugees ‘we are managing’ (whatever that word means) are people who matter. This calls into question the validity of many of the assumptions that underpin our work. And that is a good thing.

Roger Zetter, ‘Labelling Refugees: Forming and Transforming a Bureaucratic Identity’, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 4, Issue 1, 1991, pp. 39–62. 4 Roger Zetter, ‘More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization’, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 20, Issue 2, June 2007, pp. 172–92. 5 Nicholas Van Hear, Rebecca Brubaker and Thais Bessa, ‘Managing Mobility for Human Development: The Growing Salience of Mixed Migration’, MPRA Paper 19202, University Library of Munich, Germany, 2009. 6 Franck Düvell, ‘Transit Migration: A Blurred and Politicised Concept’, Population Space and Place, July 2012. 3

62  Handbook on forced migration So often we see studies that emphasize the suffering, the difficulties, and sometimes even the successes of refugees. But we also need to remember that these refugees are also normal people, still singular, just like anyone else. This is another important aspect of labelling and categorizations that must be questioned, because these labels only ever relate to a particular period of an existence. It is not the whole of anyone’s existence and it must never summarize the whole of their existence. The link you establish between people’s lives and labels is essential. At the crossroad of labels and experience, there seems to be a label or meta-label maybe, which is vulnerability. Many donors, UN agencies and NGOs working in the field of migration have developed vulnerability criteria to identify needs, assess risks, categorize specific groups of populations more exposed to risks. Judith Butler wrote a lot about the fact that identifying segments the populations – ‘women’, ‘youth’, ‘older people’, ‘queer’ for instance – as vulnerable was a way to make them ontologically vulnerable.7 In fact, it is always impossible to separate vulnerability and resistance. How do you think it is related to our discussion on labelling? It is related. First, recall how the term was introduced into development, by aid agencies, the donor community, and policy makers: through discussions about the understanding of poverty. With vulnerability, we moved from an idea that poverty was no longer just about the resources you have at a given moment, but also about risks, resistance to shocks, the temporal dimension. Maybe that is why we don’t talk much about the risks for refugees, because they’ve already been through the crisis. In this respect, there’s progress, when we move away from talking about poverty in terms of possession of assets at a particular time, to talk about vulnerability, probably a legacy from Jeremy Swift in the late 80s.8 That move in the analysis of poverty is not just about absolute poverty, it talks about vulnerability to particular shocks or context. So where does the problem come from? When I worked as an aid worker many years ago, the term ‘vulnerable’ was widely used. I remember attending meetings and hearing about vulnerable groups. And who is described as ‘vulnerable’? It turns out that the non-vulnerable are mainly men between 21 and 40, because after that they enter old age! I have been waging a long-lost campaign to eliminate this term! And part of that is because to my mind, and if I do use the term, I am always trying to understand what the person is ‘vulnerable’ to. Being vulnerable in itself is meaningless. I have in mind a refugee camp, Meheba in Zambia, in the early 2000s. It was difficult to access and the people there were in real distress, an acute humanitarian crisis. Refugees had come from Angola with the upsurge in the final phase of the war. Many UNITA [one of the militia involved in the war] members had fled to Zambia, where they were given shelter. A new camp had been set up and everyone was talking about vulnerability and vulnerability criteria. There were a lot of people who were really struggling. In that fragile context, we met an elderly widow refugee. She was one of the most powerful people in the camp, because she was connected to UNITA. She had people at her beck and call. Even if she ticked all the boxes, was she vulnerable? You had to look at her position as an individual. So, to what elements of Judith Butler, ‘Rethinking Vulnerability and Resistance’, in Vulnerability in Resistance edited by Judith Butler, Zeynep Gambetti, and Leticia Sabsay, pp. 12–27. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2016. 8 Jeremy Swift, ‘Why are Rural People Vulnerable to Famine?’ IDS Bulletin, Volume 20, N°2. Vulnerability: How the Poor Cope, 2007, https://​bulletin​.ids​.ac​.uk/​index​.php/​idsbo/​issue/​view/​138. 7

Interview with Oliver Bakewell  63 vulnerability was she exposed? She was doomed, perhaps, to be denied asylum. But the term ‘vulnerable’, without any qualification or contextualization other than identity makes people vulnerable all their lives. No, a person is vulnerable in relation to others, in relation to a given context, but not automatically because of their gender, their age, their migration status. I agree with Judith Butler in many ways: vulnerability just projects a wrong diagnosis onto people, without allowing for a true understanding of what the problem is. One dimension of vulnerability is about poverty and deprivation, particularly in many developing countries. But vulnerability is often linked to a precarious legal position: look at what is happening in Europe, where vulnerability is often linked to legality, to legal status. And it is the same in Africa. No one can seriously say otherwise. Citizenship, which would transform the lives of refugees, is not up for discussion. But we focus on the kind of vulnerability that revolves around poverty. Even though that poverty is often the result of a precarious legal situation: when you do not know where your future lies. Ultimately, it seems that ‘migration governance’ relies on non-normative aspects and on good practices, with less emphasis placed on norms, principles, or the spirit of the Conventions. That approach is more restrictive, more limiting for mobility. There is no doubt that today’s strategies and programmes are more explicitly framed around good practices, whereas before, there was a clearer reference to norms. So now, it is as if norms were encapsulated in good practices. But we probably do not make the same fundamental reference to norms. What norms are there when it comes to migration? I see two distinct issues here. First, when it comes to forced migration, we do have a set of norms, at least the 1951 Refugee Convention. And those are still there, I guess, because you will always be hearing of voluntary repatriation. The language of norms is not necessarily separate from reality, but it does not match reality and changes its meaning. ‘Voluntary repatriation’ is not because you’ve signed a form that you want to go back to your home country. Any analysis of the idea of voluntariness would probably say this is not voluntary. Secondly, norms are more understood in the sense of acceptable behaviour. This is where it gets a bit scary, because international law and legislation, statements of rights are clearly being twisted. You can see this in the United Kingdom at the moment, where the standard of granting asylum, regardless of how people come into the country, is being completely thwarted by the new government restrictions. So, yes, there are written standards, legal standards, but they are being ignored and you get standards of ‘acceptable behaviours’ by states. Paradoxically, some normative aspects have disappeared, but at the same time, you have this kind of inflation of new targeted norms or contextual regulations that keep changing and are increasingly restrictive and politicised. After Denmark’s decision in June 20219 and the memorandum of understanding between Rwanda and the UK,10 the new normal in Europe

9 In June 2021, the Danish parliament passed amendments to the Danish Aliens Act that foresee the transfer of asylum seekers outside the EU and the externalization of asylum procedures and refugee protection. 10 In July 2021, the UK’s international human rights ambassador raised serious concerns about allegations of human rights abuses, including deaths in custody and torture in Rwanda. However, less than a year later, on 14 April 2022, the UK government formally announced that anyone entering the UK illegally through what the government calls ‘illegal, dangerous or unnecessary methods’, such as on small boats or hidden in lorries, may now be relocated to Rwanda. Under this plan, the legal responsibilities

64  Handbook on forced migration could become the outsourcing of asylum. This would have seemed impossible ten years ago. And while this is in clear contradiction with the spirit and letter of the 1951 Convention, this externalization is somehow presented as protection of rights. It is a fictitious and deceptive narrative, but it is presented as acceptable. Learning from Israel’s long-standing practices with African migrants and refugees,11 this new norm will probably prevail, and not only in in the UK or Denmark, but in other countries. Today’s situation creates a precedent, a jurisprudence, an ‘acceptable solution’. In a 2021 article,12 you question the generally accepted separation – in political, programmatic, legal or academic fields – between voluntary and forced migration. More surprisingly, you argue that depending on the context, forced or voluntary migrants can be perceived in drastically opposite ways: the border remains but the values are reversed. What does the artificiality of the distinction between forced and voluntary, on the one hand, and the relativity of the poles of acceptance and rejection, on the other, tell us? Are the categorizations of migration simply a barometer of economic needs or populist discourses? What use could the voluntary/forced dyad still have, if any? There is a difference between forced or voluntary migration when you talk about a particular collective process, for example why large movements of people are taking place from Ukraine to Poland, from Burma to Bangladesh, from Afghanistan to Pakistan. You can see that it is driven by a conflict. It is about people being forced. It is about abuse of rights. People are being forced to move to avoid death or persecution. It is a process. Things get more complicated when you reduce a dynamic movement to particular individuals. When you look at particular journeys, individuals make decisions that are not always rational, made with limited information with many subjective dimensions involved. Migration may be forced, but that does not mean that the decision to proceed in a particular way is forced. They may have a choice, depending on the resources available to them. There are many stages of the journey where it can be forced, and at other stages people act voluntarily, which means that understanding their journey as forced or voluntary obscures the experience and reality of migration. People go to a place where they are seen as forced migrants, which allows claims of vulnerability to be made: ‘I was forced to do this, I had no choice but to come here’. And then at another time they may decide to go somewhere else, and in another place, then they will be told that they are now economic migrants and therefore voluntary migrants. And they will be looked at in a completely different way. However, it is always the same people and the same individual journeys. This dichotomy between forced and voluntary is the only criterion we use to determine whether people fall within the scope of the Refugee Convention and can legitimately make of these people would end once they had been relocated to Rwanda and they would not be able to claim asylum in the UK and would have no option to return to the UK (even if they made a successful claim). 11 In June 2013, Israel announced that it had reached an agreement with a third country for the transference of asylum seekers. This ‘voluntary departure’ scheme presented flight to Rwanda as a choice, whereas the UK scheme was presented as compulsory. Israel has never had a formal agreement with Rwanda, but it is estimated that around 4000 Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers based in the country were sent to Rwanda and Uganda between 2013 and 2018, prior to the abandonment of the secretive arrangement. 12 Oliver Bakewell, ‘Unsettling the Boundaries between Forced and Voluntary Migration’, in the Handbook on the Politics and Governance of Migration edited by Emma Carmel, Katharina Lenner and Regine Paul, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021.

Interview with Oliver Bakewell  65 their asylum claim. Yet the Convention says nothing about why you came, or why you left. It only talks about why you cannot go back! We are obsessed with the question of why people leave, whether it was forced or voluntary, but perhaps the question of whether people can return or not should be much more central to making these decisions. That would allow us to conceive the relationship with asylum seekers completely differently also in terms of integration, social and economic incorporation mechanisms. In this sense, refugee status is something extremely valuable and worth defending. But to claim refugee status is currently designed so that you have to prove that every step of your journey has been forced, and you have to deny that you have any agency. The migration system ends up generating trafficking and illegal channels at every stage of the journey. And for the same reasons, this system forces people claiming refugee status to create questionable stories and narratives, the only ones the system will accept. This is a game of smoke and mirrors. If we used a well-founded fear of persecution as a cornerstone, you have, in my view, a more legitimate, sustainable and fair model. If people can show they can’t go back to their country of origin or the place they fled, then there is a legal obligation to grant them asylum. So, you can’t talk about forced migration without understanding the whole migration system: we have a system in which people are forced to use dangerous routes and informal channels, and forced to create fictitious narratives to tick specific vulnerability boxes. I do not know if it’s really redeemable. You say there should be more focus on the reason why people cannot go back. Yet, European governments emphasize precisely the reasons why asylum seekers should go back. For instance, there is at the moment an effort to show that conflict has ended in Afghanistan and it is now safe to return, similarly that returns to Somalia can lead to durable solutions … It is ironic. Look at how the Convention is interpreted in most Western countries – countries with sufficient resources, and relatively small numbers of refugees and people claiming asylum. These countries require individual assessments: the individual has to prove that he or she has grounds for claiming asylum as an individual. But when it comes to saying the country is safe to go back, the government doesn’t consider the individual any more, they use generic assessments. In African countries, where the African Union Convention prevails, it is much more a de facto refugee status rather than individual status determination. In Europe, every asylum seeker has to prove his or her case in order to stay. The irony is that they are not allowed to prove that they cannot go back, unless they go to court and endure a tortuous process. Another thing to be emphasized is the idea that once an asylum seeker in Europe or North America gets refugee status, they get the golden ticket and are on the road to citizenship. However, obtaining this status is so complex that citizenship is in practice inaccessible. In some countries, refugee status does not allow for citizenship in any time frame. Migrants, whatever their status, are on a pathway to nowhere. But with a little political courage, these deadlock situations could be resolved. It would also be a pragmatic way of facilitating the return to the countries of origin and the circulation of people and goods: because once under the protection of a legal status or political citizenship, people are at less risk to go back, to go home, to circulate from one country to another. I find it interesting that many people, once they have citizenship elsewhere, feel empowered to go back to their country of origin. They know they have the possibility of leaving if they need to, but they also have a connection with the state.

66  Handbook on forced migration Let’s go back to the game of smoke and mirrors. You said some asylum seekers have to create narratives to tick expected boxes. The person requesting asylum must appear sincere, and must appear to have really suffered, with evidence that it happened. These are the expectations of the person who will sanction the individual story by granting the right to asylum. All the complexity of implementing the right to asylum can be seen in this ‘coproduction’ of individual narratives, between the asylum seekers and the associative workers.13 The recognition of people as refugees is based on this kind of illusion of the control of easy targets. It creates an environment in which there is so much suspicion! It is indeed easy to exercise total control over people who have not entered. They are de facto suspects of cheating and lying. Everyone plays the game with a fictional narrative. The asylum seeker, the mediator, the NGO, the police, the government, all play the game. They all know how to play their role. You dress accordingly, you try to know the right ways to behave and the words to use, so as not to arouse suspicion. Of course, you are not used to the place, you are just defensive, you are repeating particular narratives which you think will appeal. You have to have a perfect memory, a justification for experiences that might not have any rational explanation. Whereas in real life, choices are born out of encounters, contingencies, serendipity that enable or block your path. You might even convince yourself that your story actually happened. It reminds me of work I did in Kampala, where refugees were commenting on complaints to local officials about harassment or physical violence. When they complained to the authorities, their story was immediately dismissed and discredited. Ugandan officials assumed that refugees were trying to show that they were victims of persecution in order to obtain resettlement in a third country: if you are a refugee in Kampala, and you are beaten, things are stolen, etc. you build your case for resettlement. The system generates fictions, lies and suspicion on both sides.

See, for instance, Michel Agier, ‘La lutte des mobilités. Catégories administratives et anthropologiques de la migration précaire’, in La Crise de l’Accueil: Frontières, Droits, Résistances, edited by Annalisa Lendaro, Paris: La Découverte, 2019, pp. 81–95. 13

6. Thinking without ‘fixing’: Towards a feminist political geography Interview with Jennifer Hyndman

7 December 2021 – virtual discussion (Zoom) In the last decade, the war in Syria, the abandonment of Afghanistan, the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, the deportation of Haitian migrants, among others, have led to humanitarian and political crises, questioning the foundations of commitments made at global levels (from the Geneva Convention to the Global Compacts). Governments from democratic countries on both sides of the Atlantic have produced similar narratives and solutions: immediate deportations and the externalization of asylum and protection. More generally, the characterization of asylum as a security threat is a discourse that overlaps with what Edward Said and more recently Derek Gregory have called ‘imaginative geographies’ between our ‘civilization’ and ‘their barbarism’. How do you analyse current developments? I have to start by saying that the ‘war on terror’, in quotes, has really been the starting point for a new kind of barbarism and binary civilizational discourse. Whether it was Samuel Huntington or George Bush, what we call politics became ‘you are with us or you are against us’. Of course, 9/11 was the moment that generated these new hate discourses, anticipated by Huntington. Philosophers like Derek Gregory or Judith Butler themselves underwent an interesting metamorphosis at that time. Gregory, if you read his work in the 1980s, is a historical and cultural geographer, he studies the nineteenth-century discourses on the representation of Egypt by the colonial occupier. He criticizes all these discourses, but in 2001, something happened to him. The brutality, the unspeakable violence, at Abu Ghraib of course, but in so many countries, for so many people, changed Gregory’s perspective. He became a political geographer, a writer and a politicized thinker, notably in The Colonial Present, but also in many other books and writings,1 because of those events and as a reaction to the violence of the representations and narratives that followed September 2001. I went through the same metamorphosis, maybe a bit earlier and differently, but I too was affected by that shift in the degree, the quality and the incredibly epistemic violence, that came after and in the wake of September 2001. Omar Khadr is a Canadian born in Toronto who was captured by US soldiers after a gun battle in Afghanistan in 2002 when he was 15 years old. Accused of killing a US soldier, plotting terrorist activities and even espionage, Omar Khadr is the only minor to have been charged with alleged war crimes since World War II. Incarcerated in Guantánamo and then See in particular: Derek Gregory, The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq, Blackwell Publishing, Oxford, 2004; Derek Gregory and Allan Pred (eds) Violent Geographies: Fear, Terror and Political Violence, Routledge, New York, 2007; and Derek Gregory, ‘American military imaginaries and Iraqi cities: The visual economies of globalizing war’, in C. Lindner (ed.), Globalization, Violence, and the Visual Culture of Cities, New York, Routledge, 2009. 1

67

68  Handbook on forced migration in Canada for almost 13 years, he was released in 2015 despite attempts by the Canadian government to keep him in solitary confinement behind bars. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Omar Khadr’s detention violated ‘principles of fundamental justice’, as well as ‘the most basic Canadian standards of treatment for detained youth suspects’. Omar Khadr was abandoned by his own government, the Canadian government, in Guantánamo Bay. He was the last to be taken out of custody and brought back to Canada for trial and consideration. That is where you can see the imaginative geography at work. Omar Khadr was a perfect candidate to be part of that ‘war on terror’. He was a teenager, so he was indoctrinated; he was born in Toronto, so he was an enemy from within; he was in Kabul in 2002, so he was a terrorist, an ‘enemy combatant’; he was with his father, who came from a Salafist background, so he was guilty no matter what his age or real responsibility. We can see the imaginary representation at work, in public discourse and in judicial actions, which allow the most elementary principles of law to be overridden. And at the same, drawing on Gregory’s later work,2 it is striking that the administration has not simply waged the ‘war on terror’ as a ‘war on law’. Rather, the opposite is true, as the law has been used tactically to achieve certain goals, the restriction of liberties, the achievement of highly political objectives, and the interests of ‘national security’. As Gregory reminds us, ‘law is a site of political struggle not only in its suspension but also in its formulation, interpretation and application”. How can we think about the responsibility of actors like the UNHCR – with a dual political and protection mandate – whose Tripartite agreements, Durable Solutions strategies, and politicized negotiations on the closure or maintenance of camps, may ignore humanitarian principles? The same goes for international organizations involved in programmes such as the ‘Better Migration Management’ project in the Horn of Africa, which cater to the needs of donors rather than of the targeted populations. The first to recall the principles of law, these international organizations are also the first to adhere to the logic of the fait accompli in the name of political pragmatism: rebordering and migration management, peripheralization of the right of asylum, politicization of resettlement strategies. It seems that this model of assistance to refugees and migrants has never been so much questioned, thus validating some of your working hypotheses (in 1997 and 2004 in particular). Is this model based on the wrong premises from the start, or is it just in contextual crisis? What alternative model(s) can we imagine? I would not say that the premises are not the right ones. But I would say that the mandate of the United Nations and of the UNHCR in particular dates from 1951 for the Convention and 1967 for the Protocol. Critics therefore logically focus on the anachronistic character of the 1951 UN refugee Convention, which was conceived and implemented in another era. From this point of view, it can be considered that if Western countries’ asylum systems responded rather well to emergencies and crises until the end of the Cold War, the architecture as it was defined is not in phase with today’s mass refugee outflows and migratory movements. These systems are the product of a European environment and experience of World War II persecution; they also reflect Western political and economic interests at a given moment in recent history. I think it was Sadako Ogata, who was UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 1990

2 Derek Gregory, ‘Vanishing Points’, in Derek Gregory and Allan Pred (eds), Violent Geographies, New York: Routledge, 2007.

Interview with Jennifer Hyndman  69 and 2000, who realized that with the end of the Cold War and the balance of power between the superpowers, refugees were losing their value and valence. It would no longer be “we are the good guys, you are fleeing dictatorships and we are taking you in”, which is also a way of asserting our geopolitical superiority. So, when that overly simplified binary between two superpowers and the Cold War faded away, with the fall of the wall with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the equation changed rather dramatically. It is therefore critical to recognize that the Convention establishes an essential framework without which it is not possible to envisage a way out, a legal status or a future for refugees; but at the same time it is also necessary to acknowledge the need for adaptation and critical reflection. Let us take the case of Australia: the immigration detention facilities, whether on Christmas Island, or in Nauru or Manus, enable the country to circumvent its international obligations under the Convention ratified by Australia in 1954. Article 31 obliges the country to grant anyone fleeing persecution and seeking asylum the right to enter the country by whatever means possible. The policy of mandatory immigration detention contravenes in particular Article 31 which obliges the country to grant anyone fleeing persecution and seeking asylum the right to enter the country by whatever means possible. What this example shows is that one can sign the Convention and shirk its obligations without any real consequences. You can sign and not do what you said you would do. This is obviously a problem because all international law, the protection of people, is based on the premise that states commit themselves and respect their commitment. However, the current trend is clearly in the opposite direction, with chronic non-compliance with the obligations of the Convention and the Protocol. In my 1996 writings and the 2000 book, I spoke of the respatialization of forced migration, a concept that was gaining in relevance. Responses to the asylum issue were generalizing along a similar logic: it was about solving the issue of displaced people by leaving them at home, dealing with the problem ‘at home’, before they crossed a border and became refugees.3 This respatialization work has continued since then, with variations and nuances. It has come at an enormous cost in human lives, in breaches of the law, of principles and of the protection of individuals, born of a logic of ‘preventative protection’ and containment.4 So, having said that, are there any alternatives? Can the Global Compact be an alternative? Personally, I do not think it is a credible one. It may be an improvement on the status quo. But it suffers from its neoliberal premises, from the alignment of the dominant political discourse and practices to the geo-economics. The objective of the Global Compact is to support countries that already do the heavy lifting of hosting refugees by giving them more money and giving them access to loans. So, they support refugees more and OECD countries keep delegating and subcontracting responsibilities to others. If you take the example of Canada, we agreed to take 40 000 Afghans in August 2021. But for every one of those people, you know, one or two are left behind, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan or another country. And it will take years, if not a decade, for those to be reunited so that we can get into meaningful reintegration work. And we know that the first generation of

Jennifer Hyndman, Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 4 Jennifer Hyndman, ‘The geopolitics of migration and mobility’, Geopolitics, 17:2, pp. 243–55, 2012: ‘At worst, it has been lethal, as the tragic mass killing in 1995 of some 8,000 Bosnia Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica attests’ (p. 245). 3

70  Handbook on forced migration refugees often lag far behind in terms of livelihoods and types of work. Hopefully, they’ll get into something more meaningful and human. If we go back to the Convention, it says that if you declare a person a refugee, they get temporary security, often precarious, but at least they have a status. But for that status to be meaningful, refugees need to have the right to work, the right to be able to rent a place with the money they earn, so that they can feed their families and not become like Behrouz Boochani,5 recluses in inhuman conditions. Boochani is happily on the path to citizenship in New Zealand, but no thanks to Australia and the policy of safe confinement on the islands of New Guinea or Christmas Island. Well, how is it that the Convention is now so gutted, so eviscerated? How did it come about that prima facie treatment of refugees became the norm and the notion of giving people individual documents became the exception? You mentioned the Global Compact. It is not legally binding. But there is one thing in the Global Compact that seems to be going in the right direction, in terms of analysis and also in practical terms, and that is the emphasis on the local level. There are positive steps forward in the Global Compact, especially on the local level or on discussions at the urban level, that is, where the concrete solutions are. Jonathan Darling6 or Jen Begelman7 have talked about the notion of reception, of people actually meeting each, which generates understanding, knowledge, exchange of information and situation and, ultimately, the creation of a bond between people. High-level international agreements generally miss these narratives, which are not just the micro version of macro logics but really the heart of the matter. If we fail to understand the issue of reception or hospitality at the local level, we cannot think and implement ambitious policies. The fact that many town halls have mobilized in Europe, that governors, including Republicans, wanted to welcome Afghan refugees in the autumn of 2021 confirms that politicized reading grids are not always the most relevant. As soon as we return to the local level, it becomes possible to engage in dialogue and invent possibilities for living together. I think another example that is really positive for the Global Compact is the recognition that education as a pathway can be, you know, a protection strategy. And when people ask me about an alternative, and I give a speech to a university, or a student group, or any civil society group, I say, ‘Well, if every school, university, or college would just take or agree that one person a year, one new person a year, would be added to the school body, and they would be given a four-year visa or even permanent residency, then we would make a significant difference.’ It would not be a drop in the bucket! In Canada, the Student Refugee Programme (SRP), under the Private Sponsorship Refugee Admission (PSR) accepts applications from six countries of asylum (Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda) and is sustained through fundraising, local committees, campus-based groups of students, and contributions of students and post-secondary institutions. Launched in 1978, the programme has supported almost 150 students by bringing them

Behrouz Boochani is a Kurdish–Iranian journalist and activist, writer and film producer. He won the Victorian Prize for Literature in January 2019 thanks to a book tapped out on a mobile phone. He was held in the Manus Island detention centre from 2013 to 2017 and Port Moresby until September 2019. He was finally granted refugee status in New Zealand in July 2020, after his one-month visa expired. 6 Jonathan Darling, ‘Forced migration and the city: Irregularity, informality, and the politics of presence’, Progress in Human Geography, 41(2), pp.178–98, 2017. 7 Jen Bagelman, Sanctuary City: A Suspended State, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 5

Interview with Jennifer Hyndman  71 to study in Canada as permanent residents. It is an innovative example of a collaborative approach with a youth-to-youth funding model leading to excellent success rates in terms of attendance and job placement for refugees. By including refugees in the social fabric, you go far beyond assistance or charity. And I think these are initiatives that are already underway and could be expanded. This is a good example of local engagement aligned with the Global Compact, which is the grammar of protection, durable solutions, and all the laws and treaties that have been signed. We must not throw them away and we must learn, be creative and innovative to promote dignified approaches. You have often stressed the importance of suspending the desire for reparation: ‘we are not part of the same system’. What can this ‘suspension’ mean in practice, both for development policy and for researchers? In particular, there seems to be an apparent contradiction between the normative/prescriptive and objective/descriptive strands in the work of migration researchers. How can this be translated into today’s context? How can we understand this necessary suspension of the desire to fix things, to manage migration in the name of Realpolitik and pragmatism? And a quick example from geography. So, since 2000, people like Jo Sharp,8 Lorraine Dowler9 and I have been talking about feminist geopolitics10 in relations to displacement and human rights atrocities. And then in 2015, another geographer, Deborah Dixon, wrote a fascinating book11 that did not build upon the kind of realist geopolitics that had been taken as a premise. It succeeds in shifting the terms of the geopolitical debate, as usually understood, that is, in terms of states, sovereignty, territories, securitization, borders, but also mass mobilizations and violence, to focus on the lived experience of the body. What happens emotionally and physiologically in the flesh, the touch, the tissue, the cells, the organs, the bones, the psyche of all these bodies exposed to traumatic events? And we know that flesh or bones are not only fragile, they are also alive, variegated, creative, generative in a sense. It’s really about examining, making people talk and doing justice to the bodies of those at the bottom of the ladder – and in particular all those displaced people, those women who are very directly victims, in their bodies, of geopolitical arrangements. Dixon’s original methodology allows in particular for a dive into the migratory geopolitics, particularly gendered, of human fat tissue, reproductive and stem cells, reproductive cells. It also shows how the mobility of skeletons across colonial spaces was organized for European medical schools. I think the strength of the book is to show how corporeal-based our identities can be and especially how flesh and bones are managed, displaced and represented. And this is a good illustration of what social scientists, philosophers, anthropologists or geographers can do. It is not a matter of ‘fixing’ things by coming up with a list of recommendations to ‘improve things’. We need to suspend the desire to fix: over here in Toronto, I am not going to fix the problem of long-term displacement in Pakistan, Kenya or Myanmar.

8 See in particular: Joanne Sharp, ‘Materials, forensics and feminist geopolitics’, Progress in Human Geography, 45(5), pp. 990–1002, 2021; Joanne Sharp, Condensing the Cold War: Reader’s Digest and American Identity, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. 9 Lorraine Dowler and Joanne Sharp, ‘A feminist geopolitics?’ Space and Polity, 5(3), pp. 165–76, 2001. 10 Jennifer Hyndman, ‘Feminist geopolitics revisited: Body counts in Iraq’, The Professional Geographer, 59, pp. 35–46, 2007. 11 Deborah Dixon, Feminist Geopolitics: Material States, Farnham: Ashgate and Routledge, 2015.

72  Handbook on forced migration However, I can still learn about what is happening there and stay in touch with people and try to mobilize, to identify, different sensitivities about the meaning of mobility, of geopolitics, to show what is really at stake behind these conceptual arrangements. So, we have to be very careful on Donna Haraway’s model to avoid any universalist, overbearing voices, those Voice of God or Universalist narratives. Because, ultimately, the desire to fix can tie our hands behind our backs and take us away from other important questions and reflections that will allow us to understand what kinds of epistemic violence are happening, what voices are missing, who is nowhere. This is something of an observation I make in a recent article12 on resettlement in Canada. On the one hand, I think that the tools and concepts of feminist geopolitics are very relevant to critically address the violence of forced displacement, detention centres, endless waiting in administrations for asylum seekers, and so on. Feminist geopolitics can be and has been enriched by critical work on subaltern geopolitics. But it is also possible to go further. By studying the case of sponsorship and resettlement in Canada, I try to show two things that are intrinsically linked. On the one hand, a generally positive discourse around resettlement, both within government and civil society, sees Private Refugee Sponsorship as a long-term solution and values it as such. On the other hand, it must also be acknowledged that PRS is not free from racialized orientalist bias on the part of the Canadian government towards certain types of asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa, which takes us away from the broad normative principles. Such an approach is at the heart of both geopolitical problems and human experience. So, I think it’s not about fixing but about providing the broadest and most inclusive framework for thinking, collaborating, innovating and intervening politically against hegemonic narratives. If Walters (Viapolitics), Sassen (Territory), Mezzadra and Neilson (Border) have been able to problematize major issues of mobility and neoliberal rationality through a geographical prism, it seems that the spatial logic is above all thought of by international organizations or governments in terms of flows, hubs, hot spots, corridors, and of course of peripheralization, externalization and walled states (Brown). What criticism can the geographer make of these dynamics – which politicize space and turn it into a battlefield – instead of thinking of it in terms of spaces of hospitality and dialogue? There is no doubt that the growing interest in geography and the more intimate intersection with other disciplines or areas of the social sciences is contributing enormously to the position of current issues. So, what can feminist geography tell us, in particular, about migration dynamics for example? I do not want to reduce it to context. But let me give you the example of an ongoing study that I am working on with a geographer, Bronwyn Bragg, on the situation of meat packers in southern Alberta. It is a very right-wing province in Canada with almost no labour regulations. It’s also, environmentally, the most lackadaisical, corporate-friendly type of state. And so, you have all these feedlots and slaughterhouses and meat packing plants. And the largest outbreak of COVID in North America occurred there in April 2020. Our project is documenting the people who work there, and we found that the vast majority of them are former resettled refugees, but also racialized people, and other people there are

12 Jennifer Hyndman, ‘Unsettling feminist geopolitics: Forging feminist political geographies of violence and displacement’, Gender, Place & Culture, 26(1), pp. 3–29, 2019.

Interview with Jennifer Hyndman  73 those who have temporary work permits. What is the connection between the immigration status of the disproportionately racialized workers who are new to Canada, the poor working conditions of the meat packers, and their experience with the COVID-19 pandemic? Why are these plants hiring temporary foreign workers, recent immigrants, and former refugees as employees, with virtually no workplace safety standards and low-paying jobs? These are people who may be out of status now that COVID has not allowed them to go home, but they have an implied status: temporary foreign workers, a growing part of our workforce. And how can we, as geographers, understand that southern Alberta, with its history of crushing labour organizations, with its history of rather right-wing, permissive governments, has allowed transnational companies as large as Cargill or JBS to set up their plants there, to create a location for these meatpacking operations where only migrants, displaced, downgraded, usually born outside the country, are hired? How can we understand this? The epidemic also revealed that these workers were offered all sorts of cash incentives to work if they were sick, to work extra shifts, despite the fact that they felt sick, and so on. What is at stake here for feminist geography? Firstly, it is important to emphasize the commitment to highlighting divisions between gender and space. In particular, feminist geographers recognize that research always has a positionality that produces situated knowledge. We need to get rid of the masculinist illusion of objectivity, axiological neutrality and top-down impartiality in the production of knowledge. Against a masculinist approach to fieldwork, a more interpretive perspective of research is proposed, using community-based approaches and qualitative work. It has multiple consequences. Let me give you a few concrete examples. When it comes to fieldwork, our approach starts with and from the community. We hired as interviewers many people who work in and belong to the same communities, who can speak the language. We did the groundwork with community organizations and worked in particular with Action Dignity for over two years, building trust and entry points. Action Dignity is a community-based organization that promotes the collective voice of Calgary’s ethnic and cultural groups. In terms of analysis, while I think it is always important to take a gender perspective, I have also learned from my work in eastern Sri Lanka that gender can never be privileged over ethnicity or religion. You have to locate these specific lenses. The meaning of what it is to be a woman in Sri Lanka is shaped by membership of a particular ethnic group. Similarly, we need to pay particular attention to the relationship between ability or age, for example, and other forms of discrimination, exclusion, prejudice and targeted violence. Secondly, I believe that the production of situated, contextualized knowledge can lead to transformations in the field of practices and structures, but we must be careful not to fix or resolve. There are multiple drivers and parameters to consider in the study and a simplistic, positivist and masculinist approach would not do justice to this type of complex landscape. For example, some of all those pay cheques are either going to support people in another country or pay the bills of people who are in a precarious situation in the labour market, because they are the last ones to get there. What type of normative recommendations or analyses can we offer here? What solutions shall we propose? I would argue that we need to be very careful and describe contextually what we see, while being humble with solutions and recommendations. Thirdly, feminist sensitivities also come into play methodologically in terms of the questions we asked the workers about their bodies, precarity and how this work affected them beyond COVID. These factories are known to be dangerous for the physical integrity of workers. Some people end up with frozen arms because they are in minus 10 degrees Celsius working conditions. But repetitive strain injuries and cold injuries are common. I know of

74  Handbook on forced migration refugees who, at the age of 55, had to retire without a pension from this type of work because their arms were simply frozen to the work chairs. Finally, while I appreciate the more theoretical and highly nuanced work on geography and geopolitics, I also think it is essential for geographers to operate at a micro scale, at a local scale. And it’s not about empiricism and positivism. It’s about responsibility. Local scales allow you to grasp where and how power and politics are part of the equation. And yet the desire to fix it should always be suspended, because you can dig up and expose, discuss and be corrected if you have made a mistake. These new epistemologies and methods have been widely adopted by the discipline and applied to a wide range of topics other than gender. You recently focused on Refugee Support Partnership Programme, an innovative resettlement programme launched in Canada in 1978. In a 2018 article,13 you showed that certain orientalist assumptions massively framed and figured this kind of programme ‘with a racialised underbelly’ – regardless of its very positive outcomes. Can you tell us why you think this kind of programme encompasses all the difficulties, risks and probably opportunities of resettlement? The Refugee Support Partnership Programme only caught my attention recently, in 2016 or so. What captured my imagination is the longevity of the programme, which is in its fifth decade of existence! Already over 300 000 refugees have come through this, in addition to those whom the Government of Canada sponsors. It remains a modest amount in 45 or 50 years, but there seems to be a consensus on its legitimacy, whatever political majority is in place.14 How can we describe this enigmatic SPR? Is this a social movement? Is this some kind of private public partnership between government and civil society? Probably all of the above, but it is not sufficient to explain such an exceptional longevity. In a nutshell, it is a very unique and innovative programme that allows private groups and individuals to sponsor refugees. Sponsors are sometimes members of religious communities, civil society organizations, concerned individuals, and sometimes students. They may ‘name’ or request sponsorship of a particular person or family and vouch for them for at least one year, according to clearly defined financial and social assistance arrangements. It is therefore logically a programme that has enabled the reunification of many families that were separated because some members did not fit into the strict definition of the nuclear family.15 In 2006, the election of Stephen Harper’s Conservative government and the appointment of Jason Kenney as Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism abruptly changed this, with the identification of a new category of resettled refugees, the Blended Visa-office Referred refugee, or BVOR, and the prioritization of certain nationalities over others – usually the most racialized ones, from sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the government has 13 Jennifer Hyndman, ‘Unsettling feminist geopolitics: Forging feminist political geographies of violence and displacement’, Gender, Place & Culture, 26(1), pp. 3–29, 2019. 14 Audrey Macklin, Kathryn Barber, Luin Goldring, Jennifer Hyndman, Anna Korteweg, and Jona Zyfi, ‘Kindred spirits?: Links between refugee sponsorship and family sponsorship’, in Strangers to Neighbours, Refugee Sponsorship in Context, edited by Shauna Labman and Geoffrey Cameron, pp. 177–97. McGill–Queens University Press, 2021. 15 In UNHCR’s operations, the organization uses the concept of dependency to ensure that family members, who are not close family members (= nuclear) but are still dependants, are able to enjoy the right to family unity. See in particular: UNHCR, UNHCR RSD Procedural Standards – Processing Claims Based on the Right to Family Unity, Geneva, 2016.

Interview with Jennifer Hyndman  75 determined that the informal family reunification process, allowed under the RRP, is fraudulent. This example shows the extent to which an initiative that is admittedly imperfect and probably open to criticism in certain ethical respects, but which is generally based on principles of hospitality and responsibility, can be undermined by political demagoguery. Several comments come to mind. First of all, the example of private sponsorship of refugees is a good example of a positive transition from resettlement to permanent access to full citizenship for refugees. Yes, there is a real humanitarian impulse here. And yes, there is also a neoliberal impulse. Secondly, the new ‘differential’ and quota governance, with the introduction of BVOR in particular between 2006 and 2009, is a good illustration of what Etienne Balibar calls ‘differential racism’,16 also known as ‘neoracism’. It is an implicit racism, without reference to race. It shows that we need to be vigilant about the rationalities, narratives and political practices of our governments. Third, through its critical power of deconstruction, I see feminist political geography as a remedy against the fearism that makes us see the other, and the refugee in particular, as an enemy or a danger; but it is also a way of producing a knowledge rooted in materiality without adopting the abstract, unsituated and off-the-ground point of view that Donna Haraway evokes when she speaks of situated knowledge.17 In my opinion, these two aspects allow for a constructive, productive critique, in order to think about transnational mobility without resorting to orientalist reflexes. The lyrics of the song Somos Mas Americanos, by Los Tigres del Norte, expressed like few other works of art the experience of Mexican refugees in the United States: experience of physical suffering, institutionalized racism, economic exclusion, gender discrimination, social inequality. ‘Yo No Cruse La Frontera, La Frontera Me Cruzo’ [‘I Didn’t Cross the Border, the Border Crossed Me’]. How do you read these lyrics? I am referring to your interest in a subjective, human approach to the experience of forced displacement beyond purely quantitative logics, bureaucratic labels and populist narratives. Why is it so important to understand this attempt to subjectivize pain? Does it corroborate what other refugees or migrants shared with you in Canada, Kenya or Sri Lanka? I think that when you have evidence, concrete examples, and do not mind getting egg on your face, you must step up. When I was working for UNHCR, I realized this was a very tough job, mainly because we were not doing it very well. And I was one of the persons who was mandated to do it, without being able to do it well. In this respect, I hope that my book18 was able to show how impossible some of the conditions and circumstances were in. And especially for the frontline staff. But when I did publish the book, I remember some interesting criticisms that were made by reviewers and UNHCR people; they could not understand what feminist and post-colonialist analyses had to do with anything. They thought post-colonialism was marrying some kind of … theoretical hobby! But in reality, these lenses are essential for questioning representations and the violence and injustice inherent in these representations. And the violence starts with the disconnect between, on the one hand, the individual experience of

16 Etienne Balibar, ‘Is there a “neo-racism”?’, in Race and Racialization: Essential Readings, edited by T. das Gupta, pp. 83–8, Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2007. 17 Donna Haraway, ‘Situated knowledges’, in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, edited by D. Haraway, pp. 183–201. New York: Routledge, 1991. 18 Jennifer Hyndman, Managing Displacement: Refugees and the Politics of Humanitarianism, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000.

76  Handbook on forced migration migration and displacement, the subjective experience and trauma associated with years and sometimes generations spent in a camp, with loss, displacement, rape, impossible mourning; and on the other hand, the fact that by nature the institutions – governments, UN, NGOs, universities – will always see you as a number or a political problem. And I think it is hard to speak out against that because we’re so used to it, so numb to the numbers, the stories, the jargon … But I think the only thing we can do as researchers is to destabilize the assumptions behind these things and shake the house of cards. When you have the chance to reach children in a camp, you get to that almost existential frustration that all these young people feel without a future. You realize how messy it is. Of course, children and youth do not always express their frustration directly or explicitly, but the distress is tangible, the injustice is obvious. The intolerable, when faced with children who have no possible future, becomes palpable.

7. Ethics, globalization, counter-narratives: Confronting structural injustice Interview with Serena Parekh

15 December 2021 – USA The issues of global displacement and the refugee regime are often viewed from a legal, even bureaucratic, perspective or reduced to political issues. Traditional philosophy, on the other hand, seems to see the foreigner or migrant only as moments in a process, critical steps necessary to better understand oneself. With a few modern exceptions (Grotius, Kant, Arendt, Walzer, Rawls, Derrida), how can we explain the fact that philosophy has only very marginally spoken of migration or the foreigner – if not in the form of otherness, of critical heterogeneity? What need is there for philosophy to embrace the issue? In Anglo American philosophy, you have two things happening. One is you have a focus on immigration, but specifically on how Western States should respond to people who want to immigrate to us. So, it is migration in a sense, but it is a very limited focus: do we have an obligation to accept migrants? And if so, under what conditions? What justifies this? What moral justifications can you give to somebody who wants to enter, that they would take up as a reasonable justification? And you have Michael Walzer,1 in the early 1980s, who narrowed the question to the “ethics of admission” by applying the ethical question to refugees: Do we have obligations to accept refugees? And if so, under what conditions? And this has become the question on the ethics of refugees, I think, until very recently. So, it is very much focused on the obligations of Western states to accept or not accept refugees. My own view is that it is far too limited, because migration is this global phenomenon that encompasses all kinds of other complex ethical challenges. But because the focus was just on resettlement and asylum policies, we have not really been confronted by broader discussions about migration and about, for instance, what it means to be a returnee. What does it mean to have these different statuses of people in different conditions that we may or may not have deliberately intended? So, I think that is how the entire debate went and became limited to one question that everyone starting writing on without questioning its validity or legitimacy. And the result was that we did not have this broader conversation about different facets of migration. But it is now absolutely changing. I think since 2015 or maybe 2010, there has been an explosion of monographs, collections and essays being written about migration from different perspectives, around refugees and asylum seekers specifically. So, I feel like that is good because it brings a much broader, more ethical perspective to us. And there is now a much richer debate around the ethics of refugees right now, as shown, among others, in the recent Handbook by Christine Straehle and David Miller.2 Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice: A Defense of Pluralism and Equality, Basic Books, 1984. David Miller and Christine Straehle (eds), The Political Philosophy of Refuge, Cambridge University Press, 2019. 1 2

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78  Handbook on forced migration Can you tell us more about the authors who have influenced your ethical positions – in particular Iris Young, Thomas Pogge, David Miller, Gillian Brock, Elizabeth Ashford, and of course Hannah Arendt? What kind of intellectual dialogue have you engaged in with the works of these authors? And how have these dialogues allowed you to develop your own field of critical analysis? They helped me to think structurally. I started my career at the Human Rights Institute at the University of Connecticut and I was struck by the fact that the approach to the most serious, most painful, most humanly horrific problems often remained top down. Working with the Human Rights Institute brought this to light and helped me understand it. What can we do to help? What can we do to fix this? What can we do to alleviate that? Of course, I think of those as really important questions, and absolutely necessary, and they will always be necessary. But it is also so frustrating. So, I asked myself the question: Why are entire populations put in such situations, deprived of the basic resources to survive? To what extent does this maintain a cycle of assistance, which makes us feel better but does not solve the problem? These thinkers helped me think about these questions in a structured way, with a dual perspective: the question of what we can do immediately to help is important, but it is not the only one. How to question and disrupt such an ossified background of the situation? There is no doubt that before we can hope to understand and resolve the dramas of migration, we must operate at a structural level. We must act on the deep economies and inequalities of this world, which are the consequences of political choices and short-term economic rationalities. The link between climate change and migration, which is increasingly mentioned, is a good example from this point of view, because it is a symptom of older political disturbances, which are already having tragic consequences today. So, obviously, faced with such a nexus of problems – complex, intertwined, multidimensional – it is tempting to become discouraged; but we can also say to ourselves that this raises the question of our responsibility in a different way. That is to say, instead of considering responsibility in a narrow way by paying attention only to the next, immediately antecedent cause, we should look at the larger conditions that have been shaped in many ways by the political, economic, social, but also industrial and cultural history of Western countries. Too often, when we study or reflect on global poverty, we see it as something that poor countries have done to themselves. And we are simply asked to be the good Samaritan who steps in to help a few people in the cohorts of the destitute from migration. But what is actually realized is that the majority of the world’s displaced people are displaced by crises born of the colonial past, imported wars, conflicts inherited from economic wars, and now by climate change induced by industrialization. In other words, these displacements are induced by the perverse effects, the negative externalities of the global system we have put in place. And once we realize that we ourselves are co-constructors of the problem, the responsibility is no longer to help but to stop harming. It is a very different way of understanding global responsibility and global poverty. We are part of the problem. We will not solve it by giving our extra money, when we can contribute by actually stopping the harm and doing what we can to alleviate the underlying structural conditions that create the harm. It is more difficult, but it is the only real approach to avoiding greater disasters. Foucault always said that it was necessary to interrogate the construction of marginality – abnormality, conceived as that which differs from the average or the many – to get to the heart

Interview with Serena Parekh  79 of politics.3 Do you think that, likewise, refugees can help us understand our democracies better? What is missing in what we call democracies today? This tension between margins and center is conceptually and historically very relevant. It can help criticize the Anglo-American philosophy which has been so dominated by white men. Arendt was Jewish, fleeing Germany in the 1930s. She was a stateless person, coming from the margin, being the outsider, which helped her develop a conceptual framework. And writing philosophy from such an alternative perspective is something that had been missing for a long time in Anglo-American philosophy. There is now a much broader variety of perspectives and therefore questions being asked that somehow differ from the perspective of the dominant group in the dominant Western democracies. What does it mean to be a refugee? How can democracies ask human beings to remain in refugee camps for years or decades? This perspective of margin vs. center is really relevant to capture this historical shift, which determines not only the theoretical framework but also today’s practical and political lenses. If we take a longer-term perspective for a moment, we have to ask ourselves about the inevitable future crises. What is the next century likely to bring? If political theories and practices do not allow millions of people, whose numbers are growing all the time, to live a dignified life, a dignified experience, then things can only get worse, and restrictive, exclusive and authoritarian logics will become more and more the norm of what we still call “democracies”. One of the major lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the inclusion, not always successful, of the most marginalized populations in the global response. We cannot protect ourselves, either as individuals or as wealthy countries, without taking seriously how our policies will affect the disenfranchised and marginalized, whether at the national or global level. And if that is the case, I think the same logic should apply to displaced people, because it is in everyone’s interest. We cannot simply say, “You are alone, you are out”. Arendt says in The Origins of Totalitarianism that we cannot have a clear boundary between inside and outside. And that is the problem. So, either we become more authoritarian, fierce and are willing to exclude more and more people, or we think about policies that actually allow for a meaningful and dignified experience for all, simply because we are so deeply interconnected. From this point of view, there seems to be a tension between different political scales. For instance, the local and national scales – the latter being more and more politicized, and less and less political. What is perceived locally as a potential socioeconomic contributor will be stigmatized nationally as a political problem. How would you analyze these tensions or contradictions? People are easily frightened by the images, the abstractions, the rhetoric of the “migrant hordes” that are going to descend upon us and ruin our country. When you have that type of political bias, so-called policy solutions often revolve around numbers, crime, cultural differences, and closing borders. But when people have interpersonal relationships with real migrants, suddenly it is a very different story. It is not that they stop seeing the differences, but they realize that there are also commonalities and that differences are not necessarily a threat.

See: Michel Foucault, “Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire”, In Dits et écrits: volume I, 1954–1975, Daniel Defert and François Ewald (eds), Paris, éd. Quarto Gallimard, 2001[1971], pp: 1006–1033; Michel Foucault, L’Archéologie du Savoir, Paris, éd. Gallimard, 2008[1969], p. 185 in particular. 3

80  Handbook on forced migration A good example of this is the differential treatment of Afghans and Haitians in the United States, populations that are seeking asylum for valid reasons. With the Haitians, the metaphors of waves of migrants, hordes of invaders, have resurfaced. Images of white Texas Rangers on horseback whipping and pushing Haitians across the border met populist expectations by offering a discourse of border enforcement, of defending the country and the American identity. And then on the other side, you have a surprisingly open attitude toward Afghan refugees, because of their connection to the US military and the perception that they are pro-American and have helped us in the past. For example, Montana has never resettled refugees, there are literally no refugees in Montana! But all of a sudden, the governor says we have to resettle Afghan refugees, we owe it to them, they helped us, we have this connection with them.4 Support came from religious communities and from the war veterans’ associations in Montana. There have been exceptions, usually due to electoral calculations within the Republican Party, but this difference in treatment must be emphasized. All of a sudden, we have obligations, we should help them, we should welcome them. In the abstract, they are terrifying. And in particular, they are human beings that we can connect to. Another good example is the influx of Syrian refugees in 2015, which led to drastically opposite responses in Canada and the US. In the US, Republican candidates for President tried to sound as tough as they possibly could on Syrian refugees, calling them terrorists in disguise, who are coming to enforce Sharia law in the US. Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey at that time in a powerful position to be the Republican candidate, said that the US should not admit any refugees from the Syrian civil war, not even “orphans under age 5”. These discourses contributed to feeding a stiff moral panic about refugees in the US as being dangerous and terrifying. In contrast, Canada has a system called the Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) program that allows private groups – usually Canadian citizens but also permanent residents – to sponsor eligible refugees overseas. As a private sponsor, groups can support a refugee for the duration of the sponsorship, usually up to one year. The support includes start-up costs, including furniture and clothing, day-to-day expenses for immediate necessities such as housing, food and public transportation, but it also includes a more interpersonal, social and emotional dimension to ensure a smoother integration into Canadian society. And what that means is that in the communities that are resettling refugees, you have these pathways that are set up of people who know the refugees and are directly connected to them, and are invested in their well-being. You have this contrasting picture, where in Canada, there were all these groups of people who were waiting for Afghan refugees that they had sponsored to arrive, eagerly waiting. Retirees were learning Arabic so they could properly greet the refugees at the airport. And President Trudeau went to the airport and said “welcome home, you are home now”. These examples show how critical it is to humanize people and create interpersonal connections. The resettlement of refugees will depend on the stories created at the national level, in the media, in the press, either at the government level or at the local level to help. But for resettlement to take place and be successful in the long run, refugees must be rehumanized and connections must be made with people at the local or community level.

In September 2021, Montana Republican Governor, Greg Gianforte, stated, “Montana welcomes our fully-vetted Afghan allies who worked alongside us, have left their homes in the face of the Taliban’s reemerging, merciless terror, and seek freedom and safety.” 4

Interview with Serena Parekh  81 In your recent books, The Ethics of Forced Displacement5 and No Refuge,6 what meaning do you give to the word ethics? At first glance, it sounds a bit counterintuitive. At first glance, one would expect to discuss refugees from a legal perspective. And once one accepts the idea of ethics, one might question the legitimacy of a moral approach to the migration issue. Unless … First, I would like to start with an anecdote. I teach a service-learning course here in Boston. And every year, I’m always surprised by how little understanding of the world our students have, at an age, 18, 19, 20. and how little contact they have with people different from them, with social reality. This is especially evident when they go to the socio-economically disadvantaged areas of the city. This reminds me of how segregated our world is. So, for me, when I think of ethics, I think of it as what we should do, regardless of what is economically best and/or politically necessary. Of course, there are all sorts of ways to look at immigration or migration from an economic perspective, there are these very important economic issues of migrants’ contribution to the economy. There are complex calculations to determine the “cost benefit analysis” of migration policies, the thresholds of acceptability. And then politically, we see on a daily basis, on the right as well as on the left, the influence of opinion, short-term calculations and electoral aims in political decisions: to be elected or re-elected, one must promise people security and the enforcement of borders, regardless of the merits or legitimacy of these measures. By contrast, the real ethical question, which I think should be a compass, is: What do we owe to human beings, as human beings? And these are ethical constraints on what we should be doing. To ask these questions of what we are, what we are allowed to do, how we are allowed to treat people, and how we should treat people, as a regulatory idea, does not mean that you exclude the fields of economic calculation or political rationality. But you have to challenge their hegemonic tendencies. Of course, we do not have an ethical obligation to bankrupt all our citizens, or we do not have an ethical obligation to reduce ourselves to the level of people who migrate, as Peter Singer might ask us to do.7 But what we owe to people as human beings as a starting question can then help us think about how we navigate political and economic issues. So, my position is that there is a lot we can agree on, regardless of our political orientation. In particular, I think everyone agrees that we should not treat people the way we have and still do today. You often remind us that only 2 percent of refugees and displaced persons have access to one of the three durable solutions (resettlement, voluntary return or local integration). Most of them remain in the limbo of camps or informality, without access to basic services, “without access to the basic conditions of human dignity”.8 Does this mean that durable solutions are just a myth? One of the perverse and often unnoticed effects of the assistance system is that it makes those who do not benefit from it invisible. Indeed, only 2 percent of the world’s refugees have access Serena Parekh, Refugees and the Ethics of Forced Displacement, Routledge, 2018. Serena Parekh, No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis, New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 7 Peter Singer, The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas about Living Ethically, Yale University Press, 2015. 8 Serena Parekh, No Refuge: Ethics and the Global Refugee Crisis, New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. 5 6

82  Handbook on forced migration to the durable solutions. This system allows us to say “the system is okay, because people are being helped” because of its a priori rigorous construction around three clearly established possibilities. On the other hand, if we had no resettlement program, no “solutions”, we would say that the situation is terrible because people are in a state of distress. But the mere fact that the system exists, even if it only affects 2 percent of the people, is enough to give the appearance of order and measure: “the others will get out of it too, it is only a matter of time, it will happen eventually”. There is so much going on, and so many actors, so many policies, and so many programs and so much money floating around, that we tend to forget that the reality for most migrants is really bleak. We have thus finally arrived at a situation where relatively wealthy Western states are adopting a combination of increased border security, outsourcing of asylum and delegation of responsibility through targeted humanitarian or development funding. This control of people, combined with the free movement of goods, leads to increased global inequality, destabilization and pockets of statelessness. And again, if we were only talking about a few months or years and people could hope to go home or find their way to Canada or some other place that would let them in, it would be a different situation. But the reality is different. People live in this situation for years and years. Now, imagine being the parent of a refugee child who sees, year after year, that they have no formal education, that they are put in dangerous and difficult situations just to survive, that they are denied proper access to medicine, to health care. Imagine the mental health problems of children, the multiple stigma and discrimination they will have to endure. What is perhaps more pronounced than before is the tendency of aid actors – UN agencies, international organizations, NGOs – to embrace without any nuance a neoliberal logic, one that sees refugees as human capital that can be used and migration governance as a problem that can be fixed … At the level of their functioning, it is certain that these organizations must really critically rethink their mandate, their functioning, their objectives. I think a lot of organizations have this double tension where they have to follow the dominant narrative, the hegemonic narrative, in order to get funding from their donors, when their mandate and their raison d’être is precisely … to challenge the structure! If you really want to challenge structure, you probably will not be in business very long as a humanitarian organization. You know, the thing that puzzles me and I’m really interested in understanding more and wondering what’s going to happen is the UNHCR’s position that climate refugees are not refugees. Rebecca Hamlin has written a recent book9 about how the refugee discourse undermines other forms of migration and prevents other types of migrants from being properly assisted and treated. And she pointed out that the UNHCR takes a very hard line that climate refugees are not refugees, in order to maintain this kind of privileged space for traditional political refugees. You can understand why they do this, because they do not want donors to fear that they will suddenly insist that hundreds of thousands of climate refugees be resettled in their countries. And at the same time, you think, if you do not stand up for climate refugees, who will? So, it is a real headache, and I do not see how they’re going to be able to maintain this situation in the twenty-first century.

9 Rebecca Hamlin, Crossing: How We Label and React to People on the Move, Stanford University Press, 2021.

Interview with Serena Parekh  83 And I would have hoped for a more nuanced message on climate refugees. We still need to protect refugees. But we need protection for people who are fleeing, who are being forcibly displaced because of climate change – which affects where people can live and work, where land is inhabitable or uninhabitable. Is it why you consider the concept of “structural injustice”, coined by Iris Young,10 as central to the discussions on migration and displacement? The real challenge with “structural injustice” is that it goes against our individualistic habitus. We want to know that we have done something: given money to charity, contributed to resettling refugees, bought sleeping bags, etc. But the work of undoing structural injustice and improving future conditions goes way beyond band-aids. In the American context, we always have in mind racial injustice and the transformation of racist institutions. And what is happening in the US right now is that, on the one hand, you have this symbolic Black Lives Matter movement, and people are expressing a willingness to think about and challenge notions of ambient racism. But the structure, I think, remains economic. Nikole Hannah-Jones’ position is interesting from this point of view: she argues that economic exploitation gives rise to racism, not the other way around.11 We cannot address racism without addressing the 400 years of historical economic exploitation as well as the structures that support economic exploitation today. Those roots are very deep and we cannot deal with racism just by changing our language or by having more black people on TV, as important as those things are. That is why I think the concept of “structural injustice” and the identification of its empirical modalities are a way of channeling the good intentions of a lot of people who want to tackle racism, who want to tackle the global refugee crisis, who want to help children in this country exclusively through individual and targeted assistance. This cannot be the only way forward if we want long-term and sustainable change. We need to work collectively on new, more equitable and responsible modes of production and sociability. One of the roles of philosophy, among others, is to create a language, vocabulary or a framework for these deeper structural changes. But it is more difficult, partly because it challenges the neoliberal logic of individualism – which is not excluded from the logic of individualized Good Samaritan assistance. It really challenges a logic that is strongly embedded in us – this belief that the individual alone can provide solutions, by giving money, by helping refugees and by bringing sleeping bags to Calais. As important as these things are, we need collective structural changes to really make a difference.

10 Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, Princeton University Press, 1990. The definition of “structural injustice” only appears in a later work: Structural injustice, then, exists when social processes put large groups of persons under systematic threat of domination or deprivation of the means to develop and exercise their capacities, at the same time that these processes enable others to dominate or to have a wide range of opportunities for developing and exercising capacities available to them. Structural injustice is a kind of moral wrong distinct from the wrongful action of an individual agent or the repressive policies of a state. Structural injustice occurs as a consequence of many individuals and institutions acting to pursue their particular goals and interests, for the most part within the limits of accepted rules and norms. Young, I.M. (2011). Responsibility for Justice. Oxford University Press. 11 Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Problem We All Live With, One World, 2020. https://​www​.nytimes​ .com/​interactive/​2020/​06/​24/​magazine/​reparations​-slavery​.html.

84  Handbook on forced migration In a 2014 article co-authored with Shelley Wilcox, you showed that “predominantly Western feminist philosophers” had discussed and addressed “the challenges associated with the economic and political dimensions” of globalization.12 Do you think feminist political theorists have a specific perspective on these issues? And if so, why do you think so? One of the limitations and reasons why discussions in philosophy over migration have been so narrow, is probably because the perspective had been dominated by white male, non-immigrant members of the hegemonic group politically and discursively. So, the questions they asked were influenced by their perspective: shall we let outsiders in or not? By contrast, feminist philosophers have always been attentive to the way policies affect marginalized groups. And because of the way that feminist philosophy has approached these issues, they are able to see these effects in ways that other philosophers were not. I’m thinking in particular of Alison Jaggar, for example, who points out that while neoliberal policies promised women greater independence, freedom and autonomy, what actually happened was the exact opposite.13 Thus, neoliberal policies that, for example, removed public health care, did not empower women, but put the onus on them to provide the care that these policies had taken away, while in many cases requiring them to be in paid employment. But because gender norms were still in place, they went to work in low-paying sectors, while continually being subjected to various types of gender-based harassment and violence. Of course, the neoliberal logic that sanctifies entrepreneurship may have blamed women: they are not entrepreneurial enough, they did not work hard enough, they did not challenge gender norms enough, and so on. But in fact, we see that the way neoliberalism has structured these outcomes in tandem with gender norms and expectations and the inferior role that women have very often played in society has helped to create and perpetuate these conditions. There are, of course, significant tensions and differences of opinion in the circle of migration experts, as well as in the political philosophy and social science communities concerned with mobility issues. Yet, one cannot help but feel discouraged by the fact that one is often talking to captive audiences, like-minded people, who share more or less the same vision. Do you think it is still possible for you to actually speak to people who do not originally share your views? When I presented on my book Refugees and the Ethics of Forced Displacement at conferences, debates in bookstores or with students, I often came away with mixed impressions, because I realized that people were not really listening to me. Their concerns, their questions, were elsewhere: Are migrants terrorists? Are they criminals? How much are we paying for them? Are they taking our jobs? I had to answer these questions, which are legitimate in the current climate of disinformation. I had to start from that, which I did in my next book, No Refuge, to create the conditions for a debate. No Refuge was written as a book for the general public. It was not written for a specifically academic audience. And my hope was that it would appeal even to people who do not share my ideas. I tried to give voice to people’s legitimate fears.

12 Serena Parekh and Shelley Wilcox, Feminist Perspectives on Globalization, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018. 13 See in particular: Alison Jaggar, Gender and Global Justice. Cambridge, UK and Malden, MA, USA: Polity, 2014; Alison Jaggar, “Arenas of citizenship: Civil society, the state and the global order”, in Marilyn Friedman (ed.), Women and Citizenship, Studies in Feminist Philosophy, Oxford, UK and New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. 91–110.

Interview with Serena Parekh  85 I think it is really important to acknowledge these things. There are fears that have been exaggerated about crime and terrorism and economic harm that in some ways can be refuted by evidence that they are just fantasies or rumors. But this apparently does not change the fear. If people are afraid of something, giving people reasons and data will not change their minds. So, I thought I should include case studies, living testimonies of migrants to begin each chapter, because it is important that people leave the logic of the technical problem, of the purely politicized question, to enter the interpersonal and human dimension of migration. Behind the numbers, there are people. This is also what ethics is all about. That is also why I dealt with the issue of religion at probably greater length than you would expect from a contemporary philosophy book. Because I think that every religious tradition comes from the same origin, that of welcome, hospitality, recognition of the stranger. But there is an industry dedicated to making sure that this encounter and questioning does not happen. Stoking fears creates more spectators or voters for the political and media machine, in every country in the world, and especially in the European Union or the United States.

8. Dissensus, fictions, emancipation: The struggle for a world to come Interview with Jacques Rancière

30 July 2022 – France In 1992, Francis Fukuyama’s essay The End of History and the Last Man drew the lessons of the collapse of the Soviet bloc, positing both the end of grand narratives and the advent of unlimited liberal democracy. “We, who live in long-standing and stable liberal democracies, cannot imagine a world that is essentially different from the present one, and at the same time better”, wrote Fukuyama.1 The failure of the liberal state-building project in Afghanistan, or the international impasse in supporting Ukraine’s nascent democracy in the face of Russian aggression, are just a few recent examples of liberal universalism in the real world. In a recent book, you make Fukuyama’s teleology essay a key step in reading our inglorious modernity. What is this reading a symptom of? How can we reconcile the intensity of today’s conflicts and polarizations with the image of the diffuse neoliberal consensus that you identify? The period of the Cold War was perceived in the Western imagination as the global opposition between two systems: democracy and totalitarianism. Under the name of totalitarianism one identified a statist economic system and the absolute power of a single party. Democracy, on the other hand, identified the representative system based on free elections and the market economy. This opposition was at the same time that of a balance of forces which gave rise to attempts at a third way, illustrated in particular by the non-aligned movement and the Bandung conference, while in many Western countries the power of the market was tempered by the heritage of social laws and the strength of the workers’ movement. This balance was often challenged by the interventions of the American power against any development threatening their interests. But after the fall of the Soviet empire, the balance was completely broken. For people like Fukuyama, the fall of Sovietism showed that only the market economy worked and that its freedom was in natural harmony with that of democracy (i.e. the representative system). The time of ideologies was declared over with the collapse of Sovietism. It was to be the age of realism. People and governments were to abandon murderous ideologies and the dispassionate consideration of objective problems alone would bring about a peaceful world. This belief was immediately disproved for two reasons. First of all, the disintegration of the Soviet empire and the break of the balance of blocs produced not the predicted universal reign of liberal democracy but its opposite, the unleashing of all particularisms, the revival of nationalism, ethnic wars and religious fanaticism. The famous consensus identifying the law of the liberal market and democracy has remained the rule of the Western world alone. The prophets

1 Fukuyama, Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man, New York: The Free Press, 1992.

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Interview with Jacques Rancière  87 of universal liberal democracy were to be succeeded by those of the clash of civilizations, and the triumphant democracy was to take on the face of new imperialist aggression in the Middle East. The consensus revealed its true face, which has nothing peaceful about it. This is true on the international scene when the US deploys all its military apparatus to bring “democracy” to Iraq. But it is also true within these rich nations that call themselves democracies. The free market, now without competition, has asserted itself as the naked violence of an absolutized capitalism that seizes all forms of life and destroys all forms of social solidarity. This absolutized capitalism, abusively called liberalism, imposes the laws of profit as the objective necessity. And, at the same time, the famous consensus to which democracy is reduced is now limited to acquiescence to these laws, with all the new inequalities they entail. In your two most recent books, Les Trente Inglorieuses2 and Penser l’émancipation,3 you look back at a spectacular turnaround in the French intelligentsia over the last thirty years. The traditional political divide between left and right has been progressively diluted on social, economic and political issues that were strong anchors until the 1990s. In the field of immigration, this analysis is particularly relevant. On the one hand, the right has a discourse of identity: “if you like them so much, you should welcome them in your living room”. On the other hand, the left replies that this is a bad formulation for a real problem. What change has taken place? What genealogy do you make of this shift? Absolute capitalism has succeeded in its enterprise to identify itself with the simple necessity of the objective evolution of the world. In the name of this so-called necessity, in all the Western countries the factories have been destroyed, the working class scattered, transformed into a dust of precarious, intermittent or unemployed workers; the social laws have been called into question, the public services reduced or destroyed. In all these countries, the socialist left has rallied to the consensual logic, and to the so-called neoliberal orthodoxy which is at its heart. Like the right, it has applied itself to ensuring the conditions for the free movement of capital. Of course, this is two sided: it limits the free movement of people and populations who would like to have their share in the wealth of Western countries. From there, a whole spiral began: our governments – right, left or neither right nor left – have left the imaginary management of these closed borders to the xenophobic and racist far right. They presented themselves as the bulwark against this extreme right and took a multiplicity of restrictive measures supposedly intended to fight against racism by fighting against immigration which was the cause of it. Of course, these restrictive and racist measures have only reinforced the racism of the extreme right as our governments have been told that new racist measures were needed to prevent racism, etc. These measures were themselves justified by a whole part of the left-wing intelligentsia. Not only did they adhere to the consensual “realism” towards immigrants, but they have found a new weapon to stigmatize them, namely the defence of the republican secularism. In the past, secularism in France simply meant the neutrality of the state in matters of religion. The new republican ideologues have made it an obligation of the individuals themselves, directly opposed to the ways of life of the Muslim populations which

2 Jacques Rancière, Les Trente Inglorieuses: Scènes Politiques 1991–2021, La Fabrique Éditions, 2022. 3 Jacques Rancière, Penser l’Émancipation, dialogue with Aliocha Wald Lasowski, Éditions de l’Aube, 2022.

88  Handbook on forced migration constitute the most important part of the immigrants or refugees. Thanks to them, the left has not only adopted the exclusive logic of absolutized capitalism. It has given racism new clothes. Former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard famously uttered a phrase that has become embarrassing for the French left: “France cannot take in all the misery in the world.” Despite later denials, it was intended to justify the draconian immigration policy of the government of the day. In 2012, the former Interior Minister and then Prime Minister of the left, Manuel Valls, radicalized the formula by defending his policy of systematically deporting undocumented migrants and Roma: “The left does not mean regularizing all undocumented migrants”. Hailed as pragmatic, this shift of the French left also seems surprisingly aligned with the most realistic discourses of our modernity (“There is No Alternative”), as if politics had to finally enter adulthood … How do you analyse this shift? How can we reconcile the intensity of these conflicts with the image of the diffuse neoliberal consensus that you have described? Michel Rocard’s formula marked a break, even if he added that France should nevertheless “faithfully take its share” of this misery that it could not welcome in its entirety. In his time, the French left, even in the moderate version he represented, still believed it had to apologize for the limits placed on the reception of immigrants. Since then, consensus has progressed and consensus means a well-defined division of the world: there are those who are able to live in the pre-established harmony of wealth and “democracy” that defines the consensual order. And there are those who are not able to do so, who cannot “take off” economically, who cannot afford the “luxury of democracy” and therefore come to Europe to seek the means to live freely or to live at all, etc. We are no longer content to limit their access. Measures are taken to keep them out, to cement the alliance of rich countries against the poor who want a share of this wealth. The bad conscience of Rocard’s time is no longer valid in the time of Manuel Valls. He embodies a left that has fully integrated itself into the logic of global economic (i.e., capitalist) necessity and that has integrated the ideology of exclusion and racism that accompanies it (possibly under the guise of defending “republican values”). It is clear that this “coming of age” is nothing other than the ultimate consent to the injustice of the global economic order and that this allegedly non-consensual attitude is entirely in line with the logic of consensus. I would like to come back to the notion of “political scene”, which is a conceptual and methodological innovation that you apply to different fields of political or aesthetic sensibility. The undocumented migrants’ movement was one of the major elements of the political debate on immigration in France, highlighting the situation of people residing without legal documentation in France, and organizing to resist the attempts of successive governments to label them as illegal immigrants. This moment symbolized the determination of the French state to deny rights to those considered to be residing illegally on its territory and to expel these illegal immigrants whenever possible, and at the same time the political mobilization of the immigrant population as well as of a part of French opinion to resist this categorization, marginalization and criminalization in fact and in law. Can we see in this mobilization an example of a “political scene”, in the sense that you have given to this expression by analysing the speech of the Plebeians on the Aventine, the candidacy of Jeanne Deroin in elections forbidden to women in 1848, or the refusal of Rosa Parks to stand up and sit at the back of the bus in Montgomery in 1955? This moment was indeed strong and we must remember that it came after another strong political scene, namely the movement of 1995 against the Juppé plan on the pensions of the

Interview with Jacques Rancière  89 workers of public companies. In both cases, we find the dramaturgy of the plebeian revolt on the Aventine that I analysed in La Mésentente: those who are judged incapable of speaking and only capable of grumbling and making a mess speak up and show that they are beings capable of understanding and acting. Of course, the movement against the Juppé plan relied on the strength and tradition of struggle of workers’ unions. The Movement of Saint Bernard,4 for its part, took on the appearance of a novelty, even though there had been the “march for equality” in 1983. But, in its heart, there was this demonstration of the capacity of the incapable that is strongly linked to the practice of the occupation. The “clandestines” showed themselves in broad daylight and they showed that they were not starving and illiterate, but intelligent men and women, possessing professional qualifications that they put at the service of French society and yet they were not counted in this society: very exactly what I call “sans-parts”. Invisible people became visible, incapable people revealed their capacity. I remember meeting Paul Ricoeur at that time, who had been appointed to be part of a commission to negotiate with them, and he said he was impressed by their argumentative capacity. It was certainly a powerful moment, but it must be said that it did not lead to a new political force that would last. This is a constant feature of the separation between the left that gravitates around the parliamentary system and the militant left that manifests itself on the ground by giving universal scope to a given conflict. In this case, where that part of the left that is the essence of the political conflict is so clearly at stake, the divorce is even more sensitive. And unfortunately, all the great movements that followed accentuated it: the revolts of autumn 2005 led by the young immigrants of the suburbs alone and the Nuit debout movement or that of the Gilets Jaunes from which the immigrants were absent. On 18 March 1871, the Paris Commune took power in the city. Now, 18 March holds symbolic power in the political imagination of the undocumented, one of whose slogans was “March 18, 1996, we rose”. How do you interpret this reference, as you are also a patient historian of nineteenth-century struggles and social innovations? Can we speak of a common time of political struggles? Is it an uchrony/utopia, an eternal present, a great evening incessantly deferred? We could rather say that the diurnal logic, i.e. moments of effective emancipation, is antithetical to that of the great evening – i.e. emancipation promised as the consequence of a historical process. There is, in fact, a mode of temporality proper to the political struggles which consists in disturbing the normal time of the governmental action and the imaginary time of the historical development. The struggle creates, on the one hand, a radical slowing down, a suspension of the normal time, on the other hand, an acceleration in the sequence of the actions and their effects. This mode of temporality thus always manifests itself as a rupture of the normal evolution of societies, which is an evolution marked by the laws of domination. One always accuses these moments of being ephemeral but at the same time they create traditions that persist and they answer each other from afar as it is the case for the Commune that does not cease to inspire a multitude of these movements that pierce the time of the domination. But there is From June to August 1996 in France, the occupation and subsequent expulsion of undocumented migrants (sans-papiers) from the Saint-Bernard church (Paris, 18th arrondissement) marked the symbolic and media highlight of the undocumented migrants’ movement in France. Reproduced on the front page of the press, the axe attack on a side door of the church by the French police shocked public opinion and gave international resonance to the movement of illegal immigrants. 4

90  Handbook on forced migration also something else: the very dynamics of emancipation tends to challenge the separation of means and ends. Emancipation is realized in the struggle for a world to come, but this struggle is already in itself the participation in another world, the enjoyment of another life. You have criticized Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of human rights, in The Origin of Totalitarianism, as necessarily leading to a void or a tautology.5 For Arendt, the aporia of human rights lies in the fact that human rights are in reality always those of the citizen and that they do not therefore apply to those who really need them at the moment when they need them most, such as stateless people or refugees, who, deprived of any political, legal or material protection, present themselves as men or women with no other title than their humanity – which is not enough to qualify them and include them politically. In your opinion, to what extent does Arendt fail to really think about the problem of human rights? There are two related reasons for this. First of all, Arendt’s reasoning starts from the only legal nature of the rights of the man and the citizen. Now, if we stick to this only legal existence, we quickly arrive at the conclusion that only those who are citizens of a State that guarantees these rights enjoy them, which is indeed tautological. What I have tried to defend is a political and active conception of these rights. They are a text to be interpreted, in the double meaning of the word in French. To interpret is first to explain, to translate, to decipher, to give meaning. But it also means embodying a character, performing a theatrical or musical work. Those who are deprived of these rights can not only claim them but exercise them. This is what happened during the French Revolution, when certain French women decided to exercise de facto equality recognized for all “French”, they are not doing it for French women only, but for all men and women, regardless of their nationality, in the name of a universal idea of what real equality should be. And when the Blacks of Saint Domingue affirmed their quality of free and equal men in rights defined by the Declaration of the Rights of Man. The indeterminacy of the concept of human rights is then a principle of extension and not of restriction of their sphere of effectiveness. One has the rights that one shows oneself capable of implementing. This is where we find the second reason for Hannah Arendt’s scepticism. It is precisely that she does not believe in the universality of this capacity. She remains faithful to the conception that makes politics an activity reserved for a specific category of individuals, for those who are outside the circle of everyday needs. On this basis, refugees then appear as the populations least capable of politically implementing rights. But we see every day that the situation of a migrant or refugee is in no way identifiable with that of the destitute and illiterate, that those who share this condition possess an intellectual capacity similar to any other and a capacity to feel injustice and to fight for their rights, as many movements in the refugee camps attest even today. You recall the idea of oasis, taking up Hannah Arendt. Of course, these oases are not only spatial realities but rather spaces of emancipation, places of speech or political action in the great consensual deserts of modernity. Giving examples of oases, “these multiple holes pierced in the dominant order”, you insisted on their character and their strategies of occupation of squares, physical places within cities: Taksim Square in Turkey, Tahrir Square in Egypt, Place de la République for Nuit debout in Paris, roundabouts of the Gilets Jaunes, 5 Jacques Rancière, “Who is the Subject of the Rights of Man?” The South Atlantic Quarterly, Vol. 103, No. 2/3, Spring/Summer 2004, pp. 297–310.

Interview with Jacques Rancière  91 Occupy Wall Street, in addition to the gatherings of Syriza or Podemos, where a collective, often fragile and temporary capacity to “link not one organization to another but one form of action, one type of gathering, one terrain of action to another” could take shape.6 Are these oases destined to be only the contingent, ephemeral moments of a rhapsody? On the contrary, are they the harbinger of another form of political birth or revolution? We must get rid of the intellectual model that opposes the rhapsody of ephemeral and spontaneous movements to the constancy of long-term organizations espousing a sense of history. There is no sense of history, and the organizations that claimed to have a sense of history have all failed much more seriously than the so-called ephemeral revolts. It is therefore necessary to start from the intrinsic positivity of all the moments and spaces of emancipation snatched from time and from the lived world organized by the inegalitarian order. What counts are the capacities exercised, the moments of equality effectively lived. It is from them alone that other futures can come and not from their repression in the name of the necessary conditions for a future freedom and equality. The conditions of the freedom and equality to come, they are and they are only the effective exercises of the freedom and the equality today. This is the very meaning of the idea of emancipation: there is no opposition between means and ends: emancipation is something that can only be produced by itself, by its own exercise. It is an end in itself that begins now. In the revolutionary movements of the past, it is clear that the capacities exercised and the solidarities implemented in the name of another life to be created were already in themselves the enjoyment in the present of this other life. This is what Marx celebrates in his praise of the Paris Commune. But, within Marxism, this identity of means and ends has been beaten into the ground by the evolutionary and instrumentalist model of the heterogeneity of means and ends. You have shown to what extent authors such as Stendhal, Flaubert, Faulkner, Conrad, Woolf or filmmakers such as Vertov or Pedro Costa, among many others whose works you have been analysing for more than thirty years, succeeded in reaffirming “the capacity to invent that belongs to each and every one of us”.7 Can you explain in what ways fiction can still today overflow from the aesthetic into an authentically political field? We must first agree on the meaning of the word “fiction”. There is not solid reality on the one hand and fiction as a pure product of the imagination on the other. A fiction is a certain sequence of events in time, a certain system of relations between these events and meanings. In this sense, fiction is present at the heart of politics as well as social science or information management. The consensus, with its idea of objective necessity and of the always clean catastrophe is a fiction in this sense: it implies a construction of time that rationalizes any event by making it the consequence of a global necessity. It also implies a process of saturation of reality: an imposed grid of names to designate things and of narratives to explain them. It makes us live in an over-explained world, entirely rationalized where every single thing has a name and every event a meaning (it is the famous “deciphering” which became the interminable task of the media, often with the help of social sciences). Of course, this fiction denies itself, it gives itself as the naked and unavoidable reality. What literary, cinematographic or other fiction can do is to construct fictions that unravel the tight meshes of this supposed

6 7

Jacques Rancière, What Times are We Leaving In? A Conversation with Eric Hazan, Wiley, 2020. Jacques Rancière, The Edges of Fiction, Wiley, 2019.

92  Handbook on forced migration reality. This is how it approaches politics and its scenes that open up heterogeneous times and spaces in the continuous time of domination. To understand it, it is necessary to break with the vision which often supported the wills of critical art: one thought that the task of the critical art was to introduce a causal necessity in a reality that the individuals perceived only like a set of isolated facts. Today it is rather the opposite. It is a question of undoing the official causal order defined by the consensus, of constructing temporalities that are random, of giving back to the things and to the over-explained events their opacity and possibly their irrationality. It also means doing justice to the capacity that each person has to understand the world and to reappropriate his or her own life. You mentioned Pedro Costa: the work he has done with Cape Verdean immigrants in the suburbs of Lisbon is indeed significant. He broke the traditional opposition between documentary and fiction by constructing with these immigrants small fictions in which they themselves are the actors and through which they regain possession of their lives. I am also thinking of Wang Bing’s work with workers affected by de-industrialization, victims of camps or those locked up in an asylum. Fiction retains in our common world individuals and populations that economic logic and the violence of power tend to push into infra-worlds.

9. Securitization, decriminalization, resistance: From old fears to new values Interview with Seyla Benhabib

15 July 2022 – New York, USA In a recent article,1 you played on the ambiguity of the word “End” to question the real purpose and possible death of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. In particular, you insisted on a contemporary contradiction: in an era of unprecedented deterritorialization of capital and information, there is, according to you, an increased territorialization of human and citizens’ rights. One thinks of course of the creation of walls on the border between the United States and Mexico, between Israel and Palestine, in Turkey and Greece to protect Fortress Europe; one thinks also of the peripheralization of asylum requests operated by Denmark towards Rwanda, of the hotspot approach in the Mediterranean or the solutions negotiated between Europe and Turkey to face the Syrian crisis … Faced with this double movement, both the principles of the Convention and the international organizations in charge of giving life to them seem to be quite powerless. Seventy years after its creation, it seems that this model of assistance has never been so much questioned. Is this model based on the wrong premises from the start, or is it just in contextual crisis? What alternative model(s) can we imagine? International organizations such as the UNHCR are caught between the demands of states, which are their donors and protectors, and the need of the populations they serve. The UNHCR is particularly vulnerable in this respect because in a world in which the displaced population has grown exponentially to 80 million according to most recent figures, it is being asked to monitor adherence to the terms of an increasingly contested Refugee Convention while also providing some aid and legal protection for the vulnerable populations of the world. States have developed various strategies to defy the purposes of the 1951 Convention on Refugees to offer “non-refoulement”. These statal strategies of evasion range from “non-entrée” techniques, achieved via the bilateral and trilateral agreements mentioned above, which prevent refugees from reaching the shores of wealthy democracies in the north and west, to the “excision” of territory, as in the famous case of Australia’s Ashmore Reef, to the criminalization of “search and rescue” of NGOs in the Mediterranean that intercept Libyan coastguard ships charged with making sure that refugee boats and dinghies from Africa do not reach the Italian coast. And now we have the literal “outsourcing” of refugee protection to states like Rwanda not only by Denmark but also recently by the UK. The UNHCR cannot contest these practices; there is no court to make sure that the terms of the 1951 Convention are complied with and make sure that signatory states live up to their commitments. Instead,

1 Seyla Benhabib, “The end of the 1951 Refugee Convention? Dilemmas of sovereignty, territoriality, and human rights”, Jus Cogens, 2(1), 2020, pp. 75–100.

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94  Handbook on forced migration it is the human rights courts, and in particular, the European Court of Human Rights, which has overtaken this function in recent decades – and not always with salutary outcomes for refugees. Increasingly, I have come to see the function of the UNHCR as witness-bearing, shaming and information-providing. The presence of UNHCR personnel in refugee camps helps to offer some additional level of protection to the world’s most vulnerable populations; in the event of severe misdemeanor by state and non-state agencies and groups towards refugees, UNHCR can provide information to the news and media channels, engaging in shaming and naming these states – but here also, it needs to toe the line so that state authorities do not ask their personnel to leave. As to the function of information-providing, the UNHCR website is an extremely useful and important source for scholars as well as activists. Refugee activists and scholars are currently questioning whether the five protected categories of the Convention – race, religion, nationality, membership in a social group, political opinion – make sense first in terms of the difficulty of neatly separating out these categories form one another, and in the second place, whether they are at all adequate to describe the plight of the majority of the world’s refugees. Contemporary refugees suffer from climate change that threatens the disappearance of island nations, desertification, etc. as well as from generalized conditions of violence exercised through gangs and paratroopers, and extensive human rights abuses in their countries of citizenship or residence. The very artificial line between economic migrants and political refugees is also shaky since political, ethnic and other forms of persecution cause marginalization in the job market and inability to find economic employment in the first place. Yet there is this fear on the part of refugee advocates and activists that any attempt to re-do the categories of the 1951 Convention can only lead to more and more states abandoning the Convention. So, what do we do? Two new multilateral documents are trying to increase cooperation among states: the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees, emphasizing the need for a more equitable and responsibility-sharing system, “recognizing that a sustainable solution to refugee situations cannot be achieved without international cooperation.”2 Then there is the 2016 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, which is likewise a non-binding document “that respects states’ right to determine who enters and stays in their territory.”3 Its goal is to enhance international governance of migrants’ mobility by addressing all aspects of international migration. Another trend is towards applying neoliberal strategies in treating refugees as a cheap and readily available labor force. Before they realized that their level of technical knowledge and expertise was not adequate to the task, many German employers visited Syrian refugee residences in Germany with the purpose of hiring them. The Turkish government no longer provides Syrian, Afghan and other refugees with work permits, and consequently, they are now employed for a mere pittance, almost as quasi-slaves, by many Turkish workplaces. A more humane approach would be to recognize refugee agency and choice: there may be ways of matching refugees’ desires with the needs of their host countries via the creation of transnational websites and making regular access to the worldwide net available in refugee 2 Global Compact on Refugees, United Nations, New York, 2018. Available at https://​www​.unhcr​ .org/​5c658aed4​.pdf. 3 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, Final Draft – 2018. Available at https://​ refugeesmigrants​.un​.org/​sites/​default/​files/​180711​_final​_draft​_0​.pdf.

Interview with Seyla Benhabib  95 camps. As soon as possible, refugees must be provided with some skills and occupation: women who do not know how to read and write can be asked to attend school, and of course, likewise for the children. Encouraging refugees to open small businesses or to practice their skills, as hairdressers, seamstresses, or construction workers, for example, may be salutary. Above all, decriminalize refugees: do not treat refugee camps like prisons, and encourage civil society to get involved via adopting a refugee and their family, along the model of what Amnesty International did for prisoners of conscience, for example. Treat the refugee as the new migrant. There are already some countries like Canada and some organizations such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) that are quite experienced with such practices and need to have a seat at the table and share their experiences and know-how. You have often claimed the influence of Kant on your thinking, and in particular of his opuscule Toward Perpetual Peace: A philosophical sketch. In the third article, Kant explains that every stranger cannot claim a “right of reception” but agrees on a “right of visitation”, the right of every man to propose himself as a member of society by virtue of his common possession of the surface of the earth. The exact extension and limits of this “cosmopolitical right of visitation” or “hospitality” have often been discussed by contemporary philosophers – from Arendt to Derrida, from Habermas to yourself. Is it correct to say that for you, the effective establishment of such a cosmopolitical right implies a rethinking of our ideas of citizenship and community? What conceptual limits, political content and legal extension do you think such notions have today? Kant’s ingenious formulations of 1795 in the “Perpetual Peace” essay are no longer adequate to critically analyze the needs of our times.4 Nevertheless, Kant provides principles and insights which are indispensable. Kant divides Recht (law and right) – a German term which is multi-layered and ambivalent – into three domains: Staatsrecht (municipal law); Völkerrecht (law of nations or jus gentium) and kosmopolitisches Recht (cosmopolitan right/law). It is this last category which is a real novum in that it tries to formulate some basic principles for the encounter of individuals and associations that are not subject to the authority of the same sovereign but which meet or transact with one another at the boundaries of territories. This is the age of the Enlightenment and also of European expansion into Asia, the South Seas, and the growing fascination with Japan and China – the conquest of the Americas is already two centuries’ old, although settlement is continuing and growing. When you follow the footnotes in Kant’s famous essay, you can see that he is aware that jus cosmopoliticum, that is, the right of hospitality, is morally ambivalent. First, the right of the stranger to seek Zugang (access) is conditional upon his/her motives of being peaceful; this means that there is no right to “enter” (Eingang suchen) if the host does not wish you to do so. But second, under the conditions of our contemporary world Kant’s formulation is not that salutary, because this right to prohibit entry denies the right of refuge to asylum seekers; but, if you think about what Kant is saying in the context of Western expansion towards the rest of the world, you can see that it has an anti-imperialist dimension, protecting countries from those travelers whose motives are far from peaceful but who seek access to the territories and goods of these countries. Think here of companies such as the Dutch East India Company and

4 Immanuel Kant, “Toward Perpetual Peace, A philosophical sketch”, in Kant: Political Writings, 2nd edn, Hans Reiss, ed., Cambridge University Press, 1991.

96  Handbook on forced migration its colonization of India. Kant is critical of Grotius, for example, whom he sees as justifying Western imperialism through his work, Mare Liberum.5 Nonetheless, there are several principles which Kant sets forth that continue to be valid in my opinion. His perspective is that because we live on this globe together – der Erdkugel – and are dependent on each other, we must develop practices and institutions that are both morally defensible and politically feasible. The constitution of every state must be “republican”, respecting the freedom, equality and dignity of human beings; furthermore, war must be eliminated as a means of adjudicating conflict among nations. Realizing that a cosmopolitan world state would be neither feasible nor desirable, Kant suggests that a federative association of states may be the second best to a “Weltrepublik”. Even today, we must respect these insights to secure peace and interdependence in a world that seems to be increasingly approaching the precipice of a world war (see Russian’s invasion of Ukraine in the Spring of 2022). In his 1966 book, A Theory of Migration, Everett S. Lee classified the factors that cause migration into two groups. Push factors are those that cause people to leave their place of residence (e.g., famine or political unrest). Pull factors are those that attract them to a new location (e.g., quality of medical care or employment rate). The advantage of these causal schemes is that they provide a simple, mechanical explanation of population flows, assuming that rational agents base their decisions on a variety of objective socioeconomic parameters. Economists use them, international organizations (IOM, UNHCR, World Bank) base their premises and analyses on this model, and governments often use it as an argument to justify restrictive containment policies. In your opinion, what is the relevance – and what are the limits – of this reading grid today? We still need to have some understanding of push and pull factors. Not everyone in the world wants to go to every other place in the world. There are identifiable migration routes and trends that change historically and demographically. It is helpful to know about them. But we have to pay more attention to the interdependencies of state actions, policies and markets. For example, when the European Union protects the farms of its member countries against competition in certain products, it can also impact the fate of farmers in Africa who can no longer compete with and sell their products in those European markets. To take another example, US agro-business, which is much better endowed with material means of research and development, created a strain of corn more resistant to pests and climate conditions than was the case for the corn in Mexico and Central American countries. When some of these farmers, driven to extinction, then come to the US to seek asylum, the US should not just shove them back to Mexico. We need to understand causal patterns that create states’ obligations to support one another. One major determinant of migratory movements is the existence of linguistic and ethnic communities of kinship in host countries. Family unification is a human right; there may also be more humane and creative ways of activating existing migrant communities to deal with new refugee movements, in that they may be able to provide realistic information about condi-

5 Hugo Grotius, Mare Liberum – The Free Sea, 1609–2009, Robert Feenstra, edition and translation. Brill and Nijhoff, 2009.

Interview with Seyla Benhabib  97 tions in the desired host country – which may act either as a deterrent or as an encouragement – as the case may be. A commonplace of international organizations is based – consciously or not – on a key concept of Giorgio Agamben, that of bare life.6 For the Italian philosopher, who relies on a very Heideggerian reading of Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault, the reality of the Muselman in the camps is that of homo sacer, that is, of a man whose political and biological lives are now in total rupture. Reduced to the sheer fact of biological life, the bare life of the individual in the camps would express an absolute subjection to political power. Similarly, the management by international organizations and governments of refugees, internally displaced persons or returning migrants is implicitly based on an understanding of migrants as ontologically vulnerable populations. With no past or future, no personal history, no capacity for political mobilization. Faced with the bare lives of migrants, the only thing that matters is to manage the labeling, the quantity, the flows and sometimes the economic recycling without any social protection. For you, as one of the most eminent specialists of Hannah Arendt, what is missing from such a reading of Arendt’s distinction (based on Aristotle’s Politics)? What could be opposed to it? First of all, it is important to clarify that “Muselman” is a technical term that has nothing to do with being Muslim. It refers to those who helped dispose of the dead in the camps. The danger in the use of concepts such as “bare life” is that they may lose their critical edge and become descriptive rather than political terms. The reduction of human beings to bare life is always morally and politically objectionable and to the extent that refugee camps perpetuate this condition, they fail, and many of them do so. From the Island of Moira to the camps in New Zealand and Myanmar, we see the refugees being reduced to abject humans. Hannah Arendt referred to this condition as the generation of “superfluous” human beings by totalitarian regimes. Yet Arendt’s own life shows that the refugee is also a human being capable of action and resistance – within certain limits of course. We, therefore, have to encourage refugee agency and initiative, and seek to dismantle the extension of the carceral state model to refugee detention centers. I am afraid that this development has already taken place but there is always room for resistance as we see when refugees on the island of Moira, for example, burn down their own housing in despair or when others in New Zealand refugee camps sew their own lips together in an act of self-immolation against the indifference of the state. A critical theory of migration would surely show how language is an obstacle to the emancipation of refugees, governments and researchers alike. For example, if before we attached to the word “refugee” the meaning “resisting dictatorship”, the rise of the extreme right has favored an image of “foreigners”, “profiteers of the social system”, or even “terrorists” in Europe or the United States today. How do you analyze this battlefield? For you, who are influenced by Kant or Arendt, whose immense effort to rework each philosophical notion or concept inherited from the philosophical tradition (“dialectic”, “freedom”, “judgment”, “world”, etc.) is well known, what methodological, critical, and genealogical requirements would you assign to the study of mobilities in order to avoid the instrumentalization of language?

6



Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, Stanford University Press, 1998.

98  Handbook on forced migration There is a lot of work of public enlightenment to do in this respect. Even when I read newspapers, I notice that very often these distinctions are blurred and that many journalists who write on these issues do not know the terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Let me give you some examples from the United States where I teach a course on refugees and migrants at Columbia Law School. In a country of migrants, in a city of migrants, the so-called New York State Bar Exam, which trains new lawyers for the field, does not include questions about immigration law, and of course, none about refugee law at all. This means that there is no motivation on the part of many students to study these fields. Migration and refugee law continue to be marginal to the constitutional discourse – they remain “strangers” to the constitution. Also, the fact that the United States incorporated the 1951 Refugee Convention into its own law in 1980 through revising the 1951 National Immigration Act is rarely part of the discussion.7 This has a lot to do with the US’ belief in its own “exceptionalism”, which as Michael Ignatieff pointed out, leads to US’ “exemptionalism”, i.e. to choose and decide how it deals with international law.8 The situation is different in Europe both because it was the European experience of two world wars, the collapse of the European nation-state system and the Holocaust of European Jews that gave rise to the experience of the “refugee” in the twentieth century, and also because with the formation of the European Union, the attempt to overcome the weaknesses of the nation-state system is paramount. Yet the refugee question shows that the EU redefines its borders but remains still stuck in the mentality of “fortress Europe”. Internal borders have disappeared for EU member countries but external borders remain. The terminological confusions, slippages and games are states’ ways of managing the flow of peoples whom they do not want to accommodate. In 2010, you were concerned about the growing popularity of Carl Schmitt’s concepts – such as the state of exception – on both the left and the right of the political and intellectual spectrum.9 Carl Schmitt defends a so-called decisionist conception of the legal order, where the sovereign would be the one who decides on the state of exception or during the state of exception – according to an often glossed ambiguity: “Souverän ist, wer über den Ausnahmezustand entscheidet”.10 We are in 2022, your diagnosis has unfortunately been more than confirmed. It seems indeed that governments have adopted a form of crisis management, where the state of exception becomes the “new normal”. Terrorist crisis. Financial crisis. Migration crisis. Pandemic crisis. What are the political and moral risks of this concerning evolution? Do you think that the course of such an accelerating movement – of which Foucault already detected signs in 1978/79 in his analysis of neoliberalism11 – can be reversed? In the last two decades we see the rise of right-wing autocracies all over the globe – Hungary, Turkey, Brazil, India and may be even the United States are all trending in an authoritarian See the United States Refugee Act of 1980 (Public Law 96-212), amendment to the earlier Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1962. 8 Michel Ignatieff, American Exceptionalism and Human Rights, Princeton University Press, 2005. 9 Seyla Benhabib and Daniele Archibugi, “Toward a Converging Cosmopolitan Project?”, with Mariano Croce. OpenDemocracy.org, 2010. 10 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, University of Chicago Press, 2006. 11 Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics, Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979, Picador USA, 2010. 7

Interview with Seyla Benhabib  99 direction. There are surely many reasons for these trends but the rise of the imaginary of “securitization” and “the state of exception” are the legacies of the struggles that unfolded right at the beginning of the twenty-first century with the rise of radical Islamism – ISIS and its splinter groups and the struggles against them. The two wars that the US engaged in – Afghanistan and Iraq – lead increasingly to violations of the Constitution and ended with the creation of Guantánamo. This is a living site of exception which even President Obama was unable to shut down. We are living with this terrible legacy when “the rule of law” has become “rule by law” in these countries. The Turkish government, for example, governs by a mechanism they call “Kanun hakkinda Kararname”, meaning “edicts in the meaning of law”. In the United States, we are subject to rule by juristocracy, that is, a Supreme Court that is on the war path against the hardly-gained civil liberties and freedoms of the American people. This Court is also out to dismantle “the administrative state”, by reducing the power of regulatory agencies in controlling corporations and setting emission guidelines to combat global warming. It is a self-destructive and myopic path which will cost not only the US but the world a great deal in exacerbating the climate crisis. The last decades in the US, in particular, have also seen the rise of “crimmigration”, that is, the increasing criminalization of refugee and migratory movements. The prison-carceral system has now been extended to the southern border of the US with Mexico and thousands of migrants are herded into detention centers. Under the Trump Administration, there was even a policy of separating children from their parents so as to discourage further migration. The techniques used in the “state of exception” are the same – whether in Abu Ghraib in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo or in migrant detention centers: these employ techniques deigned to humiliate the prisoner, the refugee, the enemy and to break their will-power, violate their human and civil rights and render them creatures without rights – persons who lose “their right to have rights” – to use Arendt’s famous phrase. And sometimes, it is the veterans of wars abroad, companies who have specialized in construction of enemy prisons that get the contracts at home as well to build the refugee and detention camps. So, there is a connection between the military-industrial complex and the migrant and refugee detention complex. To analyze the connections between all these and neoliberalism would take a long time but these are very powerful currents and we will need all democratic forces – left, center, and even moderate right-wingers who believe in constitutionalism – to join the fight. In a 1999 text, La Contre-Allée, Jacques Derrida goes to Istanbul and meets an old Sephardic Jewish community.12 Derrida distinguishes in these exiles a secret of exile that is already within him. This secret is that of the Marrano Jew, of the exile, who is at the same time in search of the secret and who finds himself moved, mobilized and driven by his secret. One thinks here of Kafka’s short parable commented on by Hannah Arendt in the preface to Between Past and Future and taken up again in The Life of the Mind: Kafka stages a man caught between two antagonistic forces. The first, the past, “pushes him from behind, from the origin”.13 The second, ahead of him, blocks his way: it is the future. Certainly, in appearance, these two forces support him by fighting against each other. In reality, this is not the case, because he himself is caught between the two: he has to fight them, even if his (unattainable) dream is

Jacques Derrida and Catherine Malabou, Counterpath: Traveling with Jacques Derrida, Stanford University Press, 2004. 13 Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future, New York: Viking Press, 1961. 12

100  Handbook on forced migration to jump from the line of combat where he is to take a position of exteriority – a position of “referee” in relation to these two antagonists, a position that Arendt describes as a diagonal force. No doubt the thinkers you discuss in your book Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin have all demonstrated this diagonal force through their intellectual and often political engagement.14 What value(s) of universality can be given to the figure of the exiled Marrano, to that of the Kafkaesque wrestler? More specifically, in a context of polarized political narratives and neoliberal hegemony, how can we mobilize our diagonal force? This is a lovely question. I think we have to be a bit more attentive to the psychological forces that scare people about exile and Kafka’s “diagonal”. What for us as intellectuals appears as a normal condition scares many people. As intellectuals, we are always in some sense in exile because thinking in exile means distancing yourself from the city, from our habitat, from what you have taken for granted – already the ancient Greek philosophers knew that. But what appears both natural and desirable for us is frightening and anxiety-provoking for a lot of people. Authoritarian movements mobilize the nostalgia for home, for an idyllic state of harmony, dominated by a powerful male figure. This is the trope in all the speeches of Trump, of Bolsonaro, of Modi, etc. In the age of “liquid modernity”, to use the concept coined by Zygmunt Bauman,15 this longing for home is opposed to all those groups and persons that represent a life of risk-taking, a life at the margins – be it the life of the exile, the life of the LGBTQI+ people, the life of ethnic and racial others. They disrupt the imagined sense of wholeness and harmony – which is, of course, itself illusory. Paying attention to this psychology, how can we mobilize and deactivate the fears that it relies on? The figure of the Maranno as exile is exemplary because the Maranno carries the memories of home within her. The lost home is not presented in mythological terms as a paradise lost but it is viewed as that place which we started our journey from and to which we may never return but the memory of which gives our life always a slightly melancholic quality. But maybe today all refugees and migrants live with this sense of melancholy – the sense that the past is a mythical space; that the lost home must be recreated where one is, not on the basis of old memories but of new values.

Seyla Benhabib, Exile, Statelessness, and Migration: Playing Chess with History from Hannah Arendt to Isaiah Berlin, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018. 15 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity, Polity Press, 2000. 14

10. Otherness, language, exile: Expressing the poem of the Relation Interview with Tanella Boni

15 February 2022 – Côte d’Ivoire You started with a philosophy thesis on “The idea of life in Aristotle”, directed by Pierre Aubenque, a great specialist in ancient philosophy known for his work on Aristotelian ontology, but also for his essay on “prudence” in the Nicomachean Ethics, practical wisdom at the crossroads of the world of necessity and the world of human contingency.1 At a time when crisis follows crisis and “crisis management” has become the alpha and omega of political discourse and human behaviour, do you think that Aristotelian thought is audible or has some relevance for us? I do not know if it is audible today, even if it should be. Personally, this thought has given me a lot and it continues to nourish me on the question of the human being who is a living being like all the others, on the question of the relation with the other, with all the others, on life on Earth which is this planet that we have in common and that we must make habitable. I was very interested in Greek philosophy during my university studies, so much so that, before the thesis you mention, I had defended one (postgraduate thesis) on theology in Plato and Aristotle. So, I learned that the relationship between humans and gods is very important and complex. Humans are not gods, and gods are not humans. In Plato, poets are not allowed to represent the gods as they do, in such an implausible way. The gods, in an unreachable world so far away from us, are not “living”, they have none of the feelings and weaknesses that humans lend them. In the history of humanity, the religious question has always been a major issue. We kill in the name of “our God”, we provoke wars, we exclude the other who does not have the same beliefs as ourselves. Welcoming the human other, empathy, benevolence and hospitality are in danger. How can we welcome the other who is different from us? This is one of the major challenges we face today. Aristotle also teaches us that there are various forms of intelligence. Today, we see how, in many situations, it is the calculating intelligence that prevails, the one that has only its own interests in mind. We could also say that Aristotle gives us some guidelines for thinking about the “false friendships” at work today, and all the false pretences of links that are not really links, that only serve those who know how to take advantage of others, through words, lies, deception, false embraces without any empathy! (I am responding at a time when I am a spectator of the electoral campaign in France and am learning a lot about the behaviour of politicians …) It is not only from the point of view of “practical wisdom” that Aristotle leads us to a certain understanding of our times, but also from the point of view of the method of knowledge and



1

Pierre Aubenque, La prudence chez Aristote, Presses Universitaire de France – Quadrige, 1963.

101

102  Handbook on forced migration the way we organize our knowledge in universities and research institutes. Let me give you an example: in Book I of the Parts of Animals, a biological treatise, Aristotle shows how, having a general culture, it is possible to have a global view of things and to go far in the knowledge of an object. Today, we can see to what extent specialized knowledge or “expertise” is fashionable. But should not an “expert” be able to compare one situation with another, one object with another, in order to be able to go far in knowledge and give the necessary conclusions? Do experts and specialists, because they know something and continue to search for what they do not know, remain humble, while being cultured women and men and intellectually, honestly and morally reliable humans? In addition to your thesis and numerous articles in philosophy, you have published novels, biographies, children’s books and – of course – collections of poetry. Such an abundance is rare, but not unheard of: other philosophers have also tried their hand at poetry, such as Nietzsche, Heidegger, not to mention the pre-Socratics, for whom the borderline does not really make sense. Closer to home, the poet Édouard Glissant has also published a Philosophy of Relation.2 In each of these cases, it seems that the question of language, conceived as logos or Nietzschean “new language”, is at the heart of the experiment. In your opinion, what work of figuration, of decentring, of questioning, does poetry allow to operate? In other words, does your poetry begin where concepts end? People always ask me why I write poetry when I should first be doing philosophy in every sense of the word: arguing, reasoning, demonstrating, criticizing, analysing! I do not know if my poetry begins where concepts end. And I wonder if, against all odds, poetry should not walk in the company of philosophy as a way of living, a way of seeing and inhabiting the world. For me, poetry is the word that speaks of the link between the human and the human. Poetry takes into account the totality of the world. It is not an exclusively human link that I want to express. Without even making an effort, poetry pulls me away from the temptation that threatens many philosophers. This temptation to want to be like a master of reasoning – by lining up words, by constructing one’s own language understandable by oneself and by one’s peers – this temptation also to go round in circles or to brood for a long time in the language of the concept that one has created or borrowed from others. Is it by chance that philosophy (the one we practise, the so-called Western philosophy) has this totalitarian temptation to want to be the queen of the disciplines that think about the world? I wonder if this way of philosophizing, which locks us into a language (jargon), is the best way to grasp the world as the place where we all live … I write in poetry, I borrow this other language that I believe is freer, because instinctively (as an insect does) I want to leave traces in order to weave links with all living things and with all humans. Apart from the living, I also have a lot to say about inorganic matter or what is light years away from me, in a sidereal world. I want to live among the rhythms, among the images, among the colours that come to me and that I capture through my senses and my skin even before my intelligence intervenes to arrange my words, to sort them out, to imagine a possible meaning that I cannot control … Glissant knows, as do many other authors, that it is not in a square or closed reasoning that one expresses the essence of the relation, that one expresses globality or the desire to build a humanity that is both one and plural.



2

Édouard Glissant, Philosophie de la Relation: Poésie en Étendue, Paris, Gallimard, 2009.

Interview with Tanella Boni  103 Because of your respective poetic and philosophical commitments, but also because of the themes addressed in your works, a parallel with Edouard Glissant comes about quite naturally. Glissant has developed a “philosophy of relation”. He does not conceive of the relation as what exists between poles of fixed and already given identities, but as what conditions, makes possible and thinkable the identities themselves, in their evolution, their dynamics, their process. In a 2017 collection, Where it’s so clear inside me, you write: It will take time To learn The new words From the relation3 It seems that this notion is for you an essential prism to explain the experience of exile, of uprooting – to do them justice too. Why do you think that this notion is particularly adequate for thinking about (or figuring) the experience of women and men on the roads of exile? What role do you see language, linguistic creation and creolization playing in this process? The relation is constitutive of the human condition. The human being is a speaking being before he is a politician or a citizen. The human being is born alone, enters the world through the cry at the moment when the umbilical cord that links him to the mother is cut. Thrown into the world by this cry, a fundamental language that is not yet articulated, he or she is undoubtedly waiting for some response, a presence that recognizes his or her own presence as a living being. We often forget that a child learns to speak. We know that the presence of another human being helps them to build this crucial stage that will make them a social being. However, the relation is established in proximity, with the person close to them, in a family, in a house or dwelling place, a landscape, other living beings, grasses, trees, insects, animals, the sea, the wind, the sun, the cold, etc. To be able to express the relation we have with the environment in which we live, we need to speak, even if we know that the first words or the first requests concern elementary needs, hunger, thirst … The uprooting from oneself or from those one loves the most, or the separation from the world (one’s world), is an experience that every human being is called upon to live through, in one way or another, and first of all in one’s own place or country, before being uprooted from one’s own country and then crossing over to another. However, in exile, one is not cut off from the world, on the contrary, one is, paradoxically, in relation with the world, undoubtedly the world one did not know! Thus, exile, whatever it may be, is always a painful experience. You cannot leave behind what you value most without being deeply affected. This is what I call “my luggage” in my poetry. Exiles are human beings who carry several layers, always several identities and at the same time the traces of successive separations but also of new encounters and experiences. Their identities are constantly recomposed. The relation they have with themselves, with their country of origin, with the countries they crossed and the countries they arrived in is always very complex. This relation is not fixed for all eternity: it is made up of elements that juxtapose each other, mix and mingle to give their lives another rhythm, another way of living in the world. Their spirit, open to experiences, is transformed along the way, even if the initial values, principles and cultures remain in place.

3

Tanella Boni, Là où il Fait si Clair en Moi, Éditions Bruno Doucey, 2017.

104  Handbook on forced migration The word of an exile will always be heavy with several composite layers of experiences, sufferings, joys, encounters, which are connected to each other. Each word written from the depths of an exile will always bear witness to what remains fundamentally unspeakable. I wonder if, for example, the experience of exile can be “told”. That is why the words of poetry will relay some passages of such an experience. Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari have worked on the notions of “ritornello”.4 In your poetry, you yourself evoke the “little music” of “inner time”: This time tied to my guts Gathering the essentials of my luggage5 Linear time, the time of institutions, governments, the UNHCR or NGOs, seems to eradicate this time of sensitive experience and “little music”. In the same way, the permanence of political, economic and pandemic crises, etc., which now constitute the horizon of the modern relation to the world, seems to stifle our capacity to arouse and listen to “little music”. What do you think they tell us about the experience of migration or exile? What do they tell us about the institutions that try to categorise, channel and control them? We are always inhabited by our own “little music” that NGOs and international or state bodies do not hear, accustomed as they are to counting, calculating, measuring the passing of time or the weather. But the little music that inhabits us cannot be counted, they keep us alive, they haunt us, they come and go, never fixed. They are frail, fragile, which is why we must welcome them, collect them and listen to them. They do us no harm, on the contrary. As I have already said, what we take with us on the road to exile, in any migration, are also these small pieces of music that accompany us. They are a richness and a haven of peace even in the most difficult moments. They are uncontrollable by anyone. Sometimes we do not know why they are there, why they appear at certain moments and then seem to fade away to accompany us better. This means that all the organizations and people who deal with people on their way around the world do not understand that a human being cannot be reduced to a number, a job, a country or a place of residence. Unfortunately, we continue to look at exiles as if they had fallen from the sky because, whatever they do, whatever they prove – they may even be citizens of their place of residence – they are never considered as if they were at home. Yet we would benefit from hearing and listening to all the riches and connections they carry within them. But the world protects its borders and, despite all the international laws that authorize the mobility of humans outside their countries of origin, it is as if listening to the other and the foreigner is not for tomorrow. It is undoubtedly a question of language and representation, because the temptation to stick a label or a number on the back or forehead of a passing human being is always very strong … In 2016, in an article entitled “What is a life of dignity?”, you questioned what has been called the “migrant crisis”, a crisis of European political responsibility. From an ethical perspective, you wrote: “It may be that the place of eternal rest for a human body does not Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, University of Minnesota, 1989. 5 Tanella Boni, Là où il Fait si Clair en Moi, Éditions Bruno Doucey, 2017. 4

Interview with Tanella Boni  105 exist, the sea now being the common grave for thousands of anonymous individuals.”6 Do the thousands of dead in the ongoing Mediterranean tragedy have a right to dignity in your opinion? Conversely, should we speak of indignity to qualify the policies of exclusion and criminalization of mobility, which are now widespread? Yes, there are unworthy policies at the gates of Europe and other continents. Policies that are not those of hospitality or fraternity. Policies that are unworthy because they are inhumane. It is at the borders of States that we see to what extent fraternity is an illusion, since not every human being is considered as a human being, with a human language, cultures, thoughts, but also a body that is far from being an object – an inert thing that can be thrown away or forgotten at the bend in the water … We look at where he comes from, whether he has a passport, a visa, an identity document, whether he has, in short, a pass to move around. A human being without a visa is a curious beast who is hunted down everywhere as if he had committed the worst crime. The problem is that the question of why some people travel in this way, illegally, is never asked. We forget to ask the question of the “countries of departure” and the experiences and the political question concerning those states that offer so few dreams or opportunities to their citizens so that they can flourish and live and die with dignity at home. Because the question of dignity does not only concern living but also dying, an eminently political, social and spiritual question. A human body is not just any old thing, it deserves a minimum of respect, i.e. to be treated as a human being until the end, until the end of life. Today, the Mediterranean has become a “gulf” that links Africa and Europe. It is not a cemetery, a place for the eternal rest of bodies. It is the place of all the noise and fury in which bodies that will never rest in peace are lost. The dead must be honoured, because every dead person is a human being with a name. A human who is not just anyone. A human being who deserves to be treated with dignity regardless of the circumstances in which they die. While media images and representations of migrants often portray them as “young men”, UNHCR figures show that of the 80 million people who are victims of forced displacement, more than half are women or girls. Particularly exposed to protection risks on the migration route, often victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, women are also on the front line of the consequences of climate change and armed conflicts that provoke displacement. What do these data tell you? We know that it is not only young men who migrate, even without using numbers. We also know that any migration, for young girls and women, is always riskier because they are thought to be easy prey at the mercy of all sorts of traffickers or sexual predators. Sometimes they will spend a lot more time on the crossing routes. They will suffer a lot of violence because their experiences will be rather inhumane and will leave unhealable wounds on their bodies and in their minds. It is also here that we see how the question of the link between humans and other humans is always plagued when two humans of the opposite sex come face to face. I wonder why this relation cannot be peaceful and fruitful. Most of the time, a woman, whatever her age, is seen as a minor who needs protection. She is also seen as a servant or a maid, or potentially a prostitute, regardless of her education and social status. Sometimes she is seen as a slave. If she is outside her social environment or her community, she loses her place as a human being 6



Tanella Boni, “Qu’est-ce qu’une vie digne?”, Diogène, 253(1), 2016, pp. 110–125.

106  Handbook on forced migration with such and such a name, such and such a social status. I do not know when mentalities will change in this respect. Male migrants can also suffer sexual assault or other inhuman and degrading violence. But when it comes to women, everything is done as if it were natural, as if it were the price to pay or a punishment for being away from home. As if women, too, did not have the right to mobility, as if they were not simply free humans. The whole question is how to change the way people think. Retrograde conceptions of women’s place in society and gender relations are at work in the countries of transit and arrival. Finally, in a 2019 article entitled “Words and images of the relation between the one and the other”, you wrote that women “understand that they need to move beyond the binary relation between the one and the other in order to realise their potential and find their place in their community and in the world”.7 Can refugee and displaced women, who are often seen as the damned of the earth today, be the architects of this renewed thinking on relations? I think that leaving one’s country could be a plus. These women see the world differently, even though they still have their own inner music. Life experiences, even painful ones, are fruitful because they contribute to an open mind. They learn that other types of relations exist in which they can find their place. They learn the rules of financial autonomy, freedom of thought, speech and action. They cultivate their self-esteem within the framework of a self-help and solidarity group or association. They learn to cope as best they can. This is what many women in their home countries do. And, even with little education and no qualifications, they learn in the heat of the moment that a woman’s place is not forever in a kitchen or with a man. They learn, at their peril, to stand on their own two feet. Outside their homes, life itself becomes a school that they attend, opening their eyes …

7 Tanella Boni, “Les mots et les images de la relation entre l’un et l’autre”, Diogène, 267–68(3–4), 2019, pp. 140–159.

 

Poem: Floaters

Martín Espada Ok, I’m gonna go ahead and ask … have ya’ll ever seen floaters this clean. I’m not trying to be an a$$ but I HAVE NEVER SEEN FLOATERS LIKE THIS, could this be another edited photo. We’ve all seen the dems and liberal parties do some pretty sick things. Anonymous post, “I’m 10–15” Border Patrol Facebook group

Like a beer bottle thrown into the river by a boy too drunk to cry, like the shard of a Styrofoam cup drained of coffee brown as the river, like the plank of a fishing boat broken in half by the river, the dead float. And the dead have a name: floaters, say the men of the Border Patrol, keeping watch all night by the river, hearts pumping coffee as they say the word floaters, soft as a bubble, hard as a shoe as it nudges the body, to see if it breathes, to see if it moans, to see if it sits up and speaks. And the dead have names, a feast day parade of names, names that dress all in red, names that twirl skirts, names that blow whistles, names that shake rattles, names that sing in praise of the saints: Say Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez. Say Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos. See how they rise off the tongue, the calling of bird to bird somewhere in the trees above our heads, trilling in the dark heart of the leaves. Say what we know of them now they are dead: Óscar slapped dough for pizza with oven-blistered fingers. Daughter Valeria sang, banging a toy guitar. He slipped free of the apron he wore in the blast of the oven, sold the motorcycle he would kick till it sputtered to life, counted off pesos for the journey across the river, and the last of his twenty-five years, and the last of her twenty-three months. There is another name that beats its wings in the heart of the trees: Say Tania Vanessa Ávalos, Óscar’s wife and Valeria’s mother, the witness stumbling along the river. Now their names rise off her tongue: Say Óscar y Valeria. He swam from Matamoros across to Brownsville, the girl slung around his neck, stood her in the weeds on the Texas side of the river, swore to return with her mother in hand, turning his back as fathers do who later say: I turned around and she was gone. In the time it takes for a bird to hop from branch to branch, Valeria jumped in the river after her father. Maybe he called out her name as he swept her up from the river; maybe the river drowned out his voice as the water swept them away.

  Tania called out the names of the saints, but the saints drowsed in the stupor of birds in the dark, their cages covered with blankets. The men on patrol would never hear their pleas for asylum, watching for floaters, hearts pumping coffee all night on the Texas side of the river. No one, they say, had ever seen floaters this clean: Óscar’s black shirt yanked up to the armpits, Valeria’s arm slung around her father’s neck even after the light left her eyes, both face down in the weeds, back on the Mexican side of the river. Another edited photo: See how her head disappears in his shirt, the waterlogged diaper bunched in her pants, the blue of the blue cans. The radio warned us about the crisis actors we see at one school shooting after another; the man called Óscar will breathe, sit up, speak, tug the black shirt over his head, shower off the mud and shake hands with the photographer. Yet, the floaters did not float down the Río Grande like Olympians showing off the backstroke, nor did their souls float up to Dallas, land of rumored jobs and a president shot in the head as he waved from his motorcade. No bubbles rose from their breath in the mud, light as the iridescent circles of soap that would fascinate a two-year old. And the dead still have names, names that sing in praise of the saints, names that flower in blossoms of white, a cortege of names dressed all in black, trailing the coffins to the cemetery. Carve their names in headlines and gravestones they would never know in the kitchens of this cacophonous world. Enter their names in the book of names. Say Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez; say Angie Valeria Martínez Ávalos. Bury them in a corner of the cemetery named for the sainted archbishop of the poor, shot in the heart saying mass, bullets bought by the taxes I paid when I worked as a bouncer and fractured my hand forty years ago, and bumper stickers read: El Salvador is Spanish for Vietnam. When the last bubble of breath escapes the body, may the men who speak of floaters, who have never seen floaters this clean, float through the clouds to the heavens, where they paddle the air as they wait for the saint who flips through the keys on his ring like a drowsy janitor, till he fingers the key that turns the lock and shuts the gate on their babble-tongued faces, and they plunge back to earth, a shower of hailstones pelting the river, the Mexican side of the river.

Narrative: Crossing borders

Fırat Bozçalı and Rebecca Galemba “The border” is not a line fixed in time or space. Instead, where the border lies and is experienced shifts as a result of the policies and daily negotiations between border enforcers, dwellers, and crossers. In recent years, borders have moved outward and inward as states seek to limit the presence of migrants. In the process, border crossings have become increasingly contested and diffused through expanded geographies. Individuals whose profiles do not “fit” the ethnic, social, and cultural expectations of the territorial state are rendered suspect and out of place even as borderlands also provide opportunities for creative forms of claims-making and hybridization. In spaces marked by suspicion, racialized minorities and border inhabitants struggle to demonstrate their own belonging, while migrants must perform their identities to prove they match the documents they possess and achieve their migratory goals.1 Border management practices produce categories of migrants, differentiating between asylum seekers, refugees, and “other migrants”, and impose “new patterns of differential inclusion in the border regime”, which selectively grant access to protection and basic rights based on perceptions of nativity, race, gender, sexuality, and ability.2 But as migratory flows are dynamic and in constant evolution, migrants’ own agency and movements defy rigid categorization schemas.3 Borders are also spaces of tension in which border enforcers, local inhabitants, and migrants alike fear, embody, and resist power dynamics. As sites of control and contestation, borders shift and spread beyond geopolitical divisions. We can identify at least three types of shifts: border externalization, that is, practices that extend border enforcement architecture beyond a state’s territorial limits; border interiorization, which brings bordering techniques inside a state’s territory; and biopolitical borders, which refers to new technologies and surveillance strategies used by states to govern the conduct of populations and individual bodies, often through encouraging self-discipline.

1 Noelle Brigden, The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018); Rebecca Galemba, “‘He used to be a Pollero’: The securitisation of migration and the smuggler/migrant nexus at the Mexico–Guatemala border”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44, no. 5 (2018) 870–886; Madeleine Reeves, “Clean fake: Authenticating documents and persons in migrant Moscow”, American Ethnologist 40, no. 3 (2013); Sahana Ghosh, “‘Everything must match’: Detection, deception, and migrant illegality in the India–Bangladesh Borderlands”, American Anthropologist 121, no. 4 (2019). 2 Maribel Casas-Cortes, Sebastian Cobarrubias, and John Pickles, “Riding routes and itinerant borders: Autonomy of migration and border externalization”, Antipode 47, no. 4 (2015): 907. 3 Ibid.

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110  Handbook on forced migration

BORDER EXTERNALIZATION States fortify borders through fencing, walls, surveillance technology, immigration agents and military troops, but they also extend border enforcement practices beyond their territorial limits through what scholars call “border externalization”. Border externalization deters migrants from a distance through formal policies and informal practices that integrate state and non-state actors. Examples include partnerships with transit countries to provide training and resources to enhance border patrols along transit routes; intensification of states’ deterrence and deportation infrastructures; pre-screening and visa controls in origin countries; processing centers on distant islands or in origin countries; enlistment of airlines in document checks; maritime interceptions and offshore detention.4 There are also softer forms of deterrence, such as the insertion of migration management conditions into trade and development aid agreements with partner countries.5 Externalization policies are not new, but they have become more sophisticated and globally diffused. They are now part of border control toolkits deployed by the United States, Europe, and Australia. The extension of border surveillance practices from the United States deep into transit countries like Mexico to incentivize them to detain, deport, and deter migrants closer to the source is one example of these deterrence strategies. Border externalization policies prevent migrants from gaining the territorial access required to lodge protection claims. In effect, they transform asylum seekers into “illegal” migrants, which in turn, legitimizes border fortification and migratory deterrence policies and further exposes migrants to risks of violence and exploitation as they attempt to cross borders.6 Externalization exposes migrants and asylum seekers to riskier, more circuitous, and prolonged journeys, and increases their reliance on smugglers to evade border controls. It prompts new forms of anxiety by requiring asylum seekers to wait longer periods of time both at the border and in transit, as well as re-routing migrant trajectories to include forward and backward movements and unpredictable fits and starts.7 Along the way, migrants risk being attacked or robbed by armed groups, criminals, and/or state officials, as well as getting lost, drowning, or dying of hypothermia or dehydration. But in so doing, migrants also forge relationships to manage anxiety and mitigate risk that reflect solidarity, courage, intimacy, care, humor, friendship, and love, even as they are shadowed by persistent anxiety.8 Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and Right to Move (London: Verso, 2016); Corey Johnson et al., “Interventions on rethinking ‘the border’ in border studies”, Political Geography 30, no. 2 (2011); Alison Mountz and Nancy Hiemstra, “Spatial strategies for rebordering human migration at sea”, in A Companion to Border Studies, eds Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan (Blackwell Publishing, 2012); David Scott FitzGerald, Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019); Ruben Zaiotti, “Mapping remote control: The externalization of migration management in the 21st century”, in Externalizing Migration Management, ed. Ruben Zaiotti (New York: Routledge, 2016). 5 Katherine H. Tennis, Outsourcing Control: The Politics of International Migration Cooperation. (Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2020). 6 FitzGerald, Refuge Beyond Reach; Ruben Andersson, Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe (Oakland: University of California Press, 2014). 7 Noelle Brigden and Ċetta Mainwaring, “Matryoshka journeys: Im/mobility during migration”, Geopolitics 21, no. 2 (2016). 8 Brigden, The Migrant Passage; Wendy A. Vogt, Lives in Transit: Violence and Intimacy on the Migrant Journey (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018); Jason De Leon, The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015); 4

Narrative: Crossing borders  111

BORDER INTERIORIZATION States also create borders within their own territories – interiorization – through a complex architecture of checkpoints, raids, detention, surveillance technology, punitive anti-immigrant local laws and ordinances, immigration courts, and collaborations between local law enforcement and immigration enforcement. “Paper borders” take the form of burdensome documentation and bureaucratic maneuvers that channel immigrants into provisional and subordinate statuses such as temporary protected status, deferred action from deportation, and withholding of removal alternative forms of relief.9 Finally, states construct internal spaces of exclusion through geographical zones of exception, immigrant detention centers, racialized criminalization and policing, and curtailed access to due process rights. The lines between externalization and interiorization are blurred. States treat interior portions of the state as if they were border zones, or even external to the state altogether, in order to contain or deter migrants and refugees. Some examples are: European Union states have signed readmission and safe third country agreements to allow them to treat asylum seekers as if they never reached their territories.10 Australia has excised portions of its territory to limit rights and due process for asylum seekers.11 Spain treats its enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla as outside the national territory for the purposes of migration management. When Canada established processing centers to deal with 600 Chinese refugees in 1999, they claimed that these centers were “ports-of-entry” rather than domestic soil.12 States thus carve out spaces of exclusion within their territories, as well as islands of inclusion outside of the territory. For example, the Indian and Bangladeshi states govern enclaves within one another’s territories (see Ferdoush, this volume). In turn, these shifting and ambiguous territorial arrangements have led enclave dwellers to strategically mold their identities to survive and claim forms of belonging across borders. Interiorization subjects migrants to the constant stress of being unveiled as “illegal” and “deportable” even after reaching their destination. Migrants sometimes hide their lack of legal status by walking, talking, or dressing in particular ways as their daily routines become subject to surveillance. Public buses, state offices, workplaces, and even their own homes become compromised spaces magnified by the use of digital surveillance technologies. In the United States, unauthorized immigrants refer to E-Verify, the electronic employment verification

Luigi Achilli, “The ‘good’ smuggler: The ethics and morals of human smuggling among Syrians”, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 676, no. 1 (2018). 9 Sarah B. Horton, “Introduction: Paper trails”, in Paper Trails: Migrants, Documents, and Legal Insecurity, eds Sarah B. Horton and Josiah McC Heyman (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020); Nandita Sharma, “Canadian nationalism and the making of a global apartheid”, Resources for Feminist Research 32, no. 3–4 (2007). Also see Cecilia Menjívar on border insourcing: Cecilia Menjívar, “Immigration law beyond borders: Externalizing and internalizing border controls in an era of securitization”, Annual Review of Law and Social Science 10 (2014). 10 FitzGerald, Refuge Beyond Reach. 11 Michelle Foster and Jason Pobjoy, “A failed case of legal exceptionalism? Refugee status determination in Australia’s ‘excised’ territory”, International Journal of Refugee Law 23, no. 4 (2011). 12 Alison Mountz, “Embodying the Nation-State: Canada’s response to human smuggling”, Political Geography 23, no. 3 (2004).

112  Handbook on forced migration technology used in the United States, as “E-Terrify” due to the terror it provokes in the immigrant community.13

BIOPOLITICAL BORDERS States have extended their border practices into biopolitics through the use of surveillance biometrics, identity management technologies like E-Verify, and other disciplinary tactics. These tools distill diverse border identities and encounters into distinct categories that can be managed and that facilitate security decisions.14 Racialized border controls and checkpoints dictate how migrants should speak, dress, and behave to gain passage or entry. Such categorization incites anxiety, fear, or humiliation in border crossers whose legal status and profile (whether racialized, gendered, or other) does not match the profile of a “legitimate” entrant.15 Expectations about how they will be categorized influence how migrants comport themselves and perform their perceived or assigned migrant identity at border crossings, en route, and even after arrival. For example, unauthorized immigrants in the United States may be fearful to report crimes committed against them; Blackness, clothing, and carrying backpacks are used to profile Sub-Saharan migrants traveling through North Africa;16 and individuals that do not fit common traveler profiles of temporary workers or businessmen may provoke interrogations of being spies or diaspora-based jihadists when they try to enter Iraq. Disorienting and dehumanizing treatment inside immigrant detention centers has a similar effect of disciplining asylum seekers and wearing them down to motivate them to forfeit their claims. These disciplinary effects extend beyond the walls of detention to deter future migrants from making the journey and to inhibit the mobility of immigrant communities in the interior as they seek to avoid detection and, potentially, detention and deportation. States also impose order on migrants through selective forms of compassion and exclusion. A state-based dialectic between “the deserving refugee” and “the undeserving migrant” holds migrants responsible for proving their worth. To do so, they must mold their behavior, physical appearances, and life experiences into specific “social aesthetics of eligibility” that separate innocent victims who deserve compassion from “illegal migrants” or allegations of being “bogus refugees”.17 These tactics do not always work, however. The well-known horrors of dangerous journeys, detention, and deportation have failed to deter Central Americans from migrating. Nor do migrants always remain silent once they reach the border. Migrants, as well 13 Daniel M. Goldstein and Carolina Alonso-Bejarano, “E-terrify: Securitized immigration and biometric surveillance in the workplace”, Human Organization 76, no. 1 (2017). 14 Louise Amoore, “Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror”, Political Geography 25, no. 3 (2006); Johnson et al., “Interventions on rethinking ‘the border’ in border studies”; Nick Vaughan-Williams, “The UK border security continuum: Virtual biopolitics and the simulation of the sovereign ban”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28, no. 6 (2010); Chiara Brambilla and Reece Jones, “Rethinking borders, violence, and conflict: From sovereign power to borderscapes as sites of struggles”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 38, no. 2 (2020). 15 Shahram Khosravi, ‘Illegal’ Traveler (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Stef Jansen, “Anticipation, interpellation and confession on the road to the border”, Journal of Borderlands Studies 30, no. 2 (2015). 16 Andersson, Illegality Inc. 17 Heath Cabot, “The social aesthetics of eligibility: NGO aid and indeterminacy in the Greek asylum process”, American Ethnologist 40, no. 3 (2013).

Narrative: Crossing borders  113 as marginalized border inhabitants, draw on experiences of subordination to lodge claims for inclusion, assert claims across borders, participate in place-making processes, and extend their mobility in ways that defy state enforcement practices that attempt to expel or contain them. Thus, migrant struggles in the borderlands not only contest exclusionary states, but also give new form and meaning to citizenship itself.

CONCLUSION Shifting border policies and practices are not merely a reaction to exogenous pressures such as a “refugee crisis”, an influx of “bogus” asylum seekers, or increasingly mixed migration flows. Nor are they solely intended to deter migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers. Instead, state bordering practices create these very distinctions as they attempt to morally sort the “unruliness” of human mobility into discrete categories that can be managed and filtered.18 Yet, even under these conditions, borders are not merely places of exclusion and securitization. They are also social spaces of connection, residence, and opportunity where a variety of stakeholders engage in everyday acts of constructing, reasserting, unraveling, and reworking the border to ensure their own dignity and survival – activities that speak to the nuance and diversity of mixed migration today.19

BIBLIOGRAPHY Achilli, Luigi. “The ‘good’ smuggler: The ethics and morals of human smuggling among Syrians”. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 676, no. 1 (2018): 77–96. Amoore, Louise. “Biometric borders: Governing mobilities in the war on terror”. Political Geography 25, no. 3 (2006): 336–51. Andersson, Ruben. Illegality, Inc.: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe. Oakland: University of California Press, 2014. Brambilla, Chiara and Reece Jones. “Rethinking borders, violence, and conflict: From sovereign power to borderscapes as sites of struggles”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 38, no. 2 (2020): 287–305. Brigden, Noelle. The Migrant Passage: Clandestine Journeys from Central America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. Brigden, Noelle and Ċetta Mainwaring. “Matryoshka journeys: Im/mobility during Migration”. Geopolitics 21, no. 2 (2016): 407–34. Cabot, Heath. “The social aesthetics of eligibility: NGO aid and indeterminacy in the Greek asylum process”. American Ethnologist 40, no. 3 (2013): 452–66. Casas-Cortes, Maribel, Sebastian Cobarrubias and John Pickles. “Riding routes and itinerant borders: Autonomy of migration and border externalization”. Antipode 47, no. 4 (2015): 894–914. De Haas, Hein. The Myth of Invasion: Irregular Migration from West Africa to the Maghreb and the European Union. Oxford: International Migration Institute, 2007.

18 Casas-Cortes, Cobarrubias, and Pickles, “Riding Routes and Itinerant Borders,” 907; Hein de Haas, The Myth of Invasion: Irregular Migration from West Africa to the Maghreb and the European Union (Oxford: International Migration Institute, 2007); also see Martina Tazzioli and Nicholas De Genova, “Kidnapping migrants as a tactic of border enforcement”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 38, no. 5 (2020): 867–86. 19 Chris Rumford, “Towards a multiperspectival study of borders”, Geopolitics 17, no. 4 (2012).

114  Handbook on forced migration De Leon, Jason. The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail. Oakland: University of California Press, 2015. FitzGerald, David Scott. Refuge Beyond Reach: How Rich Democracies Repel Asylum Seekers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Foster, Michelle and Jason Pobjoy. “A failed case of legal exceptionalism? Refugee status determination in Australia’s ‘excised’ territory”. International Journal of Refugee Law 23, no. 4 (2011): 583–631. Galemba, Rebecca B. “‘He used to be a Pollero’: The securitisation of migration and the smuggler/ migrant nexus at the Mexico–Guatemala Border”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 44, no. 5 (2018): 870–86. Ghosh, Sahana. “‘Everything must match’: Detection, deception, and migrant illegality in the India– Bangladesh borderlands”. American Anthropologist 121, no. 4 (2019): 870–883. Goldstein, Daniel M. and Carolina Alonso-Bejarano. “E-Terrify: Securitized immigration and biometric surveillance in the workplace”. Human Organization 76, no. 1 (2017): 1–14. Horton, Sarah B. “Introduction: Paper trails”. In Paper Trails: Migrants, Documents, and Legal Insecurity. Edited by Sarah B. Horton and Josiah McC Heyman, 1–26. Durham: Duke University Press, 2020. Jansen, Stef. “Anticipation, interpellation and confession on the road to the border”. Journal of Borderlands Studies 30, no. 2 (2015): 151–62. Johnson, Corey, Reece Jones, Anssi Paasi, Louise Amoore, Alison Mountz, Mark Salter and Chris Rumford. “Interventions on rethinking ‘the border’ in border studies”. Political Geography 30, no. 2 (2011): 61–9. Jones, Reece. Violent Borders: Refugees and Right to Move. London: Verso, 2016. Khosravi, Shahram. “Illegal” Traveler: An Auto-Ethnography of Borders. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Menjívar, Cecilia. “Immigration law beyond borders: Externalizing and internalizing border controls in an era of securitization”. Annual Review of Law and Social Science 10 (2014): 353–69. Mountz, Alison. “Embodying the Nation-State: Canada’s response to human smuggling”. Political Geography 23, no. 3 (2004): 323–45. Mountz, Alison and Nancy Hiemstra. “Spatial strategies for rebordering human migration at sea”. In A Companion to Border Studies, edited by Thomas M. Wilson and Hastings Donnan, 455–72. Blackwell Publishing, 2012. Reeves, Madeleine. “Clean fake: Authenticating documents and persons in migrant Moscow”. American Ethnologist 40, no. 3 (2013): 508–24. Rumford, Chris. “Towards a multiperspectival study of borders”. Geopolitics 17, no. 4 (2012): 887–902. Sharma, Nandita. “Canadian nationalism and the making of a global apartheid”. Resources for Feminist Research 32, no. 3–4 (2007): 225–26. Tazzioli, Martina and Nicholas De Genova. “Kidnapping migrants as a tactic of border enforcement”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 38, no. 5 (2020): 867–86. Tennis, Katherine H. Outsourcing Control: The Politics of International Migration Cooperation. (Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen’s Press, 2020). Vaughan-Williams, Nick. “The UK border security continuum: Virtual biopolitics and the simulation of the sovereign ban”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 28, no. 6 (2010): 1071–83. Vogt, Wendy A. Lives in Transit: Violence and Intimacy on the Migrant Journey. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. Zaiotti, Ruben. “Mapping remote control: The externalization of migration management in the 21st century”. In Externalizing Migration Management, edited by Ruben Zaiotti, 1–30. New York: Routledge, 2016.

PART III HISTORY

11. Historical perspectives on forced migration Susan Martin

INTRODUCTION Forced migration is as ancient a phenomenon as history itself, and a historical perspective helps us understand current trends. This Historical Part of the book begins with an Introduction, then subsequent chapters focus on the early modern period (post-1492) and beyond in Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. The chapters explore the historiography of forced migration, bringing together the perspectives both of historians who study forced migration and forced migration scholars who study history. I consider myself to belong to both camps. I am an historian by training, with a specialization in the colonial American period. I have worked for decades, however, as an expert in migration in academic positions as well as within government, international organizations and think tanks on immigration and refugee policy. The authors in this History Part consider a range of issues: why history is important for understanding forced migration, why many historians have avoided the topic, how well forced migration scholars have done in capturing historical antecedents, what approaches historians have taken in studying forced migration, the methodological barriers to historical studies in this field, and what can be done to improve our understanding of the history of forced migration. Recognizing that forced migration is one of the most controversial and difficult policy issues, Part III identifies lessons from the past that could guide responses in the present and future. This introductory chapter is organized into two parts. The first provides a brief history of forced migration from prehistoric periods to the establishment of the modern refugee regime. While superficial at best, this brief history anchors the reader in the past as a prelude to the issues discussed in other sections of the Handbook. The second part of this introduction provides a roadmap to the section. It describes the chapters and brings out some themes that arise from these historical reflections. Forced Migration from the Pre-Historic to Early Modern Period William H. O’Neill begins his and Ruth Adams’ seminal volume on human migration with a reminder that from earliest times, migration was important both to those who moved and to the communities they entered: “Defending hearth and home against strangers, on the one hand, and roving to far places in search of food and excitement on the other, have always been opposing poles of human experience.”1 Although little is known about the specific drivers of the large-scale migration that eventually brought humans to every continent, there is every

1 William McNeill and Ruth Adams, eds. Human Migration: Patterns and Policies, Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1978.

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Historical perspectives on forced migration  117 likelihood that the same factors precipitated movement then as they do today. People left home seeking food, whether as hunters and gatherers or, later, as farmers seeking more fertile ground. Depending on the prevalent seed in a certain area, and the weather patterns affecting cultivation, people went shorter or longer distances in this quest.2 Technological innovation also affected decisions on migration; for example, movement by boat became possible in about 4000 BCE, allowing people to roam over larger distances and carry more with them than was possible by foot.3 As cities developed, they became destinations for rural populations unable to sustain themselves at home or looking for economic improvement. Alternatively, people moved towards the frontiers of settlement where new land awaited them. Armies protected population centers of power as well as borders, often ravaging the countryside in their path, thereby forcing people to flee. Even in the earliest centuries, people often had mixed motives to leave – some along the voluntary end of the continuum and others involuntarily because of circumstances beyond their own control. Biblical examples abound, ranging from the expulsion of Adam and Eve on the forced end, to the marital migration of many of the patriarchs, on the voluntary end. We know little about why migrants during pre-historic periods were permitted to settle in new destinations or return home. With the coming of written documents, however, some patterns emerge. A notable practice during the Babylonian empire, for example, was the deportation or exile of people from conquered areas to other parts of the empire.4 The exiled populations often were permitted to live together and retain their cultural and religious practices; sometimes they were able to return home. One of the earliest documented examples is the decision by Cyrus the Great to allow exiles in Babylon to return to their home communities.5 More is known about the decision-making process in the Greek city-states during the Classical and Hellenistic periods (c. 400–100 BC). Gray’s analysis points to a diverse set of factors that influenced who would be admitted and permitted to stay: humanitarian obligations broadly applied (with the sometime exception of slaves); civic obligations that considered self-interest; and cosmopolitan considerations. The first was based on ideals that were often encompassed in religious and philanthropic practices; the second included prudential and 2 McNeill argues that early agriculturists from the Middle East were primarily dependent on wheat and barley, cultivated through slash and burn techniques, and were forced to move long distances to find arable land. By contrast, farmers in Asia were more likely to plant millet and were able to plant the crops over longer periods of time, thereby having less reason to migrate. Recent research using DNA found in human remains over the past six millennia suggest a more complex correlation between subsistence agricultural strategies and migration in China. See Chao Ning et al. “Ancient genomes from northern China suggest links between subsistence changes and human migration”. Nature Communications, Vol. 11, No. 2700, 2020. 3 McNeill and Adams, Human Migration. 4 R.J. van der Spek, “Cyrus the Great, exiles, and foreign gods. A comparison of Assyrian and Persian policies on subject nations. In M. Kozuh, W.F.M. Henkelman, C.E. Jones, and C. Woods (eds), Extraction and Control: Studies in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper (pp. 233–64). (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization; No. 68). The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014. 5 Van der Spek, Cyrus the Great. The decision is captured in the Cyrus Cylinder, which dates back to 539 BCE. Issued after his conquest of Babylon, Cyrus notes that he received tribute from exiled groups that had previously been deported from their homes to Babylon. The cylinder then records Cyrus’ decision to allow these groups to return home with their religious symbols: “I made the gods, who had dwelled therein, return to their places and made them take residence forever. All of their people I gathered and returned them to their settlements.” The practice of deportation and return continued after Cyrus’ death.

118  Handbook on forced migration realist approaches grounded in politics; and the third was based on a shared notion of “citizenship and civic equality which cuts across borders of status and territory”.6 Whereas the city-state was the focus of decisions in Greece, the interest of the empire drove policies in imperial Rome. The typical large-scale movement involved cross-border movements from outside to inside of the empire.7 These cross-border movements reflected instability as well as opportunities along the frontiers of the empire. Cause of mass movements included conflict amongst groups vying for power and control over resources, or the expulsion of people from productive lands along the frontier.8 Roman emperors admitted refugees on both humanitarian and practical grounds, but sometimes Rome simply could not deploy sufficient troops to the frontiers to stop the movements. Refugees were seen as new sources of tax payments and recruits for the army. They could become a bulwark against invasion of even more undesirable elements from outside the empire, and they could farm previously untilled land, providing food for themselves and others in the empire.9 Refugees were not always welcomed: they might be dispersed to locations far from their place of origin, and disarmed and barred from military service. The harshest conditions were imposed on those who crossed without advanced negotiations, essentially as prisoners of war.10 The breakup of the Roman empire, which lasted about 400 years and at its height stretched from Scotland to Northern Africa and the Atlantic Ocean to the Middle East,11 was both a cause and consequence of migration patterns. Migration had beneficial aspects for Rome but it also brought warring parties that sought to displace the Romans from territories held by the empire. In the most stunning example, two Gothic groups – the Tervingi and Greuthungi – crossed the border into the empire in 376 with a large force of warriors and their dependants. They were granted asylum by Emperor Valens in part because Rome lacked sufficient forces to prevent their entry.12 Their sometimes brutal treatment by Rome exacerbated tensions, and two years later these Gothic groups rose up and defeated the Roman army, killing the emperor. The Roman army never fully recovered from these losses, and the inability of the Roman empire to integrate newcomers peacefully was a principal cause of its decline in the 5th century CE. Benjamin Gray, “Exile, refuge and the Greek Polis: Between justice and humanity”, Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 30, No. 2, 2016, p. 201. These factors could lead to differential treatment based on the extent to which a group met the ideals upon which decisions were based. Often, civic obligations won. Gray notes that “Classical Athenians tended especially to favour refugees and exiles who were transparent partisans of the Athenian democracy … and had been displaced as a result.” 7 Peter J. Heather, “Refugees and the Roman Empire”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2, June 2017, pp. 220–242. Ste. Croix identified 33 examples of such movements between the first and sixth centuries CE. 8 Heather, “Refugees and the Roman Empire”. Heather cites one example, the Sarmatian Limigantes, who asked Constantius II for asylum in 359 CE, who “did so because, as a group, they found themselves unable to maintain their old profitable position right on the frontier in the face of intense competition, and decided that asylum inside the Roman state offered them a better option than the relative impoverishment of life at a greater distance from the border line.” Heather notes that movements occurred when: “groups from the outer periphery organized themselves sufficiently to dispossess the sitting tenants of an attractive piece of valuable frontier real estate, sometimes forcing the latter across the border into Roman territory.” 9 Heather, “Refugees and the Roman Empire”. 10 Heather, “Refugees and the Roman Empire”. 11 Heather, “Refugees and the Roman Empire”. 12 Heather, “Refugees and the Roman Empire”. Heather notes that Valens was engaged in conflict with Persia and unable to redeploy his troops. 6

Historical perspectives on forced migration  119 The fall of the western Roman empire in turn opened up new migration routes as various tribes moved east into land no longer controlled by Rome. The modern names and languages of many European states and regions (Germany, France, England, Scotland, Lombardy, to name a few) have roots in these movements of Visigoths, Huns, Franks, Angles, Saxons and others.13 Forced migration patterns were similar in ancient China, with political factors playing a large role in driving these movements from densely to more scarcely populated areas.14 In addition, natural hazards affecting agricultural production precipitated migration to escape famine, with migration propensity differing in various agro-ecological zones in ancient China.15 Long practiced in antiquity, the slave trade from Africa to Asia and the Arab world grew in the medieval period. Between 800 and 1600 CE almost five million Africans were enslaved and forced along the Saharan route and another 1.6 million across the Red Sea. Some 800 000 were transported via the Indian Ocean.16 With the expansion of the Islamic empire, slaves came from conquests of non-Muslim Africans for slave markets in the Arab Middle East. By law, slaves had to be pagans, but conversion could bestow new statuses upon slaves.17 Soon eclipsing this form of slavery, the Atlantic slave trade is discussed in the next section. Other forms of migration proliferated, particularly towards the end of the medieval period, driven by explorations of new land and resources. European explorations from the time of the Vikings settlements in Iceland, Greenland and North America to the global voyages of the Spanish and Portuguese navigators at the end of the fifteenth century are well known. So too are the traders who traveled along the Silk Road, made famous by the journals kept by Marco Polo. Similarly, missionaries and pilgrims traveled the world, often establishing settlements along the way. By the start of the fifteenth century, large-scale emigration of Chinese traders and workers to Southeast Asia had also taken hold.18 Less known outside of Oceania were the routes taken by Polynesians who populated New Zealand and other Pacific Islands.19 The Polynesian settlement of New Zealand in the fourteenth century was a planned, one-way mass migration with more than 500 persons settling within a short period of time.20

13 Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568, Cambridge University Press, 2007. 14 AN Jie-sheng, “Study on some laws of migration in ancient China”, Geographical Research, Vol. 23, No. 5, pp. 667–76, 2004. “Chaos in transition of dynasties produced a large number of refugees and forced them leave their homeland to find shelters.” 15 Qing Pei, David D. Zhang, and Harry F. Lee, “Contextualizing human migration in different agro-ecological zones in ancient China”, Quaternary International, Vol. 426, pp. 65–74, 2016. 16 Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformations in Slavery, Cambridge University Press, 2012. Tables 2.1, 2.2, 3.7, 7.1, 7.7. 17 Robert O. Collins, “The African slave trade to Asia and the Indian Ocean islands”, African and Asian Studies, Vol. 5, Nos 3–4, p. 329, 2006. If slaves pledged loyalty to the empire, they could hold positions of authority within the governmental structures. 18 Craig Lockard, “Chinese migration and settlement in Southeast Asia before 1850: Making fields from the sea”, History Compass, Vol. 11, No. 9, pp. 765–81, September 2013. 19 Maurice Isserman, Pamela White, and John Stewart Bowman, Exploration in the World of the Middle Ages, 500–1500. United States: Facts On File, Incorporated, 2005. 20 Richard Walter, Hallie Buckley, Chris Jacomb, and Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, “Mass migration and the Polynesian Settlement of New Zealand”, Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 30, pp. 351–76, 2017. The cause of these movements is unknown and it is impossible to determine if push or pull was greater in precipitating the relocation to New Zealand.

120  Handbook on forced migration Early Modern Period to World War I Tensions over religion were major migration factors in the early modern period (fifteenth– eighteenth centuries). The expulsion of more than 150 000 Jews from Spain in 1492 marked the start of centuries of displacement caused by religious persecution.21 In the early 1600s, 270 000–300 000 Muslims were expelled from Spain. Religion was not the sole determinant of such migration; economic, political, and social factors affected the extent to which people stayed or fled. The Protestant Reformation brought more displacement of religious groups when their views differed from those of the rulers. The largest such movement was the flight and later expulsion of Protestants from Catholic France.22 The terms “refugees” was coined to describe these Huguenots. They fled in several waves, the most significant after the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre in 1572 and, again, after revocation in 1685 of the Edict of Nantes, which had provided for religious tolerance.23 Throughout the seventeenth century, religious intolerance and persecution forced hundreds of thousands to flee to England, Ireland, the Netherlands, the American colonies and elsewhere. In addition to Protestants from Catholic regions and vice versa, other religious minorities forced out included Puritans, Quakers, Hutterites, Mennonites, Amish and others. The Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), triggered by a rebellion by Protestants in Bohemia against the imposition of Catholicism by the Holy Roman Emperor, and ending with the Peace of Westphalia, had long-term consequences for forced migration. Westphalia led to one of the core principles of sovereignty: non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states.24 In addition to national armies, the war was fought by mercenaries, resulting not only in significant military casualties but also adverse effects on civilian populations. Famine, unbridled disease, massive human rights abuse, pillaging and economic devastation were prevalent throughout the territories under conflict. These outcomes – rather than the direct effects of the warfare – killed and displaced millions of people at the time of the “Little Ice Age” that was devastating agricultural yields.25 A third form of forced migration resulted from colonization. As new settlers arrived from Europe, they often displaced the indigenous peoples living in the areas they claimed. The Virginia colony in North America, settled in 1609, is representative of the process. Initially, Chief Powhatan, the principal leader of the federation of Algonkian-speaking tribes, saw the colonists as potential allies against other tribes.26 As that help failed to materialize, the natives viewed the colonists more dubiously, concerned that they would encroach upon their territory. Hostilities followed, with attacks launched by both sides. As the colony grew, and land became scarcer, the colonists began pushing west. By the early eighteenth century, the need for a buffer between the established settlements east of the Blue Ridge mountains and various threats to the colonists – from the Spanish, French, and Native Americans – argued for See Susanne Lachenicht, “Refugees and refugee protection in the early modern period”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 and in this volume. 22 Lachenicht, “Refugees and refugee protection”. 23 Lachenicht, “Refugees and refugee protection”. Also see Carolyn Chappell Lougee, Facing the Revocation: Huguenot Families, Faith, and the King’s Will. Oxford University Press, 2017. 24 Pascal Daudin, “The Thirty Years’ War: The first modern war?”, Humanitarian Law and Policy, International Committee of the Red Cross, 2017. 25 Pascal Daudin, “The Thirty Years’ War”. 26 Alan Taylor, America: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2013. 21

Historical perspectives on forced migration  121 still further expansion west of the mountains.27 In later years, this pattern repeated itself. The Native Americans who did not die of European diseases found themselves increasingly confined to reservations, too often after grueling marches to their new location. Similar patterns occurred in other locations in which indigenous populations were supplanted by colonists. The Atlantic slave trade was another consequence of colonization in the Americas. A large majority of slaves transported to the New World went to the Caribbean islands, Brazil, and the Spanish colonies. Between 1500 and the mid-nineteenth century, Portuguese ships brought more than 5 million African slaves to Brazil, the destination for the largest number of slaves in the Western Hemisphere.28 By the mid-eighteenth century, about 250 000 Africans had been transported to the British colonies in mainland North America.29 The slave trade was made illegal in the United States in 1807 although slavery itself did not end until the 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished the institution following the American civil war. The British empire ended the slave trade in 1807 and slavery itself in 1834. Some Latin American countries banned slavery in the early nineteenth century, but Cuba and Brazil did not end the practice until the 1880s. The slave trade was a vastly different form of forced migration than other forms of displacement. Enslaved people were not fleeing conditions at home for greater safety and opportunities elsewhere. Rather, they were forced to leave their homes and brought against their will to live in what were often much more dangerous conditions. Death rates in transit within Africa, during the Middle Passage on board ships and after arrival were excessively high compared to non-slave crew and the rates of other populations.30 The second and subsequent generations were affected by high mortality as well. In Jamaica, “Almost half of all enslaved infants died within the first two weeks of birth and another quarter died by age two.”31 The late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw an increase in what would now be termed political refugees. For example, loyalists to the British crown fled to Canada and Britain during and after the American revolution while some British soldiers defected and remained in the new republic. In Europe, the French revolution produced more refugees, as did revolutions in 1830 and 1848.32 Mass emigration from the famine in Ireland produced one of the largest forced migrations of the nineteenth century. Although the immediate trigger for the crop damage was the potato blight, it was political and economic conditions that led to famine. Even when an estimated 1 million people were dying from starvation or related disease, food was being shipped from Ireland to England. An estimated 1 million to 1.5 million Irish left the island during the period from 1845 to 1851, large numbers of whom settled in the United States. They were fleeing not only the famine but also evictions from their homes and lands when they were unable to pay the rent. In the aftermath of the famine, emigration contin-

Susan Martin, A Nation of Immigrants: 2nd edn, Cambridge University Press, 2021. Mary E. Hicks, “Financing the Luso-Atlantic slave trade, 1500–1840: Collective investment practices from Portugal to Brazil”, Journal of Global Slavery, 2, pp. 273–309, 2017. 29 Martin, A Nation of Immigrants. 30 For a detailed examination of mortality rates, see Herbert S. Klein, Stanley L. Engerman, Robin Haines, and Ralph Shlomowitz, “Transoceanic mortality: The slave trade in comparative perspective”. The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 93–118, 2001. 31 Sasha Turner, “The nameless and the forgotten: Maternal grief, sacred protection, and the archive of slavery”, Slavery & Abolition, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 232–50, 2017. 32 For example, emigration from Germany increased significantly in the 1850s, the result of both economic problems and political discontent stemming from the failed revolution. Carl Wittke, Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952. 27 28

122  Handbook on forced migration ued, reflecting longer-term structural reasons related to changes in the Irish economy and demography.33 Religious intolerance also continued to precipitate forced migration. For example, in 1882, Russian Jews were required to move from rural areas and villages into small towns (shtetls) within the Pale of Settlement. In 1891–1892, even more restrictive measures expelled Jews from eastern Russia into the Pale, including 30 000 from Moscow, 20 000 from St Petersburg, and still more from villages throughout the Pale. The growing number and changing characteristic of the attacks on Jews (pogroms) that began after Czar Alexander II’s assassination in 1881 and the ascension of Alexander III to the throne also stimulated emigration. The pogroms of 1903–1905 were particularly devastating and led to the highest rates of Jewish emigration – some 125 000 emigrated in 1905–1906 alone. The movement of contract laborers from China to other countries also accelerated during the nineteenth century, mostly from two coastal provinces – Fujian and Guangdong.34 Natural disasters, crop failures, rapid population growth, and conflict, as well as competition from imported textiles from the West, led to the emigration of 3 million Chinese from these areas to the United States, Mexico, South America, the Philippines, and elsewhere.35 Many of these migrants joined earlier settlers to Southeast Asia, where they became sizable minorities in the populations of Thailand and Malaysia. At the same time, colonization in South Asia also created population movements, especially after 1830, with large-scale contract labor from India to elsewhere in the British empire. This labor migration was driven by excessive revenue demands, discriminatory taxation on Indian goods, and persistent famines and pestilence. At their destinations, many Indian contract laborers “found they had exchanged one form of poverty and servitude for another, and many more found only death and disease”.36 Early Twentieth Century The twentieth century saw major shifts in responses to forced migration. The early twentieth century saw growing restrictions on immigration. Countries with previously open admissions policies enacted restrictions on the number and characteristics of those permitted entry, and imposed new documentation requirements, making it more difficult for forced migrants to find places of safety without great assistance. The breakup of empires, particularly after the two World Wars, profoundly affected displacement. The persistence of sovereignty concepts meant nation-states grappled with what, if any, limits should be placed on them in the context of large-scale displacement. This section reviews efforts at cooperation along with initiatives to identify the rights of those forced to move. In the early twentieth century, three factors precipitated large-scale flight. First was the growth of extreme nationalism as the Austro-Hungarian and, especially, the Ottoman empire began to disintegrate. In 1908, as the Ottomans were responding to internal dissent from what 33 James H. Johnson, “The context of migration: The example of Ireland in the nineteenth century”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 15, No. 3, p. 274, 1990. 34 June Mei, “Socioeconomic origins of emigration: Guangdong to California, 1850–1882”. Modern China, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 463–501, 1979. 35 Gordon V. Krutz, “Chinese labor, economic development and social reaction”. Ethnohistory, Vol. 18, No. 4, p. 323, 1971. 36 Ravinder K. Thiara, “Indian indentured workers in Mauritius, Natal and Fiji”, in Robin Cohen, ed., The Cambridge Survey of World Migration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

Historical perspectives on forced migration  123 was termed the “Young Turks”, the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire annexed Bosnia– Herzegovina. The Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 resulted in the Ottoman withdrawal from much of the remaining territory it held in Europe, ceding that territory to Serbia, Greece, and Bulgaria. Approximately 800 000 people were displaced by the fighting, including 400 000 Muslims who left the Balkan states, fearing retribution.37 In 1915, a much bloodier uprooting occurred, resulting in large-scale deportations and mass killings. The Turkish authorities argued that the deportations were merely legitimate wartime relocations to guard against Armenian complicity with invading Russian forces. Historians have generally discounted this assertion, however, because of the scope of the deportations (which included whole communities of men, women, and children who had remained loyal to the Ottoman Empire and lived far from border areas) and the ruthlessness with which they were carried out. As the deportations and killings proceeded, Muslim refugees from the Balkan Wars were resettled in the Armenian refugees’ homes.38 Estimates vary but indicate that about 1.5 million Armenians were deported, out of 2 million in the empire, and between 800 000 and 1 million were killed. Those who survived fled to then Czarist Russia, with smaller numbers going to Syria and Egypt. An estimated 200 000 ethnic Armenians took refuge in the Russian trans-Caucuses to escape Turkish attacks in 1915.39 The second factor was World War I (1914–1918), which displaced about 10 million in Europe, both internally and across borders. World War I ushered in a new era in conflict that had grave consequences for civilian populations, including aerial bombing of civil populations, camps for the internment of civilians from enemy countries, and forced labor for the war efforts.40 Each of these resulted in mass displacement. An estimated 1.5 million Belgians alone fled the fighting in their country.41 By January 1917, more than 4 million Russians had been displaced.42 Several hundred thousand Jews fled or were deported from Latvia and Galicia at the hands of Russian troops.43 These movements precipitated new security measures in receiving countries, including requirements for passports, identification cards, registration procedures, and restrictions on movement.44 The third cause of large-scale migration was the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, which created between 2 and 3 million refugees in the early 1920s. They included ethnic Russians, Poles, Jews, and others opposed to the Bolshevist regime, often described as “White Russians”, referring to a movement that fought the Soviet army during the civil war. They took refuge in Europe, Turkey, and China, as well as the United States, Canada, and Australia.

E.J. Zürcher, “Greek and Turkish refugees and deportees, 1919–1924”. Web Erişim: www​ .transanatolie​.com/​english/​turkey/​turks/​ottomans/​ejz18​.pdf (2003). 38 Richard Walter, Hallie Buckley, Chris Jacomb and Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith. “Mass migration and the Polynesian settlement of New Zealand”, Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 30, pp. 351–76, 2017. 39 Tammy M. Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918, New York University Press, 2010. 40 Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918, 2010, 3. 41 Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918, 2010. 42 P. Gatrell, “Trajectories of population displacement in the aftermaths of two world wars”. In: Reinisch, J. and White, E. (eds) The Disentanglement of Populations. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. 43 Proctor, Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918, 2010. 44 Susan Martin, Evolving Trends in International Migration: From the Early Twentieth Century to the Present, Cambridge University Press, 2014. 37

124  Handbook on forced migration A key concept of the treaties that ended World War I was national self-determination, which is the belief that nations of people have the right to constitute their own independent state and determine their own government. That concept had profound implications as new states emerged, whose governments did not regard all residents as legitimate citizens. Those who fell outside of the system of self-determination often became refugees. The first post-World War I challenge was repatriation of soldiers, particularly to the Soviet Union. The newly formed League of Nations turned to Fridtjof Nansen, a Norwegian explorer whose attempt to reach the North Pole had generated worldwide acclaim. Nansen was a consummate diplomat who navigated prickly relationships between the victorious Allies and the Bolshevik government, often working outside of the political offices of the League, using an organization he designated as Nansen Help.45 The League provided administrative assistance, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) provided support, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) organized the actual transfers. In two years, Nansen’s operations allowed more than 400 000 prisoners of war of twenty nationalities to return to their homes.46 Other assignments quickly followed for the now designated League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.47 Nansen’s office provided assistance to the so-called White Russians who had settled in European countries that had been seriously harmed by the world war. A major initiative was the resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Greeks and Turks under the terms of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that ended conflict between Greece and Turkey. About 1.25 million ethnic Greeks living in Asia Minor and about 500 000 ethnic Turks living in Greece were required to relocate to the other country. This included large numbers who did not speak the language of what was now considered to be their homeland and who had no family living in these countries. In 1925, Nansen turned to the plight of survivors of the Armenian genocide. His office constructed villages to house upwards of 40 000 Armenians in Syria and Lebanon, and then resettled another 10 000 in Erivan.48 One of Nansen’s greatest accomplishments was not immediately recognized. One of the main constraints facing Russian refugees was their inability to cross borders because they lacked what had become the essential tool of mobility – a national passport. The refugees could neither request a passport from the Soviet Union (which considered them to have renounced their citizenship), nor obtain passports from the countries in which they had taken refuge because they were not citizens of that territory. Nansen’s solution was a passport issued by the League of Nations in lieu of a willing government. The Nansen passport became accepted by more than fifty governments, although the passport did not mean its holders had an automatic right to enter their territory. Most refugees could not enter another country because they could not obtain a visa. Nevertheless, the Nansen passport established an important principle that has become the cornerstone of the international refugee regime.49 Henceforth, in the absence

Michael Marrus, The Unwanted, Temple University Press, 2002. Marrus, The Unwanted. 47 This designation preceded the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which was established in 1950. 48 A much larger plan to resettle Armenians in the Soviet republic of Armenia failed, however, because of lack of funding. 49 As Holborn described it in 1939, “Through [the Nansen passport], refugees of specific categories become the recipients of a legal and juridical status. The refugee who is de facto stateless and has neither protection nor representation from his state is provided with both by the High Commissioner 45 46

Historical perspectives on forced migration  125 of state protection of the rights of its citizens, refugees could call upon international protection – in the form of a passport. After Nansen’s death in 1930, the office of the High Commissioner ceased to exist and instead, the Nansen International Office for Refugees, an autonomous body working under the authority of the League of Nations was established. It never had the clout or resources needed, however. Amidst economic chaos, growing nationalism and anti-Semitism, and the rise of fascism, the office was unable to address the most devastating refugee issue of its time: the situation of Jewish and other refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. Despite efforts to adopt a refugee convention and establishment of a new high commissioner for refugees from Germany, few countries were willing to provide refuge, particularly for those facing growing persecution because they were Jewish. Once the large-scale persecution of Jews began under the Nuremberg Laws, that essentially made the German Jews stateless, the reception in Europe of refugees took a decided turn for the worse. As the numbers of Jewish refugees from countries under German domination increased, particularly after 1938, they increasingly found a closed door. In July 1938, a conference attended by representatives from 32 nations convened in Evian to discuss the problem of Jewish refugees. In calling for the conference, however, US President Franklin Roosevelt made it clear that he was not asking any country, including the United States, to change its refugee policy. The Evian conference was a total failure, with no government pledging to resettle significant numbers of the Jewish refugees (except for the Dominican Republic’s rather vague offer). Germany responded in November 1938 with Kristallnacht, a countrywide attack on Jewish businesses and synagogues. When World War II started, mass incarceration of Jews and others in concentration camps increased, and Hitler launched his Final Solution – genocide – knowing that other countries would do little to rescue the European Jews. Establishing a Refugee Regime (1939–1990) Millions were uprooted by World War II and still more by the political upheaval in its aftermath. The failure of the international community to aid refugees became clear with the liberation of the concentration camps in 1945. During the 1940s, several organizations were tasked with addressing the problem of refugees and displaced persons in Europe and elsewhere. The office of the high commissioner for refugees from Germany and the International Committee on Refugees, which emerged from the Evian conference, continued to operate during the war. A new conference on refugees was assembled in Bermuda but it too failed to find a solution for the millions of Jews and others targeted by Hitler.50 As the war progressed, the Allies established their own apparatus for providing relief to civilians, including displaced persons. for Refugees” (Holborn, Louise W., “The League of Nations and the refugee problem”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 203(May), 1939: 126. 50 In fact, the UK delegation noted as a complicating factor in devising new policies on refugees that “[t]here is a possibility that the Germans or their satellites may change over from the policy of extermination to one of extrusion, and aim as they did before the war at embarrassing other countries by flooding them with alien immigrants” (US State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, 1943, General, Volume I, Bermuda Conference to consider the Refugee Problem, 19–28 April, 1943, and the implementation of certain of the Conference recommendations available at https://​history​ .state​.gov/​historicaldocuments/​frus1943v01/​comp6:​134).

126  Handbook on forced migration The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) acted in conjunction with the military authorities and local officials in providing relief to civilians, including those who had been displaced. Its scope was global, with programs in areas in Europe liberated from German occupation and in Africa and the Near East. It was also responsible for relief in China and other areas occupied by Japan. Studies prepared for UNRRA estimated that between 22 and 30 million displaced persons needed relief. They were divided into four categories: war refugees (civilians, war prisoners, and civilian internees); those who suffered persecution for political, religious, or racial reasons; laborers who were forcibly taken to Germany; and ethnic Germans who were scattered throughout Europe. With the end of World War II, the work of UNRRA became increasingly politicized, as the United States and Soviet Union disagreed upon solutions for the displaced. The Soviet Union preferred repatriation of those who had been displaced from eastern Europe, now largely occupied by Soviet forces. The US and its allies sought settlement of the displaced in western Europe or resettlement to the Americas and Oceania as more appropriate solutions. In 1947, UNRRA and the League of Nations’ refugee office were succeeded by the International Refugee Organization (IRO). IRO’s mandate included all the refugees previously served by the League’s refugee offices; and its work included those who left or refused to return to the Soviet bloc. Early in its existence, the agency conducted a census and categorized the refugees into three groups. Some needed care and maintenance, others were helped with resettlement or repatriation, and the rest needed only legal assistance. The IRO depended on NGOs, which provided much of the material support to refugees and displaced persons. By the time the IRO closed its doors, it had assisted more than 1.6 million refugees, including the resettlement of about 1 million refugees. This number was in sharp contrast to the 54 000 who repatriated during the same period. After World War II, large-scale displacement took place in other parts of the world, each with its own system for addressing the issue. New states formed, often accompanied by violence and ethnic cleansing. One of the largest displacements in human history took place in 1947–1948 as a result of the partition of India.51 The Indian Independence Act of 1947, passed by the UK Parliament, partitioned British India into the two countries of Pakistan and India, which came into being on 14 and 15 August, respectively. The scale of the displacement was immense, estimated at about 12 million.52 The large numbers mask differences in experiences. Many moved in crisis conditions out of fear of violence or actual attacks, and others had time to plan their movements. Some were able to exchange their land with a displaced family or government bureaucrats from the other country.53 The next major challenge to the evolving refugee regime occurred in 1948 with the partition of Palestine into Israel and Jordan, and the resulting conflict between Arabs and Jews. Unlike the Indian subcontinent, the Palestine partition was by UN action, not an act of parliament. Some 600 000 Arabs fled or were expelled from Israel, most as refugees into neighboring countries or the West Bank and Gaza. Subsequently, a comparable number of Jews fled or were expelled from Arab countries that opposed the creation of the State of Israel. More

See Anindita Ghoshal, this volume. Sajal Nag, “Nationhood and displacement in Indian subcontinent”. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 51 (2001): 4755. 53 Mahbubar Rahman, and Willem van Schendel. “‘I am not a refugee’: Rethinking partition migration”. Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3 (2003): 551–84. 51 52

Historical perspectives on forced migration  127 than 600 000 Jews arrived in Israel and more than 250 000 went to other countries.54 The UN established two agencies to respond to the situation of the Palestinian refugees. In 1948, the UN General Assembly established a Conciliation Commission to take over the responsibilities of the UN mediator on Palestine.55 In 1949, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) was established, charged with two tasks. First, it was to carry out direct relief and works programs, and second, it was to consult with host countries on measures to reduce the need for international assistance. The Conciliation Commission later disbanded; UNRWA continues to operate in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. A third specialized organization created to address refugee issues outside of Europe was the UN Korean Rehabilitation Administration (UNKRA), established by the UN General Assembly on 1 December 1950.56 UNKRA’s broad mission was to aid South Korean recovery and reconstruction, given the large-scale destruction of Korea’s infrastructure. One of UNKRA’s areas of concern was the integration and housing of refugees from North Korea, then estimated to be between one and three million. It was not mandated to protect the refugees, as this was seen as a responsibility of the South Korean government. By 1950, the Allies’ attention turned back to institutional arrangements in Europe, and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was established.57 Unlike UNRWA and UNKRA, however, UNHCR was given a more universal mandate. UNHCR’s duty was to protect refugees by, among other activities, promoting international conventions for the protection of refugees and supervising their application, promoting special agreements with Governments to improve the situation of refugees, and reducing the number requiring protection; assisting governmental and private efforts to promote voluntary repatriation or assimilation; and promoting the admission of refugees, including those in the most destitute categories, to the territories of States. UNHCR was not responsible for refugees who received protection or aid from other UN agencies. This meant that Palestinian refugees and North Koreans were not eligible to receive the protection of UNHCR. In 1951, the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees was adopted.58 Its Article 1(A) defines refugees, and the Convention also describes those who are outside the protection of the convention – for example, persons who have persecuted others. The principal obligation of states is non-refoulement.59 States do not have the obligation to provide asylum or admit refugees for permanent settlement, but they do have the obligation to allow refugees to seek Carole Basri, “The Jewish refugees from Arab countries: An examination of legal rights – a case study of the human rights violations of Iraqi Jews”. Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3 (2002), Article 6. 55 UNGA Resolution 194, adopted on 11 December 1948. Although largely responsible for political matters, among its duties was the responsibility to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation. 56 As a “special authority with broad powers to plan and supervise rehabilitation and relief” (Gene M. Lyons, “American policy and the United Nations program for Korean reconstruction”. International Organization, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1958): 181. 57 See Ninette Kelley, this volume, for further discussion of the founding of UNHCR. 58 The 1951 Convention was limited to refugees displaced in Europe prior to 1951, but this limitation was removed with the 1967 Protocol. See the chapters by Phil Orchard in this Part, and John Cerone in Part I, for further discussion of the 1951 Convention and the refugee definition. 59 That is, to refrain from forcibly returning refugees to countries in which they would face persecution (Article 33). 54

128  Handbook on forced migration asylum. States are permitted to relocate refugees in safe third countries that are willing to accept them. The Convention has also been interpreted to require states to undertake status determinations for asylum applicants at their frontiers or inside their territories to determine if they have valid claims to refugee protection. The convention also enumerates the rights of refugees who have been admitted into the territory of another country. The remainder of the twentieth century saw a significant expansion of the role of UNHCR as well as challenges to the scope and content of the 1951 Refugee Convention. The wars of independence in Algeria and other parts of Africa drew UNHCR into using its “good offices” to provide assistance and protection. There were innovations in legal protection with the adoption of the African Union Convention on Refugees, which expanded the definition of refugees to include conflict and disruption of public order. The Cold War increasingly dominated refugee responses, with the first major intervention occurring in Hungary in 1956. In the 1970s and 1980s, refugee responses in Indochina, Central America, Afghanistan, Africa and Latin America were provoked by surrogate conflicts in which the United States and its allies vied with the Soviet Union through weaker proxy states. After 1990, the end of the Cold War brought its own challenges as rampant nationalism led to deadly conflicts such as those in Yugoslavia, and, in the worst cases, genocide in Rwanda, all leading to mass displacement. On a more positive note, the post-Cold War period saw the repatriation of millions of refugees who had previously been caught in protracted displacement – although today repatriation is not feasible for the majority of refugees worldwide. Also, countries that were formerly part of the Warsaw Pact joined UNHCR, IOM and other organizations concerned with forced migration, expanding the reach of these institutions. The post-Cold War period saw greater attention and action related to internal displacement as UN member states authorized interventions to protect internally displaced persons under what came to be known as the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). However, gaps persist with regard to protection of internally displaced persons (IDPs), that is, those who seek safety within their own country. The number of IDPs from conflict have more than doubled in the past two decades from 25 million in 2009 to more than 53 million today.60 A recent UN report concluded: “Even in the comparative ‘safety’ of displacement, many [IDPs] live in dangerous conditions and continue to face significant risks and violations of their rights.”61 As with refugees, IDPs experience protracted periods of displacement, with few opportunities for durable solutions. The Secretary-General’s 2022 Action Agenda has three goals: (1) Help IDPs find a durable solution to their displacement; (2) Better prevent new displacement crises from emerging; and (3) Ensure those facing displacement receive effective protection and assistance.62 Whether the plan will significantly improve the situation of IDPs remains to be seen. In recent years, the global forced migration system has had to cope with new contexts and interests. Security threats – always present in refugee situations – have expanded to include Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) (2021). Global Report on Internal Displacement. Geneva: IDMC. Available at https://​www​.internal​-displacement​.org/​global​-report/​grid2022/​. 61 UN High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement (2021). Shining a Light on Internal Displacement: A Vision for the Future. New York: United Nations. Available at https://​internaldisplacement​-panel​.org/​ wp​-content/​uploads/​2021/​09/​HLP​-report​-WEB​.pdf. 62 UN Secretary-General (2022). “The United Nations Secretary-General’s action agenda on internal displacement: Follow-up to the Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement”. New York: United Nations. Available at https://​www​.un​.org/​en/​content/​action​-agenda​ -on​-internal​-displacement/​assets/​pdf/​Action​-Agenda​-on​-Internal​-Displacement​_EN​.pdf. 60

Historical perspectives on forced migration  129 those posed by non-state actors, such as terrorists, gangs, and traffickers in people, drugs and weapons. Governments have adopted deterrence measures, including off-shore processing; greater use of detention; removal to third, supposedly “safe” countries, and new screening procedures and technologies to ensure that asylum seekers and refugees are truly victims of persecution – and not persons who themselves pose a threat to the country. Governments have attempted to close refugee camps without providing safe alternatives, and have returned asylum seekers to their home countries in violation of their non-refoulement commitments under international law. At the same time, some governments recognize that persecution by non-state actors, including abusive family members, can be a legitimate ground upon which to grant asylum if the country of origin government is unable or unwilling to protect victims. History’s Lessons for Contemporary Refugee Response Today’s refugee movements and accompanying responses are both new and representative of historical trends. Today’s technology for managing forced migration is more sophisticated than ever before in history. It can be used for good – for example, registering and providing assistance to refugees and displaced persons quickly and efficiently. Or it can be used in ways that undermine protection of refugees and displaced persons – for example, using big data to track and then prevent people from seeking asylum. With all these differences, the past has lessons for contemporary refugee responses. First, displacement is as old as history itself and not likely to disappear. It has always been multi-causal, with elements of coercion alongside the exercise of agency by the displaced. While today’s legal definition of a refugee requires a well-founded fear of persecution, the situation has always been more complex now and in the past. Conflict has historically been a determining factor for most refugees, as has environmental change, including the impacts of global warming, for other displaced persons. In both cases, these triggers have interacted with economic, social, political, health and other factors that influence whether someone stays or leaves their place of residence. Today’s policymakers should heed history: there are no easy responses to these complex movement patterns. Second, governmental reactions to refugee movements almost always are based on their own perceived national interests. In her seminal article, “Factors influencing the policy responses of host governments to mass refugee influxes”, Karen Jacobsen demonstrated that countries that see refugees as allies in the fight against common enemies generally treat them more generously than those with no close ties. Similarly, refugees who share the language or culture of a host state tend to be welcomed more than those who appear more “foreign” to the local populace. The warm welcome given to Ukrainian refugees, even from countries that had sought to deter refugees of other nationalities, is a current manifestation of this trend. As such, advocates who can make a strong argument for asylum based on national interest may fare better than those presenting purely humanitarian reasons to admit refugees. Third, host populations are affected by the arrival of refugees and IDPs. Many are themselves poor and live in remote areas without services or opportunities for economic growth. Only recently have international humanitarian and development agencies along with donor governments taken steps to address the needs of hosts while also helping refugees find durable solutions. The Global Compact on Refugees, adopted in 2018 by the United Nations General Assembly, provides some hope that progress will be made in this area.

130  Handbook on forced migration Fourth, xenophobia has reared its head on many occasions throughout history. Today is no different. At its worst, genocide may be the outcome. In these situations, as the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide make abundantly clear, “refugeedom” may be the only salvation for millions of people who would otherwise perish. Advocates for refugees must continually combat racism and extreme nationalism or refugees will become scapegoats for the ills of society. Fifth, champions of refugees have existed throughout history. Public opinion is often well ahead of political leaders in demanding protection for refugees and displaced persons in their own countries, in neighboring ones or through resettlement to third countries. The media have played an important role in bringing the situation of refugees to public attention. Photos of famine victims in the Horn of Africa, a dead Syrian child washed ashore in Europe, Kosovar refugees stranded at the border with Macedonia, and families fleeing bombardments in Ukraine are but a few examples of stories that galvanized positive action to save lives. Tapping that interest is key to improving protection for all forced migrants.

ROADMAP TO PART III, HISTORY Part III consists of eight more chapters that delve into the history and the historiography of forced migration – that is, what happened in the past and how historians portray those events. The first set of chapters focus on historiography. Jerome Elie’s chapter entitled “Historians and forced migration: a persistent feeling of disconnect?” provides empirical evidence about historical analysis in the study of forced migration. Based on interviews and an online survey of 25 historians and historically minded experts, the chapter shows both progress and enduring problems in approaching forced migration through an historical lens.63 Peter Gatrell’s chapter, “Reckoning with refugeedom: historical perspectives”, concludes that “refugee history is not just about refugees, but about the entire web of relationships in which they are embedded. The challenge for historians is to write displacement into the larger processes of historical change, without effacing the perspectives of refugees.” Building on his book, Remembering Refugees,64 Tony Kushner asks how societies can move “from a vicious circle of mutual reinforcement of prejudice between government, state, media and public to a virtuous one that leads out of the racist maze”. Bringing a historical perspective, he argues, “provides some grounds for comfort.”65 The second set of chapters provides perspective on consistencies and changes in the drivers and responses to forced migration throughout history. Ninette Kelley analyzes the roots of asylum, an important issue for UNHCR, where Kelley worked for many years. She notes that asylum as a concept and practice goes back at least to ancient Egypt, and the 1951 Refugee Convention “elevated ideals expressed in earlier periods, taking them to internationally agreed standards of protection and treatment of refugees.”66 In “Historical process tracing and forced migration: re-examining the creation of the refugee definition”, Phil Orchard’s chapter discusses the advantages of historical process tracing in understanding responses to 65 66 63 64

Elie, this volume. Tony Kushner, Remembering Refugees, Manchester University Press, 2006. Kushner, this volume. Kelley, this volume.

Historical perspectives on forced migration  131 forced migration, then analyzes the multi-faceted drivers of the decision to exclude internally displaced persons from the definition of a refugee. The final chapters examine historical trends in three regions at significant time periods. Susanne Lachenicht’s chapter on early modern67 forced migration in Europe demonstrates that the term “forced migration” meant different things from the late fifteenth to the late eighteenth century: enslavement and deportation, loss of family ties, deportation, illegal emigration to preserve the Protestant faith, or discrimination and persecutions that triggered flight and emigration. Dawn Chatty, in “The antecedents of forced migration in the modern Middle East”, examines humanitarianism in the Ottoman empire as a way to manage mass migrations of millions of people in the nineteenth century. She argues that the refugee system after World War I developed and expanded the basic principles that had been practiced in the Ottoman empire. Anindita Ghosal’s chapter, “The ‘home-coming’ of the refugees: narratives of Partition-induced forced migration in South Asia”, moves us into the twentieth century, and argues that nation-making is “always inextricable from border-making, mass displacement and refugee generation”.68

BIBLIOGRAPHY Basri, Carole, “The Jewish refugees from Arab countries: An examination of legal rights – a case study of the human rights violations of Iraqi Jews”. Fordham International Law Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2002, Article 6. Collins, Robert O., “The African slave trade to Asia and the Indian Ocean islands”, African and Asian Studies, Vol. 5, Nos 3–4, 2006, p. 329. Daudin, Pascal, “The Thirty Years’ War: The first modern war?” Humanitarian Law and Policy, International Committee of the Red Cross, 2017. Gatrell, P., “Trajectories of population displacement in the aftermaths of two world wars”. In: Reinisch, J. and White, E. (eds) The Disentanglement of Populations. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Gray, Benjamin, “Exile, refuge and the Greek Polis: Between justice and humanity”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2, 2016, p. 201. Halsall, Guy, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568, Cambridge University Press, 2007. Heather, Peter J., “Refugees and the Roman Empire”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2, June 2017, pp. 220–242. Hicks, Mary E., “Financing the Luso-Atlantic slave trade, 1500–1840: Collective investment practices from Portugal to Brazil”, Journal of Global Slavery, Vol. 2, pp. 273–309, 2017. Holborn, Louise W., “The League of Nations and the refugee problem”, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 203(May), pp. 124–35, 1939. Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) (2021). Global Report on Internal Displacement. Geneva: IDMC. Isserman, Maurice, Pamela White and John Stewart Bowman, Exploration in the World of the Middle Ages, 500–1500. United States: Facts On File, Incorporated, 2005. Jie-sheng, AN, “Study on some laws of migration in ancient China”, Geographical Research, Vol. 23, No. 5, pp. 667–76, 2004. Johnson, James H., “The context of migration: The example of Ireland in the nineteenth century”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 15, No. 3, pp. 259–76, 1990.

The period between the late fifteenth and the late eighteenth centuries. Ghosal, this volume.

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132  Handbook on forced migration Klein, Herbert S., Stanley L. Engerman, Robin Haines and Ralph Shlomowitz, “Transoceanic mortality: The slave trade in comparative perspective”, The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 93–118, 2001. Krutz, Gordon V., “Chinese labor, economic development and social reaction”. Ethnohistory, Vol. 18, No. 4, pp. 321–33, 1971. Kushner, Tony, Remembering Refugees, Manchester University Press, 2006. Lachenicht, Susanne, “Refugees and refugee protection in the early modern period”, Journal of Refugee Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2. Lockard, Craig, “Chinese migration and settlement in Southeast Asia before 1850: Making fields from the sea”, History Compass, Vol. 11, No. 9, September, pp. 765–81, 2013. Lougee, Carolyn Chappell, Facing the Revocation: Huguenot Families, Faith, and the King’s Will. Oxford University Press, 2017. Lovejoy, Paul E. Transformations in Slavery, Cambridge University Press, 2012. Lyons, Gene M., “American policy and the United Nations program for Korean reconstruction”. International Organization, Vol. 12, No. 2 (1958): 180–92. Marrus, Michael, The Unwanted, Temple University Press, 2002. Martin, Susan, Evolving Trends in International Migration: From the Early Twentieth Century to the Present, Cambridge University Press, 2014. Martin, Susan, A Nation of Immigrants: 2nd edn, Cambridge University Press, 2021. McNeill, William and Ruth Adams, eds, Human Migration: Patterns and Policies, Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1978. Mei, June, “Socioeconomic origins of emigration: Guangdong to California, 1850–1882”. Modern China, Vol. 5, No. 4, pp. 463–501, 1979. Nag, Sajal, “Nationhood and displacement in Indian subcontinent”. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 51, 2001: 4753–60. http://​www​.jstor​.org/​stable/​4411510. Ning, C., T. Li, K. Wang, F. Zhang, T. Li, X. Wu, S. Gao et al., “Ancient genomes from northern China suggest links between subsistence changes and human migration”, Nature Communications, Vol. 11, No. 2700, 2020. Proctor, Tammy M., Civilians in a World at War, 1914–1918, New York University Press, 2010. Qing, Pei, David D. Zhang and Harry F. Lee, “Contextualizing human migration in different agro-ecological zones in ancient China”, Quaternary International, Vol. 426, pp. 65–74, 2016. Rahman, Mahbubar and Willem van Schendel, “‘I am not a refugee’: Rethinking partition migration”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp. 551–84, 2003. Taylor, Alan, Colonial America: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2013. Thiara, Ravinder K., “Indian indentured workers in Mauritius, Natal and Fiji”, in Robin Cohen, ed., The Cambridge Survey of World Migration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Turner, Sasha, “The nameless and the forgotten: Maternal grief, sacred protection, and the archive of slavery”, Slavery & Abolition, Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 232–50, 2017. UN Secretary-General, “The United Nations Secretary-General’s Action Agenda on Internal Displacement: Follow-up to the Report of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement”. New York: United Nations. Available at https://​www​.un​.org/​en/​content/​action​-agenda​ -on​-internal​-displacement/​assets/​pdf/​Action​-Agenda​-on​-Internal​-Displacement​_EN​.pdf, 2022. US State Department, Foreign Relations of the United States: Diplomatic Papers, General, Volume I, Bermuda Conference to consider the Refugee Problem, 19–28 April, 1943, and the implementation of certain of the Conference recommendations available at https://​history​.state​.gov/​historicaldocuments/​ frus1943v01/​comp6, 1943. Van der Spek, R.J., “Cyrus the Great, exiles, and foreign gods. A comparison of Assyrian and Persian policies on subject nations”. In M. Kozuh et al. (eds), Extraction and Control: Studies in Honor of Matthew W. Stolper (pp. 233–64) (Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, No. 68). The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 2014.

Historical perspectives on forced migration  133 Walter, Richard, Hallie Buckley, Chris Jacomb and Elizabeth Matisoo-Smith, “Mass migration and the Polynesian settlement of New Zealand”, Journal of World Prehistory, Vol. 30, pp. 351–76, 2017. Wittke, Carl, Refugees of Revolution: The German Forty-Eighters in America, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952. Zürcher, E.J. “Greek and Turkish refugees and deportees, 1919–1924”. Web Erişim, 2003. www​ .transanatolie​.com/​english/​turkey/​turks/​ottomans/​ejz18​.pdf.

12. Historians and forced migration: A persistent feeling of disconnect? Jerome Elie

INTRODUCTION In 2014, the Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies opened with a chapter aiming to analyze historians’ contributions to shaping this academic field.1 It started by acknowledging that there was something paradoxical in attempting to write an historiographical essay on an academic field known to be deeply ‘ahistorical’. The essay concluded that although still an emerging area, a rich body of historical scholarship and ongoing research projects pointed to a flourishing field. Almost ten years later, we are still often confronted with the double-edged disinterest in the history of forced migration:2 historians neglect the topic; policy circles and other academic fields neglect history. Why is there an enduring feeling of disconnect between historians and forced migration? This chapter offers some reflections, contending that answers rest with historians and the field at large.

THE STATE OF FORCED MIGRATION HISTORY Recent analysis of the history of forced migration points to a positive evolution. While a decade ago, it was common to read about ‘the “amnesia” of professional historians who have neglected countless mass displacements’ and the ‘low profile of history in Refugee Studies’,3 historians now consider that Refugee History has ‘emerged as an important field of scholarship’.4 A short online survey conducted by this author for this publication5 among historians

1 Jerome Elie, ‘Histories of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies’, in: The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, eds Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 23–35. 2 This chapter considers Refugee History as a subset of Forced Migration History, bearing in mind that the emergence of ‘Refugee’ History may not fully correspond to a rise of ‘Forced Migration’ History. 3 Philip Marfleet, ‘Explorations in a Foreign Land: States, Refugees, and the Problem of History’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 32, no. 2 (2013): 15. 4 Gatrell, this volume. 5 This chapter was informed by interviews and an online survey reaching 25 historians and historically minded Forced Migration experts, including tenured history professors and more junior researchers as well as some practitioners based in Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and Northern America. It was sent by email to researchers known to the author and disseminated more widely through LinkedIn and Twitter in January 2021. See for example: https://​twitter​.com/​ElieJee/​status/​1347893129253449728​?s​=​20​&​t​=​ 10​uW59YFUp1h8lgmV70nIQ Special thanks to Tristan Harley and Claire Higgins for their particularly useful inputs.

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Historians and forced migration  135 and practitioners reinforced this perception, with 95 percent of respondents considering that the History of Forced Migration has grown as an academic field. The survey also pointed to the vitality and diversity of scholarship, driven by area studies such as the history of human rights,6 post-War studies,7 African History,8 Post-Colonial Studies,9 and national history.10 Humanitarian and institutional history11 remain major topics, a trend likely to continue with the 70th anniversary of UNHCR, IOM, and the Refugee Convention. Beyond thematic orientations, survey respondents also pointed to a vibrant and diverse community of emerging academics and prolific established scholars. Marking a clear evolution since the 2010s, this community is now connected across the globe through a web of conferences, research projects,12 as well as webinars,13 Twitter exchanges, blogs and specialized online groups.14 Another sign of a healthy field is the extent to which historians are confronting the significant limitations of archival records. The archives are often ‘partial’ in both senses of the term: incomplete and biased. The filtering process is acute, documents often offer their authors’ perspective, and archives reflect the purpose for which they were collected and preserved (or not) by archivists. Therefore, what are usually considered ‘primary sources’ (the historian’s ‘Grail’) actually only constitute secondary evidence on displaced populations. Although archival limitations may be ‘particularly significant to historians of the refugee past’,15 such challenges are not unknown to historians and are addressed through a combination of methodological rigor and ingenuity. Building on learnings from social historians, the use of ‘unconventional’ archives has expanded, cross-referencing traditional archival material with sources

6 Laura Madokoro, ‘“Nothing to Offer in Return”: Refugees, Human Rights, and Genocide in Cambodia, 1975–1979’, International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis, 75, no. 2 (2020): 220–236. 7 Ruth Balint, Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe (New York: Cornell University Press, 2020). 8 ‘Forum: African Refugee History’, African Studies Review, 63, no. 3 (2020) and ‘Forum: Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Somali refugee and migrant experience’, African Studies Review, 63, no. 1 (2020). See also: Marcia C. Schenck and George Njung, ‘Rethinking Refuge: Processes of Refuge Seeking in Africa’, Africa Today, 69, no. 1–2 (2022): 1–13. 9 Ulrike Krause, ‘Colonial Roots of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its Effects on the Global Refugee Regime’, Journal of International Relations and Development (2021). 10 Claire Higgins, Asylum by Boat: Origins of Australia’s Refugee Policy (Sydney: New South Publishing, 2017). 11 Bonny Ibhawoh, ‘Refugees, Evacuees, and Repatriates: Biafran Children, UNHCR, and the Politics of International Humanitarianism in the Nigerian Civil War’, African Studies Review, 63, no. 3 (2020): 568–92. 12 See, for example: Bayreuth University’s ‘Africa in the Global History of Refugee Camps (1940s to 1950s): https://​www​.africamultiple​.uni​-bayreuth​.de/​en/​news/​2019/​research​_project​_refugees/​index​ .html and the ERC Project: ‘Unlikely refuge? Refugees and citizens in East-Central Europe in the 20th century’: https://​www​.unlikely​-refuge​.eu/​project/​ (Last visited: February 2021). 13 See, for example: Public Seminar Series, Hilary term 2021: Refugee Histories in the Global South: https://​www​.rsc​.ox​.ac​.uk/​news/​public​-seminar​-series​-hilary​-term​-2021​-refugee​-histories​-in​-the​-global​ -south (Last visited: February 2021). 14 See, for example: H-Net Cross-Network Group on ‘Refugees in African History’: https://​networks​ .h​-net​.org/​african​-refugees​-crossroads; entries in the ‘Refugee History’ website: http://​refugeehistory​ .org/​(Last visited: February 2021). 15 J. Olaf Kleist, ‘The History of Refugee Protection: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30, no. 2 (June 2017): 166.

136  Handbook on forced migration providing better access to the individual level.16 Moreover, initiatives around archives’ access and digitization have helped research expand, particularly with international institutions such as UNHCR and the UN in Geneva. Although NGOs are still largely unable to prioritize resources for such efforts, notable initiatives emerged at national levels, such as with the UK Refugee Council Archive.17 This has led to the creation of the IASFM Working Group of the History of Forced Migration and Refugees18 and the Oral History Society Migration Special Interest Group19 focusing on the use of bottom-up methodologies.

AN INFERIORITY COMPLEX? Clearly then, Forced Migration History is on an ascending curve, although still struggling to find its right place within historical scholarship and to convince a profession that may consider ‘the migration of asylum seekers and refugees to be merely episodic or surface noise’.20 Fair enough, Forced Migration History has not (yet) acquired the ‘regalian attributes’ of mainstream history. For example, it still occupies a relatively limited space in established historical journals like the American Historical Review. Publications often appear through ‘special’ issues, not exactly a sign of mainstream history. There is still no established ‘Journal of Forced Migration History’, not even of Refugee History, although outlets such as the Journal of Migration History provide space for forced migration. Other disciplines’ journals like the Refugee Survey Quarterly and the Journal of Refugee Studies also offer limited options. Moreover, as Gatrell puts it in this Handbook, refugee history has developed into a major field of study ‘without anyone writing a manifesto or emerging as the leader in any unified body of scholarship’. A cohesive analytical framework may be emerging under Gatrell’s ‘label’ ‘refugeedom’. As ‘something more akin to a total history’ it encapsulates a ‘matrix involving administrative practices, legal norms, social relations and refugees’ experiences, and how these have been represented in cultural terms’.21 However, this is still a novel development within the broader field of Forced Migration History. There are also more practical challenges to overcome before reaching mainstream history. For example, it is difficult to point to any research center or department focusing expressly on forced migration ‘history’. Historians remain a minority within multi-disciplinary research centers, with relatively few resources invested in historical research, and fewer open positions than for other forced migration disciplines. Those shortcomings are even more pronounced 16 Anne Irfan, ‘Petitioning for Palestine: Refugee Appeals to International Authorities’, Contemporary Levant, 5, no. 2 (2020): 79–96; Peter Gatrell, ‘Raw Material: UNHCR’s Individual Case Files as a Historical Source, 1951–1975’, History Workshop Journal, no. 2 (2021): 1–19. 17 Refugee Council Archive: https://​www​.uel​.ac​.uk/​research/​refugee​-mental​-health​-and​-wellbeing​ -portal/​refugee​-council​-archive; Living Refugee Archive: https://​www​.​livingrefu​geearchive​.org/​ (Last visited: February 2021). 18 IASFM Working Group for History of Forced Migration and Refugees: An International Working Group for Archiving and Documentation: http://​iasfm​.org/​adfm/​(Last visited: February 2021). 19 Oral History Society Special Interest Group on the subject of Migration: https://​www​.ohs​.org​.uk/​ information​-for/​migration/​(Last visited: February 2021). 20 Peter Gatrell, ‘Refugees—What’s Wrong with History?’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30, no. 2 (2017): 172. 21 Gatrell, ‘Refugees’, 170, 184; Lauren Banko, Kasia Nowak, and Peter Gatrell, ‘What is refugee history, now?’, Journal of Global History, 17 (2022): 1–19.

Historians and forced migration  137 when considering historical scholarship from the ‘Global South’. How is Forced Migration History contributing to promoting underrepresented scholarship? Apparently not much although, as noted in the Editors’ Introduction to this Handbook, a deeper analysis should look at patterns of funding, mapping relevant research centers worldwide, scientific connections and collaborations, academic positions and publications. It is also important to be mindful of a major blind-spot in this analysis (and many others): language barrier. Most analyses of Forced Migration History largely reflect an Anglo-Saxon perspective, without considering the historiography in other languages, although recent efforts aim to ‘open global-north knowledge production about refugee history to the global south’.22 There are challenges and shortcomings, but also a positive evolution, leaving us still with the initial question: Why the enduring feeling of a disconnect between history and the field of forced migration?

HISTORIANS AND THE ‘DUAL IMPERATIVE’ Addressing this question is to reflect on what drives historians of forced migration. Is there anything specific that motivates them, over and above what may stimulate other historians? Part of the answer may be about how (and whether) historians have internalized the ‘dual imperative’ driving research on forced migration. Academics in this field are ‘both plagued by and attracted to the idea that our work be relevant’, policy- and practice-oriented because our subjects’ ‘experience of violent conflict, displacement and human rights violations inhibits us from treating them simply as objects for research’.23 In short, the field focuses heavily on the present and future. Researchers entertain the – often contradictory – objectives of contributing to rigorous scholarship, while alleviating human misery and promoting the rights and agency of displaced people. Interestingly, reflections on the ‘dual imperative’ rarely include historical scholarship, even when praising interdisciplinary approaches.24 What does it mean for historians? For obvious reasons, most of the time, saving the lives or alleviating the misery of displaced populations cannot be the immediate objective. Historians’ career advancement is usually less focused on demonstrating ‘real world’ impacts arising from their research. It does not mean, however, that historians of forced migration are all ‘simply’ ‘driven by the conviction that pure scholarship will bring its own rewards in the fullness of time’.25 Historians are not necessarily confined to their academic ivory towers (or archives basements).

See: ‘Doing Refugee History’, 2021 Institute of Historical Research (IHR) Seminar convened by Anne Irfan (University of Oxford), Laura Madokoro (Carleton University) and Benjamin Thomas White (University of Glasgow): https://​www​.history​.ac​.uk/​partnership​-seminars/​doing​-refugee​-history. 23 Karen Jacobsen and Lauren B. Landau, ‘The Dual Imperative in Refugee Research: Some Methodological and Ethical Considerations in Social Science Research on Forced Migration’, Disasters, 27, no. 3 (2003): 95. 24 Rosemary Byrne and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘International Refugee Law between Scholarship and Practice’, International Journal of Refugee Law, 32, no. 2 (2020): 197. 25 Katy Long, ‘More Research and Fewer Experts: Global Governance and International Migration’, in: Bridging the Gaps: Linking Research to Public Debates and Policy Making on Migration and Integration, eds Martin Ruhs et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019): 223. 22

138  Handbook on forced migration Indeed, one often finds references to current events as catalysts of historical undertakings. For example, given the COVID-19 pandemic there is a compelling need for an historical approach to displacement – and an appetite for histories of past pandemics and displacement.26 Many historians have also acknowledged the influence of the Syrian ‘refugee crisis’ on their work, and the need to shed light on the ‘historical roots of displacement and of refugee policies’.27 This entails the classical aim of deriving lessons from history, not necessarily an exclusive prerogative but possibly a more pregnant aspiration of Forced Migration History. Academics regularly underline the cyclical nature of forced migration challenges and the value of historical comparisons to learn from the past, or at least avoid reinventing the wheel.28 In doing so, one needs to be mindful of inherent pitfalls, from instrumentalizing history to being ambiguous about which lessons are selected, by whom and for what purpose. Nevertheless, this is an area where other academics see value in history. Goodwin-Gill considers that ‘no international lawyer can avoid being an historian. This gives us the long view essential to understanding law in the relations of states, and enables us to counter misunderstandings dressed up as advocacy’.29 Moreover, aside from analyses simply intended to record and explain, historians of forced migration can also be ‘activists’, aiming at challenging the status quo and lobbying for change. As Marfleet put it, ‘remembering can be a subversive activity’ and one of the most important contributions of historians in general is around building or correcting memory.30 Historians of forced migration may therefore be animated by an extra sense of mission, an additional layer of passion and a belief that forced migration deserves to be better considered, put at the center of scholarship, historical or otherwise. Such an outlook also warrants an analysis of the interplay between Forced Migration History and contemporary policy and practice. Historians can bring important contributions to rethinking concepts and informing current practices. Recent scholarship has engaged with practice, aiming to contribute to present-day reflections in meaningful ways, from examining the ‘History of Refugee Protection’ to bringing the notion of labels and administrative categories under historical scrutiny.31 Others have investigated the new history of old concepts such as refugee self-reliance, thus giving depth to a major feature of contemporary refugee policy, encapsulated in the Global Compact on Refugees.32 In the process, historians face methodological conundrums similar to those

Alex de Waal, New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2021). 27 Kleist, ‘The History’, 162; Gatrell, ‘Refugees’, 171. 28 Alexander Betts and Gil Loescher, ‘Introduction: Continuity and Change in Global Refugee Policy’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 33, no. 1 (2014): 2. 29 Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘The Dynamic of International Refugee Law’, International Journal of Refugee Law, 25, no. 4 (2013): 653. Another notable historically minded lawyer is Marjoleine Zieck, ‘The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Emergency, An Early and Instructive Case of Resettlement’, Amsterdam Law Forum, 5, No. 2 (2013): 45–63. 30 Marfleet, ‘Explorations’, 27. 31 Special Issue: ‘History of Refugee Protection’, Journal of Refugee Studies,30, no. 2 (2017); Karen Akoka, L’asile et l’exil – Une Histoire de la Distinction Réfugiés/Migrants (Paris: La Decouverte, 2020). 32 Claudena Skran and Evan Easton-Calabria, ‘Old Concepts Making New History: Refugee Self-reliance, Livelihoods and the “Refugee Entrepreneur”’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 33, no. 1 (2020): 1–21. 26

Historians and forced migration  139 encountered by other academics in light of the ‘dual imperative’: being policy-relevant without being policy-driven.33 Even closer to the notion of the dual imperative, historians have worked on redressing the imbalance in scholarship vis-à-vis the ‘refugee voice’, finding methodologies to put refugees at the center.34 This does not mean promoting a history written by displaced people only but it does mean acknowledging their contributions, for example challenging ‘the assumption that until relatively recently refugees or persons with lived refugee experience have not been involved in the development of international refugee law and policy’. Tristan Harley recently demonstrated that they have actually ‘exercised significant influence and thought-leadership in the development of international refugee law and policymaking during the foundational years between 1921 and 1955’.35

CONCLUSION There are clear indications of the vitality of historical scholarship on forced migration and of how historians engage with contemporary debates and trends in forced migration. There are also limitations still. As some survey respondents put it, history is often subliminally understood or treated as an ‘auxiliary science’, other disciplines, practitioners and policy-oriented researchers being most interested in history that provides clear, guiding answers. Even in this minimalist perspective, it remains surprising that historians’ skills are not more in demand given the insatiable appetite for ‘best practices’ among policy circles. While there are thin walls between legal scholarship and practice, with lawyers regularly crossing between academia and policy circles,36 history is surrounded by thicker ramparts. Exceptions do exist, with a few historians holding positions in NGOs, while others had a long career with the UN before coming back to the ‘academic fore’.37 Some historians have also had careers in government and think tanks.38 However, the ramparts have become thicker over the past few years. For example, UNHCR’s New Issues in Refugee Research series used to be a vibrant common space for history, policy and practice – until it disappeared in 2017. More recently, few contributions from historians fed into the development of the Global Compacts on Refugees and for Migration, while the academic network and knowledge platform foreseen by both compacts are yet to articulate a clear role for historians. Still, historians of forced migration have recently opened a wide and exciting window of opportunity for their work to be recognized by their peers and others. Let’s reconvene on this, in about ten years.

Long, ‘More Research’, 226, 229, 234. Peter Gatrell, Anindita Ghoshal, Katarzyna Nowak and Alex Dowdall, ‘Reckoning with Refugeedom: Refugee Voices in Modern History’, Social History 46, no. 1 (2021): 70–95. 35 Tristan Harley, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited: The Contributions of Refugees to Early International Refugee Law and Policy’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 40, no. 1 (2021): 60. 36 Long, ‘More Research’, 227; Byrne and Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘International’, 198. 37 Jeff Crisp at the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre. 38 Susan Martin, for example, has had extensive government experience, including as Research Director of the Select US Commission on Immigration and Refugee Policy in the early 1980s and Executive Director of the US Immigration Reform Commission in the late 1990s. 33 34

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Akoka, Karen, L’asile et l’exil – Une Histoire de la Distinction Réfugiés/Migrants (Paris: La Decouverte, 2020). Balint, Ruth, Destination Elsewhere: Displaced Persons and their Quest to Leave Postwar Europe (New York: Cornell University Press, 2020). Banko, Lauren Kasia Nowak and Peter Gatrell, ‘What is Refugee History, Now?’, Journal of Global History, 17 (2022): 1–19. Betts, Alexander and Gil Loescher, ‘Introduction: Continuity and Change in Global Refugee Policy’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 33, no. 1 (2014): 1–7. Byrne, Rosemary and Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, ‘International Refugee Law between Scholarship and Practice’, International Journal of Refugee Law, 32, no. 2 (2020): 181–99. De Waal, Alex, New Pandemics, Old Politics: Two Hundred Years of War on Disease and its Alternatives (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2021). Elie, Jerome, ‘Histories of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies’, in: The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, eds Elena Fiddian Qasmiyeh et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014) 23–35. Gatrell, Peter, ‘Raw Material: UNHCR’s Individual Case Files as a Historical Source, 1951–1975’, History Workshop Journal, no. 2 (2021): 1–19. Gatrell, Peter, ‘Refugees—What’s Wrong with History?’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30, no. 2 (2017): 170–189. Gatrell, Peter, Anindita Ghoshal, Katarzyna Nowak and Alex Dowdall, ‘Reckoning with Refugeedom: Refugee Voices in Modern History’, Social History 46 (1), 2021: 70–95. Goodwin-Gill, Guy S., ‘The Dynamic of International Refugee Law’, International Journal of Refugee Law, 25, no. 4 (2013): 651–66. Harley, Tristan, ‘Refugee Participation Revisited: The Contributions of Refugees to Early International Refugee Law and Policy’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, no. 1 (2021): 58–81. Higgins, Claire, Asylum by Boat: Origins of Australia’s Refugee Policy (Sydney: New South Publishing, 2017). Ibhawoh, Bonny, ‘Refugees, Evacuees, and Repatriates: Biafran Children, UNHCR, and the Politics of International Humanitarianism in the Nigerian Civil War’, African Studies Review, 63, no. 3 (2020): 568–92. Ibrahim, Ahmed, Aditi Malik and Cori Wielenga, ‘Forum: Migration in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Somali Refugee and Migrant Experience’, African Studies Review, 63, no. 1 (2020): 9–17. Irfan, Anne, ‘Petitioning for Palestine: Refugee Appeals to International Authorities’, Contemporary Levant, 5, no. 2 (2020): 79–96. Jacobsen, Karen and Lauren B. Landau, ‘The Dual Imperative in Refugee Research: Some Methodological and Ethical Considerations in Social Science Research on Forced Migration’, Disasters, 27, no. 3 (2003): 185–206. Kleist, J. Olaf, ‘The History of Refugee Protection: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30, no. 2 (June 2017): 161–9. Koser, Khalid (ed.), Special Issue: ‘History of Refugee Protection’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30, no. 2 (2017). Krause, Ulrike, ‘Colonial Roots of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its Effects on the Global Refugee Regime’, Journal of International Relations and Development (2021): 599–626. Long, Katy, ‘More Research and Fewer Experts: Global Governance and International Migration’, in: Bridging the Gaps: Linking Research to Public Debates and Policy Making on Migration and Integration, eds Martin Ruhs et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019): 222–38. Madokoro, Laura, ‘“Nothing to Offer in Return”: Refugees, Human Rights, and Genocide in Cambodia, 1975–1979’, International Journal: Canada’s Journal of Global Policy Analysis, 75, no. 2 (2020): 220–236. Marfleet, Philip, ‘Explorations in a Foreign Land: States, Refugees, and the Problem of History’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 32, no. 2 (2013): 14–34. Njung, George and Marcia C. Schenck, ‘Rethinking Refuge: Processes of Refuge Seeking in Africa’, Africa Today, 69, no. 1–2 (2022): 1–13.

Historians and forced migration  141 Skran, Claudena and Evan Easton-Calabria, ‘Old Concepts Making New History: Refugee Self-reliance, Livelihoods and the “Refugee Entrepreneur”’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 33, no. 1 (2020): 1–21. Zieck, Marjoleine, ‘The 1956 Hungarian Refugee Emergency, An Early and Instructive Case of Resettlement’, Amsterdam Law Forum, 5, No. 2 (2013): 45–63.

13. Reckoning with refugeedom: Historical perspectives Peter Gatrell

INTRODUCTION In an earlier article, I advanced the concept of ‘refugeedom’ as a means of interrogating the meanings attached to population displacement and thinking about cultural and social linkages across time and space.1 Five years later, in the midst of a pandemic, the need for an historical approach to the study of refugees is no less compelling. This chapter restates and updates the argument about refugeedom and points to some developments in the emerging field of refugee history.2

REFUGEE HISTORY Refugee history has emerged as an important field of scholarship without anyone writing a manifesto or emerging as the leader in any unified body of scholarship. It has developed in piecemeal fashion, fuelled by an interest in the experiences of individuals and communities caught up in wars and other disasters and affected by other upheavals such as border changes and the formation of new states. It gained further traction as the phrase ‘refugee crisis’ began to appear regularly in the Western news media after 2014. It emerged not only because of an interest in victimised and silenced groups but also because refugees’ presence and their marginality promised to illuminate important aspects of twentieth-century history. The result has been to supplant a longstanding neglect of refugees in mainstream historiography, much of it deriving from a mistaken assumption that they are transient figures. But what is ‘refugee history’? To be sure, the history of refugees can be written as the history of institutional agreements and arrangements, such as those that came into being as a result of the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, which consolidated a particular definition of ‘refugee’ in relation to the concept of persecution, and in relation to a specific time and place. Recent scholarship has drawn attention to the colonial context in which UN member states subscribed to the Convention and endorsed the mandate of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. The result was a ‘universal’ regime that was in fact exclusionary.3 1 Peter Gatrell, ‘Refugees—What’s Wrong with History?’, Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 30, Issue 2, June 2017, pp. 170–89. 2 See also Lauren Banko, Katarzyna Nowak and Peter Gatrell, ‘What is Refugee History, Now?’, Journal of Global History, Volume 17, Issue 1, March 2022, pp. 1–19. 3 Lucy Mayblin, Asylum after Empire: Colonial Legacies in the Politics of Asylum Seeking. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017; Ulrika Krause, ‘Colonial Roots of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its Effects on the Global Refugee Regime’, Journal of International Relations and Development, Volume 24, Issue 3, September 2021, pp. 599–626.

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Reckoning with refugeedom: Historical perspectives  143 To understand refugee history from a less Eurocentric perspective, historians might consider how the process of decolonisation shaped the experience of refugees. Refugee history has lately begun to show how decolonisation intersected with national regimes and forced refugees to contend with new institutional hurdles including obtaining passports, citizenship status, or economic assistance, as in the case of refugees caught up in the ‘long Partition’ of India.4 In an important recent study Pamela Ballinger highlights the importance of paying attention to refugees and the state – specifically, the ways in which the defeated Italian state sought to reconstitute itself and establish its sovereignty vis-à-vis Allied governments by exercising control over whom to admit – drawing the boundaries between ‘national refugees’ and others. The category of ‘national refugees’ points to the way in which countless refugees fell outside the framework of the international refugee regime, either because they were assumed to find a route to citizenship or because they were deemed not to have crossed an international frontier, even if, as in the case of Italian refugees, they had been forced out of Italy’s former colonial possessions including in Africa.5 One of the chief advances made by this scholarship is to direct attention to areas of the world beyond Europe. Nevertheless, these institutional approaches risk removing refugees from centre stage. In my view, it is essential to avoid Eurocentricity in refugee history, and at the same time to bring refugee perspectives to the fore.

REFUGEEDOM: A RECAPITULATION ‘Refugeedom’ is my translation of the Russian word bezhenstvo that gained currency during the First World War. In that context, it directed attention to an entirely new social category in the Russian Empire. It was simultaneously a description of millions of people who had been wrenched from their familiar moorings and an expression of the treatment – sometimes hostile, often demeaning, certainly hesitant – that was meted out by government officials and by host communities among which refugees settled. The term resonated because it encapsulated social anxieties and because it expressed the critiques being mounted against the Tsarist state. In short, issues of definition and practices of assistance were already heavily politicised.6 In my view the term ‘refugeedom’ has the potential to inform refugee history in different contexts. It directs attention to multiple relationships in the past between refugees and relief workers, relationships that Ilana Feldman calls the ‘humanitarian circuit’.7 In addition, as the original Russian usage did, it incorporates the changing manifestations of a ‘refugee regime’, taken to mean the principles, rules and practices adopted by government officials and others to manage refugees, and the protection gaps in the system, which have been extensively tracked

Vazira Fazila-Yacoobali Zamindar, The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, and Histories. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. 5 Pamela Ballinger, The World Refugees Made: Decolonization and the Foundation of Postwar Italy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020. 6 Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999. 7 Ilana Feldman, ‘The Humanitarian Circuit: Relief Work, Development Assistance, and CARE in Gaza, 1955–1967’. In P. Redfield and E. Bornstein, eds. Forces of Compassion: Ethics and Politics of Global Humanitarianism. Santa Fe: SAR Press, 2010, pp. 203–26. 4

144  Handbook on forced migration by historians and other scholars.8 Refugeedom allows us to go further, by acknowledging the world that refugees made, not just the world that has been made for them. It extends the field of vision to take account of categorical practices, legal frameworks, bureaucratic instruments, and humanitarian relief work, whilst enabling us to relate refugees’ experiences, conduct and responses to prevailing institutions and norms. Finally, it reinforces the point that policies, practices, and experiences of population displacement must be historically contextualised.

ENCOUNTERS Refugeedom is partly about the multiple encounters between refugees and non-refugees. These encounters include the relationship between refugees and host populations that was particularly fraught in situations of widespread deprivation, destruction, and inadequate resources, such as in the aftermath of the Second World War.9 Other encounters of historical significance include those between refugees and officialdom of one kind or another. The shorthand formulation, ‘power relations’, captures the essence of inequality between refugees and those who are charged with managing or assisting them, whether in camps or in other settings. But historians are interested in the ways in which specific power structures were established and reproduced in relation to mass population displacement, and what happened when these structures were overturned and replaced. Several important studies have shed light on the creation and operation of refugee camps, not just as carceral institutions but as sites of opportunity for refugees to engage with government officials and non-governmental organisations. Historical research that draws upon social-scientific refugee studies paints a more nuanced portrait of social, economic, political, and cultural life in refugee camps.10 Without diminishing the harsh regime to which numerous refugees were exposed, historians have drawn attention to the expression by refugees of a strong sense of collective identity. For example, Displaced Persons in Germany and Polish refugees in East Africa at the end of the Second World War used various channels of communication to express a sense of victimisation and betrayal.11 The social world of the refugee camp was heterogeneous, comprising (in the case of the Philippines Refugee Processing Center on Bataan) UNHCR officials, Philippines military, camp administrators, international 8 Claudena M. Skran, Refugees in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995; Emma Haddad, The Refugee in International Society: Between Sovereigns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008; Katy Long, ‘When Refugees Stopped Being Migrants: Movement, Labour and Humanitarian Protection’. Migration Studies, Volume 1, Issue 1, March 2013, pp. 4–26. 9 Adam R. Seipp, Strangers in the Wild Place: Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945–1952. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013. 10 Kirsten McConnachie, ‘Camps of Containment: A Genealogy of the Refugee Camp’. Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development. Volume 7, Issue 3, Winter 2016, pp. 397–412, 2016; Meryn McLaren, ‘“Out of the Huts Emerged a Settled People”: Community-Building in West German Refugee Camps’. German History, Volume 28, Issue 1, March 2010, pp. 21–43; Jordanna Bailkin, Unsettled: Refugee Camps and the Making of Multicultural Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 11 Mark Wyman, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–1951, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989; Jochen Lingelbach, On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa during and after the Second World War. New York: Berghahn, 2020.

Reckoning with refugeedom: Historical perspectives  145 NGOs, foreign teachers, Filipino teachers and market vendors, as well as families from other parts of South-East Asia. It was, in other words, ‘a veritable international village’ whose contours were mapped by refugees too.12

VOICES This brings us to the critical point about voice and self-expression. Contemporary social scientists have discussed the importance that officialdom attaches to refugee testimony in relation to issues of asylum claims, the ‘truth of asylum’ and ‘recognition’.13 Aihwa Ong shows how Cambodian refugees aligned their behaviour in order to maximise their suitability as candidates for admission to the USA: ‘in official and public domains refugees become subjects of norms, rules, and systems, but they also modify practices and agendas while nimbly deflecting control and interjecting critique’.14 However, recovering refugee testimony from the distant past represents a challenge. The historical record is much richer in establishing the mainsprings of government policy or the actions of aid agencies. Using available archives, historians seek to interpret what the contents tell us about the relationship between refugees and those who wield authority. This can be something as fundamental as the language in which the records were written. UNHCR, for example, handled thousands of petitions in the 1950s and 1960s, and often had to get them translated from Russian, Hungarian, Albanian, Arabic and even Esperanto into the languages of international diplomacy, namely English and French.15 Nevertheless, it is possible to make progress in recovering refugee voices. Refugeedom points to the constraints under which refugees were expected or enabled to express themselves, but those very constraints disclose powerful testimony from refugees who petitioned officialdom.16 This testimony often underlines the nuanced interpretation that Ong acknowledged. Engaging with the tone of refugees’ letters and petitions to persons in authority offers a promising way forward.17

Jana Lipman, In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Repatriates. Oakland: University of California Press, 2020. 13 Didier Fassin, ‘The Precarious Truth of Asylum’. Public Culture, Volume 25, Issue 1, Winter 2013, pp. 39–63. 14 Aihwa Ong, Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003: xvii. 15 Peter Gatrell, ‘Raw Material: UNHCR’s Individual Case Files as a Historical Source, 1951–1975’, History Workshop Journal, Volume 92, Autumn, 2021, pp. 226–41. 16 Peter Gatrell, A. Ghoshal, K. Nowak, and A. Dowdall, ‘Reckoning with Refugeedom: Refugee Voices in Modern History’. Social History, Volume 46, Issue 1, February 2021, pp. 70–95. 17 Laura Robson and Anne Irfan have recently addressed the purpose, form, content and tone of these petitions, including their performative character. L. Robson, States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017; Anne Irfan ‘Petitioning for Palestine: Refugee Appeals to International Authorities’. Contemporary Levant, Volume 5, Issue 2, 2020, pp. 79–96. 12

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LABELS AND IDENTITIES Getting to grips with marginal and dispossessed social groups is not just a matter of rescuing them from what E.P. Thompson famously described as ‘the enormous condescension of posterity’.18 Something more than a history ‘from below’ is required. This is partly a question of engaging with the complicated business of what Ian Hacking, taking his cue from Nietzsche, calls ‘making up people’. This process is well established in refugee studies.19 Here I link it to questions of refugee agency. Historians have begun to show how refugees actively engaged with issues of categorisation and classification. We now have important studies of the ways in which refugees adopted and appropriated the label, ‘refugee’, but also of their refusal to acknowledge the designation. As Hannah Arendt wrote in 1943, ‘In the first place, we don’t like to be called “refugees”. We ourselves call each other “newcomers” or “immigrants”’.20 Palestinian refugees embraced the label in so far as it drew attention to their exiled status and affirmed their determination to resist local integration or resettlement.21 Polish DPs trapped in camps in Germany at the end of the Second World War ridiculed the official label by twisting it to absurd forms such as ‘dipiseria’ or ‘homo dipisiensis’.22 In the Indian sub-continent, on the other hand, many Partition-era refugees rejected the label of ‘refugee’ and insisted that they were entitled to be regarded as full citizens.23 By contrast, Latvian DPs who reached the UK after the Second World War under the European Volunteer Workers scheme were deemed by officials and employers to be economic migrants, whereas they perceived themselves as refugees from communism.24 Official distinctions – legal and administrative – also had the potential to inflect vernacular representations and descriptions. In her path-breaking study of the experiences of refugees from China in the wake of the formation of the Chinese People’s Republic in 1949, Laura Madokoro examines the multiple ascriptions that circulated at the time. For example, in the British colony of Hong Kong, officials used the pejorative term ‘rice refugees’ to avoid inflaming relations with the People’s Republic of China, and the label gained broader currency among Hong Kong residents and some humanitarian aid organisations.25

E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class. London: Gollancz, 1963. Ian Hacking, ‘Making Up People’. The London Review of Books, 17 August 2006; Roger Zetter ‘More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization’. Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 20, Issue 2, June 2007, pp. 172–92. 20 Hanna Arendt, ‘We Refugees’. In J. Kohn and R. Feldman, eds, The Jewish Writings. New York: Schocken Books, 2007, pp. 264–74. 21 Ilana Feldman, ‘The Challenge of Categories: UNRWA and the Definition of a “Palestine Refugee”’. Journal of Refugee Studies, Volume 25, Issue 3, September 2012, pp. 387–406. 22 T. Nowakowski, Obóz Wszystkich Świętych. Paris: Libella, 1957, p. 341. 23 N. Rahman and W. van Schendel, ‘“I Am Not a Refugee”: Rethinking Partition History’. Modern Asian Studies, Volume 37, Issue 3, July 2003, pp. 551–84; Uditi Sen, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. 24 Linda McDowell, Hard Labour: The Hidden Voices of Latvian Migrant ‘Volunteer’ Workers. London: UCL Press, 2005. 25 Laura Madokoro, Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016. 18 19

Reckoning with refugeedom: Historical perspectives  147

CONCLUSIONS It may seem redundant, but the most important point about refugee history is that there is a history of refugees. In deploying the term ‘refugeedom’, I assert that refugee history is not just about refugees, but about the entire web of relationships in which they are embedded. The challenge for historians is to write displacement into the larger processes of historical change, without effacing the perspectives of refugees. As a growing body of specialist work attests, many elements are already in place, in terms of understanding the oscillating relationships between wars, decolonisation, state formation and state collapse. These processes are closely bound up with mass population displacement. At the same time, we require a helpful analytical framework. The term ‘refugeedom’ should not be thought of as a rigid construct, let alone a de-historicised ‘condition’, but instead as a shifting matrix of relations and practices to which refugees themselves have contributed. Calling for a history of refugeedom is to argue for an approach that incorporates a social and cultural history of refugees within shifting systems of power. This must be done in a way that does not see power flowing in one direction. Refugeedom can be conceived as a system that governs but does not necessarily bind refugees in an inescapable vice.

REFERENCES Arendt, H. (2007) ‘We Refugees’. In J. Kohn and R. Feldman (eds) The Jewish Writings. New York: Schocken Books, pp. 264–74. Bailkin, J. (2018) Unsettled: Refugee Camps and the Making of Multicultural Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ballinger, P. (2020) The World Refugees Made: Decolonization and the Foundation of Postwar Italy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Banko, L., Nowak, K., and Gatrell, P. (2012) ‘What is Refugee History, Now?’. Journal of Global History 17 (1): 1–19. Fassin, D. (2013) ‘The Precarious Truth of Asylum’. Public Culture 25 (1): 39–63. Feldman, I. (2010) ‘The Humanitarian Circuit: Relief Work, Development Assistance, and CARE in Gaza, 1955–1967’. In P. Redfield and E. Bornstein (eds) Forces of Compassion: Ethics and Politics of Global Humanitarianism. Santa Fe: SAR Press, pp. 203–26. Feldman, I. (2012) ‘The Challenge of Categories: UNRWA and the Definition of a “Palestine Refugee”’. Journal of Refugee Studies 25 (3): 387–406. Gatrell, P. (1999) A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia during World War 1. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gatrell, P. (2017) ‘Refugees—What’s Wrong with History?’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 30 (2): 170–89. Gatrell, P. (2021) ‘Raw Material: UNHCR’s Individual Case Files as a Historical Source, 1951–1975’. History Workshop Journal 92 (Autumn): 226–41. Gatrell, P., A. Ghoshal, K. Nowak, and A. Dowdall (2021) ‘Reckoning with Refugeedom: Refugee Voices in Modern History’. Social History 46 (1): 70–95. Hacking, I. (2006) ‘Making Up People’. The London Review of Books, 17 August. Haddad, E. (2008) The Refugee in International Society: Between Sovereigns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Irfan, A. (2020) ‘Petitioning for Palestine: Refugee Appeals to International Authorities’. Contemporary Levant 5 (2): 79–96. Krause, U. (2021) ‘Colonial Roots of the 1951 Refugee Convention and its Effects on the Global Refugee Regime’. Journal of International Relations and Development 24 (3): 599–626. Lingelbach, J. (2020) On the Edges of Whiteness: Polish Refugees in British Colonial Africa During and After the Second World War. New York: Berghahn.

148  Handbook on forced migration Lipman, J. (2020) In Camps: Vietnamese Refugees, Asylum Seekers, and Repatriates. Oakland: University of California Press. Long, K. (2013) ‘When Refugees Stopped Being Migrants: Movement, Labour and Humanitarian Protection’. Migration Studies 1 (1): 4–26. McConnachie, K. (2016) ‘Camps of Containment: A Genealogy of the Refugee Camp’. Humanity: an International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development 7 (3): 397–412. McDowell, L. (2005) Hard Labour: The Hidden Voices of Latvian Migrant ‘Volunteer’ Workers. London: UCL Press. McLaren, M. (2010) ‘“Out of the Huts Emerged a Settled People”: Community-Building in West German Refugee Camps’. German History 28 (1): 21–43. Madokoro, L. (2016) Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mayblin, L. (2017) Asylum after Empire: Colonial Legacies in the Politics of Asylum Seeking. London: Rowman & Littlefield. Nowakowski, T. (1957) Obóz Wszystkich Świętych. Paris: Libella. Ong, A. (2003) Buddha is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rahman, N., and W. van Schendel (2003) ‘“I Am Not a Refugee”: Rethinking Partition History’. Modern Asian Studies 37 (3): 551–84. Robson, L. (2017) States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Berkeley: University of California Press. Seipp, A. (2013) Strangers in the Wild Place: Refugees, Americans, and a German Town, 1945–1952. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Sen, U. (2018) Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skran, C. (1995) Refugees in Inter-War Europe: The Emergence of a Regime. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Thompson, E. (1963) The Making of the English Working Class. London: Gollancz. Wyman, M. (1989) DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons, 1945–1951. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Zamindar, V. (2007) The Long Partition and the Making of Modern South Asia: Refugees, Boundaries, and Histories. New York: Columbia University Press. Zetter, R. (2007) ‘More Labels, Fewer Refugees: Remaking the Refugee Label in an Era of Globalization’. Journal of Refugee Studies 20 (2): 172–92.

14. History, memory and the ethics of asylum Tony Kushner

Governments have too often ignored the views of those who are sympathetic to the needs of refugees and have been hesitant to take a moral lead and push more positively the ambivalent views of the majority.1 A detailed historical approach suggests there is much more fluidity in ‘public opinion’ than might be assumed. Yet one argument for an ethically-based asylum policy rests not on a utilitarian argument that they will do more good than harm, but on the argument that an individual right to live a life free of persecution – at a basic level, the right to life – is part of universal human rights. Liberal democracies often claim their policies’ ethical underpinning by stressing the help given to those escaping oppression abroad, pointing out their duty to save the lives of the persecuted. But the anti-immigrant position past and present has often fought the battle over the ethics of asylum by focusing on the damage done to ‘us’, the hosts, rather than the needs of ‘them’, the refugees whom they denigrate and undermine. How can we move from a vicious circle of mutual reinforcement of prejudice between government, state, media and public to a virtuous one that leads out of the racist maze? A historical perspective provides some grounds for comfort. There have been periods of intense and successful anti-alienism. Today’s situation is not unprecedented. During the 1920s, in spite of the intensity of the continental refugee crisis, Britain took in almost no refugees and deported many who had come before the First World War.2 This was followed in the late 1930s by a rediscovery of the concept of asylum at a popular level, which helped push the government in a more generous direction.3 At the end of the twentieth century, grassroots campaigning pushed the British government into helping Kosovan refugees when it had no intention to do so. Post-1999, the British government’s treatment of these Kosovan refugees has been immensely shabby, but the press and public sympathy at the time of the conflict indicates that there is nothing natural or inevitable about anti-alienism.4 Indeed, opinion polls consistently suggest that three-quarters of the population are in favour of asylum for those ‘genuinely’ in need.5 The dominant mode in the UK in the early decades of the twenty-first century has been self-congratulation on past ‘generosity’ (whether merited or not), and a stubborn refusal to consider anything other than token entry of contemporary asylum seekers.6 European countries I emphasize this in my book, Remembering Refugees, and in a historical overview, Refugees in an Age of Genocide (1999) with Katharine Knox. 2 David Cesarani, ‘Anti-Alienism in England after the First World War’, Immigrants & Minorities vol. 6, no. 1 (March 1987), pp. 5–29. 3 Tony Kushner and Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide (Routledge, 1999), chapter 5. 4 Elspeth Guild, ‘The United Kingdom: Kosovar Albanian Refugees’, in Kosovo’s Refugees in the European Union (London, UK and New York, USA: Pinter, 2000), pp. 67–90; Tony Kushner, ‘Kosovo and the Refugee Crisis, 1999: The Search for Patterns amidst the Prejudice’, Patterns of Prejudice vol. 33, no. 3 (1999), pp. 73–86. 5 Miranda Lewis, Asylum: Understanding Public Attitudes (London: IPPR, 2005), p. 7. 6 Tony Kushner, Remembering Refugees: Then and Now (Manchester University Press, 2006). 1

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150  Handbook on forced migration in general – with the partial exception of Germany and Sweden – do not do well on the asylum generosity front. But even within ‘Fortress Europe’, Britain is one of the most restrictive countries. As an example, the campaign led by former child refugee from the 1930s, Lord Alf Dubs, to create a ‘new’ Kindertransport for unaccompanied children from the streets and informal migrant camps of the continent has faced prevarication and bureaucratic obstacles – in spite of widespread evidence of public support.7 At the same time, the British government is willing to put over £100 million into a Holocaust memorial that will present the country as a saviour of the Jews during the Nazi era. In 2020, whilst defending this project which the government wants to locate next to the Houses of Parliament in the space-restricted Victoria Gardens, Home Secretary Priti Patel drew up ever more ridiculous and inhumane ways of dealing with asylum seekers attempting to cross the English Channel. These included wave-making machines to ‘deter’ the tiny boats attempting these dangerous journeys, or sending those making it to the UK to remote islands (those without any means of transport access) so as to appease the allegedly xenophobic and racist instincts of the British public and media.8 How that marries with the ‘British values’ that the Holocaust Memorial will convey of decency, tolerance and the rule of law is a mystery. The Institute of Race Relations estimates that since the late twentieth century, close to 300 forced migrants have died attempting to reach Britain by boat, plane and train.9 Amongst them were four members of a Kurdish Iranian family, including two children, who drowned in October 2020 on a boat from France. Yet Alf Dubs’ ‘Safe Passage’ idea is dismissed as left-liberal do-gooding and taken no further. Two clerics from the first half of the twentieth century – one Christian, one Jewish – suggest a way out of the current malaise. James Parkes was a Church of England minister who worked tirelessly from the 1920s to expose the Christian roots of antisemitism. He campaigned on behalf of European Jewry, helped rescue refugees from Nazism (his home in Hertfordshire deep in the English countryside became a mini-hostel) and worked for a genuine dialogue between the Jewish and non-Jewish worlds. In early 1943, when detailed news of the extermination of the Jews reached Britain, he wrote ‘It is said that if we offered unlimited asylum in our own country … it might lead to a dangerous increase of antisemitism.’ There was only one response to such a claim, argued Parkes, from those ‘who still believe there is any nobility in the cause for which we are fighting. We will receive them. And if there really be three million of them we will thank God that we have been able to save so many of them from Hitler’s clutches’.10 Parkes’ belief in the principle of asylum was absolute: ‘It is only in the spirit that we desire to save ALL whom we can reach that we can even undertake action that will save any’.11 Parkes’ premise needs to be re-established: ‘If the will to help is there, there is no real reason why unlimited support to refugees cannot be given.’ Compromising ‘their’ needs in favour of ‘ours’ has enabled the moral case for refugees to disappear from view, allowing the free expression of hostility to asylum seekers to reign increasingly unchallenged.

7 Tony Kushner, ‘Truly, madly, deeply … nostalgically? Britain’s on–off love affair with refugees, past and present’, Patterns of Prejudice vol. 52, no. 2–3, 172–94, 2018. 8 Zamira Rahim, ‘The UK considered shipping migrants 4,000 miles away. This is the influential minister in charge of immigration policy’, CNN News, 3 October 2020. https://​www​.cnn​.com/​2020/​10/​ 03/​uk/​priti​-patel​-uk​-home​-secretary​-gbr​-intl/​index​.html. 9 Institute of Race Relations, ‘Fatalities and racism’. Accessed at https://​irr​.org​.uk/​research/​deaths/​. 10 Parkes papers, University of Southampton archive, 60/9/5/1. 11 Parkes papers, University of Southampton archive, 60/9/5/1.

History, memory and the ethics of asylum  151 The second cleric is Rabbi Hugo Gryn, an Auschwitz survivor who came to Britain in 1946. The story of his arrival is important. Gryn entered as part of a special programme for admission of minors. The British government allowed in a set number of children from the concentration camps but on certain terms: they were here to recuperate for a fixed (very short) time, they had to be of a certain age, and they could not all be Jewish. There were parallels, on a much smaller scale, with the (forgotten) limitations of the earlier Kindertransport scheme. In fact, the government agreed to bring in youngsters from the camps because it would have been extremely difficult not to – much larger schemes were in operation for children in other countries. So restrictive was the 1945/1946 British scheme that some of the Jewish child survivors lied about their age to qualify to get in12 (this strategy is regarded with wry amusement and understanding today. Of course, no such empathy exists with regard to contemporary young asylum seekers attempting to enter the country with less than impeccable paperwork). The arrival of the children from the concentration camps is not in reality a very positive story, but it has to be added to the narrative of Britain and the Second World War, and the country’s overall lack of refugee policy. Unless historians and popularisers of the past in the heritage world honestly confront the historical responses to and experiences of refugees in Britain, it will continue to be easy to distort that past. Integrating the history of refugees shows the global nature of the local experience; and it also demolishes self-congratulatory myths of tolerance and fair play as being inherent in the national character. Hugo Gryn believed that ‘future historians will call the twentieth century not only the century of the great wars, but also the century of the refugee.’13 So far historians have largely let him down. Pragmatic issues – such as the partial invisibility of refugees in archives and surviving documentation – as well as more ideological factors, including the focus on the nation state and the emphasis on permanence over temporariness, go some way to explaining the historical profession’s failure to incorporate the ‘unwanted’ into their narratives. There is another reason why they have not responded to Hugo Gryn’s call for a greater focus on history. The historiographer Gordon Wright argued in 1976 that ‘The idea of consciously reintroducing the moral dimension into history runs counter to the basic training of most historians, and probably to their professional instinct as well’.14 Such unease, until recently, has extended into exploring subjects with a clear ethical dimension, including refugee crises that have been a fundamental part of the modern world. In 2004, the widespread response to a call for papers on ‘historians and ethics’ in the journal History and Theory suggests that a new generation of historians have moved on from Wright’s perspective. Many accept the position of Richard T. Vann that ‘Those who accept a recent claim [by Ted Honderich] that we are living in a “dark time of need, a time of attack on moral intelligence” will want to do their part in repelling this attack.’15 Asylum seeker phobia has been described by Julia Neuberger, in her plea for a moral reconsideration of the plight of the less fortunate in Britain, as ‘ugly, racist, and a cowardly targeting of the vulnerable’.16 Historians, by focusing on their plight, need to re-connect their Kushner and Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, pp. 206–14. Hugo Gryn, A Moral and Spiritual Index (London: Refugee Council, 1996). 14 Gordon Wright, ‘History as a Moral Science’, American Historical Review vol. 81, no.1 (February 1976), p. 2. For critical comment, see Richard T. Vann, ‘Historians and Moral Evaluations’, History and Theory vol. 43, no. 4 (December 2004), pp. 5–6. 15 Vann, ‘Historians and Moral Evaluations’, p. 30. 16 Julia Neuberger, The Moral State We’re In: A Manifesto for a 21st Century (London: HarperCollins, 2005), p. 309. 12

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152  Handbook on forced migration profession with an engagement with ethical issues such as asylum, just as those involved with various forms of moral philosophy and refugees need to engage with history. In 2000, the outgoing editor of the Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS), Roger Zetter, was pleased that it had been ‘successful in opening the field to other disciplines’ in a ‘field largely dominated by anthropology and law at its inception’.17 Yet such broadening is still far from complete. Zetter, in the first issue of JRS, commented that work on refugees had for the most part ‘existed on the periphery’ rather than ‘the mainstream of academic enterprise’. This is true even within the specific area of migration studies. As Alice Bloch suggests, ‘for many refugees the theoretical paradigms of migration do not in fact represent the reality of their experience’.18 Moreover, if some progress has been made in recognizing the significance of refugee studies, the potential contribution by those who study (and represent) the past has been insufficiently recognized. A new generation of ethically-aware historians, and at a popular level, a form of counter-heritage, is required now to re-present refugees, past and present, who too often have been either demonized or made invisible. There is some hope, at least, that younger scholars, inspired by Black Lives Matter and other protest movements, are increasingly rising to the challenge. A start has been made in the form of oral history work amongst refugees and asylum seekers. It includes the Refugee Communities History Project (RCHP), funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Trust for London which ‘aims to highlight the economic, cultural and social contribution that refugees have made to London since 1951’. Whilst not without the defensiveness that typified the foundation, and early work, of the Jewish Historical Society of England and the Huguenot Society of London, projects such as the RCHP provide the foundation for later and more critical historiography and counter-heritage work. But finally, we return to Hugo Gryn. Born in a town under Czechoslovakian, Hungarian, German and Soviet control, he lived and worked in the USA, India and Britain. His life story encapsulates the artificiality of national borders. He insisted on the need to accept global responsibilities. This is Hugo Gryn’s last speech, delivered to the Refugee Council in 1996: it is imperative that we proclaim that asylum issues are an index of our spiritual and moral civilisation. How you are with the one to whom you owe nothing, that is a grave test and not only as an index of our tragic past … I believe that the line our society will take in this matter on how you are to people to whom you owe nothing is a signal. It is the critical signal that we give to our young, and I hope and pray that it is a test we shall not fail.19

Here, Gryn provided the ultimate humanitarian reason for accepting asylum seekers: they should be given refuge simply because they are in need, even though we owe them nothing. If we fail to, then we risk being labelled as bystanders, ‘the real offenders’, as Hugo Gryn argued, ‘those people who let things happen because it didn’t affect them directly’.20 If the virulence of the current trend in Britain and other liberal democracies continues, which has seen asylum seekers and refugees turned away, murdered, locked out of public sight and deported, the label

17 Roger Zetter, ‘Refugees and Refugee Studies – a Valedictory Editorial’, Journal of Refugee Studies vol. 13, no. 4 (2000), p. 352. 18 Alice Bloch, The Migration and Settlement of Refugees in Britain (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), p. 79 and chapter 4 in general. 19 Gryn, A Moral and Spiritual Index. 20 Gryn, A Moral and Spiritual Index.

History, memory and the ethics of asylum  153 might be even more damning, leaking into that of perpetrator. Throughout 2003 and early 2004, for example, the ugliness of the local campaign in Lee-on-the-Solent against a proposal to create a camp for asylum seekers ‘was a wake-up call for anybody who may have deluded themselves into believing that Britain is quite a tolerant, multi-cultural sort of place’.21 Priti Patel’s stint as Home Secretary since 2020 further reveals the naivety of believing in inherent British ‘decency’ with regard to the treatment of refugees. Patel labelled their defenders as ‘the do-gooders, the lefty lawyers’. One of these, following her outburst, was subsequently seriously attacked in a racist attack. Her successor, Suella Braverman, has continued such diatribes and is determined to send asylum seekers reaching the UK on to Rwanda. Asylum seekers are today’s scapegoats for much contemporary anxiety. The examples of James Parkes and Hugo Gryn (these earlier pesky ‘do-gooders’) suggest that helping, rather than denigrating, the victims of persecution may be one way to minimize anxiety. Fear, parochialism, short-sightedness (the climate emergency’s existential threat to the planet will increasingly bring more displacement crises), strident and racialized nationalism and self-centredness could be replaced by self-confidence, caring and generosity amongst the public and the government. In this increasingly frightened and frightening world, it is not only asylum seekers who are in urgent need of rescue.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bloch, Alice, The Migration and Settlement of Refugees in Britain, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. Cesarani, David, ‘Anti-Alienism in England after the First World War’, Immigrants & Minorities, vol. 6, no. 1, March 1987, pp. 5–29. Flett, Kathryn, ‘Little Britain’, The Observer, 9 May 2004, in response to the Dispatches documentary, ‘Keep them Out’, Channel 4, 6 May 2004. Gryn, Hugo, A Moral and Spiritual Index, London: Refugee Council, 1996. Guild, Elspeth, ‘The United Kingdom: Kosovar Albanian Refugees’, in Kosovo’s Refugees in the European Union, London, UK and New York, USA: Pinter, 2000, pp. 67–90. Institute of Race Relations, ‘Fatalities and racism’. Accessed at https://​irr​.org​.uk/​research/​deaths/​. Kushner, Tony, ‘Kosovo and the Refugee Crisis, 1999: The Search for Patterns amidst the Prejudice’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 33, no. 3, 1999, pp. 73–86. Kushner, Tony, Remembering Refugees: Then and Now, Manchester University Press, 2006. Kushner, Tony, ‘Truly, madly, deeply … nostalgically? Britain’s on–off love affair with refugees, past and present’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 52, no. 2–3, 2018, pp. 172–94. Kushner, Tony and Katharine Knox, Refugees in an Age of Genocide, London, UK and New York, USA: Routledge, 1999, chapter 5. Lewis, Miranda, Asylum: Understanding Public Attitudes, London: IPPR, 2005, p. 7. Neuberger, Julia, The Moral State We’re In: A Manifesto for a 21st Century, London: HarperCollins, 2005. Parkes, James, unpublished article, January 1943, Parkes papers, University of Southampton archive, 60/9/5/1. Rahim, Zamira, ‘The UK considered shipping migrants 4,000 miles away. This is the influential minister in charge of immigration policy’, CNN News, 3 October 2020. https://​www​.cnn​.com/​2020/​10/​03/​uk/​ priti​-patel​-uk​-home​-secretary​-gbr​-intl/​index​.html.

21 Kathryn Flett, ‘Little Britain’, The Observer, 9 May 2004 in response to the Dispatches documentary, ‘Keep them Out’, Channel 4, 6 May 2004.

154  Handbook on forced migration Vann, Richard T., ‘Historians and Moral Evaluations’, History and Theory, vol. 43, no. 4, December 2004, pp. 5–6. Wright, Gordon, ‘History as a Moral Science’, American Historical Review, vol. 81, no. 1, February 1976, p. 2. Zetter, Roger, ‘Refugees and Refugee Studies – a Valedictory Editorial’, Journal of Refugee Studies, vol. 13, no. 4, 2000, p. 352.

15. The roots of asylum Ninette Kelley

People in danger have received protection in communities beyond their own from the earliest times of recorded history and the drivers of displacement have been relatively consistent: climate, disasters, war, conflict and persecution based on individual or group characteristics.1 Until the second half of the twentieth century, when the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees heralded the beginning of a global framework, protection of refugees was generally a localized response extended to persons of shared political, economic, religious or ethnic affinity. This chapter offers a brief description of the historical roots of asylum, from the ancient Egyptians to the present day, and how the international framework for refugee protection that emerged in the twentieth century grew from those roots.

PRE- AND ANCIENT HISTORY Archaeological evidence points to significant forced displacement dating back thousands of years due to resource scarcity, climate change and conflict. Conflict as a driver intensifies with the emergence of empires,2 and asylum first enters the historical record in the ancient world. There were two clear forms, both thousands of years old. In one form, asylum was provided on holy ground: within temples and other sacred places. The protection was said to come from deities and extended to fugitives of justice, debtors and those escaping active conflict. It was also afforded to defeated warriors, escaped slaves, and social and political outcasts. Safety depended on their physical presence within the sacred space.3 This tradition continues, with sanctuary still offered to refugees in places of worship today. The other form of asylum was political. Ancient political asylum was more analogous to international protection. It was provided by the ruler or State and generally reserved for allies of importance. One of the earliest examples was in Ancient Egypt over 3000 years ago when Ramses II granted political refuge to the deposed King of the Hittite Empire, Mursili III.4

This is part of a much larger discussion found in Kelley, People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge (Oxford University Press, 2022). Detailed sources can be found there, especially in Part 1. 2 Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (New York: HarperCollins, 2015), pp. 191, 193. 3 Linda Rabben, Sanctuary and Asylum: A Social and Political History (WA: University of Washington Press, 2016), p. 32; Philip Marfleet, ‘Understanding “Sanctuary”: Faith and Traditions of Asylum’, Journal of Refugee Studies 24, no. 3 (July 2011): p. 443; Jan Hallebeek, ‘Church Asylum in Late Antiquity, Concession by the Emperor or Competence of the Church?’, in E.C. Coppens (ed.), Secundum Ius. Opstellen Aangeboden aan Prof. Mr. P.L. Nève (Nijmegen: Gerard Noodt Instituut, 2005), pp. 167, 172–4. 4 Ramses eventually signed a treaty with the Hittite Empire, which contained extradition provisions for the return of fugitives but included amnesty for political offenders. Trevor Bryce, Kingdom of the 1

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156  Handbook on forced migration Evidence from Ancient Greek city states points to political asylum and special privileges being extended to refugees from allied city states as well as opportunities for them to be independent and militarily self-reliant to capacitate them to return and defeat their rivals.5 Shared political ideology was one motivation; another was the ideal of humanitarianism: “equal, unconditional compassionate concern for all fellow humans” which city states believed should be put into practice to alleviate suffering and deprivation wherever possible. Refugees were included as those worthy of charitable treatment.6 Evidence of flight and refuge can also be found in the records of the Roman Empire, which was both the source of forced displacement, and the recipient of people fleeing war, oppression and food shortages. Roman political and military considerations governed how refugee groups were treated. Some were provided a degree of economic and cultural autonomy. Others could be forced to disperse, forcibly conscripted or sold into slavery.7

MIDDLE AGES TO EARLY MODERN ERA As noted in this Part’s Introduction, refugees fleeing religious persecution in the twelfth to seventeenth centuries found safety in countries with a shared religious faith. In Europe, Catholic monarchies of France, Spain, and the Habsburg dynasty received Catholic refugees while Protestants received protection in the Netherlands, England, Switzerland, Scandinavia, and Brandenburg-Prussia. Asylum could also be extended to persons of different faiths, such as non-Muslim refugees who were received in the Ottoman Empire. But this was often contingent on how useful the hosting entity considered them to be.8 Bringing needed economic skills, advancing commercial trade, consolidating frontier territories, replenishing depopulated areas, and securing territory could be determining factors. Some groups were able to negotiate the terms of their asylum. Among the most successful were the Huguenots, Catholics, Mennonites, and Jews in parts of Europe and within the Ottoman Empire.9 Concessions won could include rights to livelihoods, group settlement and

Hittites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 263–5. The granting of asylum did not always guarantee a person’s safety. Raymond Westbrook, ‘Personal exile in the ancient Near East’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 128, no. 2 (2008): pp. 317–23. 5 Benjamin Gray, ‘Exile, refuge and the Greek Polis: Between justice and humanity’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2017): p. 190; Benjamin Gray, ‘Citizenship as barrier and opportunity for Ancient Greek and modern refugees’, Humanities 7, no. 3 (September 2018): p. 15; P.J. Rhodes and Robin Osbourne, eds, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 382–3. 6 Gray, ‘Exile, refuge and the Greek Polis’: pp. 191–211. 7 Peter J. Heather, ‘Refugees and the Roman Empire’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2017): pp. 220–242. 8 Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and refugee protection in the Early Modern period’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2, June 2017’, pp. 266–9; Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugee “nations” and empire-building in the early modern period’, Journal of Early Modern Christianity 6, no. 1 (April 2019): p. 102; Philipp Ther, The Outsiders, Refugees in Europe since 1492 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019), p. 32. 9 Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Refugee “nations” and empire-building’: p. 102; Lachenicht, ‘Refugees and refugee protection’: p. 265. Ther, The Outsiders, p. 32, notes that many German states granted specific privileges for Huguenots, such as citizenship, tax abatements and startup loans.

The roots of asylum  157 relative autonomy. However, these rights could be altered or restricted if expectations were not met. Jews, in particular, experienced this across Europe.10

MODERN ERA Following the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, religious conflict in Europe began to abate. For the next two centuries, revolutionary movements and uprisings against imperial powers – the ‘Age of Revolutions’11 – were the causes of significant refugee influxes across Europe and North America as people fled political persecution. Many political refugees managed to find a safe port of call, but their entry was generally governed by the same rules that applied to other immigrants. A notable exception was the first multilateral Latin American Penal Law Treaty of 1889 which recognized the right to political asylum decades before any multilateral European treaty.12 Beginning in the late eighteenth century, countries began to enact immigration legislation to regulate admissions and to exclude criminals, political subversives and those likely to become a public charge. While immigration legislation did not distinguish between immigrants and refugees, extradition treaties increasingly included provisions to prevent the forced return – or ‘refoulement’ – of political exiles.13 Around this time, the first state bureaucracies for managing refugee arrivals emerged. The Introduction of this Part canvasses how concerted efforts to forge a more universal and specific protection response to refugees in the 1920s to 1930s largely met with failure. Confronted with rising numbers of forcibly displaced persons throughout Europe, States were unwilling to relax their immigration restrictions. Many tightened them and expanded their deportation powers as the violent repression of Jews by the Third Reich intensified.

THE INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION REGIME The Second World War resulted in the largest number of forcibly displaced persons in recorded history. Waged across five continents, engaging more than 30 countries, over 70 million people died and tens of millions were forcibly displaced throughout the war’s six-year duration. Six million Jews, two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe, were systematically Francesca Bregoli and David B. Ruderman, Connecting Histories: Jews and Their Others in Early Modern Europe, Jewish Culture and Contexts (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), p. 2; Carl H. Nightingale, Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012), p. 36; Susanne Lachenicht, ‘Early modern German states and the settlement of Jews: Brandenburg-Prussia and the Palatinate, sixteenth to nineteenth centuries’, Jewish Historical Studies 42 (2009): pp. 9–10. 11 Coined by historian Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe: 1789–1848 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962). 12 Anders B. Johnsson, ‘Montevideo Treaty on International Penal Law: 1889–1989: 100 years of Treaty Making on Asylum Issues’, International Journal of Refugee Law 1, no. 4 (1989): pp. 554–74. 13 Philip Orchard, A Right to Flee (Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 99–100; Başak Kale, ‘Transforming an Empire: The Ottoman Empire’s immigration and settlement policies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’, Middle Eastern Studies 50, no. 2 (2014): p. 262; György Csorba, ‘Hungarian emigrants of 1848–49 in the Ottoman Empire’, in Hasan Celâl Güzel, C. Cem Oguz, Osman Karatay (eds), The Turks, vol. 4 (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2002), p. 225. 10

158  Handbook on forced migration killed. At its conclusion, borders were redrawn, mass ethnic expulsions were brokered, millions of people were returned to their countries of origin, including forcibly to situations of risk, and hundreds of thousands resettled, often continents away. The scale of displacement demanded a coordinated multilateral response, and refugees and displaced persons featured early in the United Nations’ agenda. Recognizing the immediate and urgent need to distinguish between genuine refugees and displaced persons on the one hand and ‘war criminals, quislings and traitors’ on the other, early in 1946, the General Assembly referred the matter to the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) for consideration.14 It established an Ad Hoc Committee to draft an international convention for the protection of refugees. The drafting of what became the 1951 Convention was a four-year exercise. The Ad Hoc Committee was comprised of 13 governments, and legal experts within the United Nations. Non-governmental agencies contributed as observers. Just as many refugees in earlier periods were actively engaged in the terms of their settlement, members of the UN legal drafting team were persons with lived refugee experiences, as were some members of State delegations and NGO representatives.15 The 1951 Convention was a historic milestone that sets out the broadest set of rights accorded to refugees in an international instrument. Its definition of a refugee is universal, not restricted to a specific group or nationality but to persons unable or unwilling to return to their country of origin owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. All but the last of these grounds were familiar to the refugee experience of the early and late modern period.16 Initially the Convention applied to those who became refugees as a result of events prior to 1951. States were also permitted to further limit its application to events occurring within Europe. These significant temporal and geographic limitations were removed in 1967 by the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees.17 The 1951 Convention reflects ideals of safety, solidarity and self-reliance regarding refugees seen at various points in history. In particular, protection from return (refoulement) that had long featured in extradition treaties was expanded in the 1951 Convention, to prohibit the expulsion or return of a refugee to a territory where the person’s life or freedom is threatened for a Convention refugee ground.18 This non-refoulement principle is considered so funda14 ECOSOC was specifically asked to form a committee to consider the issue of refugees and write a report for presentation to the GA. ‘Question of refugees’, UNGA Res. 8(I) (12 February 1946), UN Doc A/RES/8(I). 15 Tristan Harley, ‘Refugee participation revisited: The contributions of refugees to early international refugee law and policy’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 232–4. 16 Terje Einarsen, ‘Drafting history of the Convention/New York Protocol’, in The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary, ed. Andreas Zimmermann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), C: V: 2. 17 UN General Assembly, ‘Protocol relating to the status of refugees’, Treaty Series, vol. 606, 31 January 1967, p. 267. 18 Meaning for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. The only exception is for a person for whom there are reasonable grounds ‘for regarding as a danger to the security of the country in which he is, or who, having been convicted by a final judgment of a particularly serious crime, constitutes a danger to the community of that country’. The Refugee Convention (1951), art. 33.

The roots of asylum  159 mental that no reservations or derogations on it are permitted and it has become a principle of international customary law.19 Solidarity is reflected in the Convention’s recognition that responding to refugees can impose heavy burdens on receiving States, necessitating ‘international cooperation’. And the importance of self-reliance is embedded in the Convention’s provisions to enable refugees to rebuild their lives: access to identification documents and to employment, freedom to move and to be progressively facilitated to assimilate and be naturalized.20 The Convention outlived the post-World War II period, taking on global significance via its Protocol of 1967, and going on to inform international protection responses ever since. It has influenced the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, and helped shape international responses to protect those displaced by the adverse effects of climate change and disasters. It has been the source of protection for millions of refugees.21 But, alongside the successes, there have been many failures, where States fall short of both their obligations and the spirit of the 1951 Convention. The long history of responding to people forced to flee provides important lessons for the future and reveals some persistent truths. First, the history of asylum has an overall positive trajectory but an uneven one. Millions of forcibly displaced persons around the world have found protection and solutions. The range of people who are now recognized to fall within the 1951 Convention is broader than could have been envisaged by its framers. The necessity to protect and resolve the forced displacement of people within their countries’ borders, internally displaced persons, is widely recognized. Yet, alongside these developments have been continuous efforts to restrict rights, limit responsibilities, and erect barriers. Solutions to displacement remain elusive. Second, while the 1951 Convention recognizes the need for international cooperation and burden-sharing, there has never been a time when those duties have been equitably shared. The majority of forcibly displaced persons have and continue to be hosted in middle- and low-income countries, which face significant challenges in meeting the needs of their own citizens. Many high-income countries have financially supported refugee responses from afar, although not to the level of need, while also taking steps to unduly restrict the 1951 Convention’s application, push back refugees at borders, and rely on other measures to intercept refugees in flight with the aim to prevent their arrival. This has undermined the international protection regime and stood in sharp contrast to their stated expression of solidarity with more impacted States. Finally, the 1951 Convention recognizes the right of individuals to contribute to their own well-being. Yet refugees are frequently prevented from doing so by legal barriers that restrict access to work, education and health care, the necessities for dignified lives and durable solutions to displacement.

19 Regarding the non-refoulement as a principle of customary international law, see: UNHCR, ‘Advisory opinion on the extraterritorial application of non-refoulement obligations under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and Its 1967 Protocol’. 20 The Convention provides for some rights to be provided on the same basis as citizens, some as provided to other non-nationals and some on the same basis as the most favored nation. Guy S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘The international law of refugee protection’, in The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, eds. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 21 Each of these influences is elaborated further in Kelley, People Forced to Flee, Part II.

160  Handbook on forced migration Asylum today is much less ad hoc and partial than it has been for most of its history. But securing its positive direction depends on addressing the persistant challenges that limit its reach and effectiveness.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bregoli, Francesca and David B. Ruderman, Connecting Histories: Jews and Their Others in Early Modern Europe (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). Bryce, Trevor, Kingdom of the Hittites (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Csorba, György, ‘Hungarian Emigrants of 1848–49 in the Ottoman Empire’, in Hasan Celâl Güzel, C. Cem Oguz and Osman Karatay (eds), The Turks vol. 4 (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye, 2002). Einarsen, Terje, ‘Drafting history of the Convention/New York Protocol’, in Andreas Zimmermann (ed.), The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Goodwin-Gill, Guy, S., ‘The international law of refugee protection’, in Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). Gray, Benjamin, ‘Exile, refuge and the Greek polis: Between justice and humanity’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2017). Gray, Benjamin, ‘Citizenship as barrier and opportunity for Ancient Greek and modern refugees’, Humanities 7, no. 3 (September 2018). Hallebeek, Jan, ‘Church asylum in late antiquity, concession by the emperor or competence of the church?’, in E.C. Coppens (ed.), Secundum Ius. Opstellen aangeboden aan Prof. Mr. P.L. Nève (Nijmegen: Gerard Noodt, 2005). Harari, Yuval Noah, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (New York: HarperCollins, 2015). Harley, Tristan, ‘Refugee participation revisited: The contributions of refugees to early international refugee law and policy’, Reference Paper for the 70th Anniversary of the 1951 Refugee Convention, UNHCR (October 2021), pp. 232–4. Heather, Peter J., ‘Refugees and the Roman Empire’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2017): pp. 220–42. Hobsbawm, Eric, The Age of Revolution: Europe: 1789–1848 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962). Johnsson, Anders B., ‘Montevideo Treaty on International Penal Law: 1889–1989 – 100 years of treaty making on asylum issues’, International Journal of Refugee Law 1, no. 4 (1989): pp. 554–74. Kale, Başak, ‘Transforming an empire: The Ottoman Empire’s immigration and settlement policies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’, Middle Eastern Studies 50, no. 2 (2014): pp. 252–71. Kelley, Ninette, People Forced to Flee: History, Change and Challenge (Oxford University Press, 2022). Lachenicht, Susanne, ‘Early modern German states and the settlement of Jews: Brandenburg-Prussia and the Palatinate, sixteenth to nineteenth centuries’, Jewish Historical Studies 42 (2009). Lachenicht, Susanne, ‘Refugees and refugee protection in the Early Modern period’, Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 2 (June 2017), pp. 261–81. Lachenicht, Susanne, ‘Refugee “nations” and empire-building in the Early Modern period’, Journal of Early Modern Christianity 6, no. 1 (April 2019). Marfleet, Philip, ‘Understanding “sanctuary”: Faith and traditions of asylum’, Journal of Refugee Studies 24, no. 3 (July 2011). Nightingale, Carl H., Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012). Orchard, Philip, A Right to Flee (Cambridge University Press, 2014). Rabben, Linda, Sanctuary and Asylum: A Social and Political History (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016). Rhodes, P.J. and Robin Osbourne, eds, Greek Historical Inscriptions 404–323 BC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). Ther, Philipp, The Outsiders, Refugees in Europe since 1492 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).

The roots of asylum  161 UN General Assembly, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Resolution 2198 (XXI) (1951). UN General Assembly, ‘Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees’, Treaty Series, vol. 606 (31 January 1967), p. 267. UN General Assembly, Res. 8(I) (12 February 1946), UN Doc A/RES/8(I). UNHCR, ‘Advisory opinion on the extraterritorial application of non-refoulement obligations under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol’. Westbrook, Raymond, ‘Personal exile in the Ancient Near East’, Journal of the American Oriental Society 128, no. 2 (2008): pp. 317–23.

16. Historical process tracing and forced migration: Re-examining the creation of the refugee definition Phil Orchard

During the negotiations leading to the 1951 Refugee Convention, a key point of debate was whether internally displaced persons, then generally referred to as “internal refugees”, should be included within the definition of refugees. In the end, they were not because, as Goodwin-Gill and McAdam note, “it was the insistence on the absence of legal protection that prevailed”.1 There was significant evidence to support this view, including Eleanor Roosevelt’s argument as a member of the US delegation that these “internal refugee situations” were: separate problems of a different character, in which no question of protection of the persons concerned was involved … but those problems should not be confused with the problem before the General Assembly, namely, the provision of protection for those outside their own countries, who lacked the protection of a Government and who required asylum and status.2

While the United States government used this position to ensure the Refugee Convention was not extended to these situations, privately the US position was very different. Their internal deliberations focused not on the question of legal protection, but on the potential expansion of assistance and of the role of UNHCR if internal refugees were included, expansions that the US government was opposed to. Thus, the explanation for these events is considerably more complex, drawing on material and ideational factors as well as how refugees themselves were conceived of. International relations (IR) as a discipline has changed how it addresses these types of historical questions, questions that still have deep effects on the present day. While theorizing in IR had focused heavily on material explanations (marked most notably by classical and structural realism), since the mid-1990s constructivism as an approach has also focused on both the causal and constitutive properties that ideas (including norms) can have on states and other international actors. This has led to a shift in how history is treated by IR, moving away from treating history as a hunt for illustrative materials or as a site to generate more cases, as Paul Pierson has argued, to instead place “politics in time” and thereby “enrich our understanding of complex social

The Refugee in International Law, 3rd edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 27, fn 61 (original emphasis). Hathaway has argued along similar lines that internal refugees were not included for practical reasons, including limited international resources, concerns that states would shift their responsibilities to the international community, and that such efforts could infringe on state sovereignty. James C. Hathaway, The Law of Refugee Status (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 29–31. 2 Mrs Roosevelt (US), UN General Assembly Official Records (UN GAOR), 264th Meeting, 2 December 1949, 473. 1

162

Historical process tracing and forced migration  163 dynamics”.3 This shift includes methodological evolution, with international relations increasingly using process tracing to explore how causal and constitutive processes help to explain change. This chapter begins with a short overview of process tracing as a method. I then show how this method can help explain the decision not to include IDPs in the Refugee Convention.

PROCESS TRACING AS A METHOD While process tracing has been described as “not very different from (if not identical to) a detailed and careful historical analysis performed by diplomatic historians”,4 the method seeks to make specific causal and constitutive claims at a theoretical level by tracing out the process by which specific events occur. How does this work? Causality can be viewed in two ways. A causal effect is a change between the two values of the dependent variable that arise according to whether an independent variable assumes one of two specific values.5 This is the form of causality most commonly used in quantitative methods; however, because it is focused on the effect, “we can define a causal effect without understanding all of the causal mechanisms involved”.6 This creates a significant problem because without knowing “how” a cause led to an effect, we cannot know whether the cause created the effect we think it did, especially in situations of complexity. The alternative is to examine causal mechanisms, which are the actual transmission powers or forces “between a cause (or a set of causes) to an outcome”.7 Such an approach allows us to better theorize about both continuity and change. As Aminzade has argued: “the construction of theories of continuity and change that are attentive to order and sequence and that acknowledge the causal power of temporal connections among events requires concepts that recognize the diversity of patterns of temporal connections among events”.8 Process tracing does this, as George and Bennett argue, by attempting to “identify the intervening causal process – the causal chain and causal mechanism – between an independent variable (or variables) and the outcome of the dependent variable”.9 While such mechanisms themselves are unobservable, we can use hypotheses to generate observable and testable implications which are then tested against a range of data including

Paul Pierson, “Not just what, but when: Timing and sequence in political processes”, Studies in American Political Development 14, no. 1 (2000); Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis (Princeton University Press, 2004). 4 Kakowicz, cited in Nina Tannenwald, “Process tracing and security studies”, Security Studies 24, no. 2 (2015): 221. 5 Gary King, Robert O Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton University Press, 1994). 6 Ibid., 86. 7 Derek Beach, “Process-tracing methods in social science”, in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics (2017), 5. 8 Ronald Aminzade, “Historical sociology and time”, Sociological Methods & Research 20, no. 4 (1992): 458. 9 Alexander L. George and Andrew Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005), 206; see also: Andrew Bennett and Jeffrey T. Checkel, Process Tracing (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 7. 3

164  Handbook on forced migration histories, archival documents, interview transcripts, and other sources.10 This can include both material and ideational factors. And, perhaps most importantly, this does not need to include only straightforward linear causality – where A clearly influences B – but can also include convergence between different mechanisms and the interaction of a range of causal variables.11 Process tracing allows for the consideration of path dependency and historical contingency in understanding how phenomena change. Even more than this, it can move beyond positivism to allow us to reconstitute actors’ beliefs and perspectives. Vennesson argues that it can explore both causal and constitutive processes.12 Therefore, while much of the literature uses a positivist-oriented language of hypothesis testing, process tracing itself as a method is ontologically agnostic.

WHY IDPS WERE NOT INCLUDED WITHIN THE REFUGEE CONVENTION13 So how does process tracing work in practice? As I note earlier, the claim that IDPs were excluded from the Refugee Convention because they differed from refugees by lacking legal protection is wrong. In order to explain this, I have used process tracing to create a complex causal explanation. The driver of this exclusionary process was the US government, but their internal deliberations (revealed through archives) show that their exclusionary push was for different reasons than they stated in public. At the time of the negotiations, the American government no longer favored the creation of a strong UN-based refugee organization. This was due to three factors. The first was the fear that the United States would need to provide significant support to it, rather than the Western European governments taking on a greater role.14 The second was that the US wanted to create refugee organizations it could control, including the US Escapee Program and the Intergovernmental Committee on Migration (which subsequently became the International Organization for Migration), both of which were used to aid Communist refugees to leave Europe.15 And third was because the State Department feared the US Congress would not support any new UN organization.16 As Secretary of State Dean Acheson noted, they did

Bennett and Checkel, Process Tracing, 12; George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences, 6. 11 George and Bennett, Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. 12 Pascal Vennesson, “Case studies and process tracing: Theories and practices”, in Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences: A Pluralist Perspective, ed. Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010). 13 This section draws on two earlier pieces where this argument is made in more detail: Phil Orchard, “The contested origins of internal displacement”, International Journal of Refugee Law 28, no. 2 (2016); and Protecting the Internally Displaced: Rhetoric and Reality (London: Routledge, 2018), Chapters 3 and 4. 14 “Refugees and stateless persons”, Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS) 1950, Vol. II, “The United Nations, the Western Hemisphere”, 539–40. See also Troutman to the Secretary of State, 30 June 1949, US National Archives and Records Administration (USNARA) 501​.MA/​6​-3049, 2. 15 Phil Orchard, A Right to Flee: Refugees, States, and the Construction of International Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 185–9. 16 “Refugees and stateless persons: Problems of assistance to refugees” 2 September 1950. FRUS 1950 Volume II The United Nations; the Western Hemisphere, 539–40. Louise Wilhelmine Holborn, 10

Historical process tracing and forced migration  165 not have significant concerns over how refugee status was defined as long as UN activities were “restricted to provision of legal protection”. No other functions “such as administration of [international] financial assistance to refugees [are] envisaged”.17 When the Greek representative suggested that internal refugees should be included, he noted that “their material distress was causing great anxiety to the Greek government” and that assistance would need to be provided to a wider range of categories than those included within the earlier Constitution of the International Refugee Organization.18 Other delegations were supportive,19 but with concerns over the potential costs. The Brazilian government feared that a broad refugee definition could create “a blank cheque for expenses the exact nature and scope of which were as yet unknown”.20 These concerns led to a shift in the American position. Their view was that if internal refugees, that is, groups that did not need international protection “such as those in Germany, Greece, India, Pakistan and in China” were included in the refugee definition, they would “nevertheless raise serious problems of material assistance” and hence would require the expansion of UNHCR into assistance operations.21 However, this was not the argument they made in public. Instead, echoing Eleanor Roosevelt’s position, they saw these groups as “an entirely different matter [and] a task far beyond the competency of the High Commissioner’s Office for Refugees”.22 The American delegation gained the support of the French delegation, who were the first to suggest that if the inclusion of “internal refugees” in the definition of refugees was passed, it would extend the High Commissioner’s competence to including a “right to investigate a country’s internal affairs” and bring “his mandate into conflict with international decisions”.23 Notably, this was the first time the issue of sovereignty was raised, and appears to have been used to justify a shift in the French position away from supporting a more expansive definition. The 1951 Refugee Convention definition, therefore, reflected a deliberate narrowing by the US government. There was support for a more expansive view that, potentially, could have included internal refugees. Importantly, the American government did not think they were making a long-term decision through this narrowing. The State Department took the view that new refugee situations could be added later to the competence of the High Commissioner by Assembly action.24 It is through just such a mechanism that the UNHCR began to take action

Refugees, a Problem of Our Time: The Work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1951–1972 (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1975), 59. 17 Acheson to USUN. 11 August 1949, NARA 501​.MA/​8​-549. 18 Mr Contoumas (Greece) UN General Assembly Official Records (GAOR) 257th Meeting 8 November 1949 (A/C.3/527), 110. 19 The Brazilian, Australian, and British delegations endorsed the view that the definition could be widened to include internal refugees, with the British proposing that the Convention could cover all “unprotected persons”. See: Andreas Zimmermann and Claudia Mahler, “Article 1a, Para 2”, in The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary, eds A. Zimmermann, J. Dörschner, and F. Machts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 309. 20 Mr Freyre (Brazil) UN GAOR, 265th Meeting, 3 December 1949, 485. 21 “Refugees and stateless persons”, FRUS 1950, Vol. II, “The United Nations, the Western Hemisphere”, 542, 546. 22 Mrs Roosevelt (United States of America), UN GAOR 329th Meeting 29 November 1950, 363. 23 Mr Rochefort (France) UN GAOR 333rd Meeting 4 December 1950, 391. 24 “Refugees and stateless persons” 9 September 1950. FRUS 1950 II. 542; see: Mrs Roosevelt (United States) UN GAOR 324th Meeting 22 November 1950, 331.

166  Handbook on forced migration in situations of internal displacement beginning in the 1970s. As a 1994 UNHCR report noted, “UNHCR has consistently stressed the lack of an unequivocal general mandate to provide protection and assistance to internally displaced persons. At the same time, however, it has increasingly assumed limited operational responsibilities to cater to the assistance and protection needs of certain groups of internally displaced persons”.25 The US position on these issues would shift. While UNHCR famously started with “three empty rooms and a secretary”,26 it quickly demonstrated to the US government that as an impartial UN agency it could act in situations where US-aligned organizations could not.27 When the United States adopted the 1980 Refugee Act, which brought the 1967 Refugee Protocol28 into US domestic law, it included an additional clause beyond that of the Refugee Convention, allowing the President to provide refugee status to a person remaining within their own country.29 Process tracing reveals that the failure to include internally displaced persons in the Refugee Convention was a decision made for complex material and ideational reasons. It reflected how the United States was seeking to frame the international response to refugees as the Cold War began. Had the Convention negotiations proceeded differently, UNHCR’s role might have been considerably different.

REFERENCES Aminzade, Ronald. “Historical sociology and time”. Sociological Methods & Research 20, no. 4 (1992): 456–80. Beach, Derek. “Process-tracing methods in social science”. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics, 2017. Bennett, Andrew, and Jeffrey T. Checkel. Process Tracing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. George, Alexander L., and Andrew Bennett. Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2005. Goodwin-Gill, Guy S., and Jane McAdam. The Refugee in International Law. 3rd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Hathaway, James C. The Law of Refugee Status. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Holborn, Louise Wilhelmine. Refugees, a Problem of Our Time: The Work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1951–1972. Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1975. King, Gary, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba. Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research. Princeton University Press, 1994. Loescher, Gil. The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Orchard, Phil. A Right to Flee: Refugees, States, and the Construction of International Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

UNHCR, UNHCR’s Operational Experience with Internally Displaced Persons (Geneva: UNHCR, 1994), 2. 26 Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, cited in A Mandate to Protect and Assist Refugees (Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1971), 28. 27 Gil Loescher, The UNHCR and World Politics: A Perilous Path (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). 28 The Refugee Protocol removes a geographic and temporal restriction from the definition of refugee status, but otherwise replicates the Convention in full. 29 The Refugee Act of 1980, 94 Stat. 102 (1980), Sec 201 (a). 25

Historical process tracing and forced migration  167 Orchard, Phil. “The contested origins of internal displacement”. International Journal of Refugee Law 28, no. 2 (2016): 210–33. Orchard, Phil. Protecting the Internally Displaced: Rhetoric and Reality. London: Routledge, 2018. Pierson, Paul. “Not just what, but when: Timing and sequence in political processes”. Studies in American Political Development 14, no. 1 (2000): 72–92. Pierson, Paul. Politics in Time: History, Institutions, and Social Analysis. Princeton University Press, 2004. Tannenwald, Nina. “Process tracing and security studies”. Security Studies 24, no. 2 (2015): 219–27. UNHCR. A Mandate to Protect and Assist Refugees. Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1971. UNHCR. UNHCR’s Operational Experience with Internally Displaced Persons. Geneva: UNHCR, 1994. Vennesson, Pascal. “Case studies and process tracing: Theories and practices”. In Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences: A Pluralist Perspective, edited by Donatella Della Porta and Michael Keating. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Zimmermann, Andreas, and Claudia Mahler. “Article 1a, Para 2”. In The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol: A Commentary, edited by A. Zimmermann, J. Dörschner and F. Machts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.

17. Historiographies of early modern forced migrations in Europe and the Atlantic world Susanne Lachenicht

EARLY MODERN FORCED MIGRATIONS – AN OVERVIEW People are forced to migrate for a variety of reasons: international and civil wars, disease and pandemics, natural disaster, over- or under-population, scarcity of food, colonization, labor, persecutions for religious, ethnic, or political reasons. Some trigger temporary, some permanent migrations. While many of the factors causing migrations also hold for the early modern period, that is the period between the late fifteenth and the late eighteenth centuries, three forms of forced migrations have raised much interest in European, Atlantic and American historiographies: (1) that of the Black Atlantic; (2) that of Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews, Moriscos, Catholics and Protestants, and (3) the forced migrations of Amerindians – even if the peak of their displacement only came in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Table 17.1

Major forced migrations in the early modern period

Period

Group of forced migrants

Numbers

Destination

16th–19th centuries

Enslaved Africans

12 million

Americas, Caribbean, Europe

Late 15th century

First Sephardi diaspora

150 000–165 000

Portugal, North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean parts of the Ottoman empire

Early 17th century

Moriscos

270 000–300 000

Late 16th century

Second Sephardi diaspora

150 000

1680s to ca. 1750s

Huguenots

150 000–200 000

Resettlement in new areas on Iberian peninsula Bordeaux, Amsterdam, London, Hamburg, Caribbean, the Americas Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, Cape colony, Surinam, British colonies in North America

1566–1648

Dutch Protestants

60 000–150 000

England, Palatinate, Brandenburg-Prussia

From the later sixteenth century, the Black Atlantic, that is, the deportation and enslavement of millions of Africans, is by far the largest and most dramatic forced migration of the early modern period, driving colonization and the rise of mining and plantation systems in the

168

Historiographies of early modern forced migrations in Europe and Atlantic world  169 Americas.1 In 1492 came the expulsion of the Jews from Spain,2 followed by the expulsion and forced re-settlement of Moriscos on the Iberian peninsula.3 From the 1570s, the second Sephardi Jewish diaspora came into being.4 The Dutch revolt (1566–1648) ushered in the emigration of Dutch Catholics and Protestants, from the Northern and respectively Southern Netherlands.5 With the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, ending the Thirty Years War, the emigration of Catholics and Protestants from German territories became more important as from then on the respective territories’ authorities decided on their subjects’ Christian denomination. Those who were not willing to conform had the right to leave the territory. Following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, Huguenots left France in their thousands. From the 1620s, English Puritans left England for British North America, followed by English Catholics in the 1630s, Presbyterians and Quakers from the 1650s onward.6 In the 1730s the Austrian Habsburgs and the Prince Bishop of Salzburg deported or expelled their crypto-Protestants.7 Moravian brothers, the Herrnhuters, moved from Saxony to Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and British North America.8 Between 1755 and 1763 Britain deported some eleven thousand French Catholics from Acadia (today Nova Scotia, Canada) to purify its empire from the ‘Catholic threat’.9 The mass removal and forced resettlement of Amerindians in North America began in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but some regions in the Americas saw forced migrations of indigenous nations from the mid-1500s, when Amerindians were enslaved and

1 The Black Atlantic, as introduced by Paul Gilroy in 1993, asserts the existence of a specific black Atlantic culture, uniting elements from African, British, Caribbean and American cultures that came into existence through the enslavement and forced migration of millions of Africans. Today, the term is often used to describe the multitude of experiences of enslaved Africans and the African diaspora from the fifteenth century to today. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995); Linda Heywood, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660: The First Generation of African Americans in North America and the Caribbean, 1619–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). 2 Jane Gerber, The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience (New York: Free Press, 1994); Esther Benbassa and Aron Rodrigue, Sephardi Jewry. A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th–20th Centuries (Berkeley, LA, USA and London, UK: University of California Press, 2000). 3 Kevin Ingramed, ed., The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2012). 4 Benbassa and Rodrigue, Sephardi Jewry, 28–52; Susanne Lachenicht, “Sephardi Jews – Cosmopolitans in the Atlantic World?” in Diaspora Identities. Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present, ed. Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn (Frankfurt/Main, Germany, New York and Chicago, USA: Campus and the University of Chicago Press, 2009), 31–51. 5 Cf. Raingard Esser, Niederländische Exulanten im England des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1996); Geert H. Janssen, The Dutch Revolt and Catholic Exile in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). 6 Cf. Francis J. Bremer, The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1995); Christina Hallowell Garrett, The Marian Exiles, A Study in the Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Thomas D. Hamm, The Quakers in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003). 7 Cf. James van Horn Melton, “From Alpine Miner to Lowcountry Yeoman: Transatlantic Worlds of a Georgia Salzburger, 1693–1761”, Past & Present 201(1) (2008): 97–140. 8 Cf. Craig D. Atwood, Community of the Cross. Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2004). 9 Cf. Christopher Hodson, The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).

170  Handbook on forced migration forced to move to mining centers in the Caribbean, Mexico, or Peru. In Jesuit and Franciscan mission societies in South America, Amerindians were re-settled in these church orders’ agricultural, social, and spiritual centers. The encomienda-system – the Spanish empire’s system of appropriating, governing, and exploiting Amerindian land and possessions including tribute-paying – increased Amerindian labor migration, sometimes combined with serfdom and slavery.10 For all these migrations, the term “forced” meant different things: enslavement and deportation, the loss of family ties and identities (Black Atlantic), expulsion (first Sephardi Jewish diaspora), deportation (Moriscos, Austrian Protestants, Acadians, some Native American groups), illegal emigration to preserve the Protestant faith (Huguenots), or discrimination and persecutions that triggered flight and emigration (cf. Quakers, Bohemians, Puritans).

THEMES IN THE HISTORIOGRAPHIES OF FORCED MIGRATIONS By far the best-researched group, offering a multitude of scales and perspectives, contains the histories of African slaves in the Atlantic World. Publications include those on individual lives, on specific moments in the history of slavery, on structures in the Atlantic slave trade, for Africa, the Middle Passage, the Caribbean and specific empires, regions and localities in the Americas.11 The historiography on the Black Atlantic has also looked into slave holders, from Quakers to Moravian Brothers, Franciscan, Jesuit and Dominican friars to plantation owners.12 Other work deals with the abolition of slavery, slave revolts, the formation of maroon societies,13 and the Haitian revolution.14 Many researchers have studied diasporic 10 Dirk Hoerder, Cultures in Contact. World Migrations in the Second Millennium (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002), 187–91, 194–9, 234–40; Alan Gallay, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–1717 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). 11 Cf. Philip D. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint. Black Culture in the Eighteenth Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Robin Law, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “Port” 1727–1892 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004); Vincent Carretta, Equiano the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (Athens/ GA: University of Georgia Press, 2005); Kristina Mann and Edna G. Bays, eds, Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil (London: Routledge, 2001); Stephanie E. Smallwood, Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); Mariana P. Candido, An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Mac Griswold, The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013). 12 Cf. David G Sweet, “Black Robes and ‘Black Destiny’: Jesuit Views of African Slavery in 17th-Century Latin America”, Revista de Historia de América 86 (1978), 87–133; Katherine Gerbner, Christian Slavery. Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). 13 “Runaway slaves” of African descent who formed permanent free societies in the Caribbean and the Americas are understood as Maroon societies. Their settlements often included Native Americans with whom Maroons developed distinct creole cultures. 14 Alvin O. Thompson, Flight to Freedom: African Runaways and Maroons in the Americas (Mona: University of the West Indies Press, 2006); Marcus Rediker, The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (New York: Viking, 2012); Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).

Historiographies of early modern forced migrations in Europe and Atlantic world  171 slave societies, the generation and circulation of cultural practices and values in contexts of upheaval and violence, and how these African diaspora communities and cultures form an integral part of Western Hemisphere’s societies today.15 These studies are remarkable because genealogies and the histories of the enslaved were destroyed by the enslavement of Africans. Scholars have also studied how much early modern and modern colonization, industrialization and globalization depended on enslaved Africans and the plantation systems in the Caribbean and the Americas – in short “western modernity”.16 Specialists of the Black Atlantic have provided a number of important resources such as the Transatlantic Slavery data base.17 The histories of the Black Atlantic are not only the best researched but also exemplary with regard to reflexiveness, scope, scales, the quest for reasons, phenomena and long-term effects. Less well researched but also exploring forced migration from a variety of angles is the history of the Sephardi Jewish diasporas and the Huguenots. Historians have looked into global networks of trade and commerce, the Sephardim’s role as “agents and victims of empire”, at communities and identities in Mediterranean, Indian Ocean and Atlantic Worlds.18 The literature on Huguenots treats this group in terms of belief systems, intellectual and commercial networks, economic and cultural capacities, military knowledge, their role as colonists of states and empires, politics of asylum and accommodation as well as processes of acculturation and integration.19 There are historiographies of Spain’s Moriscos, of Puritans, Quakers, Salzburg Protestants or Moravians who were settled on the frontiers of expanding early modern states and empires in exchange for legal rights and freedom of worship. Similar patterns occurred with Protestant settlers in Irish provinces such as Munster and Ulster, for

15 Cf. Richard D.E. Burton, Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbean (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); Joseph Holloway, ed. Africanisms in American Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005). 16 Cf. Edward E. Baptist, The Half That Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014). 17 See: www​.slavevoyages​.org, last accessed, 6 March 2021. 18 Cf. Jonathan I. Israel: Diasporas within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires, 1540–1740 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 1; Daniel M. Swetschinski, Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (Oxford, UK and Portland, OR, USA: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004); Richard L. Kagan and Philip D. Morgan, eds, Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009); Noah L. Gelfand, To Live and to Trade: The Status of Sephardi Mercantile Communities in the Atlantic World during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2014); Francesca Trivellato, The Familiarity of Strangers. The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). 19 Cf. Hubert Bost, Ces Messieurs de la R.P.R.: Histoires et Ecritures de Huguenots, XVIIe–XVIIIe Siècles (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002); Myriam Yardeni, Le Refuge Huguenot. Assimilation et Culture (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002); Bertrand van Ruymbeke, From New Babylon to Eden. The Huguenots and their Migration to Colonial South Carolina (Columbia/SC : University of South Carolina Press, 2005), Susanne Lachenicht, Hugenotten in Europa und Nordamerika. Migration und Integration in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt/Main, Germany and New York, USA: Campus, 2010); Susanne Lachenicht, “The Huguenots’ Maritime Networks, 16th–18th Centuries”. In Connecting Worlds and People. Early Modern Diasporas, ed. Dagmar Freist and Susanne Lachenicht (London: Routledge, 2016), 31–44; Owen Stanwood, The Global Refuge. Huguenots in an Age of Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

172  Handbook on forced migration Salzburg Germans in Georgia, or Mennonites and Moravians in the Russian Empire.20 The same ethnic/religious groups occur in a variety of population and colonization schemes: Sephardi and Ashkenazi Jews in the British, Dutch, French, Ottoman and Russian empires; Huguenots within the Dutch, British and Russian empires; Moravians in the Dutch, British and Russian empires; and Mennonites in the British, Dutch and Russian empires.

CONNECTING HISTORIOGRAPHIES ON EARLY MODERN FORCED MIGRATIONS Most studies only look at one ethnic/religious group. With a few exceptions,21 we deal with separate histories of forced migrants, even though their interconnections are important to understand.22 Comparative perspectives reveal the ways in which the experience of forced migration affected ethnic and religious identifications and supported group- and nation-building in exile. To rigorously place all these forced migrations in the context of larger historical processes – most importantly the building of states and empires, of globalized and globalizing economies, knowledge transfer and transformation and cultural production – would emphasize how much these historical meta-processes brought about what some would dub “modernity”. At the same time, these forced migrations also allow us to know more about an individual’s experiences and opportunities, how much meta-historical forces structure people’s lives, how much individual lives can change structures in world history.23 All of this could finally inform our understanding of forced migrations today, about traditions in dealing with migrants, about long-term effects, about traveling concepts, fractured continuities and – at the same time – historical specificity.24

20 William Childers, “An Extensive Network of Morisco Merchants Active Circa 1590”. In The Morisco Issue. Vol. 2 of The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, ed. Kevin Ingramed (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 135–60; Nicholas Canny, Kingdom and Colony: Ireland in the Atlantic World 1560–1800 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987); Susan Martin, A Nation of Immigrants (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Andreas Gestrich, “German Religious Migration to Russia in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries”. In In Search of Peace and Prosperity. New German Settlements in Eighteenth Century Europe and America, ed. Hartmut Lehmann, Hermann Wellenreuther and Renate Wilson (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2000), 77–98. 21 See Hoerder, Cultures in Contact; Thomas Benjamin, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Nicholas Terpstra, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Mathilde Monge and Natalia Muchnik, L’Europe des Diasporas (XVIe–XVIIIe siècle) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2019). 22 Cf. Jonathan Schorsch, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 23 Nancy L. Green, “The Comparative Method and Poststructural Structuralism: New Perspectives for Migration Studies”. In Migration, Migration History, History: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives, ed. Jan and Leo Lucassen (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2005), 57–72. 24 Susanne Lachenicht, “Negotiating Asylum and Accommodation: Migrants, Refugees and Host Societies”. In: Trafo – Blog for Transregional Research. November 2018. https://​trafo​.hypotheses​.org/​ 14009, last access 2021-03-07.

Historiographies of early modern forced migrations in Europe and Atlantic world  173

BIBLIOGRAPHY Atwood, Craig D., Community of the Cross. Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2004). Baptist, Edward E., The Half That Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism (New York: Basic Books, 2014). Benbassa, Esther and Aron Rodrigo, Sephardi Jewry. A History of the Judeo-Spanish Community, 14th–20th Centuries (Berkeley, LA, USA and London, UK: University of California Press, 2000). Benjamin, Thomas, The Atlantic World: Europeans, Africans, Indians and Their Shared History, 1400–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009). Berlin, Ira, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003). Bost, Hubert, Ces Messieurs de la R.P.R.: Histoires et Ecritures de Huguenots, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002). Bremer, Francis J., The Puritan Experiment: New England Society from Bradford to Edwards (Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 1995). Burton, Richard D.E., Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbean (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997). Candido, Mariana P., An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World: Benguela and its Hinterland (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Canny, Nicholas, Kingdom and Colony: Ireland in the Atlantic World 1560–1800 (Baltimore/MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987). Carretta, Vincent, Equiano the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2005). Childers, William, “An Extensive Network of Morisco Merchants Active Circa 1590”. In The Morisco Issue. Vol. 2 of The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond, ed. Kevin Ingramed (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 135–60. Dubois, Laurent, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004). Esser, Raingard, Niederländische Exulanten im England des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1996). Gallay, Alan, The Indian Slave Trade: The Rise of the English Empire in the American South, 1670–1717 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002). Garrett, Christina Hallowell, The Marian Exiles, A Study in the Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010). Gelfand, Noah L., To Live and to Trade: The Status of Sephardi Mercantile Communities in the Atlantic World during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2014). Gerber, Jane, The Jews of Spain: A History of the Sephardic Experience (New York: Free Press, 1994). Gerbner, Katherine, Christian Slavery. Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). Gestrich, Andreas, “German Religious Migration to Russia in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries”. In In Search of Peace and Prosperity. New German Settlements in Eighteenth Century Europe and America, ed. Hartmut Lehmann, Hermann Wellenreuther and Renate Wilson (University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania University Press, 2000), 77–98. Gilroy, Paul, The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995). Green, Nancy L., “The Comparative Method and Poststructural Structuralism: New Perspectives for Migration Studies”. In Migration, Migration History, History: Old Paradigms and New Perspectives, ed. Jan and Leo Lucassen (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2005), 57–72. Griswold, Mac, The Manor: Three Centuries at a Slave Plantation on Long Island (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013). Hamm, Thomas D., The Quakers in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003).

174  Handbook on forced migration Heywood, Linda, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660: The First Generation of African Americans in North America and the Caribbean, 1619–1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Hodson, Christopher, The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). Hoerder, Dirk, Cultures in Contact. World Migrations in the Second Millennium (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002). Holloway, Joseph ed., Africanisms in American Culture (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005). Ingramed, Kevin ed., The Conversos and Moriscos in Late Medieval Spain and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2012). Israel, Jonathan I., Diasporas within a Diaspora: Jews, Crypto-Jews and the World Maritime Empires, 1540–1740 (Leiden: Brill, 2002). Janssen, Geert H., The Dutch Revolt and Catholic Exile in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Kagan, Richard L. and Philip D. Morgan, eds, Atlantic Diasporas: Jews, Conversos, and Crypto-Jews in the Age of Mercantilism, 1500–1800 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009). Lachenicht, Susanne, “Sephardi Jews – Cosmopolitans in the Atlantic World?” In Diaspora Identities. Exile, Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism in Past and Present, ed. Susanne Lachenicht and Kirsten Heinsohn (Frankfurt/Main, Germany; New York and Chicago, USA: Campus and the University of Chicago Press, 2009), 31–51. Lachenicht, Susanne, Hugenotten in Europa und Nordamerika. Migration und Integration in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt/Main, Germany and New York, USA: Campus, 2010). Lachenicht, Susanne, “The Huguenots’ Maritime Networks, 16th–18th Centuries”. In Connecting Worlds and People. Early Modern Diasporas, ed. Dagmar Freist and Susanne Lachenicht (London: Routledge, 2016), 31–44. Lachenicht, Susanne, “Negotiating Asylum and Accommodation: Migrants, Refugees and Host Societies”. In: Trafo – Blog for Transregional Research. November 2018 https://​trafo​.hypotheses​.org/​ 14009, last accessed 7 March 2021. Law, Robin, Ouidah: The Social History of a West African Slaving “Port” 1727–1892 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2004). Mann, Kristina and Edna G. Bays, eds, Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of a Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil (London: Routledge, 2001). Martin, Susan, A Nation of Immigrants (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Monge, Mathilde and Natalia Muchnik, L’Europe des Diasporas (XVIe–XVIIIe siècle) (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2019). Morgan, Philip D., Slave Counterpoint. Black Culture in the Eighteenth Century Chesapeake and Lowcountry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). Rediker, Marcus, The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (New York: Viking, 2012). Schorsch, Jonathan, Jews and Blacks in the Early Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Smallwood, Stephanie E., Saltwater Slavery: A Middle Passage from Africa to American Diaspora (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007). Stanwood, Owen, The Global Refuge. Huguenots in an Age of Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019). Sweet, David G., “Black Robes and ‘Black Destiny’: Jesuit Views of African Slavery in 17th-Century Latin America”, Revista de Historia de América, 86, (1978): 87–133. Swetschinski, Daniel M., Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (Oxford, UK and Portland, OR, USA: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2004). Terpstra, Nicholas, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Thompson, Alvin O., Flight to Freedom: African Runaways and Maroons in the Americas (Mona: University of the West Indies Press, 2006). Trivellato, Francesca, The Familiarity of Strangers. The Sephardic Diaspora, Livorno, and Cross-Cultural Trade in the Early Modern Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

Historiographies of early modern forced migrations in Europe and Atlantic world  175 Van Horn Melton, James, “From Alpine Miner to Lowcountry Yeoman: Transatlantic Worlds of a Georgia Salzburger, 1693–1761”, Past & Present, 201(1), (2008): 97–140. Van Ruymbeke, Bertrand, From New Babylon to Eden. The Huguenots and their Migration to Colonial South Carolina (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2005). Yardeni, Myriam, Le Refuge Huguenot. Assimilation et Culture (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2002).

18. The antecedents of forced migration in the Middle East Dawn Chatty

For some scholars, the beginnings of modern humanitarianism occurred in the early decades of the twentieth century, when empires were collapsing and emerging nation-states were unwilling or unable to integrate minorities. I propose, instead, that modern humanitarianism commenced with the efforts of the Ottoman empire, which, from the middle of the nineteenth century sought to manage the large-scale forced migrations of millions of people into its heartland. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, borders and frontiers were fuzzy, and movement of people across them was rarely restricted. This was the case in the Ottoman empire, the Austro-Hungarian empire and the European colonial empires. A counter movement, however, of hegemonic and homogeneous nation-state building was also at work in Europe during this period, resulting in conflict and mass forced migrations, ‘ethnic cleansing’, and ‘ethnic genocide’.1 Of all the imperial encounters of the time, the Ottoman empire was uniquely challenged to implement systems of refuge, resettlement, and reterritorialization to manage the mass influx of peoples from its frontier regions into its southern provinces. Unusually, it was the only state which did not tie culture or ethnicity to territory.2

REFUGEES AND MIGRANTS IN OTTOMAN BILAD AL SHAM (GREATER SYRIA) The southern provinces of the Ottoman empire – Bilad al Sham or Greater Syria – encompassed what is now the Levant (modern-day Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine/Israel). In the early nineteenth century, these Arab provinces were underpopulated for several reasons (plague, burgeoning Wahhabism, insecurity, and local feuds and conflict). The population was multi-cultural and multi-ethnic, as was most of the empire. Migration was imposed by the Ottoman imperial system which compelled the movement of peoples within the empire for domestic as well as external reasons.3 Identity throughout the empire was based not on physical birthplace alone but included socio-religious communities or millets – Muslim, Christian,

1 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991); Aristide Zolberg, Astri Suhrke and Sergio Aguayo, Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989). 2 Nicolas Argenti, Post-Ottoman Topologies: The Presence of the Past in the Era of the Nation-State (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019). 3 For example, migration was compelled to respond to local security concerns and manage frontier conflicts. Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922: New Approaches to European History. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

176

The antecedents of forced migration in the Middle East  177 and Jewish. These social communities, with religious hierarchies, were dispersed throughout the empire.4 Two major social and political movements clashed with each other over the course of the nineteenth century. First was the priority of socially constructed place in the millets of the state, where the Muslim millet was made up of Arabs, Kurds, Albanians, Turks, and Kosovars; the Christian millets of Arabs, Greeks, Armenians, Serbians, and Bulgarians, and the Jewish millet of Arab (Mizrahi), Sephardic, and Ashkenazi Jews. Thus, belonging within the empire was horizontally constructed among widely physically dispersed social groups. The second source of opposition was the political movement emerging in and out of Europe that professed a defined homogeneous ethno-religious identity tied to specific physical space and territory. This movement, heavily supported by Imperial Russia, resulted in the eventual carving out from the Ottoman empire of the Kingdom of Greece (1829), Bulgaria (1878), Serbia (1878), Montenegro (1878), Crete (1908), and Macedonia (1913). The creation of these ‘modern’ nation-states was premised on the notion that their majority population needed to be homogeneously ethno-religious Christians. The result was massive dispossession, displacement, massacres, and terrified flight of Muslims and Jews to the remaining southern Ottoman territories. The Ottoman empire’s attitude to exiles and political refugees was unusual and out of step with many bilateral treaties of the time. The Sublime Porte (a synecdoche for the central Ottoman government) often received political exiles and refugees from neighbouring countries, which caused state-level tensions when the Ottomans then refused to return the refugees to the authorities of their countries of origin. In the memoirs of an important Ottoman statesman and historian, Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, non-extradition was a policy based on Muslim principles – the duty to provide sanctuary.5 This policy was based on pre-Islamic traditions of hospitality and sanctuary that included protection and asylum as part of the moral ideal of karam (generosity) and embedded in Muslim doctrines of hijra (migration) ijarah (asylum) aman (safety) majla (refuge), and jiwar (protection).6 After the 1848–49 Hungarian Uprising, about 16,000 Hungarian and Polish officers and soldiers fled to Wallachia and Moldavia, provinces of the European territory of the Ottoman empire. The end of the Crimean War of 1853–1856 saw mass influx into the empire when half a million Muslim Tatars, as well as another half million Cossacks (Georgians and Ukrainians) were forced out of the Crimea under the terms of the Congress of Paris peace negotiations of 1856. Then, in 1860, another 500,000 to 1,000,000 Muslim Circassians, Chechnyans, and Dagestanis left their homelands and set sail across the Black Sea to the Balkans or set out in oxcarts overland to Anatolia and Greater Syria. Between the 1860s and 1880s another wave of 1–2 million Circassians and Chechnyans either left the Caucuses for fear of being converted to Russian Orthodoxy or were in flight from the Ottoman Russian Wars of 1877–78. These huge numbers of displaced people were of great concern to the Sublime Porte in Constantinople. Several million people on the move in a state with the population of just over 30 million would be hard to manage under any conditions. Although these terms were not used at the time, the Ottoman state experienced two phases: a short emergency phase and then

Peter Loizos, ‘Ottoman half-lives: Long-term perspectives on particular forced migrations’. Journal of Refugee Studies 12, no. 3 (1999): 237–63. 5 Ahmet Cevdet Pasha, Tazakir-i-Cevdet [Memoirs of Cevdet] (Constantinople, 1886). 6 Ahmed Abou El-Wafa, The Right to Asylum, between Islamic Shari’ah and International Law (Geneva: UNHCR, 2009). 4

178  Handbook on forced migration a long development–integrationist phase. The Sublime Porte’s response was not ‘how do we stop these people from coming’ but a rather more liberal – in contemporary terms – ‘how do we integrate and settle these people’ in the most beneficial ways to the empire? How can we best use them to develop our under-populated and insecure regions? The Ottoman concern was to disperse the refugees rapidly to provincial cities and provide agricultural lands. The integration of new migrants as subjects (citizens) of the state was a form of protection. If the migrants were prepared to abide by the rules of the state, they could settle within certain parameters. Integration, and not assimilation, was the idea behind locating migrants in agricultural areas where taxation on farm produce could be reinvigorated. This liberal policy was instrumental in reviving Ottoman state coffers. Initially the migrants were relocated in underpopulated agricultural areas where such farming could be revived. Ottoman policy also instrumentalized these new migrants as buffers in areas of local conflict. Later, as arable lands became scarce, forced migrants such as the Kosovars and Albanians were encouraged to settle where new technology and employment along the proposed railway line offered opportunities for selfsufficiency. Hence, Ottoman administrative responses to forced migrants changed over time as the political economy of the Ottoman empire changed, and as land pressure pushed settlement into malarial areas that the Ottomans want to see drained and reinvigorated.7 With the first influx of Tatars and Circassians from the Crimea in 1856–57, a refugee code of instructions was sent to the governors of Silistra and Trabzon to assist in setting up temporary settlements.8 The governors were instructed to provide refugee or immigrant families with limited capital with plots of state land and exemptions from taxes. The refugee code also exempted males from conscription obligations for six years in the European part of the Ottoman empire (Rumeli) and twelve years if settled in Anatolia and Syria. Muslim Bulgarians and Jews benefited especially from this code.9 Refugees and immigrants were promised freedom of religion, whatever their faith, and were permitted to construct their own places of worship in whatever style they wished. However, they had to agree to cultivate the land and not to sell it or leave it for twenty years. By 1860, a Refugee and Immigrant Commission under the Ministry of Trade was formally organized. The commission’s proposal to disperse state lands to incoming refugees and migrants was advertised in Europe and North America. Individuals and small social groups in Hungary, Bohemia, Poland, Switzerland, Italy and the US responded. The largely depopulated Syrian provinces were revived by these new immigrants after several centuries of misadministration, war, famine, and several pandemics of the plague. They reinvigorated farming in Greater Syria, and replenished state coffers.10 In 1877, a second body, the Charity Commission, was established to collect and distribute aid, provide health, and find employment for Muslims, Christians, and Jews entering the 7 Chris Gratien, ‘The Ottoman quagmire: Malaria, swamps, and settlement in the Late Ottoman Mediterranean’. International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 48, no. 4 (2017): 583–604. 8 As the Ottomans did not distinguish between a ‘refugee’ and an immigrant is it difficult to capture the best translation of the Turkish ‘Muhacir’ at times translated as refugee and other times as immigrant. 9 Ilhan Tekeli, ‘Involuntary displacement and the problem of resettlement in Turkey from the Ottoman Empire to the Present’. In Population Displacement and Resettlement: Development and Conflict in the Middle East, ed. Seteney Shami (New York: Centre for Migration Studies, 1994), 202–206. 10 Stanford and Ezel Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) 115.

The antecedents of forced migration in the Middle East  179 empire.11 The Sultan viewed such charity and hospitality as a religious obligation. The Charity Commission’s mandate was wide: immigration policy, travel documentation, settlement, assistance with transport, housing, and maintenance and integration initiatives.12

OTTOMAN RESETTLEMENT AND INTEGRATION POLICY IN BILAD AL SHAM Syria’s transitional zone between agriculture and grazing land (Ma’moura) became the prime focus for the settlement of these new refugees and immigrants. Circassian and Chechnyan forced migrants were encouraged to create border towns along the Ma’moura, with the aim of separating warring indigenous groups along a line extending from Aleppo to what would later become Amman. In this way the Ottomans were largely able to pacify the disputes between Kurds and Bedouin, and between Druze and Bedouin. In the orchards of Damascus – the Ghouta – large groups of Circassians were granted land to farm on the Sultan’s private reserve for his horses. This area, Marj al-Sultan, once settled by these newcomers, served to protect Damascus and its outlying villages from Bedouin raiders. Most refugees and migrants initially arrived in towns and cities such as Constantinople but soon dispersed to areas where agricultural land was available. Dispersal was a way to prevent outbreaks of fever, smallpox, and typhoid, illnesses which had dogged the forced migrants on their journeys.13 The wide dispersal of ethnic groups also avoided the creation of colonies that could cut themselves off from the rest of the empire. Thus, refugees and immigrants were used to maintain ethnic diversity and create a presence that discouraged local feuding. The refugee and immigration policy of the Ottoman empire evolved but remained fairly liberal, generous, and open. It was used to repopulate economically stagnating agricultural areas and to defend frontiers. It was also effective in reviving the Ottoman military strength; Circassian, Polish and Hungarian military officers converted to Islam and accepted commissions in the Ottoman army. As arable land became scarce at the end of the nineteenth century, refugees helped drain swamps and turn malarial areas into productive zones for tax farming. This was probably the first instance of direct, prolonged and rational state social planning to regulate refugee and immigration movements and devise a successful resettlement policy.14 Peace negotiations ending the 1877–78 Ottoman–Russian War led to a restructuring of the Balkans and another mass influx of refugees. Otto Bismarck negotiated successfully for the independence of Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and Montenegro, while Rumeli (Thrace, Macedonia, and Bulgaria) was returned to the Ottomans. The Russians, however, insisted that all Circassians recently resettled in the Ottoman Balkans – and key players in the Ottoman militias that had been active in the Bulgarian ‘Atrocities’ of 1876 – had to be moved away

Kamel Karpat, ‘The transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789–1908’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972): 243–81. 12 Kamel Karpat, Studies on Ottoman Social and Political History: Selected Articles and Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2002). 13 Mark Pinson, ‘Ottoman colonization of the Circassians in Rumili after the Crimean War’, Etudes Balkaniques 3 (1972): 71–85. 14 Kamel Karpat, ‘The transformation’. 11

180  Handbook on forced migration from these regions. Thus another 1–2 million more Circassians and Chechnyans were forced to move from the Balkans into Anatolia and Bilad il-Sham. Responding to this mass influx, the Ottoman state created a larger and better integrated government service, the General Administration for Refugee / Immigrant Affairs. It was entrusted with the welfare of refugees and immigrants from the moment they disembarked at ports or crossed into Ottoman territory until they were resettled. Sometimes the administration transported immigrants to these lands, and if necessary, gave them housing, supplies, and monthly income until their first harvest. It managed relations with foreign missionaries and other ‘humanitarian’ actors. Thereafter, the Ottoman state expected local authorities to step up. Using Muslim principle of karam, local communities were to accept the immigrants as brothers. In Damascus, for example, each head of household was charged one paistre (in today’s terms $10) to assist refugees and immigrants settled in the Ghouta (orchards) surrounding the city.15 But not all these refugee groups were satisfied with government and local assistance. Logistics were often a problem, as exemplified by the case of 10,000 Circassians who had been assigned land in the district of Hama. Government support and supplies were slow to arrive, and so the inhabitants of Hama themselves donated 6000 kilograms of wheat and 4000 of barley for the first sowing of these new farmers. But these private donations were not considered enough, and some 3000 Circassians returned to the port of Tripoli where they demanded passage back to Constantinople. As many as 10,000 Tatars, and small numbers of Dagestani, Circassian, and Chechnyan groups also petitioned the Imperial Russian government for formal citizenship papers to allow them to return to their original homelands.16 At the close of World War I, with the collapse of the Ottoman empire, the General Administration for Refugees and Immigrants was shut down by the first President of the new Turkish Republic, Kemal Ataturk. However, the new republic’s integration and protection of forced migrants was still based on certain principles inherited from the Ottoman empire, especially in terms of moving rapidly from emergency short-term encampment to resettlement.

CONCLUSION: CONTINUITIES AND RUPTURES AFTER WWI Many scholars consider the first modern refugee regime to have emerged from the WWI Peace Conference of Paris where the League of Nations was created. One of its early acts was to establish the High Commission for Refugees with Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930), as its first High Commissioner. Nanson’s first task was to deal with the millions of people displaced by WWI and the statelessness crisis which emerged when Lenin stripped all Russians (White Russians) in Europe of their citizenship in 1921. Nanson developed and expanded upon the practices of the Ottoman empire that allowed people to travel to other lands where they could work, pay taxes, and become self-sufficient residents of their new states. His ‘Nansen Passport’ was the first legal instrument for the international protection of refugees. As in the Ottoman empire, no clear distinction was drawn between forced migrants and economic 15 Basak Kale, ‘Transforming an empire: The Ottoman Empire’s immigration and settlement policies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’, Middle East Studies 50, no. 2 (2014): 252–71. 16 James Meyer, ‘Immigration, return, and politics of citizenship: Russian Muslims in the Ottoman Empire 1860–1914’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 39, no. 1 (2007): 15–32.

The antecedents of forced migration in the Middle East  181 migrants. Forced migrants could become economic migrants. Of primary importance was the ability to move to where sustainable livelihoods could be found. What can we learn from the imperial actions of the Ottoman empire? The Ottoman state saw the necessity of rapidly moving from emergency to ‘resettlement’ and development. It sought the rapid dispersal of forced migrants to prevent the spread of disease, as well as to create ‘citizens’ who could become economically self-sufficient and contribute to the state’s coffers as they revived agriculture in under-populated regions and bolstered tax collection on farming produce. In its policy of liberal but controlled placement, the Ottoman Sublime Porte sought to prevent the formation of colonies (ghettos) and instead encouraged a form of local cosmopolitanism or local conviviality whereby the ‘Other’, though, perhaps, different and strange, was tolerated.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1991). Argenti, Nicolas, Post-Ottoman Topologies: The Presence of the Past in the Era of the Nation-State (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2019). El-Wafa, Ahmed Abou, The Right to Asylum, between Islamic Shari’ah and International Law (Geneva: UNHCR, 2009). Gratien, Chris, ‘The Ottoman quagmire: Malaria, swamps, and settlement in the Late Ottoman Mediterranean’, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 48, no. 4 (2017): 583–604. Kale, Basak, ‘Transforming an Empire: The Ottoman Empire’s immigration and settlement policies in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries’, Middle East Studies 50, no. 2 (2014): 252–71. Karpat, Kamel, ‘The transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789–1908’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 3 (1972): 243–81. Karpat, Kamel, Studies on Ottoman Social and Political History: Selected Articles and Essays (Leiden: Brill, 2002). Loizos, Peter, ‘Ottoman half-lives: Long-term perspectives on particular forced migrations’, Journal of Refugee Studies 12, no. 3 (1999): 237–63. Meyer, James, ‘Immigration, return, and politics of citizenship: Russian Muslims in the Ottoman Empire 1860–1914’, International Journal of Middle East Studies 39, no. 1 (2007): 15–32. Pasha, Ahmet Cevdet, Tazakir-i-Cevdet [Memoirs of Cevdet] (Constantinople, 1886). Pinson, Mark, ‘Ottoman colonization of the Circassians in Rumili after the Crimean War’, Etudes Balkaniques 3 (1972): 71–85. Quataert, Donald, The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. New Approaches to European History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). Shaw, Stanford and Ezel Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977) 115. Tekeli, Ilhan, ‘Involuntary displacement and the problem of resettlement in Turkey from the Ottoman Empire to the Present’. In Population Displacement and Resettlement: Development and Conflict in the Middle East, ed. Seteney Shami (New York: Centre for Migration Studies, 1994), 202–206. Zolberg, Aristide, Astri Suhrke and Sergio Aguayo, Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989).

19. The ‘home-coming’ of the refugees: Narratives of partition-induced forced migration in South Asia (1947–1971) Anindita Ghoshal

Nation-making or state-formation processes are always inextricable from border-making, mass displacement and refugee generation. In this context, the 1947 Partition of India and the resulting forced migration of Hindu and Muslim refugees remain a major political event in the history of South Asia. With the emergence of India and Pakistan on the map of South Asia, at least twelve to fifteen million people were compelled to move to the other side of the international border because of their religion. Yet, the cross-border migration was also a ‘home-coming’, because people settled where their co-religionists were in a majority. For the refugees, it was a drive to become members of the majoritarian community in a new and very own ‘promised land’. Many studies of Partition have focused on the Hindu refugees’ movement to Punjab and Bengal, two vivisected states of India; however, less is known about the status and condition of Muslim refugees who chose to migrate and settle permanently in one of the wings of Pakistan. The Punjab-centric focus of the refugee relief and rehabilitation departments was surprisingly similar in India and Pakistan.1 Other refugees faced multiple layers of hazards and discriminations and the dream of ‘home-coming’ turned into disillusionment for many of them. This chapter portrays how Partition has resonated with the lives of refugees in South Asia for decades. Pakistan, with its two wings – East Pakistan (today Bangladesh) and West Pakistan – was conceived as an Islamic state. In fact, Islam was the only ‘positive bond’ behind the unification of the two wings. They differ with regard to almost every other factor that defines a sovereign country, including language, traditions, and custom.2 The economic, administrative, and linguistic policies of the central government in Karachi rendered East Pakistan into a ‘hinterland’ or ‘premier colony’.3 The clash was between Bengali ethno-nationalism and West Pakistani centralism, which rose from marginalization of the Bengalis. From the mid-1950s, the Bengali citizens of East Pakistan protested against this colonialism. The protests culminated first in

1 The term ‘rehabilitation’ refers to the permanent resettlement of refugees in the land to which they opted to migrate. U. Bhaskar Rao, The Story of Rehabilitation (Faridabad: Department of Rehabilitation, Ministry of Labour, Employment and Rehabilitation, Government of India, 1967), 11. 2 P.N. Luthra, ‘Problem of Refugees from East Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 6, no. 50 (1971): 2469. R.L. Park, ‘East Bengal: Pakistan’s Troubled Province’, Far Eastern Survey, 23, no. 5 (1954): 73. 3 Philip Oldenburg, ‘A Place Insufficiently Imagined: Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 44, no. 4, 1985, p. 716.

182

The ‘home-coming’ of the refugees  183 the Language Movement of 1952,4 and later the Liberation War of 1971. This war led to the exodus of millions of uprooted families again, to and from the same region of Bengal borderland, in search of safe shelters in the states of Eastern and North-eastern India. Within twenty-five years of the Partition of 1947, the conflict between the two wings of Pakistan gave birth to a third state, Bangladesh. India and Pakistan continued to practise majoritarian politics and adopted repressive policies towards the refugees uprooted by both the original Partition and the formation of Bangladesh. Widespread communal ideologies made minorities and refugees in both of the countries insecure. Bilateral diplomacy between India and Pakistan attempted to address these concerns through a series of conferences and the adoption of treaties like the Nehru-Liaquat Ali Khan Pact of 1950, which addressed some of the refugees’ grievances.5 Some major communal riots happened many times after Partition, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, which left a permanent mark of insecurity and fear in the minds of refugees. The host communities of the refugee absorbent regions were so anxious about the numbers of the refugees from East Pakistan, it gave birth to identity politics in states touching the Eastern border of India and East Pakistan (later Bangladesh).

THE ACTUAL SCENARIO After the creation of an international border, India and Pakistan dealt with the refugees at the political and administrative levels. The Punjabi refugees proved to be more fortunate than the Bengali refugees in getting assistance in India and Pakistan. Both governments adopted an official policy to evacuate people on the Western border; relief and rehabilitation were considered to be ‘urgent’ and ‘immediate’ issues to be addressed.6 The first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, extended an invitation to the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (UNRRA) to provide advice on the resettlement or rehabilitation of refugees. After spending time in Punjab, where refugees had experienced the worst violence on the Western border,

The West dominated Muslim League leaders considered Bengali-speakers as ‘unpatriotic’ and unworthy to bear the designation ‘Muslim’, as they rejected Urdu as the State language of Pakistan. According to the 1951 census, the percentage of the Bengali-speaking Pakistanis was 65.4 per cent when Urdu was used by only 3.4 per cent of the whole population of Pakistan. The decision to impose Urdu on the Muslim Bengalis sparked violent protests and they had shown determination of resistance against the West Pakistani attempts of ‘purification’ through language. They reacted sharply against the attack on their language and culture. Some students of the University of Dhaka organized a protest on 21 February 1952. But the police opened fire at the students; protesters and four students were killed. The martyrdom of these students who fought for the Bengali language to be used as mother language officially is remembered as the Language Movement of 1952 (in 1999, UNESCO announced 21 February as the International Mother Language Day). Finally on 29 February 1956, Bengali was recognized as the second official language of Pakistan. M.R. Akhtar Mukul, Bhasani Mujiber Rajniti (Dhaka: Sagar Publishers, 1989), 17–18; Haimanti Roy, Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan, 1947–1965 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), 72. 5 Tahir Khan and Naumana Kiran, ‘Rehabilitation and Settlement of Refugees in East Bengal: Role of Federal Government of Pakistan, 1947–1950’, Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society, 33, no. 1 (2020), 103. 6 Brig. Rajendra Singh, The Military Evacuation Organisation (New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1962), 20. 4

184  Handbook on forced migration UNRRA staff emphasized the need to tackle the refugee crisis as a national emergency. In response, Nehru set up a national Rehabilitation and Development Board and created a cabinet post with responsibility for refugees.7 The process of bestowing relief and rehabilitation to Muslim refugees had started comparatively late in East Pakistan. By March 1948, the Punjabi refugees started demonstrating for their right to get proper rehabilitation and resettlement in front of the Punjab Assembly.8 The relief and rehabilitation policies were visibly different depending on location and ethnicity. For example, while West Pakistani refugees received rehabilitation support, Bengali refugees initially received relief measures only. In Pakistan, refugees having different mother tongues did not receive equal treatment. The Urdu and Hindi-speaking non-Bengali Muslim refugees or Muhajirs were treated comparatively better than the Bengali refugees in East Pakistan.9 Refugees seen as being connected to the culture of the destination communities received greater help from the authorities. The administration was prompt in providing them with relief measures and viable rehabilitation schemes. The discriminatory attitude of the central governments of India and Pakistan led to a massive humanitarian crisis on the Eastern border. Refugees who migrated to West Bengal, Assam, Tripura and other north-eastern states were victims of this man-made catastrophe. The refugees were desperate to get rid of their ‘minority’ tag and they preferred to opt for ‘permanent citizenship’ in a new country, where they would be ‘citizens, not aliens’.10 In India, the Citizenship Act was passed in 1955.11 But the idea of ‘citizen-refugee’12 did not come to fruition for all. The State changed rules and regulations and rejected legal papers of some refugees to deny citizenship. For example, refugees who migrated in the early 1970s were treated as evacuees, named saranarthis (shelter takers). The Indian State declared that the saranarthis would be temporarily admitted and would not be treated on a par with the Partition-displaced ‘citizen-refugees’. They would have to go back to their respective places of origin once the war situation settled down. Some of the Hindu saranarthi families decided to stay in India and became ‘stateless persons’, although they had left their homes because of persecution by the State of Pakistan.13 In the Eastern wing of Pakistan, Muslim refugees initially perceived Pakistan as a ‘Land of Eternal Eid’.14 From the beginning, the State of Pakistan promised to treat all of the refugees as

7 Peter Gatrell, ‘Refugees and the doctrine of “rehabilitation” in the mid-twentieth century’, unpublished draft paper (May 2013), 6–7. 8 Elisabetta Iob, Refugees and the Politics of the Everyday State in Pakistan: Resettlement in Punjab, 1947–62 (London, UK and New York, USA: Routledge, 2018), 48. 9 National Archives of Bangladesh, Government of Bengal, ‘East Bengal Province’, Home-Police, Bundle No. 102, B Proceedings, June 1951, 6. 10 Papiya Ghosh, Partition and The South Asian Diaspora: Extending the Subcontinent (New Delhi: Routledge, 2008), 25. 11 Sumedha Choudhury, ‘Denationalisation and Discrimination in Post colonial India’, International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 22, no. 3 (2022), 331. 12 That is, those who crossed the international border from 15 August 1947 to 25 March 1971 would be Indian citizens. 13 Uditi Sen, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 3. 14 Eid in Arabic means ‘feast, festival, holiday’. There are two Eid in a calendar year, which get celebrated by Muslims all over the world.

The ‘home-coming’ of the refugees  185 citizens.15 The Pakistani rehabilitation programme preceded, however, before the codification of citizenship.16 The nation-building project in Pakistan was premised on the foundation of a nation-state through the Islamic ideology, where no other factors were considered important in the overall conceptualization of the state.17 In practice, the Eastern wing became the hinterland while the Urdu-speaking West Pakistan was dominant. In some resettlement areas, the hosts turned hostile to the refugees as they did not want to share their lands and resources and did not want spatial reorganization of the cities, urban centres, mofussil towns and suburban areas. They also saw refugees as having different cultural identities.18 Such discrimination affected refugee relief and rehabilitation.19 Bengali refugees were compelled to reside in open areas, which was seen as ‘providing relief to refugees’ in Government files. In the camps, refugees suffered from malnutrition and were vulnerable. This caused spread of disease and epidemics such as cholera and malaria. The ‘Census of Un-rehabilitated Displaced Persons’ conducted surveys to understand the status of refugees in Dacca, Narayanganj, Khulna, Chittagong, Chandraghona and Kaptai in 1959–1960. The report clearly found the rehabilitation work lacking.20 Historians as well as political and social scientists are aware of this story of forced migration within South Asia. But what is not popularly known is that the search for home, habitat, livelihood and identity of these refugees is still a living issue in West Bengal, Assam and Tripura, three major refugee-absorbent states on the Eastern border of India. After 75 years of Partition, the South Asian countries remain a hotbed of unending politics primarily over the right of refugees, asylum seekers and stateless people to citizenship.21

BROADER REFUGEE POLICY India and Pakistan’s relationship to the international refugee regime varied depending on the refugee group and timing of the movements. As discussed above, India worked closely with UNRRA in developing its relief and rehabilitation policies.22 Relationships with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees were more complex. India did not ratify the 1951 UN Convention

15 Taylor C. Sherman, William Gould and Sarah Ansari, From Subjects to Citizens: Society and Everyday State in India and Pakistan: 1947–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 4. Elisabetta Iob, Refugees and the Politics of the Everyday State in Pakistan: Resettlement in Punjab, 1947–62, pp. 48, 133. 16 Tahir Hasnain Naqvii, ‘The Politics of Commensuration: The Violence of Partition and the Making of the Pakistani State’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 20, no. 1–2 (2007), 50. 17 Sayeed Ferdous, ‘“Surgery” in Rush and Affected Lives: Make-believe Stories in Understanding History’, The Journal of Social Studies, 146 (2015): 25–30. 18 Joya Chatterji, ‘Dispositions and Destinations: Refugee Agency and Mobility Capital in the Bengal Diaspora, 1947–2007’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 55, no. 2 (2013): 279–80. 19 Lawrence Ziring, Bangladesh from Mujib to Ershad: An Interpretive Study (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1992), 6–7. 20 Census of Un-rehabilitated Displaced Persons in Dacca and Narayanganj, Department of Works, Housing and Settlement (Housing and Settlement), Government of East Pakistan, Dacca, 1959, p. v. 21 Myron Weiner, ‘Rejected Peoples and Unwanted Migrants in South Asia’, Economic and Political Weekly, 28, no. 34 (1993), 1737. 22 Ria Kapoor, ‘Removing the International from the Refugee: India in the 1940s’, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 12, no. 1 (2021), 1–2.

186  Handbook on forced migration on the Status of Refugees or its 1967 Protocol. Yet, in the years between 1947 and 1971, India provided shelter to several groups of refugees beyond those who came during the Partition, including Tibetans, Sri Lankan Tamils and Chakma refugees from Chittagong Hill Tracks.23 As with some of the Partition refugees, some of these refugees were denied citizenship and other rights because of the opposition from the domiciles. Even the groups who received citizenship and other legal documents lived on as ‘others’ in the socio-cultural and political milieu of the states.24 Subsequently, India has hosted refugees from outside of the region, including Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. India’s policies with regard to post-Partition refugees have generally conformed to the international refugee instruments, but Indian law does not formally distinguish between refugees and other ‘foreigners’.25 Cases for refugee ‘status’ are considered on a case-by-case basis. India has called on UNHCR for assistance in addressing some of these refugee movements. The agency plays a complementary role to the efforts of the government, particularly in regard to verification of the individual’s background and the general circumstances prevailing in the country of origin, UNHCR also has an important role in the resettlement of refugees. Likewise, Pakistan is a party neither to the 1951 Convention, nor the 1967 Protocol. It has not enacted any national legislation for the protection of refugees nor established procedures to determine the refugee status of persons who are seeking international protection within its territory.26 In practice, though, Pakistan has generally respected international standards in its control over the stay and treatment of refugees. Its commitment to these principles was not tested until the large-scale entry of Afghan refugees fleeing the Soviet occupation in 1979. The UNHCR office in Pakistan works with the authorities on access to health and educational services, strengthening relationships between refugees and their host communities, helping refugees voluntarily return home.27 Neither India nor Pakistan has seen refugees as resources for nation building.28 They have changed policies on refugees according to the need and gravity of the situations or when the refugee communities asked for temporary support or permanent shelter. Both countries continued to use the Foreigners’ Act of 1946, which was promulgated during the colonial period, to regulate the entry, stay and movement of foreigners, and according to which all foreigners without valid documentation, including refugees and asylum seekers, are subject to arrest, detention and deportation even if the government chooses not to implement these provisions. 23 Shreya Sen, ‘Understanding India’s Refusal to Accede to the 1951 Refugee Convention: Context and Critique’, Refugee Review: Re-conceptualising and Forced Migration in the 21st Century, 2, no. 1 (2015). 1–7. 24 Chunnu Prasad, ‘Students’ Movements in Arunachal Pradesh and the Chakma-Hajong Refugee Problem’, Economic and Political Weekly (14 April 2007), 1373. About 40 000 Chakmas could not meet the minimum requirement for survival in Chittagong Hill Tracts during the Pakistan regime and crossed over to India for security and permanent shelter after the construction of the Karnaphuli Paper Mill at Chandragona (1953) and the construction of the Kaptai Hydroelectric project (1959). https://​ indianexpress​.com/​article/​explained/​why​-chakmas​-and​-hajongs​-are​-indias​-nowhere​-people/​ accessed on 19.09.2022. 25 See: http://​www​.worldlii​.org/​int/​journals/​ISILYBIHRL/​2001/​7​.html. Accessed on 20 September 2022. 26 See: https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​4496ad0711​.html. Accessed on 20 September 2022. 27 See: https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​en​-us/​pakistan​.html. 28 Nasreen Chowdhory, Refugees, Citizenship and Belonging in South Asia: Contested Terrains (Singapore: Springer, 2018), 44.

The ‘home-coming’ of the refugees  187

LAST WORDS Partition had created ‘refugee domains’ in India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh (after 1971). Though the journey of the partitioned states and their inhabitants began with a crisis on the religious front, it gradually touched every aspect of the life of both the host community and refugees. The refugees adopted the local language, culture and food habits and many obtained land for their own use. Yet, they remained ‘tragic victims’ of Partition. They became a factor of political mobilization in the three countries. The political parties often used them to gain votes in elections, sometimes by providing false citizenship or voter cards. In sum, the refugees were treated as masses who could easily be dispensed with. The official definitions to denote them changed time and again in the official government documents. All the categorization and classification of the refugees show that the land to which they had migrated could never become their own. Their ‘otherness’ remained as an essential identity for them and the host communities. So, the stories of Partition and refugee inflow did not end either in 1947 or 1971. Faced with difficult issues related to legal status and citizenship, India and Pakistan have politicized the situation, rather than seeking solutions. Partition-era-like situations continue to be reproduced until today.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ananthachari, T., Refugees in India: Legal Framework, Law Enforcement and Security. http://​www​ .worldlii​.org/​int/​journals/​ISILYBIHRL/​2001/​7​.html. Accessed on 20 September 2022. Chatterji, Joya, ‘Dispositions and Destinations: Refugee Agency and Mobility Capital in the Bengal Diaspora, 1947–2007’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 55, no. 2 (2013), 273–304. Choudhury, Sumedha, ‘Denationalisation and Discrimination in Post colonial India’, International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, 22, no. 3 (2022), 326–42. Chowdhory, Nasreen, Refugees, Citizenship and Belonging in South Asia: Contested Terrains (Singapore: Springer, 2018). Ferdous, Sayeed, ‘“Surgery” in Rush and Affected Lives: Make-believe Stories in Understanding History’, The Journal of Social Studies, 146 (2015), 25–44. Gatrell, Peter, ‘Refugees and the Doctrine of ‘Rehabilitation’ in the Mid-twentieth Century’, unpublished draft paper (May 2013). Ghosh, Papiya, Partition and The South Asian Diaspora: Extending the Subcontinent (New Delhi: Routledge, 2008). Iob, Elisabetta, Refugees and the Politics of the Everyday State in Pakistan: Resettlement in Punjab, 1947–62 (London, UK and New York, USA: Routledge, 2018). Kapoor, Ria ‘Removing the International from the Refugee: India in the 1940s’, Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism, and Development, 12, no. 1 (2021), 1–2. Kashyap, Samudra Gupta, ‘Why Chakmas and Hajongs are India’s nowhere people’, The Indian Express, 2015. https://​indianexpress​.com/​article/​explained/​why​-chakmas​-and​-hajongs​-are​-indias​ -nowhere​-people/​. Accessed on 19 September 2022. Khan, Tahir and Naumana Kiran, ‘Rehabilitation and Settlement of Refugees in East Bengal: Role of Federal Government of Pakistan, 1947–1950’, Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society, 33, no. 1 (2020), 103–16. Luthra, P.N., ‘Problem of Refugees from East Bengal’, Economic and Political Weekly, 6, no. 50 (1971), 2467–72. Mukul, M.R. Akhtar, Bhasani Mujiber Rajniti (Dhaka: Sagar Publishers, 1989). Naqvi, Tahir Hasnain, ‘The Politics of Commensuration: The Violence of Partition and the Making of the Pakistani State’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 20, no. 1–2 (2007), 44–71.

188  Handbook on forced migration Oldenburg, Philip, ‘A Place Insufficiently Imagined: Language, Belief, and the Pakistan Crisis of 1971’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 44, no. 4 (1985), 711–33. Park, R.L., ‘East Bengal: Pakistan’s troubled province’, Far Eastern Survey, 23, no. 5 (1954), 70–74. Prasad, Chunnu, ‘Students’ Movements in Arunachal Pradesh and the Chakma-Hajong Refugee Problem’, Economic and Political Weekly (14 April 2007), 1373–9. Rao, U. Bhaskar, The Story of Rehabilitation (Faridabad: Department of Rehabilitation, Ministry of Labour, Employment and Rehabilitation, Government of India, 1967). Roy, Haimanti, Partitioned Lives: Migrants, Refugees, Citizens in India and Pakistan, 1947–1965 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012). Sen, Shreya, ‘Understanding India’s refusal to Accede to the 1951 Refugee Convention: Context and Critique’, Refugee Review: Re-conceptualising and Forced Migration in the 21st Century, 2, no. 1 (2015), 1–7. Sen, Uditi, Citizen Refugee: Forging the Indian Nation after Partition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). Sherman, Taylor C., William Gould and Sarah Ansari, From Subjects to Citizens: Society and Everyday State in India and Pakistan: 1947–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014). Singh, Brig. Rajendra, The Military Evacuation Organisation (New Delhi: Government of India Press, 1962). UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Pakistan. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​en​-us/​pakistan​.html. Accessed on 20 September 2022. United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants World Refugee Survey 2006 – Pakistan, 14 June 2006. https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​4496ad0711​ .html. Accessed 27 September 2022. Weiner, Myron, ‘Rejected Peoples and Unwanted Migrants in South Asia’, Economic and Political Weekly, 28, no. 34 (1993), 1737–46. Ziring, Lawrence, Bangladesh from Mujib to Ershad: An Interpretive Study (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1992).

 

Poem: Asking Questions of the Moon

Martín Espada Some blind girls ask questions of the moon and spirals of weeping rise through the air. Federico García Lorca

As a boy, I stood guard in right field, lazily punching my glove, keeping watch over the ballgame and the moon as it rose from the infield, asking questions of the moon about the girl with long blonde hair in the back of my classroom, who sat with me when no one else would, who talked to me when no one else would, who laughed at my jokes when no one else would, until the day her friend sat beside us and whispered to her behind that long hair, and the girl asked me, as softly as she could: Are you a spic? And I, with a swarm of words in my head, could only think to say: Yes, I am. She never spoke to me again, and as I thought of her in the outfield the moon fell from the sky, tore through the webbing of my glove, and smacked me in the eye. Blinded, I wept, kicked the moon at my feet, and loudly blamed the webbing of my glove.

Narrative: Enclave dwellers and proxy citizens in Bangladesh and India

Md Azmeary Ferdoush Hakim Ali,1 an Indian enclave resident for the last 66 years, went to bed on the night of 31 July 2015 and woke up a Bangladeshi citizen the next morning when the borders changed. Nothing apparently changed in his life from the last night, apart from the border and, hence, his legal status. Hakim was born in one of the 162 enclaves that dotted the northern border of Bangladesh and India from 1947 to 2015. Enclaves are small pieces of land under the jurisdiction of one country completely surrounded by the territory of the other country (van Schendel, 2002). Although their roots on the Indian sub-continent can be traced back to the pre-colonial era, these small territorial oddities gained international status after Partition in 1947. Unable to agree on an exchange of the enclaves, Bangladesh and India effectively created a de facto stateless population without freedom of movement or access to basic public goods such as health, education, electricity, and legal protection. Yet some enclave residents, usually based on their religious identity, were treated as proxy citizens of the host country and enjoyed relative ease of mobility (van Schendel, 2002). They would frequently cross the border between the “home” and the “host” states to work, get married, and register land, among other activities. While not “mixed migrants” in the usual sense, enclave residents experienced similar patterns of ambiguous identity, uncertain legal status, and daily border crossings. They also resorted to similar tactics for survival, including strategic identity shifts (Shewly, 2016). Their experiences therefore offer a unique lens into the dynamics of mixed migration. Hakim’s story is illustrative. In the 1980s, he relied on his identity as an Indian enclave dweller to cross the border and work in brick kilns in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. He verified this identity with an enclave identity card. He spent the next 35 years working in Uttar Pradesh while raising his children inside Bangladesh and returning each rainy season when the brick kiln closed. He diversified his portfolio of identities in the mid-1990s, when India started tightening its border with Bangladesh to control cross-border movements, and both countries stopped allowing enclave residents to buy and sell their land. While continuing to rely on his enclave identity card to cross the border, he took on the identity of an Indian citizen at his workplace in the brick kiln, claiming to be from the district of Murshidabad in the state of West Bengal because he could speak their dialect. He also managed to get an Adhar card (a unique identification number provided by the state to Indian residents) that gave him access to a variety of state services in India. Meanwhile, Hakim’s sons managed to get Bangladeshi identity cards that allowed them to access numerous state services and assume the identity of regular Bangladeshi citizens when necessary. Hakim’s story is suggestive of thousands of former enclave residents in Bangladesh and India who negotiated their identities on a daily basis through innovative acts of survival. 190

Narrative: Enclave dwellers and proxy citizens in Bangladesh and India  191 But it also highlights two broader realities: (1) that national borders and legal categories are created by states and thus can be altered and even removed by states; and (2) that people on the move have agency – which they often exercise creatively – to navigate those borders and legal categories.

REFERENCES Shewly, Hosna J. 2016. “Survival Mobilities: Tactics, Legality and Mobility of Undocumented Borderland Citizens in India and Bangladesh”. Mobilities 11 (3): 464–84. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​ 17450101​.2015​.1119014. van Schendel, Willem. 2002. “Stateless in South Asia: The Making of the India-Bangladesh Enclaves”. The Journal of Asian Studies 61 (1): 115–47. https://​doi​.org/​10​.2307/​2700191.

PART IV CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIRONMENTAL MOBILITY

20. Climate change, population, environment and forced migration Jennifer Ventrella and Michael Cohen

Climate and environmental-related migration have been subject to research and advocacy for the last 20 years. But so far policy and action on the part of governments have been slow to materialize. In an increasingly unstable climate, forced migration linked to climate and environmental triggers is demonstrating the negative repercussions of human driven (anthropogenic) emissions, environmental neglect, and growth focused development. There is an emerging scientific consensus that both disaster-related displacement and mid to long-term migration from slow-onset events already result from climate and environmental-related impacts, and will continue to increase.1 However, because it is challenging to isolate climate or environmental impacts from other social, economic, and political factors that contribute to migration, they are often framed as threat multipliers. Regional variations occur across different geographies, with migration impacts expected to be particularly strong in South Asia, Africa, and Central and South America.2 This introductory chapter to Part IV on climate and environmental-related migration frames the context for the in-depth chapters that follow. We present definitions and projections of climate and environmental-related migration, and policy challenges resulting from the lack of robust and granular data. We explore alternative theoretical frameworks and interpretations of climate and environmental migration and present a brief agenda of policy and research issues.

CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL MIGRATION: DEFINITIONS AND PROJECTIONS Climate-related migration and environmental migration occur when people move as a result of disasters, the physical consequences of climate change, and environmental degradation. Climate change exacerbates both slow-onset and sudden-onset events. Sudden-onset events are extreme weather events such as cold snaps and heat waves, and tropical cyclones, hurricanes, and extreme precipitation, which lead to flooding. Slow-onset events include sea level rise, which causes or aggravates flooding, and drought, which reduces land productivity and The 2022 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report warns that increased climate extremes have resulted in irreversible impacts to human and natural systems that outpace our ability to adapt. IPCC, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, edited by H.-O. Pörtner et al., Cambridge University Press, 2022. International agreements, global compacts, and the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals recognize the role of climate change in fueling migration. Notably, the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration is described by IOM as “the first-ever negotiated global framework on migration” and makes commitments to support both migrants and States. 2 IPCC, Climate Change 2022, SPM-11. 1

193

194  Handbook on forced migration contributes to the severity of wildfires. Environmental problems are largely human-driven: a few examples are the destruction of rain forests for timber, plantations, and grazing land, which displaces indigenous people; urban development practices like deforestation that lead to landslides or plastic pollution that contributes to flooding by blocking drainage in urban areas; and uncontrolled urban sprawl, which destroys farmland and increases the urban heat island (UHI) effect. These kinds of environmental impacts affect whether people can remain on their land and in their homes, or whether they are forced to move. The resulting migration can be immediate (usually referred to as displacement) or it can occur over a period of time. It can be temporary or permanent, internal or international, household-based or collective. People might move relatively short distances to nearby safety, or try to migrate to farther cities or other countries. Climate-related migration thus results from different causes and has diverse impacts and outcomes across different scales of time and space. In 2021, the IPCC stated that the human production of greenhouse gases (GHGs) is a principal driver of climate change, and growing GHG emissions will continue to exacerbate climate change.3 These changes are projected to impact all regions of the world in different ways. A 2020 study found that, by 2070, extremely hot zones could cover close to 20 percent of the earth’s surface, compared to less than 1 percent now, with one-third of the global population experiencing these extreme temperatures if they do not migrate.4 Other recent projections indicate that by 2100, the number of wildfires could increase by 50 percent, and coastal flooding events that currently happen once every 100 years could happen annually.5 With the exception of relocation, displacement, or migration away from high-risk coastal areas, other adaptation measures like land use planning, land reclamation, and engineered or ecological interventions will also result and already result in property losses and damage to ecosystems.6 Extreme precipitation is projected to increase in regions with high latitudes, the equatorial Pacific and some monsoon regions, and decrease over the subtropics. Increases in extreme precipitation could in some regions be coupled with periods of intense drought, contributing to more extreme flooding. These worsening climatic conditions have surpassed historical natural atmospheric patterns and fluctuations.7 While the global forecast is dire, not everyone who is caught up in slow- or sudden-onset events necessarily migrates. Whether, where, and for how long people move depends on a range of socio-economic, cultural, and political factors that influence their decision and ability to move. The outcomes of climate and environmental-related changes are thus complex – migration can amplify existing vulnerabilities and have devastating social and cultural consequences but both adaptation to climate change and the very act of migrating can also enable people to build resilience.8 Largely missing from these dialogues and the extant

IPCC, Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds. V. Masson-Delmotte et al. (Cambridge University Press, 2021). 4 Chi Xu et al., “Future of the Human Climate Niche”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 21 (2020): 11350–55. 5 Sullivan et al., Spreading Like Wildfire – the Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires (Nairobi: UNEP, 2022). IPCC, Climate Change 2021. 6 IPCC, Climate Change 2022. 7 IPCC, Climate Change 2021. 8 François Gemenne and Julia Blocher, “How Can Migration Serve Adaptation to Climate Change? Challenges to Fleshing Out a Policy Ideal”. The Geographical Journal 183, no. 4 (2017): 336–47. 3

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration  195 research is robust, disaggregated data about who is moving, where, and why. This lack of data, which is matched by relative lack of interest on the part of most governments, inhibits comprehensive policy responses. It also stokes the framing of climate and environmental migration as a security threat and contributes to fear-mongering narratives concerning climate and environmental-migration and overpopulation. Lack of Comprehensive Data – and Too Much Modeling? Most existing projections about climate-related migration give us some idea of the potential magnitude but there is high model uncertainty and estimates tend to be wide-ranging. For example, the 2021 World Bank Groundswell Report predicts that up to 216 million people could migrate internally due to slow-onset climate events by 2050.9 However, the model does not consider the impact of sudden-onset events or cover most high-income regions, such as Europe and most of North America, which influences the estimate. The overreliance on highly uncertain models and projections means climate-induced migration tends to be framed either as a crisis or as insignificant in the broader scheme of forced migration. Global models and projections also fail to capture the experiential nuances of migration in different contexts.10 As Anne Hendrixson notes in her chapter, models seldom consider the effect of adaptation measures that mitigate the need to move. More granular and place-based data on who is moving, why they are moving, and where they are moving to is needed.11 Causal Links Despite the gaps and assumptions in current data, existing policy and research give us some understanding of the causal links between climate change, environmental degradation, and migration, and who is able to move in response. But there is vigorous debate about how migration results from climate change or environmental degradation combined with other causes.12 Extreme climate events can act as both direct and indirect drivers of involuntary migration and displacement. Climate change is often framed as a “threat multiplier” that accelerates the need to move by adding to existing social, economic, and political drivers of migration.

Viviane Clement et al., Groundswell Part 2. Additional projections estimate that in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and Latin America alone, between 31 to 72 million people for a lower GHG concentration scenario, or representative concentration pathway (RCP) and between 90 to 143 million people for a higher GHG concentration scenario would be displaced due to slow-onset climate impacts. 10 David Durand-Delacre et al., “Climate Migration Is about People, Not Numbers”, in Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis, eds. Steffen Böhm and Sian Sullivan (Open Book Publishers: Cambridge, 2021), 63. 11 The IPCC also points to the need for more detailed local and regional models and projections that include migrant destinations, noting the limitations in current estimates. IPCC, Climate Change 2022, 4–86. 12 Etienne Piguet, Raoul Kaenzig, and Jérémie Guélat, “The Uneven Geography of Research on ‘Environmental Migration’”, Population and Environment 39, no. 4 (2018): 357–83. The number of scientific publications and case studies on climate change and migration increased exponentially from 1970 to 2011, before declining slightly through 2016. In the annual IOM World Migration reports, the number of times the term “climate change” was mentioned per page increased by five times between 2015 and 2017 and by over 15 times between 2015 and 2020, indicating the subject’s rising prevalence in migration discourse at least by international institutions. 9

196  Handbook on forced migration Understanding the causes is important because policy responses to migrants are heavily conditioned by whether their migration is understood to be provoked by climate change or other factors. National and local debates about causality reflect the political, economic, and cultural contexts of individual countries and localities, as well as different theoretical and analytic approaches. Understanding causal links contributes to recognition about who should be held responsible for climate- and environmental-related migration. Often framed as “natural disasters”, a closer examination suggests that the disaster aspect has been at least partially exacerbated by human behavior. First, people continue to build and expand infrastructure into areas at high risk of climate-related hazards such as wildfires, coastal flooding, and tropical storms. Infrastructure in these high-risk areas is often poorly built or poorly maintained, and the inhabitants may have existing social vulnerabilities, adding to further precarity and damage in the wake of an extreme climate event.13 Thus, unsustainable development practices have exacerbated human and ecosystem vulnerability and exposure to climate hazards.14 A second factor is that the production of GHG emissions and related extractive industrial processes, such as mining and fracking, contribute to environmental degradation that further imperils habitats and aggravates the severity and frequency of climatic events. In her chapter on “mobility justice”, Mimi Sheller reminds us of the influence of global and national economic histories, exploitation of both peoples and natural resources, and forms of inequality and injustice which have resulted from the excessive consumption patterns particularly in the United States and Europe. Inequalities contribute to varied production of GHGs along racial and socioeconomic lines. Sheller’s aim is to “shift the discursive framing of climate migration as part of a panic around the breaching of borders eliciting emergency responses, and instead see diverse human mobilities, climate mobilities, citizenship regimes, and territorial formations in their complex historical relationality”. This broader framing views climate change and environmental degradation and the diverse forms of migration they have provoked as the results of longstanding historical forces and the destabilizing consequences which they generate. Who Moves? Within and across most regions of the world, climate and environmental impact varies, depending on ecologies and habitats. But given these regional and urban variations, who moves? Some groups are at higher risk because of vulnerabilities related to income, race and ethnicity, climate-sensitive livelihoods, and historical and ongoing patterns of inequity and governance practices. For example, susceptibility to illness from extreme heat events is related to age, race and ethnicity, and prevalence of pre-existing respiratory illness.15 In less urbanized areas, vulnerability from reduced habitability and reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods 13 Neil Smith, “There’s No Such Thing as a Natural Disaster”, Social Science Research Council (2011), retrieved from https://​items​.ssrc​.org/​understanding​-katrina/​theres​-no​-such​-thing​-as​-a​-natural​ -disaster/​. See also Marina Lazetic and Karen Jacobsen, “Climate Change, Social Justice, and Dislocation in the United States: Recommendations for Policy Makers”, Climate Policy Lab Reports, April 2022, Tufts University. 14 IPCC, Climate Change 2022, SPM-11. 15 S.G. Nayak et al., “Development of a Heat Vulnerability Index for New York State”, Public Health, 161 (2018).

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration  197 is likely to increase out-migration.16 However, people are often unwilling or unable to move, especially if they do not have access to resources or political support. Lower-income households faced with climate impacts are not more likely to move compared with higher-income households.17 On the contrary, a study of migration from hurricanes and floods in the United States found that high-income households were more likely to out-migrate than lower-income households.18 To comprehend climate-related migration, we need a multi-dimensional analytical framework that considers the interactions between climate vulnerabilities, socioeconomic status, geographies, and politics at multiple scales. Regional Trends People have always moved due to changes in climate, but climate implications have become more severe as human infrastructure and social systems have built up over time. In the 1970s, the Sahel region of West Africa began to experience rapid desertification (the spread of the desert as a consequence of drought and extreme heat). The resulting loss of agricultural harvests contributed to the deaths of over 100 000 people and led to large-scale migration within West Africa as a result of food scarcity and loss of livelihoods dependent on subsistence agriculture.19 Today, as much as 65 percent of farmable land across the African continent is degraded,20 and migrants from rural areas continue to move to urban areas in search of economic opportunities.21 However, in fleeing from these conditions, migrants often find themselves facing a new set of risks. Coastal areas of Africa face flooding, worsened by rising sea levels, but inland cities, especially Africa’s capitals, face flood risk too.22 Migrants and lower-income households often live in precarious, flood-prone areas without access to safe and secure land and housing.23 For example, in Tanzania’s capital, Dar es Salaam, new construction and urban growth add to the amount of hard, impermeable surfaces and prevent water from being absorbed into the ground. This, coupled with the city’s proximity to the Msimbazi River and the Indian Ocean amplifies the impacts of riverine and coastal flooding. In 2019, an estimated 39 percent of the city’s population was affected by floods.24

IPCC, Climate Change 2022, SPM-12. David J. Kaczan and Jennifer Orgill-Meyer, “The Impact of Climate Change on Migration: A Synthesis of Recent Empirical Insight”, Climatic Change 158, no. 3 (2020): 281–300. 18 Tamara L. Sheldon and Crystal Zhan, “The Impact of Hurricanes and Floods on Domestic Migration”, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 115 (2022): 102726. 19 Migration occurred especially to Dakar and the Cap Vert Region in Senegal, to Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and to Bamako and secondary towns such as Mopti or Gao in Mali. Michael Cohen, Urban Growth and Economic Development in the Sahel (Washington: World Bank Staff Working Paper #315, 1979). 20 UNEP, Global Environment Outlook (Nairobi, Kenya: 1999). 21 Abrahm Lustgarten, “The Great Climate Migration Has Begun”, New York Times, 23 July 2020. 22 Aly Mbaye, Working Paper, 2021. 23 N. Jean-Baptiste et al., “Housing and Informal Settlements”, in Climate Change and Cities: Second Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network, eds C. Rosenzweig, W. Solecki, P. Romero-Lankao, S. Mehrotra, S. Dhakal, and S. Ali Ibrahim (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 399–440. 24 World Bank, Tanzania Urban Resilience Program 2019 Annual Report (2019). 16 17

198  Handbook on forced migration Out of some 30.7 million people globally displaced by sudden-onset disaster in 2020, almost a third, 9.2 million, were in South Asia, and 12.1 million were in East Asia and the Pacific.25 These estimates do not include movements related to slow-onset events. Projections indicate that South Asia will be one of the regions hardest hit by storms, sea level rise, flooding, and extreme heat, with Bangladesh representing about half of all climate-related migrants in South Asia by 2050.26 Many Asian cities are already particularly vulnerable to flooding because they are located on rivers or the coast. One study found that in cities like Tokyo, Dhaka, Yangon, and Bangkok the inundation areas are only around the boundaries of the cities, where the slums are located.27 But again, not all such movement is caused by climate-related phenomena – environmental degradation from hydroelectric dams also adds to displacement numbers. The construction and operation of hydroelectric dams is estimated to have displaced 40–80 million people globally, close to half of whom are in China.28 In Central America, drought, flooding, and hurricanes cripple livelihoods and accelerate the need to move. Cycles between hot/cold and dry/wet, also referred to as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSCO), are naturally occurring and historic to the region, but the frequency and intensity of El Niño events have increased.29 These events result in desertification and flooding that damage crop yields and force farmers to relocate to more urbanized areas or migrate to Mexico and the United States. In Guatemala, food insecurity now affects one third of the population. A survey in two regions in Guatemala found that 15 percent of households had at least one family member who had migrated or tried to migrate in the last five years, and 26 percent cited climate change and natural disasters as one reason for leaving.30 In El Salvador, a coffee blight in 2012 reduced crop yield by 70 percent and was followed by drought and storms, further suppressing people’s ability to survive and showing the compounding effects of climate change and its intensified pressure on decisions around mobility.31 In the United States, from the west coast to the east, bands of warmer weather are coupled with increases in the intensity, frequency, and duration of extreme precipitation and other extreme weather events. In Alaska, the warming climate has altered the landscape, melting previously frozen rivers and shifting caribou herd and hunter patterns.32 In Alaska and across 25 IDMC, Global Report on Internal Displacement 2021 (Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and Norwegian Refugee Council, 2021). 26 Kanta Kumari Rigaud et al., Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development / The World Bank: Washington DC, 2018). 27 Y. Adikari, R. Osti, and T. Noro, Flood‐related Disaster Vulnerability: An Impending Crisis of Megacities in Asia, Journal of Flood Risk Management 3, no. 3 (2010): 185–91. 28 World Commission on Dams, Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-making (Earthscan Publications: London, 2000). 29 Catherine M. Tucker, Hallie Eakin, and Edwin J. Castellanos, “Perceptions of Risk and Adaptation: Coffee Producers, Market Shocks, and Extreme Weather in Central America and Mexico”, Global Environmental Change 20, no. 1 (2010): 23–32, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.gloenvcha​.2009​.07​ .006. 30 Gail Hochachka, “Integrating the Four Faces of Climate Change Adaptation: Towards Transformative Change in Guatemalan Coffee Communities”, World Development 140 (2021); Organización Internacional para las Migraciones, Encuesta de Medios de Vida a Hogares Desplazados por Tormentas en Alta Verapaz y Huehuetenango (DTM Tormentas: Guatemala, 2021). 31 Lustgarten, “The Great Climate Migration Has Begun”. 32 Richard Adams Carey, “’A Thousand Trails Home’ Review: Caribou Culture”, The Wall Street Journal, 1 October 2021, https://​www​.wsj​.com/​articles/​a​-thousand​-trails​-home​-review​-alaska​-caribou​ -culture​-11633095367.

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration  199 the continental US, indigenous populations made up the majority of US communities at the “cusp” of relocation as recently as 2017.33 But US Government efforts to relocate people from heavily affected areas have had mixed results and can sometimes lead to more problems. One example of the challenges of relocation in the US is Staten Island, New York. Following the damage from Hurricane Sandy in 2012, a group of Staten Island residents made the difficult decision to let the government buy them out and relocate further inland. Federal funding from the Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) required that the previously occupied land be rehabilitated back to wetlands. A survey of people who relocated from their original homes in Staten Island found that they were less likely to report increased stress compared to people who rebuilt in place.34 If this buyout is any indication of future policy responses to flooding, available space to live may be further compressed, adding pressure to reorganize inland spaces to accommodate more people. This Part of the Handbook includes two regional case studies which demonstrate the strength of local factors in determining whether migrants leave their homelands and how they are received. In their chapter on climate-related mobility in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), Maiara Folly and Adriana Abdenur discuss how drought reduces the availability of water. In rural areas of LAC, women and children are often responsible for collecting resources like water and firewood, placing them under additional strain and contributing to household decisions to migrate. Policies shape the ways LAC countries respond to and prepare for climatic events. Mexico and Guyana have provisions to avoid building in hazardous areas – but whether these provisions hold in the face of development is yet to be seen. In their chapter on Bengaluru and Kerala, India, Kavya Michael and Juhi Bansal focus on the aftermath of forced migration, showing how people migrate away from rural climate and environmental hazards, only to move towards urban ones. In Bengaluru and Kerala, caste and religion influenced how people were received, and further marginalized migrants. Michael and Bansal argue that policymaking must factor in the host community’s responses to those who move. Regional geographies produce their own particular socio-economic consequences as a result of climate-related migration, depending on pre-existing socio-economic and physical conditions.

POLICY RESPONSES Climate-related migration is sometimes mentioned in policy statements by city governments and (less so) by national governments, but countries rarely have a unified policy or strategic framework. This absence means there is little policy attention in the form of laws or regulations paid to environmental practices that diminish the resource capacity of land and create or aggravate the likelihood of migration. Practices like deforestation and agricultural cultivation patterns that worsen soil erosion increase the pressures on and risks to local ecologies. After

33 Maxine Burkett, Jainey Bavishi, and Erin Shew, “Climate Displacement, Migration, and Relocation—And the United States”, Climate Law 7, no. 4 (2017): 227–31. 34 Liz Koslov et al., “When Rebuilding No Longer Means Recovery: The Stress of Staying Put After Hurricane Sandy”, Climatic Change 165 (2021): 59.

200  Handbook on forced migration they pass tipping points, local populations may have no other alternative than migration.35 There is variation by country, but few countries’ governments have adequately prepared for such climate events as coastal and inland flooding, drought, and extreme heat. Climate and environmental-related migration occur both within and between countries, and governments at all levels (local, urban, national, international) need to anticipate these migratory flows and design responses accordingly. Unlike migration resulting from civil or armed conflicts, which may be resolved by military outcomes or a negotiated settlement, it is impossible to negotiate with the climate. Identifying climate-related migration as “forced” can potentially help to provide a legal basis to determine who might be eligible for humanitarian assistance. National and local authorities should anticipate the displacement that occurs from so-called “natural disasters” – and include it in their preparedness planning. Policies for climate and environmental-related migration should be configured so that they can be refined and improved over time, informed by new improvements or additions to the data. In the absence of global mechanisms or frameworks, much action can be taken at the regional level. These considerations are explored in greater depth in our interviews with experts involved in both policy and academic initiatives. International Organizations and Climate-Related Migration A growing number of international organizations have joined the debate on climate change and migration. The World Bank produced two Groundswell Reports that project future impacts of slow-onset climate events on migration, as well as regional reports on Africa.36 It also created the Knowledge Platform on Migration and Displacement (KNOMAD), which hosts working papers and policy briefs on environmental and climate migration. The United Nations analyzes climate and environmental migration across many of its agencies, including the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Most Asian countries have not signed UNHCR’s 1951 Refugee Convention and most of Asia’s climate-induced displacement issues are addressed through regional organizations, not specific countries.37 The IOM annual World Migration Reports include sections dedicated to impacts of climate change and the environment on human mobility, and the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regulation Migration (GCM) in 2018 includes considerations for climate change and migration. In 2010, the UNFCCC created the Cancun Adaptation Framework,38 which formally recognized migration as a form of adaptation and the 2013 Conference of Parties (COP) 19 established the Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damage related to

Observatory on Latin America and Latin Development Bank (CAF), Facing Risk: Urban Resilience Practices in Latin American Cities (New York and Caracas: The New School and Latin Development Bank (CAF), 2018). 36 Viviane Clement et al., Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration (World Bank: Washington DC, 2021); Kanta Kumari Rigaud et al., Groundswell Africa: Internal Climate Migration in the Lake Victoria Basin Countries (Washington DC: World Bank, 2021). 37 T. Alexander Aleinikoff, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 3 February 2022. 38 UNFCCC, “Cancun Agreements”, accessed 6 March 2022. 35

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration  201 slow- and sudden-onset climate events.39 In 2017, UNHCR published a toolbox on planning relocations from disasters and environmental change.40 In 2021, OHCHR published a report on human rights in the context of climate change and migration in the Sahel.41 In early 2022, the IOM in partnership with UN Development Program (UNDP) and UN Environment Program (UNEP) published a Toolkit on Integrating Migration into Environment and Climate Change Interventions developed as part of the EU-funded Mainstreaming Migration into International Cooperation and Development (MMICD) project.42 At the urban level, there has been growing interest and focus on the part of city governments, some of whom have joined or formed consortia. The Mayor’s Migration Council and C40 Cities Initiative have co-authored reports on the role of cities at the climate–migration nexus and the Global Mayors Action Agenda on Climate and Migration.43 Generally, UN agencies have not ascribed blame or responsibility to a specific party for a climate-change related event, or for migration.44 One exception is the 2020 United Nations Human Rights Committee ruling that displaced persons cannot be sent back to their home countries where their right to life is violated because of sudden or slow-onset climate events.45 While Kiribati resident Ioane Teitiota’s case was ultimately rejected, the 2020 ruling sets a precedent for future climate-related cases. However, there is little case precedent on the impacts of climatic events on displacement and human rights. Legal frameworks do not pay attention to those who have historically faced disproportionate impacts due to climate change and environmental degradation. This lack of accountability and recognition means migrants are unable to seek adequate assistance or reparations. Country- and Local-Level Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction To varying degrees, some countries and local governments have undertaken adaptation measures that seek to alleviate vulnerability by adjusting to current or long-term climate hazards.46 Disaster risk reduction (DRR) refers to preventive measures for a broad range of hazards, including non-climate change related disasters like earthquakes or landslides.47 Both types of

UNFCCC, “Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damages Associated with Climate Change Impacts”, accessed 6 March 2022. 40 UNHCR, A Toolbox: Planning Relocation to Protect People from Disasters and Environmental Climate Change, 2017. 41 OHCHR, Human Rights: Climate Change and Migration in the Sahel (United Nations, 2021). 42 Katy Barwise et al., Integrating Migration into Environment and Climate Change Interventions (Brussels: IOM, 2021). 43 William Roderick et al., Cities, Climate and Migration: The Role of Cities at the Climate-migration Nexus (C40 Cities and Mayors Migration Council, 2021), C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Mayors Migration Council, Global Mayors Action Agenda on Climate and Migration, 2021. 44 Shweta Jayawardhan, “Vulnerability and Climate Change Induced Human Displacement”, Consilience 17, 2017: 103–42. 45 OHCHR, “Historic UN Human Rights Case Opens Door to Climate Change Asylum Claims”. 46 IPCC, AR5 Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer (Geneva: IPCC, 2014). 47 UNDRR, “Disaster Risk Reduction”, accessed 6 March 2022, https://​www​.undrr​.org/​terminology/​ disaster​-risk​-reduction. These efforts can be piecemeal, and the 2015 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction was a step toward institutionalizing DRR measures. 39

202  Handbook on forced migration measures include a mix of social, environmental, and infrastructural strategies, often at the neighborhood scale. Adaptive capacity can mitigate the negative impacts of climate-related displacement.48 However, worsening climatic and environmental conditions demand policies that support people who need to move. For example, movement away from flooded coastal areas is enabled by policies that facilitate buyout and mobility programs. At the same time, some scholars point to “colonial power dynamics” which frame migration as an adaptation measure, as in certain circumstances when locals wish to stay on their land but are pushed by external funders to migrate instead.49 The cost of inaction far exceeds the cost of adaptive measures. According to the Global Commission on Adaptation, the benefits of adaptation strategies such as improving new infrastructure and water resource management range from 2 to 10 times greater than the cost of these measures.50 However, as Aly Mbaye, Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal argues, the global political agenda on climate change, such as that articulated via the Conference of Parties (COP), emphasizes actions designed to curb global emissions, rather than building localized adaptive capacities.51 This inattention to the consequences of already emitted GHGs suggests the need for a multi-pronged approach that reduces emissions while also taking localized adaptation measures. The work of international institutions and local and national governments sometimes overlaps, but for the most part they each approach the problem of climate-related migration from different vantage points and priorities. As a result, global signals and understandings of these dynamics are not consistent or coherent.52 Considering the lack of clarity around institutional responsibility, coupled with the challenges of collecting data in data-scarce regions, it is not surprising that there has been little investment in improving data quality. Gaps in knowledge about who moves, where, why, and for how long mean international agencies seldom take a strong policy stance.53 Historically, receiving countries have tried to evade responsibility for incoming migrants, resulting in a lack of willingness to adopt any binding instrument at a global scale.54 Regional particularities of movements and needed responses add to the complexity of creating a shared strategic and policy framework. This is well illustrated in the case of various sub-regions within Africa.55

IPCC, Climate Change 2022, SPM-26. Autumn S. Bordner, Caroline E. Ferguson, and Leonard Ortolano, “Colonial Dynamics Limit Climate Adaptation in Oceania: Perspectives from the Marshall Islands”, Global Environmental Change 61, (2020): 102054, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.gloenvcha​.2020​.102054. 50 Global Commission on Adaptation, Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience, https://​gca​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2019/​09/​GlobalCommission​_Report​_FINAL​.pdf. 51 Aly Mbaye, Working Paper, 2021. 52 T. Alexander Aleinikoff, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 3 February 2022. 53 Timon McPhearson, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 11 February 2022. 54 Journal of International Affairs, “International Responses to Climate-Related Migration, Interview with Walter Kaelin”, Climate Disruption 73, no. 1 (Fall 2019/Winter 2020): 255–60. 55 Robert Muthami, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 8 February 2022; and Achilles Kallergis, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 8 February 2022. 48 49

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration  203

FRAMING CLIMATE-RELATED MIGRATION AND POPULATION GROWTH The inaccurate and misleading term “climate refugees” has been appropriated into security discourses that talk about refugees and climate migrants as “flooding our shores”. Narratives about the threat of overpopulation further fuel these fears. In her chapter, Anne Hendrixson explores these arguments through a discussion of populationism, which refers to the attribution of social and ecological ills to population size. Different dimensions of populationist ideology include prescribing an “optimal” population size and demographic make-up, promoting reproduction for some populations and not for others, and using binaries to create borders (such as South to North migration). Hendrixson challenges the concepts of the youth bulge, deficit, and dividend as they relate to the “lifeboat” discourse. The youth bulge theory correlates large youth populations with increased political unrest and violence. Related eco-fascist narratives assert that population growth, poverty, and the arrival of “outsiders” lead to environmental degradation and resource scarcity but that this potential “demographic bomb” can be “diffused” if youth are employed and can then act as economic dividends. The idea is that these “demographic time bombs” are “ready to explode” in the sense that there are not enough people of working age to support a large older population.56 These framings and language contribute to a dangerous and exclusionary “lifeboat” discourse, originating in the famous essay by ecologist Garret Hardin, who contended that given a finite “lifeboat”, or limited planetary resources, there would not be enough room for everyone. This lifeboat discourse has become conflated with the youth bulge and deficit theories. As Hendrixson states, “the lifeboat discourse naturalizes a binary production of space and race, with an aging, white North and youthful, Black and Brown South. It sees youth, and in particular large populations of young men, as the ‘spectre’ of migration, overflowing into the North.” One danger of lifeboat discourse is that it perpetuates the myth that reducing birth rates in the global South will address environmental and political challenges. These same racial binaries and spatial border-drawing are repeated at different urban scales. In the US, some cities enacted redlining policies that segregated Black and Brown neighborhoods and disproportionately relegated them to sacrifice zones of industrial waste and pollution.57 A classic example is the case of Gordon Plaza in New Orleans, a housing development that was built for New Orleans’ emerging Black middle class in the late 1970s and was billed as an opportunity to buy into the American dream. But residents discovered that federal funders, city planners, and developers had built their community on toxic land. For decades New Orleans had used the area, called Agriculture Street Landfill, as a dumping ground for the city’s waste, including debris from Hurricane Betsy in 1965.58 Hendrixson argues that theories of population control ignore the poor governance that contributes to societal and environmental challenges. Building on this argument, Mimi Sheller

Joe McDonald, “China’s Births Fall in 2021, As Workforce Shrinks”, AP News, 17 January 2022; Michael Nienaber, “Germany Wants to Attract 400,000 Skilled Workers from Abroad Each Year”, Reuters. 57 Paul Mohai, David Pellow, and J. Timmons Roberts, “Environmental Justice”, Annual Review of Environment and Resources 34, (2009): 405–30. See also Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (Liveright, 2017). 58 NPR, “Gordon Plaza Residents Fight for Relocation from Toxic Land”, 12 April 2022. 56

204  Handbook on forced migration discusses how when government officials, academics, or the media frame climate-related migration as an over-population problem and security threat, they ignore the fact that GHG emissions that contribute to climate change are produced primarily by wealthy individuals, large corporations and industries, and militaries in higher income countries.59 Instead of stigmatizing lower-income regions with high populations, wealthy or high-emitting countries have a moral obligation to compensate those displaced by climate impacts. Populationist narratives feed into ethno-national and racist arguments about white populations being “replaced” by People of Color. Such narratives drive attacks on refugees and migrants by dehumanizing them. Sheller argues that such frames contribute to exclusionary border policies, detention, and deportation, which are widespread in many countries. The draconian response to people moving from the impacts of climate change can lead to what some call “climate apartheid”, that is, locking migrants out of viable habitats, and penning them in high-risk places that will be increasingly less habitable.60 Sheller describes how the security state apparatus in the US and the EU has begun to focus on climate-related migration as a major threat and has prepared future scenarios to respond to it.61 The US Government first formally acknowledged the link between climate change and migration in the 2021 White House Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration. It focused on international climate change-related migration, while recognizing that “domestic climate-change related displacement is also a current and future security risk …”. The report envisioned “large” migration flows as a potential source of political instability that may be further inflamed by “anti-immigration political actors”.62 It remains to be seen how recent shifts in political leadership and framing of climate-related migration will shape migration policy. In the United States, for example, the Biden administration reinstated a Trump-era anti-immigration policy to limit the number of people crossing from Mexico into the US, and around the same time released the 2021 White House migration report which recommends establishing a standing interagency policy process on climate change and migration to respond to climate change, support migrants and host communities, and support adaptation measures. Which framing of migrants and migration prevails will become important as climate and environmental impacts worsen and contribute to increasing displacement.

59 In their book Too Many People?, Angus and Butler (2011) challenge the notion that overpopulation is a threat. They argue that the perception of resource scarcity is related much more closely to the inequitable distribution of resources and the larger forces of the “throwaway” economy, or the intentional design of products for one-time use, and less to population size or growth. Here, the throwaway economy is viewed as essential to continuing global capital accumulation that is protected and expanded through populationist discourse. 60 Jennifer L. Rice, Joshua Long, and Anthony Levenda, “Against Climate Apartheid: Confronting the Persistent Legacies of Expendability for Climate Justice”, Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space (2021). 61 Jef Huysmans, The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU (Routledge, 2006); White House, Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration (October 2021). 62 White House, Report, 8.

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration  205

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adikari, Y., R. Osti, and T. Noro (2010). “Flood‐related Disaster Vulnerability: An Impending Crisis of Megacities in Asia”. Journal of Flood Risk Management 3, no. 3 (2018): 185–91. Aleinikoff, T. Alexander, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 3 February 2022. Angus, Ian, and Simon Butler. Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis. Haymarket Books, 2011. Barwise, K., A. Talkers and E. Linklater. Integrating Migration into Environment and Climate Change Interventions. IOM, UNDP, and UNEP: Brussels, 2021. Bordner, A., C. Ferguson and L. Ortolano. “Colonial Dynamics Limit Climate Adaptation in Oceania: Perspectives from the Marshall Islands”. Global Environmental Change 61 (2020): 102054. Burkett, M., J. Bavishi and E. Shew. “Climate Displacement, Migration, and Relocation – And the United States”. Climate Law 7, no. 4 (2017): 227–31. Carey, Richard Adams. “‘A Thousand Trails Home’ Review: Caribou Culture”. The Wall Street Journal, 1 October, 2021. Clement, V., K.K. Rigaud, A. de Sherbinin, B. Jones, S. Adamo, J. Schewe, N. Sadiq et al. Groundswell Part 2: Acting on Internal Climate Migration. World Bank: Washington DC, 2021. Cohen, Michael. Urban Growth and Economic Development in the Sahel. Washington: World Bank Staff Working Paper #315, 1979. Durand-Delacre, D., G. Bettini, S.L. Nash, H. Sterly, G. Gioli, E. Hut, I. Boas et al. “Climate Migration is about People, Not Numbers”. In Negotiating Climate Change in Crisis, eds Steffen Böhm and Sian Sullivan, 63. Open Book Publishers: Cambridge, 2021. Gemenne, François, and Julie Blocher. “How Can Migration Serve Adaptation to Climate Change? Challenges to Fleshing Out a Policy Ideal”. The Geographical Journal 183, no. 4 (2017): 336–47. Global Commission on Adaptation, Adapt Now: A Global Call for Leadership on Climate Resilience. World Resources Institute, 2019. Hochachka, Gail. “Integrating the Four Faces of Climate Change Adaptation: Towards Transformative Change in Guatemalan Coffee Communities”. World Development 140 (2021). Huysmans, J. The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU. Routledge, 2006. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). AR5 Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by R.K. Pachauri and L.A. Meyer. IPCC: Geneva, 2014. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Working Group II Contribution to the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report, edited by H.-O. Pörtner et al., Cambridge University Press, 2022. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, edited by V. Masson-Delmotte, et al. Cambridge University Press, 2021. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). Global Report on Internal Displacement 2021. Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and Norwegian Refugee Council, 2021. Jayawardhan, Shweta. “Vulnerability and Climate Change Induced Human Displacement”. Consilience 17 (2017): 103–42. Jean-Baptiste, N., V. Olivotto, E. Porio, W. Kombe, A. Yulo-Loyzaga, E. Gencer, M. Leone et al. “Housing and Informal Settlements”. In Climate Change and Cities: Second Assessment Report of the Urban Climate Change Research Network, edited by C. Rosenzweig et al., New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Journal of International Affairs. “International Responses to Climate-Related Migration, Interview with Walter Kaelin”. Climate Disruption 73, no. 1 (Fall 2019/Winter 2020): 255–60. Kaczan, David J. and Jennifer Orgill-Meyer. “The Impact of Climate Change on Migration: A Synthesis of Recent Empirical Insight”. Climatic Change 158, no. 3 (2020): 281–300. Kallergis, Achilles, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 8 February 2022.

206  Handbook on forced migration Koslov, L., A. Merdjanoff, E. Sulakshana and E. Klineberg. “When Rebuilding no Longer Means Recovery: The Stress of Staying Put after Hurricane Sandy”. Climatic Change 165 (2021): 59. Lazetic, Marina and Karen Jacobsen. Climate Change, Social Justice, and Dislocation in the United States: Recommendations for Policy Makers. Climate Policy Lab Reports, Tufts University, April 2022. Lustgarten, Abrahm. “The Great Climate Migration Has Begun.” The New York Times, July 23, 2020. McDonald, Joe. “China’s Births Fall in 2021, As Workforce Shrinks”. AP News, 17 January 2022. McPhearson, Timon, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 11 February 2022. Mohai, P., D. Pellow and J. Timmons Roberts. “Environmental Justice”. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 34 (2009): 405–30. Muthami, Robert, interview by Michael Cohen and Jennifer Ventrella, personal interview, video, 8 February 2022. National Public Radio (NPR). “Gordon Plaza Residents Fight for Relocation from Toxic Land”. 12 April 2022. Nayak, S., S. Shrestha, P. Kinney, Z. Ross, S. Sheridan, C. Pantea, W. Hsu et al. “Development of a Heat Vulnerability Index for New York State”. Public Health 161 (2018): 127–37. Nienaber, Michael. “Germany Wants to Attract 400,000 Skilled Workers from Abroad Each Year”. Reuters. Observatory on Latin America and Latin Development Bank (CAF). Facing Risk: Urban Resilience Practices in Latin American Cities. New York, USA and Caracas, Venezuela: The New School and Latin Development Bank (CAF), 2018. Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). Human Rights: Climate Change and Migration in the Sahel. United Nations, 2021. Office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). “Historic UN Human Rights Case Opens Door to Climate Change Asylum Claims”. 21 January 2020. Organización Internacional para las Migraciones. Encuesta de Medios de Vida a Hogares Desplazados por Tormentas en Alta Verapaz y Huehuetenango. DTM Tormentas: Guatemala, 2021. Piguet, E., R. Kaenzig and J. Guélat. “The Uneven Geography of Research on ‘Environmental Migration’”. Population and Environment 39, no. 4 (2018): 357–83. Rice, J., J. Long and A. Levenda. “Against Climate Apartheid: Confronting the Persistent Legacies of Expendability for Climate Justice”. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 5, no. 2 (2022): 625–45. Rigaud, K.K., A. de Sherbinin, B. Jones, J. Bergmann, V. Clement, K. Ober, J. Schewe et al. Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration. World Bank: Washington DC, 2018. Rigaud, K.K., A. de Sherbinin, B. Jones, S. Adamo, D. Maleki, N. Abu-Ata, A. Casals Fernandez et al. Groundswell Africa: Internal Climate Migration in the Lake Victoria Basin Countries. World Bank: Washington DC, 2021. Roderick, W., S. Garg, L.M. Morel, K. Brick and M. Powers. Cities, Climate and Migration: The Role of Cities at the Climate–Migration Nexus. C40 Cities and Mayors Migration Council, 2021. Rothstein, Richard. The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Liveright, 2017. Sheldon, Tamara L. and Crystal Zhan. “The Impact of Hurricanes and Floods on Domestic Migration”. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 115 (2022): 102726. Smith, Neil, “There’s no such thing as a natural disaster”, Social Science Research Council (2011), accessed at: https://​items​.ssrc​.org/​understanding​-katrina/​theres​-no​-such​-thing​-as​-a​-natural​-disaster/​. Sullivan, A., E. Baker and T. Kurvits. Spreading Like Wildfire – the Rising Threat of Extraordinary Landscape Fires. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), 2022. Tucker, C.M., H. Eakin and E.J. Castellanos. “Perceptions of Risk and Adaptation: Coffee Producers, Market Shocks, and Extreme Weather in Central America and Mexico”. Global Environmental Change 20, no. 1 (2010): 23–32. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Global Environment Outlook. Nairobi, Kenya: 1999. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “Cancun Agreements”. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). “Warsaw International Mechanism for Loss and Damages Associated with Climate Change Impacts”.

Climate change, population, environment and forced migration  207 United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR). A Toolbox: Planning Relocation to Protect People from Disasters and Environmental Climate Change. 2017. United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction. “Disaster Risk Reduction”. Accessed 6 March 2022. White House. Report on the Impact of Climate Change on Migration. October 2021. World Bank. Tanzania Urban Resilience Program 2019 Annual Report. 2019. World Commission on Dams. Dams and Development: A New Framework for Decision-making. Earthscan London: Publications, 2000. Xu, Chu, Timothy A. Kohler, Timothy M. Lenton, Jens-Christian Svenning and Marten Scheffer. “Future of the Human Climate Niche”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 21 (2020): 11350–55.

21. Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India Kavya Michael and Juhi Bansal

Over the past two decades, India has witnessed new forms of temporary internal migration – also termed “footloose migration”.1 Climatic uncertainty and increasing disaster risks coupled with exclusionary development patterns are resulting in distinctive patterns of human migration from rural hinterlands to urban spaces.2 In addition to the traditional movement for economic opportunities, new forms of migration caused by environmental stress, disasters and climatic changes have emerged.3

DRIVERS OF MIGRATION PATTERNS IN INDIA India’s 2011 census indicates that there were more than 450 million internal migrants in India, an increase of 45 per cent over the 2001 census. Of these, 12 per cent or 54 million Indians were inter-state migrants. Despite stagnant real incomes and rising unemployment in urban areas, there is increased migration to Indian cities. These migrants include rural workers and small farmers – an indication of the agrarian distress and lack of viable livelihood options in rural areas.4 The 2016 India Exclusion Report highlights that almost half the number of casual laborers outside the agricultural sector (around 35–40 million) are seasonal migrants to urban areas.5 Internal migration in India is being accelerated by climate and non-climate-related factors. Agrarian and employment crises have been exacerbated by COVID-19, and increasing

J. Breman, Footloose Labour: Working in India’s Informal Economy, 1996. Chandni Singh and Ritwika Basu, “Moving in and out of Vulnerability: Interrogating Migration as an Adaptation Strategy along a Rural–Urban Continuum in India”, The Geographical Journal 186, no. 1 (25 March 2020): 87–102; Eric Chu and Kavya Michael, “Recognition in Urban Climate Justice: Marginality and Exclusion of Migrants in Indian Cities”, Environment and Urbanization 31, no. 1 (10 April 2019): 139–56. 3 Cecilia Tacoli, “Crisis or Adaptation? Migration and Climate Change in a Context of High Mobility”, Environment and Urbanization, 2009, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​0956247809342182; Etienne Piguet, Raoul Kaenzig and Jérémie Guélat, “The Uneven Geography of Research on ‘Environmental Migration’”, Population and Environment 39, no. 4 (1 June 2018): 357–83, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1007/​ s11111​-018​-0296​-4; Ois Gemenne and Julia Blocher, “How Can Migration Serve Adaptation to Climate Change? Challenges to Fleshing out a Policy Ideal”, Wiley Online Library 183, no. 4 (1 December 2017): 336–47. 4 K. Michael, T. Deshpande and G. Ziervogel, “Examining Vulnerability in a Dynamic Urban Setting: The Case of Bangalore’s Interstate Migrant Waste Pickers”, Climate and Development 11, no. 8 (2019). 5 H. Mander, “Public Goods, Exclusion and 25 Years of Economic Reforms: A Blotted Balance Sheet”, in India Exclusion Report 2016 (New Delhi, 2016). 1 2

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Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India  209 drought frequency, changing temperature and rainfall patterns, and a rising number of extreme climatic events.6 While large landholders with strong asset bases are able to resist climate change induced stresses, small and marginal farmers as well as landless agricultural workers are forced to migrate.7 The agrarian livelihood crisis has been coupled with decreasing state support for agriculture and the declining wage employment in agriculture has not been accompanied by increased non-agricultural employment in rural areas,8 resulting in large numbers of rural residents moving to urban areas for jobs in construction and low-skill services. India’s tenth and eleventh five-year plans focused on urban areas as engines of growth and neglected the agrarian sector, and today Indian cities exhibit skewed growth benefits towards the urban elite who constitute only 10–15 per cent of the total population.9 Concurrently there has been substantial growth in informal settlements across Indian cities.10 According to the 2011 Census, India’s informal settlement population was in the region of 65 million in 2011, or around 36 per cent of the total population, and today one in six urban Indians, about 93 million people, many of them recent migrants, live in slums.11 Such informal settlements are often exposed to climate impacts such as flooding, heat stress and changing disease vectors, with few socio-economic support mechanisms.12 The migration process in India thus challenges boundaries of urban/rural and environmental change adds incrementally to the experience of urban poverty by introducing more uncertain risks and vulnerable living conditions.

EXISTING POLICY LANDSCAPE ON MIGRATION India is a signatory to the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol and has actively supported mitigation and adaptation efforts through its national policies.13 However, the government seems not to recognize the impact of climate change on human mobility at least within the scope of

B. Viswanathan and K.S.K. Kumar “Weather, Agriculture and Rural Migration: Evidence from State and District Level Migration in India”, Environment and Development Economics 20(4), 2015; S. Rao and V. Vakulabharanam, “Migration, Crises, and Social Transformation in India Since the 1990s”. 7 K.S. Kavi Kumar and Brinda Viswanathan, “Influence of Weather on Temporary and Permanent Migration in Rural India”, Climate Change Economics 4, no. 2 (1 May 2013). 8 Vamsi Vakulabharanam, “Global Crises, Equalizing and Dis-Equalizing Capitalist Regimes: The Case of 20th Century Asian Political Economy”, 2015. 9 Vamsi Vakulabharanam, “Does Class Matter? Class Structure and Worsening Inequality in India”, Economic & Political Weekly, 17 July 2010; Vamsi Vakulabharanam and Sripad Motiram, “Understanding Poverty and Inequality in Urban India since Reforms Bringing Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches Together”. Review of Urban Affairs, 2012. 10 Krishnachandran Balakrishnan and Shriya Anand, “Sub-Cities of Bengaluru: Urban Heterogeneity through Empirical Typologies”, Economic and Political Weekly, 2015. 11 Jessica R. Barnes and Amar Sawhney, “Planning for Informal Settlements in India”, Council of American Overseas Research Centers (18 February 2021). 12 Annapurna Shaw, “The Challenges of Urbanization in India: Towards a More Humane Urbanism”, in Political Economy of Emerging Market Countries: The Challenges of Developing More Humane Societies (Shantiniketan, West Bengal, 2017). 13 Namely, the National Environment Policy 2006, the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) 2008, the Climate Change Action Programme and a host of cross-sectoral national policies across the areas of forests, water, agriculture, energy, coastal management and livelihoods. 6

210  Handbook on forced migration any national or state environmental policy.14 “Natural Disaster” as a listed option for migration (introduced in the 1991 census), was dropped from the census form in both 2001 and 2011.15 India’s 2016 National Disaster Management Plan does not mention migration and focuses only on environmental disasters and not slow-onset climate processes.16 India enacted the Inter-state Migrant Workmen Act17 in 1979 to regulate the employment of inter-state migrants and guarantee a minimal standards of rights for them, but it only applies to workers from one state hired by a contractor in another state,18 and to contactors and establishments that employ at least five or more such workers.19 It excludes workers who are employed in a managerial or administrative capacity or whose job comprises mainly supervisory functions and who are paid more than Rs. 500 every month.20 The Act entirely overlooks migrants working in the informal or unorganized sector as casual and self-employed workers. This aspect, along with the fact that different states have implemented the Act to different extents, has made its protective provisions largely ineffective. With the government now proposing a new labour code, these provisions are set to be codified within the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (OSHC) and the Code on Social Security (CSS). Both OSHS and CSS have increased the scope of who qualifies as an inter-state migrant worker by including persons who move from one state to another for employment on their own; however, the coverage of the code itself has now been reduced to establishments that employ at least ten workers. The Sixth Economic Census for the years 2013–2014 suggested that 70 per cent of establishments in India employ fewer than six workers. Thus millions of migrant workers employed in smaller establishments and the informal sector do not benefit from the Codes.

MIGRANTS IN BENGALURU Bengaluru (or Bangalore), the capital of the state of Karnataka, embodies the neoliberal model of urbanization in India, with the city landscape reconfigured as a globalized city,21 while also witnessing a proliferation of informal settlements, largely populated by migrant workers from across the country. One such settlement, Hebbal, is inhabited by migrants from Nadia and Murshidabad districts in West Bengal. They work as waste pickers in Bengaluru’s informal

A.K. Ghosh, S. Hazra and S. Dey, “Review of National Adaptation Policies, India WT6.1.2”, 2016. 15 A.K. Ghosh, S. Hazra and C.L. Samling, “Resettlement and Rehabilitation: Indian Scenario”, 2015. 16 The NDMP is modelled on the Sendai framework which provides guidance on all phases of the disaster management cycle and envisions the development of a disaster resilient country. National Disaster Management Plan, 2016, A publication of the National Disaster Management Authority, Government of India, May 2016, New Delhi. 17 The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (30 of 1979). 18 Section 2(1)(e), ibid. 19 Section 1(4), ibid, supra note 136. 20 Section 2(j), ibid, supra note 136. 21 Michael Goldman, “Speculative Urbanism and the Making of the Next World City”, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35, no. 3 (2011): 555–81. 14

Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India  211 economy. The first wave of migrants arrived in 2000 following a destructive flood in their native villages. Migrants in Hebbal are agricultural labourers and small farmers and mostly Muslim. Many experienced sudden changes in weather like unexpected rainfall, hailstorms, and rising temperatures that affected agriculture and destroyed crops. However, the decision to migrate involves a complex interlacing of issues including social marginalization with respect to religion and caste, climatic changes, poverty, absence of adequate social protection measures and declining employment opportunities. The Bengaluru settlement dwellers lack access to basic services including water, electricity and sanitation facilities. As waste pickers, their livelihood is collecting garbage from various parts of the city. They are not officially recognized waste pickers so can collect waste only from “black spots” – areas where the municipal authorities do not collect waste. Daily work varies from 5 to 9 hours, with people travelling on their bicycles between 25 to 40 kilometres, then sorting waste after returning home.22 It is common to see kids playing in the trash, with the acrid smell of burning garbage in the air. The land they live on is contested and they lack any form of tenure rights. Being inter-state migrants, many cannot converse in the local language, creating a sense of alienation among the workers, and an additional layer of vulnerability. Bangalore is witnessing erratic and declining precipitation patterns, droughts and flooding, increasing temperature as well as water scarcity.23 The Hebbal settlement is prone to flooding during heavy rains as there is no effective drainage system. People tie food and other perishable goods to the roof of their houses to protect them from the water. The only response is to wait for the waters to recede and then shovel the water out of their houses. After the rains there are health risks from stagnating water which provides breeding grounds for mosquitoes. Outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya occur during the rainy season, and waste pickers report increased experiences of heat stroke. However, as a migrant community and religious minority, they lack any social protection measures. For them, far from being an adaptation strategy, migration reinforces the cycle of marginalization and indigence. Climate change exacerbates socioeconomic tensions and inequalities, contributing to increased vulnerability.

MIGRANTS IN KOCHI/ERNAKULAM The Indian state of Kerala is a hub for migrant workers from all across the country, and is known for the “Kerala Model of Development” which is rooted in decentralized governance structures, development of social infrastructure and collective local practices. This has resulted in high levels of human development in the state despite low levels of economic growth. Kerala has high out-migration especially to the Gulf, and while remittances have supported rapid development, out-migration has also resulted in labour shortages.24 Migrants come

Boo, Katherine, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Random House Group (2014). Revi, A., Bazaz, A., Krishnaswamy, J., Bendapudi, R., D’Souza, M. and Pahwa Gajjar, S., “Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Semi-Arid Areas in India”, ASSAR Working Paper, ASSAR PMU, South Africa (2015). 24 A.P. Sreeraj and Vamsi Vakulabharanam, “High Growth and Rising Inequality in Kerala since the 1980s”, Oxford Development Studies 44, no. 4 (1 October 2016): 367–83. 22 23

212  Handbook on forced migration from across India to fill jobs that are often low-paying, seasonal, and physically arduous. The inter-state migrant population in Kerala is estimated to be around 3.5 million.25 Kerala has a high wage rate, better living conditions and policy support for its inter-state migrant workers than other states in India. The state has a social-security scheme for migrant workers, special initiatives for the education of their children, a migrant housing project called “Apna Ghar”, an exclusively designed insurance package as well as other welfare measures. The state experienced floods and landslides in July to August 2018 and 2019, in which rapid community responses aided rescue and rehabilitation activities. The government of Kerala also responded with rescue and relief support as well as social protection measures. However, despite these inclusive and progressive measures, migrants were disproportionately affected by the floods and were not as actively supported by communities or the state. Perumbavoor is a small town in the Greater Kochi urban agglomeration, which was seriously affected by the devastating flood in 2018. Perumbavoor attracts many inter-state migrants, most of whom are male, do not speak Malayalam (the local language) and represent religious or caste minority communities. These migrants were particularly affected by the floods both because of the location of settlements, and because they were discriminated against by the host community. Similar to Bengaluru, the migrant settlements in Kochi are in poor areas of the city which are low-lying or on river beds.26 The floods inundated the settlements and many inhabitants lost documents and material possessions. Stigmatization of the migrants was conspicuous during the rescue and rehabilitation phase. Many migrant workers faced serious discrimination in relief camps such that in some locations the authorities operated separate relief camps for them. The alert messages during the disaster were in Malayalam, which meant most migrant workers weren’t able to hear critical information on how and where to be evacuated. Many lost their livelihoods and returned to their native villages, pushing their families there into deeper poverty and deprivation as these villages largely survived on remittances sent by the workers. The official estimate was that 2.3 million migrant workers lost employment due to the disasters in Kerala, with wage loss at around USD29 million.27 The Kerala floods attracted national and international humanitarian aid for rehabilitation and reconstruction. But very few migrant workers whose residences were inundated received immediate relief assistance of USD143 provided by the state.28 Despite the strong policy framework and welfare schemes for migrant workers, the state of Kerala did not recognize the disaster experience of the vulnerable migrant community nor offer state support for relief and recovery.

Benoy Peter, Shachi Sanghvi and Vishnu Narendran, “Inclusion of Interstate Migrant Workers in Kerala and Lessons for India”, Indian Journal of Labour Economics 63, no. 4 (1 December 2020): 1065–86. 26 Unlike the migrant settlements in Bengaluru, Kerala’s inter-state migrants reside in pucca houses with water and sanitation access. 27 United Nations Development Programme, “Kerala Post Disaster Needs Assessment: Floods and Landslides – August 2018”, 2018. 28 Benoy Peter and Muralee Thummarukudy. “Leaving No One Behind: Lessons from the Kerala Disasters”, 2019. 25

Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India  213

CONCLUSION The cases of migrant settlements in Bengaluru and Kerala illustrate how historic structures of marginalization and resource allocation shape contemporary experiences of climate injustice for migrants in cities. Pre-existing social identities including class, caste and gender mean inter-state migrants face new climate risks at source and destination areas. Climatic and non-climatic factors increasingly mean agriculture is becoming unviable for the rural poor.29 Migrants faced a choice between destitution in their villages or a perilous livelihood in the city. Unskilled migrants with poor social networks often end up in precarious jobs and informal settlements. They face daily risks that include working in extreme temperatures and precarious housing conditions, and are often denied opportunities for education or citizenship rights.30 These risks are intersected by class/caste, gender, race/ethnicity. The inter-state migrants in Kerala largely originate from regions that are prone to severe environmental and climatic disasters.31 Many migrants from West Bengal (as elsewhere) were agricultural workers who lost livelihoods during the floods in 2000, which brought about the first wave of out-migration. Migrants in Kerala receive better wage rates compared to the rest of India, and have better living condition. Nonetheless the experience of the climatic disaster at their destination exacerbated the vulnerabilities of the migrants and led to “reverse migration”. Many migrants did not have any asset base or fall-back mechanisms in their villages, but their loss of livelihoods and subsequent exclusion from relief and rehabilitation measures led to their return journeys.32 Climate disasters thus led to uprooting of their lives and livelihoods twice over. While migration is discussed as an adaptation strategy in India, policy measures should engage with the multi-dimensional factors that trigger human mobility from certain regions. Rural–urban labour migration needs to be integrated in the framing of policy. Our chapter contributes to the growing literature calling for more detailed evaluations of the experiences of migration under conditions of environmental risk. This includes recognition of the implications of inter-state migration and migrants’ experiences of risk and vulnerability across the rural–urban continuum. Policy-making must be responsive to particular local contexts even as international efforts work towards international agreements. The emerging urban realities of climate-related migration call for inclusive and transformative policy frameworks rooted in justice.

29 Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kothari, Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India; Kumar and Viswanathan, “Influence of Weather on Temporary and Permanent Migration in Rural India”. 30 Eric Chu and Kavya Michael, “Recognition in Urban Climate Justice: Marginality and Exclusion of Migrants in Indian Cities”, 10 April 2019. 31 Benoy Peter and Muralee Thummarukudy, “Leaving No One Behind: Lessons from the Kerala Disasters”, 2019; Peter, Sanghvi and Narendran, “Inclusion of Interstate Migrant Workers in Kerala and Lessons for India”. 32 The lessons learned from the floods resulted in official recognition of the inter-state migrant workers as a community vulnerable to disasters. When the state was exposed to the COVID-19 pandemic, proactive measures were adopted by the state, special efforts including mapping migrant pockets, disseminating multi-lingual messages, entrusting local self-help groups to respond to migrants’ concerns at ward level and Department of Labour and Skills designating officials from grassroots to state levels.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Anand, Shriya, Gautam Bhan, Charis Idicheria, Arindam Jana and Jyothi Koduganti. “Locating the Debate: Poverty and Vulnerability in Urban India”, Indian Institute for Human Settlements, 2014. Balakrishnan, Krishnachandran and Shriya Anand. “Sub-Cities of Bengaluru: Urban Heterogeneity through Empirical Typologies”, Economic and Political Weekly, 2015. Barnes, J.R. and A. Sawhney. “Planning for Informal Settlements in India”, Council of American Overseas Research Centers, 18 February 2021. Bartlett, Sheridan and David Satterthwaite. Cities on a Finite Planet: Towards Transformative Responses to Climate Change, Abingdon: Routledge, 2016. Bhagat, R. “Migration, Gender and Right to the City”, Economic & Political Weekly LII, no. 32 (2017): 35–40. Bhan, Gautam and Arindam Jana. “Reading Spatial Inequality in Urban India”, Economic and Political Weekly, 2015. Bhatta, Gopal Datt and Pramod Kumar Aggarwal. “Coping with Weather Adversity and Adaptation to Climatic Variability: A Cross-Country Study of Smallholder Farmers in South Asia”, Climate and Development 8, no. 2 (14 March 2016): 145–57. Boo, Katherine. Behind the Beautiful Forevers. Random House Group, 2014. Breman, J. Footloose Labour: Working in India’s Informal Economy, Cambridge University Press, 1996. Brenner, Neil and Nik Theodore. “Cities and the Geographies of ‘Actually Existing Neoliberalism’”. Antipode 34, no. 3 (June 2002): 349–79. Chu, E. and K. Michael. “The Shifting Geographies of Climate Justice”. In T. Jafry ed., Routledge Handbook of Climate Justice, Abingdon: Routledge, 2019. Chu, E., A. Brown, K. Michael, J. Du, S. Lwasa and A. Mahendra, “Unlocking the Potential for Transformative Climate Adaptation in Cities”, Background Paper prepared for the Global Commission on Adaptation. Washington, DC: Rotterdam, October 2019. Chu, Eric and Kavya Michael. “Recognition in Urban Climate Justice: Marginality and Exclusion of Migrants in Indian Cities”. Environment and Urbanization 31, no. 1 (10 April 2019): 139–56. Dasgupta, P., J.F. Morton, D. Dodman, B. Karapinar, F. Meza, M.G. Rivera-Ferre, A. Toure Sarr and K.E. Vincent. “Rural Areas”. In Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, eds C.B. Field et al. pp. 613–57. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Deshingkar, Priya. “The Making and Unmaking of Precarious, Ideal Subjects: Migration Brokerage in the Global South”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. 26 October 2019. Deshpande, T., Kavya Michael and K. Bhaskara. “Barriers and Enablers of Local Adaptive Measures: A Case Study of Bengaluru’s Informal Settlement Dwellers”. Local Environment 24, no. 3 (2019). Gemenne, Ois and Julia Blocher. “How Can Migration Serve Adaptation to Climate Change? Challenges to Fleshing out a Policy Ideal”. The Geographical Journal 183, no. 4 (1 December 2017): 336–47. Ghosh, A.K., Somnath Hazra and C.L. Samling. “Resettlement and Rehabilitation: Indian Scenario”, DECCMA Working Paper, 2015. Ghosh, A.K., Somnath Hazra and Sunita Dey. “Review of National Adaptation Policies, India WT6.1.2”, DECCMA Working Paper, 2016. Goldman, Michael. “Speculative Urbanism and the Making of the Next World City”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 35, no. 3 (2011): 555–81. Jha, C., V. Gupta, U. Chattopadhyay and B. Amarayil Sreeraman. “Migration as Adaptation Strategy to Cope with Climate Change: A Study of Farmers’ Migration in Rural India.” International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management 10, no. 1 (2018): 121–41. Kumar, K. and B. Viswanathan. “Influence of Weather on Temporary and Permanent Migration in Rural India”. Climate Change Economics 4, no. 2 (1 May 2013). Mander, Harsh. “Public Goods, Exclusion and 25 Years of Economic Reforms: A Blotted Balance Sheet”, in India Exclusion Report 2016. New Delhi, 2016. Michael, K., T. Deshpande and G. Ziervogel. “Examining Vulnerability in a Dynamic Urban Setting: The Case of Bangalore’s Interstate Migrant Waste Pickers.” Climate and Development 11, no. 8 (2019): 667–78.

Climate change, migration and inequality in contemporary India  215 Moser, Caroline and David Satterthwaite. Towards Pro-Poor Adaptation to Climate Change in the Urban Centres of Low- and Middle-Income Countries ..: The Case for Asset Accumulation (2007) and Assets, Livelihoods and Social Policy, 2008. Mukhopadhyay, Partha and Aromar Revi. “Climate Change and Urbanization in India”. In Handbook of Climate Change and India: Development, Politics and Governance, ed. Navroz K. Dubash, pp. 303–16. London and New York: Earthscan, 2012. Peter, Benoy, and Muralee Thummarukudy. “Leaving No One Behind: Lessons from the Kerala Disasters”, Centre for Migration and Inclusive Development, Mathrubhumi Books, 2019. Peter, Benoy, Shachi Sanghvi and Vishnu Narendran. “Inclusion of Interstate Migrant Workers in Kerala and Lessons for India”. Indian Journal of Labour Economics 63, no. 4 (1 December 2020): 1065–86. Piguet, E., R. Kaenzig and J. Guélat. “The Uneven Geography of Research on ‘Environmental Migration’”. Population and Environment 39, no. 4 (1 June 2018): 357–83. Rao, Smriti and Vamsi Vakulabharanam. “Migration, Crises, and Social Transformation in India Since the 1990s”. The Oxford Handbook of Migration Crises, pp. 260–78. Oxford University Press, 2019. Revi, A., A. Bazaz, J. Krishnaswamy, R. Bendapudi, M. D’Souza, and P. Gajjar. “Vulnerability and Adaptation to Climate Change in Semi-Arid Areas in India”, ASSAR Working Paper, ASSAR PMU, South Africa (2015). Shaw, Annapurna. “The Challenges of Urbanization in India: Towards a More Humane Urbanism”. In Political Economy of Emerging Market Countries: The Challenges of Developing More Humane Societies. Shantiniketan, West Bengal, 2017. Shi, L., E. Chu, I. Anguelovski, A. Aylett, J. Debata, K. Goh, T. Shenk et al. “Roadmap towards Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Research.” Nature Climate Change 6, no. 2 (2016): 131–37. Shrivastava, Aseem and Ashish Kothari. Churning the Earth: The Making of Global India. Penguin, 2012. Singh, C., A. Rahman, A. Srinivas and A. Bazaz. “Risks and Responses in Rural India: Implications for Local Climate Change Adaptation Action”. Climate Risk Management 21 (2018): 52–68. Singh, Chandni and Ritwika Basu. “Moving in and out of Vulnerability: Interrogating Migration as an Adaptation Strategy along a Rural–Urban Continuum in India”. The Geographical Journal 186, no. 1 (25 March 2020): 87–102. Sreeraj, A.P. and Vamsi Vakulabharanam. “High Growth and Rising Inequality in Kerala since the 1980s”. Oxford Development Studies 44, no. 4 (1 October 2016): 367–83. Tacoli, Cecilia. “Crisis or Adaptation? Migration and Climate Change in a Context of High Mobility.” Environment and Urbanization 21, no. 2 (2009). United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). “Kerala Post Disaster Needs Assessment: Floods and Landslides – August 2018”, 2018. Vakulabharanam, Vamsi. “Does Class Matter? Class Structure and Worsening Inequality in India.” Economic & Political Weekly 17 July 2010. Vakulabharanam, Vamsi and Sripad Motiram. “Understanding Poverty and Inequality in Urban India since Reforms: Bringing Quantitative and Qualitative Approaches Together”, Review of Urban Affairs, 2012. Vinke, K. Unsettling Settlements – Cities, Migrants, Climate Change: Rural–Urban Climate Migration as Effective Adaptation?, Lit Verlag, 2020. Viswanathan, B. and K.S.K. Kumar. “Weather, Agriculture and Rural Migration: Evidence from State and District Level Migration in India”, Environment and Development Economics 20, no. 4, 2015. Ziervogel, Gina and Rebecca Calder. “Climate Variability and Rural Livelihoods: Assessing the Impact of Seasonal Climate Forecasts in Lesotho”. Area 35, no. 4 (December 2003): 403–17. Ziervogel, G., M. Pelling, A. Cartwright, E. Chu, T. Deshpande, L. Harris, K. Hyams et al. “Inserting Rights and Justice into Urban Resilience: A Focus on Everyday Risk.” Environment and Urbanization 29, no. 1 (20 April, 2017): 123–38.

22. Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean Maiara Folly and Adriana Erthal Abdenur

As elsewhere in the world, climate migration1 is yet to become a priority on the agendas of policymakers in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The World Bank estimates that, by 2050, 17 million people could be forced to move within their countries’ borders to escape slow-onset impacts of climate change in Latin America.2 These numbers leave out those who migrate to a different country, as well as people displaced by sudden-onset extreme events. According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center,3 20 Latin American and Caribbean countries4 registered 577 138 new disaster-induced displacements in 2019. These figures are likely to be underestimated due to limited reporting mechanisms and a policy and research agenda that remains undeveloped in the region. Policy and academic debates in the region still fail to fully comprehend how changes resulting from climate change can trigger migration. This is partly due to the fact that climate-related mobility is linked to other root causes, such as poverty and inadequate social services, whilst public authorities show little motivation to improve data collection, and most LAC states do not officially acknowledge that they have internally displaced persons.5 Based on the existing scholarship, the chapter delves into the state of knowledge on the key drivers, dynamics and responses to climate and migration in LAC. This chapter recognizes that discussions of climate and migration in the region have been disproportionately future-oriented and focused on migratory patterns that are yet to occur – which, while expressive, overshadow climate-related dynamics that are already affecting human mobility in several parts of the region, from the Amazon to the Caribbean and the Andean highlands. Drawing on a review of the existing literature, official documents and statistics, the chapter offers three contributions to this debate. First, it provides an analytical overview of the scholarly and policy literature on climate and migration in the region. Second, it identifies key trends and debates that have arisen around the topic, distinguishing between different types of mobility, including internal and cross-border migration. The last part of the chapter addresses the impacts and responses at different levels, from the local to the regional, and outlines an agenda for future research.

Climate migration refers to both forced displacement and other kinds of migration resulting from climate change, including slow-onset processes and sudden-onset climate events. 2 Rigaud, Kanta et al. Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration. Washington DC: The World Bank, 2018. 3 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Global Report on Internal Displacement. Geneva: IDMC, 2020. Accessed 18 February 2021. 4 Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay and Venezuela. 5 Muggah, Robert. “The Invisible Displaced: A Unified Conceptualization of Population Displacement in Brazil”. Journal of Refugee Studies 28, no. 2 (2015): 222–37. 1

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Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean  217

CLIMATE AND MIGRATION DEBATES IN LAC: WHERE ARE WE? Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is highly vulnerable to climate change, with some countries located in hurricane belts and others dependent on ice deposits in the Andes to supply water to urban and agricultural areas.6 The region is the second most disaster-prone in the world, with high incidence of floods, storms, earthquakes and droughts.7 One study of internal displacements due to disasters in 18 LAC countries between 2013 and 2015 identified 505 disaster events, leading to the internal migration of 4 217 737 people. Half of this internal displacement (51 percent) resulted from hydro-meteorological disaster related to climate change.8 Climate vulnerabilities interact with socioeconomic inequalities, political instability, variable state capacity, endemic violence, declining quality of democracy, and vast environmental degradation fueled by major infrastructure projects and extractivist development models.9 Many Latin America slums (favelas) are marked by low state presence, precarious access to services, and high levels of violence and poverty. Often they are located along hill slopes in urban areas, exposing their inhabitants to mudslides that are increasingly more frequent.10 In sum, LAC is subject to intertwined socioeconomic, environmental and climate triggers of migration – a panorama that has been exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has deepened pre-existing crises and political turbulences. Despite accumulating evidence that climate change accelerates migration in LAC, the issue is largely regarded as a distant reality by government, academic and public actors. Public discourse focuses on migration projections, and governments fail to allocate sufficient funds to risk assessment and reduction. This is partly because climate-related risks are seen as a less urgent political priority compared to other essential demands, but also due to lack of political will to provide adequate compensation and relocation schemes to people displaced due to events linked to climate change.11 Media coverage frequently presents predictions of the number of people who might be displaced, while failing to acknowledge that people are already moving – especially within countries.12 There are at least four main reasons why climate mobility is regarded by actors in LAC as a distant concern. First, there is little research and data quantifying the climate–migration nexus in the region. When national databases do exist, they are limited to estimating the Randall, Alex, Salsbury, Jo, and White, Zach. The Voices of People who Move in the Context of Environmental Change. Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN), 2014. 7 The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Natural Disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean. Balboa: OCHA, 2019. 8 Zuñiga, Roberto A. “Internal Displacement Due to Disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean”, pp. 389–409. In Leal Filho, Walter, Nagy, Gustavo, Borga, Carco, Chávez Muñoz, Pastor David, and Magnuszewski, Artur. Climate Change, Hazards and Adaptation Options: Handling the Impacts of a Changing Climate. New York: Springer, 2020. 9 Abdenur, Adriana, and Ruttinger, Lukas. Climate-fragility Risk Brief: Latin America and the Caribbean. Berlin: CSEN, 2020. Accessed 18 February 2021. 10 Winkel, John, and Islam, Nazrul. Climate Change and Social Inequality. New York: Department of Economics and Social Affairs Working Paper No. 152, 2017. 11 Rua, Altamirano Teófilo. Refugiados Climáticos. Lima: Fondo Editorial de La Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2014, pp. 128. 12 DW, “Migrações climáticas serão mais sentidas em países de renda média”, DW, 15 September 2020. 6

218  Handbook on forced migration number of people affected by emergency events, without taking into account the root causes or the full cycle of displacement.13 In Brazil, the Ministry of Regional Development estimates the number of people displaced by certain natural disasters, but there is no public record of related information, such as the period of displacement for different groups, what their destinations were, nor an assessment of whether disaster events are connected to the effects of climate change.14 Second, because mobility is fostered by interconnected drivers such as violence, poverty and poor access to services, climate change is rarely acknowledged by public authorities – or by migrants themselves – as a significant trigger of migration.15 For example, those who migrate to obtain health treatment are often suffering from diseases that are more transmissible or deadlier because of climate change effects, an aspect that commonly remains invisible.16 Thirdly, with the exception of those Caribbean states that are directly threatened by sea level rise, most policymakers across LAC have not placed climate change at the center of migration policies and debates. Shedding light on the climate migration nexus would have consequences for governments, including the need to develop a normative framework attributing clear and specific rights to affected communities, and then allocating adequate human and financial resources, as well as creating public policies and programs to prevent and respond to the phenomenon.17 Finally, what discussion there is of climate and migration in LAC has concentrated heavily on migration from Central America’s Northern Triangle to the United States – which has been, to a certain degree, driven by accelerating drought caused by climate change. This focus has taken attention off migration within LAC.18 The topic has dominated debates partly because of the US media but also because of changes in migration policy, especially during the Trump administration (2017–2021), which imposed stricter border controls and generated global outrage. In sum, the relative scarcity of systematic evidence, including reliable quantitative data, coupled with the lack of attention in mobility discussions, policies and legislation perpetuates the notion of climate migration as a distant, future reality. Except for Central American migration to the United States, and in parts of the Caribbean, it also makes climate migration an invisible phenomenon for LAC policymakers and society at large.19

Pires Ramos, Erika, “Como a Crise Climática Tem Impactado as Migrações no Brasil”, Modefina, interview by Alvarenga, Júlia, 17 June 2020. 14 Ministry of Regional Development, “Sistema Integrado de Informações sobre Desastres”. 15 Pires Ramos, Erika, “Migração Ambiental – a realidade brasileira”, interview by Forst Sofie, Hannah, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, 26 March 2020. 16 Boukerche, Sandrine, and Mohammed-Roberts, Rianna. “Fighting infectious diseases: The connection to climate change”, Development and a Changing Climate, 19 May 2020. 17 Wilkinson, Emily, Kirbyshire, Amy, Mayhew, Leigh, Batra, Pandora, and Milan, Andrea (2016) Climate-induced Migration and Displacement: Closing the Policy Gap. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI) briefing, October. 18 Masters, Jeff. “Fifth Straight Year of Central American Drought Helping to Drive Migration”. Scientific American, 23 December 2019. 19 Pires Ramos, Erika, Cavedon-Capdeville, Fernanda de Salles, Pallone, Luiza de Moura, and Zamur, Andrea. Making Disaster Displacement Visible in Brazil: An Analysis of the Official National Disaster Information System. Geneva: IDMC, 2020. 13

Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean  219

CLIMATE MIGRATION TRENDS AND DYNAMICS Despite the scarcity of in-depth studies mapping climate migration flows, statistics and hotspots in LAC, some trends and dynamics are evident. First, climate migration in LAC is associated with changes in rainfall patterns, which are provoking serious disruptions in a region where nearly 90 percent of agriculture is rain-fed. In countries experiencing intensified periods of droughts, such as Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and Brazil, households who rely on agriculture have had their livelihoods severely impacted and thousands have relocated in search of off-farm job opportunities.20 Changes in rainfall patterns have also led people to flee from sudden onset events. In Brazil alone, nearly 5.8 million people have been internally displaced due to floods, torrents and storms between 2000 and 2017.21 In 2017, three major hurricanes – Harvey, Irma, and Maria – displaced 3 million people in the Caribbean in a single month.22 Unplanned relocation tends to exacerbate social grievances against newcomers in places of destination, especially where there is competition over access to hospitals, schools and housing. Second, the majority of climate migration in LAC is internal,23 although smaller, cross-border movements receive more media and public attention. Permanent, temporary or seasonal internal migration is an adaptation strategy – from Bolivian farmers affected by desertification in the Andes, who relocate to other rural areas or nearby towns,24 to indigenous, quilombola (Afro-Brazilian descendants of escaped slaves), and other groups in the Amazon region, who are displaced to different forest areas or even cities, due to rampant fires.25 Although with less intensity, cross-border climate migration does occur. Environmental degradation and natural disasters coupled with scarce access to land are among the factors forcing Venezuelan indigenous peoples from the Warao ethnicity to search for safe haven in the Brazilian Amazon state of Roraima.26 Climate events mostly affect the inhabitants of forest and rural areas of LAC, but urban residents are also affected. For example, in 2009 flooding

20 Kaenzig, Raoul, and Piguet, Etienne. “Migration and Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean”. In People on the Move in a Changing Climate: The Regional Impact of Environmental Change on Migration, edited by Etienne Piguet and Frank Laczko, pp. 155–76. Global Migration Issues 2, 2014. 21 Forced Migration Observatory, “As causas da migração forçada no Brasil entre 2000 e 2017”, Igarapé Institute, 2017. 22 Francis, Ama. “Free Movements and Climate Induced Migration: A Caribbean Case Study”. Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, September 2019. Accessed 18 February 2021. http://​columbiaclimatelaw​.com/​files/​2019/​09/​FMAs​-Climate​-Induced​-Migration​-AFrancis​.pdf. 23 World Bank. Groundswell: preparing for internal climate migration, policy note 3. Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2018. 24 Mariscal, Carlos Balerrama, Miranda, Rubena Ana, Canedo, Aramayo Lucía, and Cazorla, Iván. Rural Migration in Bolivia: The Impact of Climate Change, Economic Crisis and State Policy. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), 2011. 25 Paik, Rocío, “Deslocamentos forçados de indígenas por queimadas no Brasil desmentem Bolsonaro na ONU”, Migramundo, 22 September 2020. 26 International Organization for Migration. Aspectos Jurídicos da atenção aos indígenas migrantes da Venezuela para o Brasil. Brasília: IOM, 2018.

220  Handbook on forced migration displaced over 300 0000 people in 250 municipalities in Northeast Brazil,27 a region experiencing climate-related heavy rainfall and ever more prolonged periods of droughts.28 Finally, in the world’s most unequal region,29 climate migration dynamics are linked to existing socioeconomic inequalities, including levels of poverty and access to basic services such as housing, sanitation and health. With the exception of circumstances in which damage is extreme and irreversible, government investments in adaptation strategies and infrastructure could increase resilience and prevent displacement. However, in marginalized areas where state presence has been low or non-existent, migration often becomes the only adaptation strategy available. Communities in LAC who lack governmental support to conduct risk assessment and build climate-sensitive infrastructure are more likely to resort to migration as an adaptation or survival strategy. Understanding how climate change aggravates existing vulnerabilities within LAC countries is thus essential to understanding mobility.

IMPACTS AND RESPONSES Impacts The impacts of climate migration in LAC vary widely depending on scale and local context, but some general trends can be discerned. First, patterns seem to differ across slow-onset changes and sudden-onset disasters.30 Forced migration resulting from extreme climate events tend to trigger a larger volume of migrants in a shorter period of time. This displacement creates pressure on social services, especially at first and where there are deficiencies in infrastructure and services.31 In the aftermath of floods and storms, demand increases for state services such as disaster assistance, food and medical aid and safe management of housing and shelters. When those needs go unmet, pre-existing grievances over inequality, political marginalization and unresponsive governments can be exacerbated. For instance, border towns in Colombia, such as the northeastern city of Cúcuta, at times have been overwhelmed, experiencing severe strain on education, health and social welfare

Forced Migration Observatory, “Inundações no Nordeste”, Igarapé Institute, 2017. Silva, Jadson Freire, da Silva, Keles Rutt, Ferreira, dos Santos Pedro, “Mudanças climáticas e os impactos no Nordeste”, in Reflexões sobre o semiárido: obra do encontro do pensamento geográfico, ed. Ranyére Silva Nóbrega et al. (Editora Itacaiúnas, 2017), 257–62. 29 Bárcena, Alicia, and Byanyima, Winnie, “Latin America is the world’s most unequal region. Here’s how to fix it”, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 25 January 2016. 30 Slow-onset events include sea level rise, increasing temperatures, ocean acidification, glacial retreat and related impacts, salinization, land and forest degradation, loss of biodiversity and desertification. Sudden-onset disasters can be linked to meteorological hazards including tropical cyclones, typhoons, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards; hydrological hazards including coastal floods, mudflows; or geophysical hazards including earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions. Disasters can be linked to sudden or slow onset natural hazards, including but not limited to those related to climate change impacts. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Key Concepts on Climate Change and Displacement. Geneva: UNHCR, 2020. 31 Oxfam. Forced From Home: Climate-fuelled Displacement. Oxfam, 2019. 27 28

Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean  221 services during major upticks in the arrival of refugees from Venezuela32 – a migratory flow partially influenced by climate change, especially drought in Venezuela.33 Even more dramatically, in Haiti, a series of natural disasters has considerably limited national and local capacity to cope and recover, leading to situations of protracted displacement. Such gaps exacerbate political instability, fueling a vicious cycle that persists despite extensive international efforts to build peace in the country.34 In contrast, long-term migration associated with slow-onset climate change impacts tends to generate a less severe immediate impact. Since, in LAC, internal migration is overwhelmingly rural-to-urban, the longer term effects of climate migration include labor market supply, wages and employability cleavages – both at the place of origin and in the destination. In the Colombian city of Medellín, migrations coming from impoverished rural areas have exacerbated the city’s housing debit and pressures on land use, while also imposing challenges to an adequate management of employability.35 When the issue of climate migration receives public and media attention, this is frequently not adequately based on evidence. For instance, migrants, whether displaced or voluntary, are often accused by hosting communities, local politicians, and media outlets of contributing to significant increases in crime and violence, but this is not borne out by the evidence.36 Typically it is the newly arrived themselves who become victims of prejudice and attacks. Like all kinds of migration, there are gender dynamics throughout the climate migration process, including differential rates or order of migration; family separation; and differences in gender roles and expectations between places of origin and destination.37 In rural parts of LAC, where livelihoods depend heavily on local natural resources, climate change is making it more challenging for women to achieve and maintain water and food security, helping to drive migration. This is largely related to the fact that women have inadequate access to land and limited control over environmental goods and services – only percent of rural women in LAC own agricultural land and fewer than 5 percent have access to technical assistance.38 And, by virtue of facing greater challenges in finding formal work and new sources of income, those women are hit harder by economic crises (including the Covid-19 pandemic). Groups of climate migrants that are historically discriminated against, such as girls, indigenous, and LGBTI+ face specific challenges and vulnerabilities during the migratory process, for instance in accessing specialized healthcare, education and labor market opportunities,

32 Rueda, Manuel, “Venezuelan Refugees Strain Colombian Border Towns”. Americas Quarterly, 17 May 2017. 33 Chemnick, Jean. “Where Climate Change Fits into Venezuela’s Ongoing Crisis”. Scientific American. 18 February 2019. 34 Climate Security Expert Network. “Climate and Security: A Short Q&A”. Berlin: Adelphi, October 2019. 35 World Economic Forum. “Migration and its Impact on Cities”. October 2017. 36 For a broad discussion, see Vedovato, Luis Renato, Franzolin, Cláudio José, and Roque, Luana Reis. “Deslocados Ambientais: Uma Análise Com Base na Dignidade da Pessoa Humana”. Revista Direito e Praxis 11, 03, 2020, pp. 1654–80. 37 CARE. “CARE Rapid Gender Analysis – Latin America & Caribbean: Venezuelan Migrants & Refugees in Colombia”. May 2019. 38 Oxfam, “How Rural Women are Adapting to Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean”. (n.d).

222  Handbook on forced migration which are frequently skewed to benefit male migrants.39 For instance, Caribbean children displaced by disasters face higher risks in terms of human trafficking, slave labor, and sexual exploitation and other types of abuse.40 In the case of Colombia, while data specific to climate migrants is not available, domestic violence is especially high among Colombia’s displaced women – a common pattern among populations that are forcibly displaced. An estimated 52 percent of displaced women have experienced domestic violence, including sexual violence, as opposed to 41 percent of non-displaced women.41 Women and girls in LAC have also been shown to face higher risks in the context of disasters.42 Responses Policy responses to address climate-related migration are weak to date. However, there have been some advances in legal frameworks. For instance, a 2013 Bolivian migration law provides a definition of “climate migrants” and tasks the National Migration Council with developing international agreements aimed at protecting Bolivian nationals abroad and enabling the entry of displaced persons due to climate change into Bolivia. Other legal standards have emerged specifically in relation to emergencies and disaster responses. For example, Brazil’s national immigration law prescribes the creation of a humanitarian visa. If this legislation were to be implemented, the visa would benefit any person fleeing from disaster, a major public calamity or humanitarian crisis.43 Colombia’s national adaptation plan includes references to migration resulting from poor adaptive capacities, and Mexico and Guyana have provisions to avoid building in hazardous areas or to relocate vulnerable communities and infrastructure. Cuba’s Tarea Vida climate plan prioritizes the reduction of population density in exposed coastal areas and guides the implementation of land planning and disaster risk reduction initiatives across the country.44 However, targeted responses are rare in LAC. In addition to the fragmentation of institutions needed to address climate migration – from disaster response to urban development and gender policies – there is also political resistance to the issue, out of fear that recognizing the climate dimension of migration may lead to demands for compensation.

39 See, for instance, IOM (International Organization for Migration) (2016), “Diagnóstico de Informaciones para Políticas Públicas: Migración, Medioambiente y Cambio Climático en la República Dominicana” IOM MECLEP; Platanova, Anna and Gény, Lydia Rosa. “Women’s Empowerment and Migration in the Caribbean”. ECLAC – Studies and Perspectives Series – The Caribbean – Series No. 59; IOM (International Organization for Migration), “Défis, Enjeux et Politiques: Migrations, Environnement et Changements Climatiques en Haïti”. (IOM MECLEP). 40 UNICEF. “Children uprooted in the Caribbean”. UNICEF, December 2019. 41 Quintero, Andrés and Culler, Tegan. “IDP Health in Colombia: Needs and Challenges”. Forced Migration Review 33, 2009. Accessed 18 February 2021. https://​www​.fmreview​.org/​sites/​fmr/​files/​ FMRdownloads/​en/​protracted/​quintero​-culler​.pdf. 42 Cotarelo Comerón, Laura. “Vulnerabilidad de las Mujeres Frente a la Violencia de Género en Contexto de Desastres Naturales en Latinoamérica y Caribe”. Trabajo Social Hoy, no. 76, 2015, pp. 7–34. 43 Mendes, de Almeida Aylle and Brasil, Ribeiro Deilton. “A Nova Lei de Migração Brasileira e sua Regulamentação da Concessão de Vistos aos Migrantes”. Sequência (Florianópolis), no. 84 (2020): 64–88. 44 Escribano, Pablo. “Policy Approaches to Climate Migration: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean”. Lawfare Blog, 2020.

Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean  223 At the regional level, there is a lack of coordinated response by LAC states on migration issues, whether through established organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS) and Mercosur, or via more ad hoc arrangements. Migration and climate exist as separate agendas when they are addressed at all. However, the Escazú agreement on access to information, public participation, and justice on environmental matters, which came into force in February 2020, might offer a space in which to build such a regional agenda. For instance, the agreement’s emphasis on the importance of access to information as it pertains to environmental matters could be harnessed to create data systems for quantifying and tracking climate migration, and its provisions on participation and justice could yield coordination and cooperation efforts at addressing climate migration through regional efforts at adaptation and mitigation, as well as broader access to climate justice, including in cases of permanent damage and forced displacement.45 At the local and national levels, LAC governments have yet to create mechanisms to address climate migration. Mobility is one of the few options available for many Latin American and Caribbean people to adapt to the effects of climate change. Others are not able to exercise rights to mobility due to a combination of “mobility and environmental injustices”, which include the uneven access to infrastructure, transport logistics and resources that are crucial for people to move safely to other regions.46 Equally, there are few public policies aimed at people who rely on natural resources for their livelihood, such as indigenous groups, fishing communities, and quilombolas, who for the most part only adopt migration as a last resort when environmental damage is truly irreversible.47

CONCLUSION Migratory movements within and across LAC countries are increasingly shaped by climate change, yet discussion of climate migration remains incipient at best. There is inadequate evidence-based research, as well as distortions in political debates about migration, and discussions rely on loose projections of future migratory trends, and are disproportionately focused on cross-border climate migration. At the national level, the lack of legal recognition of internally displaced persons by almost all LAC states creates barriers for targeted policies and responses. Regionally, the weakness of multilateral regional organizations hampers coordination and cooperation. A future research agenda should build in three directions. First, to collect and analyze quantitative and qualitative data about migratory flows, and the role that climate change plays in these movements, whether within-country or cross-border. Second, researchers should address the dynamics and impacts of these migration trends, both at places of origin and at destinations. The Escazú Agreement, which entered into force in April 2021, guarantees access to environmental information, ensures public participation in the approval process for environmental projects, and requires states to take measures to protect environmental and human rights defenders. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Regional Agreement on Access to Information, Public Participation and Justice in Environmental Matters in Latin America and the Caribbean. Escazú: ECLAC, 2018. 46 Sheller, Mimi “Theorising Mobility Justice”. Tempo Social, Revista de Sociologia da USP 30, no. 2, 2018, pp. 17–34. 47 Folly, Maiara and Pires Ramos, Erika. “Climate Change is Already Driving Migration in the Brazilian Amazon”. Climate Diplomacy, 18 March 2021. 45

224  Handbook on forced migration And third, there is a research gap concerning climate justice, especially the disproportionate burdens borne by indigenous groups and other traditional communities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abdenur, Adriana Erthal. “Gender, Climate and Security in Latin America and the Caribbean: From Diagnostics to Solutions”. Climate Diplomacy, 2020. Abdenur, Adriana, and Ruttinger, Lukas. Climate-fragility Risk Brief: Latin America and the Caribbean. Berlin: CSEN, 2020. Bárcena, Alicia, and Byanyima, Winnie. “Latin America is the World’s Most Unequal Region. Here’s How to Fix it”. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, 25 January 2016. Boukerche, Sandrine, and Mohammed-Roberts, Rianna. “Fighting Infectious Diseases: The Connection to Climate Change”. Development and a Changing Climate, 19 May 2020. CARE. CARE Rapid Gender Analysis – Latin America & Caribbean: Venezuelan Migrants & Refugees in Colombia”, May 2019. Chemnick, Jean. “Where Climate Change Fits into Venezuela’s Ongoing Crisis”. Scientific American. 18 February 2019. Climate Security Expert Network. Climate and Security: A Short Q&A. Berlin: Adelphi, 2019. Cotarelo Comerón, Laura. “Vulnerabilidad de las Mujeres Frente a la Violencia de Género en Contexto de Desastres Naturales en Latinoamérica y Caribe”. Trabajo Social Hoy, no. 76, 2015, pp. 7–34. Desai, Bina. 10 ways to Tackle Climate Displacement in the Run Up to 2020. Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2020. Accessed 18 February 2021. Escribano, Pablo. “Policy Approaches to Climate Migration: Lessons from Latin America and the Caribbean”. Lawfare Blog, 2020. Folly, Maiara. Migrantes Invisíveis: A Crise do Deslocamento Forçado no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Igarapé Institute, 2018. Folly, Maiara and Pires Ramos, Erika. “Climate Change is Already Driving Migration in the Brazilian Amazon”. Climate Diplomacy, 18 March 2021. Forced Migration Observatory. “As Causas da Migração Forçada no Brasil entre 2000 e 2017”. Igarapé Institute, 2017. Forced Migration Observatory. “Inundações no Nordeste”. Igarapé Institute, 2017. Accessed 18 February 2021. Francis, Ama. “Free Movements and Climate Induced Migration: A Caribbean Case Study.” Columbia Law School Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, September 2019. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Global Report on Internal Displacement. Geneva: IDMC, 2020. IOM (International Organization for Migration). “Défis, Enjeux et Politiques: Migrations, Environnement et Changements Climatiques en Haïti”. IOM MECLEP, 2015. IOM (International Organization for Migration). “Diagnóstico de Informaciones para Políticas Públicas: Migración, Medioambiente y Cambio Climático en la República Dominicana” IOM MECLEP, 2016. IOM (International Organization for Migration). Aspectos Jurídicos da atenção aos indígenas migrantes da Venezuela para o Brasil. Brasília: IOM, 2018. Kaenzig, Raoul, and Piguet, Etienne. “Migration and Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean”. In People on the Move in a Changing Climate: The Regional Impact of Environmental Change on Migration, eds Etienne Piguet and Frank Laczko, pp. 155–76. Global Migration Issues 2, 2014. Mariscal, Carlos, Balerrama, Miranda, Rubena, Ana, Canedo, Aramayo Lucía, and Cazorla, Iván. Rural Migration in Bolivia: The Impact of Climate Change, Economic Crisis and State Policy. London: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), 2011. Masters, Jeff. “Fifth Straight Year of Central American Drought Helping to Drive Migration”. Scientific American, 23 December 2019.

Climate and migration in Latin America and the Caribbean  225 Mendes, de Almeida Aylle and Brasil, Ribeiro Deilton. “A Nova Lei de Migração Brasileira e sua Regulamentação da Concessão de Vistos aos Migrantes”. Sequência (Florianópolis), no. 84 (2020): 64–88. Muggah, Robert. “The Invisible Displaced: A Unified Conceptualization of Population Displacement in Brazil”. Journal of Refugee Studies 28, no. 2 (2015): 222–37. Oxfam. “How Rural Women are Adapting to Climate Change in Latin America and the Caribbean”. Oxfam, (n.d). https://​www​.oxfam​.org/​en/​how​-rural​-women​-are​-adapting​-climate​-change​-latin​ -america​-and​-caribbean. Oxfam. Forced From Home: Climate-fuelled Displacement. Oxfam, 2019. Paik, Rocío, “Deslocamentos Forçados de Indígenas por Queimadas no Brasil desmentem Bolsonaro na ONU”. Migramundo, 22 September 2020. Pires Ramos, Erika. “Como a Crise Climática Tem Impactado as Migrações no Brasil”. Modefina, interview by Júlia Alvarenga, 17 June 2020. Pires Ramos, Erika, “Migração Ambiental – a Realidade Brasileira”. Interview by Forst Sofie, Hannah, Heinrich Boll Stiftung, 26 March, 2020. Pires Ramos, Erika, Cavedon-Capdeville, Fernanda de Salles, Pallone, Luiza de Moura, and Zamur, Andrea. Making Disaster Displacement Visible in Brazil: An Analysis of the Official National Disaster Information System. Geneva: IDMC, 2020. Platanova, Anna and Gény, Lydia Rosa. “Women’s Empowerment and Migration in the Caribbean”. ECLAC – Studies and Perspectives Series – The Caribbean – Series No. 59. Randall, Alex, Salsbury, Jo, and White, Zach. The Voices of People Who Move in the Context of Environmental Change. Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN), 2014. Rojas, Ana Gabriela. “Cambio Climático: La Razón por la que Migrarán Millones de Centroamérica y México”. BBC, 23 September 2019. Rigaud, Kanta, de Sherbinin, A., Jones, B., Bergmann, J., Clement, V., Ober, K. and Schewe, J. Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration. Washington DC: The World Bank, 2018. Rua, Altamirano Teófilo. Refugiados Climáticos. Lima: Fondo Editorial de La Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, 2014, p. 128. Rueda, Manuel. “Venezuelan Refugees Strain Colombian Border Towns”. Americas Quarterly, 17 May, 2017. Quintero, Andrés, and Culler, Tegan. “IDP Health in Colombia: Needs and Challenges”. Forced Migration Review 33, 2009. Sheller, Mimi. “Theorising Mobility Justice”. Tempo Social, Revista de Sociologia da USP 30, no. 2, 2018, pp. 17–34. Silva, Jadson Freire, da Silva, Keles Rutt, and Ferreira, dos Santos Pedro. “Mudanças Climáticas e os Impactos no Nordeste”. In Reflexões sobre o Semiárido: Obra do Encontro do Pensamento Geográfico, eds Ranyére Silva Nóbrega et al. (Editora Itacaiúnas, 2017), 257–62. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Key Concepts on Climate Change and Displacement. Geneva: UNHCR, 2020. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Natural Disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean. Balboa: OCHA, 2019. Accessed 18 February 2021. UNESCO, A Caribbean Strategy to Cope with Climate Change, 2017. UNICEF. “Children uprooted in the Caribbean”. UNICEF, December 2019. Vedovato, Luis Renato, Franzolin, Cláudio José, Roque, Luana Reis. “Deslocados Ambientais: Uma Análise com Base na Dignidade da Pessoa Humana”. Revista Direito e Praxis 11, no. 3, 2020, pp. 1654–80. Vizcarra, Natasha. “Leaving Dry Lands Behind”. EarthData, last modified 27 December 2020. Wilkinson, Emily, Kirbyshire, Amy, and Mayhew, Leigh. Climate-induced Migration and Displacement: Closing the Policy Gap. London: Overseas Development Institute (ODI) briefing, October 2016. Winkel, John, and Islam, Nazrul. Climate Change and Social Inequality. New York: Department of Economics and Social Affairs Working Paper no. 152, 2017. World Bank. Groundswell: Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, Policy Note 3. Washington, DC: World Bank Group, 2018. World Economic Forum. “Migration and its impact on Cities”. October 2017.

226  Handbook on forced migration Zuñiga, Roberto A. “Internal Displacement Due to Disasters in Latin America and the Caribbean”, pp. 389–409. In Leal Filho, Walter, Nagy, Gustavo, Borga, Carco, Chávez Muñoz, Pastor David, and Magnuszewski, Artur. Climate Change, Hazards and Adaptation Options: Handling the Impacts of a Changing Climate. New York: Springer, 2020.

23. Theorizing mobility justice in contexts of climate mobilities Mimi Sheller

One way to think about the connection between climate change and human mobility is through the concept of mobility justice. Control over people’s ability to cross national borders and move from one region of the world to another is one of the crucial ways in which modern states have constructed regimes of unequal access to movement, one of the key concerns of the mobility justice approach. Mobility justice highlights how power and inequality inform the governance and control of movement, shaping patterns of unequal mobility and immobility in the circulation of people, resources, and information. In broad terms, “Mobility justice is understood as a way to frame the entanglements of power and social exclusion in the mobilities of humans, things, and ideas, as well as to differential and unequal access to movement, and the ability to move.”1 The mobility justice approach also seeks to connect the field of migration studies to other issues, including energy use, fossil fuel consumption, and transport inequity, which are some of the crucial causes of climate displacement. Climate-driven causes of migration are deeply entangled with mobility injustices related to transportation and fossil fuel production. Highly industrialized states have consumed the most fossil fuel and emitted the most greenhouse gases (GHG), which has led to global warming and extreme weather such as hurricanes, drought, flooding, and extreme heat, which in turn have had the greatest impacts on displacing populations in the Global South. Mobility justice offers a way to understand the relationship between the energy consumption associated with fossil-fueled mobilities (driving cars, flying in airplanes, etc.), the high rates of industrial farming of cattle (producing methane emissions) and the military geopolitics of energy access that impact on climate displacements and forced migration around the world. This chapter argues that we should instead reflect on how the consumption of fossil fuel for transportation and military dominance causes global climate change, and makes those who consume that fuel – and the companies that extract and profit from it – most responsible for the climate change loss and damages that are driving displacement and forced migration. This chapter first introduces the idea of Anthropocene Mobilities as a way to understand these interconnected aspects of mobility injustice. It then considers how “climate refugees” have been framed as a policy problem. The chapter concludes on climate debt and climate reparations as crucial ways to frame climate migration policy.

Nancy Cook and David Butz, eds. Mobilities, Mobility Justice and Social Justice (London and New York: Routledge, 2020), xx; and see Mimi Sheller, Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes (London and New York: Verso, 2018). 1

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ANTHROPOCENE MOBILITIES In contrast to the familiar policies of border closure, wall building, and the exclusion and expulsion of refugees and “illegal” migrants, the mobility justice frame calls for a multidimensional policy approach. To better understand and respond to complex “Anthropocene mobilities” we should “re-characterise those displaced by ‘climate change’ as displacees of a globalized network of intersecting mobility regimes fueled by fossil fuel extraction”.2 Climate change is not simply a geo-physical process, but “a manifestation of capitalism” and a “historically produced structural condition”.3 The implications of this geohistorical and intersectional approach are to see climate migration as an adaptive response that should be protected under international law, not precluded and criminalized. A mobility justice frame focuses political attention on the capacity of high GHG emitters to reduce their energy consumption, repay loss and damages, redistribute common goods more fairly, and ensure the global right to movement. If those countries and populations limit their excessive mobility and energy consumption, reduce meat consumption and land use, and more carefully steward other resources, there is enough energy to support all living beings on Earth. The response to the climate emergency then becomes not “the problem” of climate migration, but the problem of global capitalism, a system that has underwritten vast social inequities, enabled the excessive extraction of natural resources and over-consumption of fossil fuels, and left behind sacrifice zones and sacrificial populations who are most vulnerable to climate displacement. We are not all equally responsible for climate change; and we are not equally impacted by it. Those of us in the Global North who have high-energy lifestyles with excessive carbon emissions, also benefit from military systems and corporate investments that drive climate displacement around the world. Spatial injustices and uneven mobilities are further shaped by differentiated citizenship regimes through which “it is now the ‘access to global mobility’ which has been raised to the topmost rank among the stratifying factors”.4 Within geo-ecological historical perspective, the uneven distribution of resources, the impacts of hydrocarbon pollution, the exposure to climate risks, and the local vulnerabilities to climate change disasters that drive climate migration fall hardest upon the former colonies and peripheries of the world system. By understanding climate displacement as something driven by a fossil-fueled way of life and military-industrial complex in the Global North, we begin on a better footing to discuss the reception of people displaced by climate change. For mobility is not just about movement, but is also loaded with meanings, values, and forms of justification, constituting a system of “kinopolitics” that produces violence at the border.5 Thus, “Vulnerability [to climate change] is not simply a product of natural conditions; it is a political state and a colonial condition” best understood in terms of the “coloniality of climate”.6 The sixth report of the International Andrew Baldwin, Christiane Fröhlich, and Delf Rothe, “From climate migration to Anthropocene mobilities: Shifting the debate”, Mobilities, 14, no. 3 (2019): 291. 3 Ibid. 4 Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (London: Polity, 1998), 87. 5 Thomas Nail, Theory of the Border (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016); Thomas Nail, “Forum 1: Migrant Climate in the Kinocene”, Mobilities 14, no. 3 (2019): 375–80; Reece Jones, Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move (London: Verso, 2016). 6 Yarimar Bonilla, “Why would anyone in Puerto Rico want a hurricane? Because someone will get rich”, The Washington Post, 22 September 2017; Yarimar Bonilla, “The coloniality of disaster: 2

Theorizing mobility justice in contexts of climate mobilities  229 Panel on Climate Change has finally recognized that colonialism exacerbated climate change, and helped to increase the vulnerability of specific places and people.7 How does this change the narrative?

NARRATIVES ON CLIMATE MIGRATION Climate migration takes on different meanings depending on whether it is framed as a security threat, an issue of overpopulation, or beneficial. These framings inform corresponding mindsets, tensions, and critiques around responses. The chapter by Anne Hendrixson in this Handbook outlines the various ways that climate migration and population growth are framed. Such narratives drive political and policy responses to the climate crisis. Changing the narrative can generate new conversations and potentially new policies around the responsible reception of climate migrants, and what it might mean to have open borders in a world beset by climate extremes. The term “climate refugees” has been negatively appropriated into security discourses that drive a fear of refugees “flooding our shores” and the corresponding “fortress” mentality. The security state apparatus in the US and the EU focuses on climate migration as a major threat and has prepared future scenarios in response.8 Underpinning the “flood” framing are Malthusian notions of “over-population” that suggest there is a limited carrying capacity in the Global North and excessive population growth in the Global South. Framing climate migration as an over-population problem and as a security threat ignores the fact that GHG emissions are produced mainly by the consumption habits of wealthy individuals, large corporations, and militaries in the Global North, based on resources extracted from the Global South. It also feeds into ethno-national and racist arguments about white populations being “replaced” by people of color, which have driven right-wing extremist movements, wall-building, and attacks on refugees and migrants. It also relates to ecofascist movement which seeks to limit human population in order to protect the Earth, which implies judging some populations as dispensable. The so-called “replacement theory” has become a topic of mainstream media coverage in the United States, for example, as it has been more openly embraced by white supremacist movements. Replacement theory then drives popular understandings of the threat posed not just by climate migrants, but also by those who call for more open borders. Thus the call for mobility justice itself becomes a subject of suspicion and reactionary political targeting. In all these discursive framings, those displaced by climate change are dehumanized and seen as “others” or outsiders. Such frames feed into exclusionary border policies, abandonRace, empire and the temporal logics of emergency in Puerto Rico, USA”, Political Geography 78 (April 2020); Mimi Sheller, Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene (Durham: Duke University Press, 2020). 7 See, for example, Harriet Mercer, “Colonialism: Why leading scientists have finally acknowledged its link with climate change”, The Conversation, 22 April 2022, https://​theconversation​.com/​colonialism​ -why​-leading​-climate​-scientists​-have​-finally​-acknowledged​-its​-link​-with​-climate​-change​-181642. 8 Jef Huysmans, The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006); Vicki Squire (ed.) The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity (New York: Routledge, 2011); Matthias Leese and Stef Wittendorp (eds) Security/Mobility: Politics of Movement (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017).

230  Handbook on forced migration ment of refugees, detention under cruel conditions, and deportation back to dangerous places – key aspects of mobility injustice.9 These policies are on the rise around the world, and they lead ultimately to “climate apartheid”, that is, locking racialized migrants out of survivable habitats, and penning them into high risk places that will be increasingly less habitable. This “migration crisis” discourse is not new. The US interception and internment of Haitian “boat people” at Guantanamo Bay in the 1980s laid the foundation for carceral regimes later deployed to criminalize “illegal migrants” in the US.10 The pressure to stop Central American “caravans” from reaching the US border during the Obama administration, the harsh border policies of the Trump administration which separated children from their parents and locked them in detention camps, and the degrading spectacle of more than 12 000 Haitian migrants being intercepted by border agents on horseback at Del Rio, Texas, and then forced to camp under a highway overpass before thousands were deported, during the Biden administration, are all examples of the damaging effects of such dehumanizing discourses and subsequent policies.11 When we better understand the origins of our unsustainable carbon-based energy culture in the system of global slavery (and indigenous expropriation and genocide), then we see that contemporary uneven socio-ecologies arise from the racialized denial and foreshortening of life for the sacrificial majority of Black, Brown and Indigenous people, and their relegation to the “sacrifice zones” of extractive industry, over-exploited plantation zones, and environmental injustice.12 This leads to renaming the Anthropocene as the Plantationocene, which recognizes the coloniality of climate grounded in histories of plantation slavery, colonialism, and racial capitalism.13 Fears over climate migration have fed the false notion that the climate emergency is a border emergency. Instead, we can reframe Anthropocene mobilities as a broader problem of energy over-consumption within capitalist extractive economies, for which a “climate debt” is owed.14 Climate mobilities ultimately arise out of the ongoing coloniality of racial capitalism – imposed through the international system of fragmented citizenship, illusory sovereignty, violent border regimes, and constitutive antiblackness.15

Reece Jones, Violent Borders; Mimi Sheller, Mobility Justice; Gabriel Popescu, Bordering and Ordering the Twenty-first Century: Understanding Borders (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011). 10 Jenna Loyd and Alison Mountz, Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Migrant Detention in the United States (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018). 11 See also Alison Mountz, “Specters at the Port of Entry: Understanding State Mobilities through an Ontology of Exclusion”. Mobilities 6, no. 3 (2011): 317–34; and Alison Mountz, K. Coddington, R.T. Catania, and J. Loyd. “Conceptualizing Detention: Mobility, Containment, Bordering and Exclusion”, Progress in Human Geography 37, no. 4 (2012): 522–41. 12 Mimi Sheller, Island Futures; and see Katherine McKittrick (ed.), Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis (London and New York: Duke University Press, 2015). 13 Sophie Sapp Moore, Monique Allewaery, Pablo F. Gómez, and Gregg Mitman, “Plantation Legacies”, Edge Effects, 22 January 2019. Updated 15 May 2021, edgeeffects​.net/​plantation​-legacies​ -plantationocene. 14 Nicola Bullard, “Climate debt: A subversive political strategy”, Climate Justice Now, 2010, accessed 14 February 2021 at https://​www​.tni​.org/​es/​node/​10897. 15 Linda Pulido, “Racism and the Anthropocene”, in Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene, eds G. Mitman, M. Armiero and R.S. Emmett (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017), 116–28; Harsha Walia, Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism and the Rise of Racist Nationalism (New York: Haymarket Books, 2021). 9

Theorizing mobility justice in contexts of climate mobilities  231

CLIMATE DEBT AND CLIMATE REPARATIONS Any appropriate response to the contemporary climate emergency, in sum, must first appreciate its foundations in the past history of the violent, coercive, transatlantic system of plantation slavery; in the present global uneven development, antiblackness, and border regimes that shape human vulnerability; and in the futurity of ideologies of exclusion and exceptionalism that continue to influence who has access to resources, to safety, and to preferable ecologies. Our response must go beyond border closure, and instead address climate debt, climate reparations, and mobility (in)justice. This demands that we reduce the excessive consumption of fossil-fueled mobility by “kinetic elites”, but also repair and prevent the injustices of differential mobilities and the global resource extraction that leads to “climate colonialism”.16 A mobility justice approach recognizes the wider coloniality of mobility regimes and the need for reparations. Intersectional struggles for mobility justice must address legacies of colonialism, racial capitalism, and present forms of unequal access and private ownership. This calls for a reparative justice approach. Rather than the exclusionary lockdown of borders that is happening around the world, we should focus instead on the question of responsibility and reparations, in a moral, legal, and financial framework under international law. The growth of a system of deadly corridors, detention camps, and spaces of confinement at our borders is an illegal, ineffective, and immoral response that needs to be subjected to critical analysis and alternative frameworks. There are three pathways that can be taken, when it comes to climate reparations. The first is known as “corrective justice”, and refers to a negotiation between governments within an international jurisdiction. Under this scenario, the collective moral responsibility of high greenhouse gas emitters to make financial recompense to climate creditors forms the legal basis for holding the United States or the European Union, and the corporations and stockholders based there, morally accountable for a calculable and bearable share of the harms of climate change. This approach offers a financial mechanism by which the reception of migrants could be handled through an international Green Climate Fund. Climate reparations between nations would enable “creditor countries” – such as small island states – to strengthen their resilience by funding disaster risk reduction, insurance, and adaptation to help people remain in place.17 The second and quite different pathway to climate compensation is through tort litigation for loss and damage against the major fossil fuel companies – in other words, suing the oil companies. (A tort is an act or omission that gives rise to injury or harm to another.) Through class action lawsuits filed under multiple jurisdictions, reparations could be sought for those harmed by greenhouse gas emissions, and corporations could be held responsible for specific injury, especially if they knew about it and covered it up. Under this “loss and damage” legal approach, states could also put pressure on companies by adopting legislation making it mandatory for fossil fuel companies to provide compensation through payment of a so-called climate damages tax, under the rationale that such a tax would be based upon how much carbon dioxide is embedded within each ton of coal, barrel of oil, or cubic liter of gas that each fossil fuel company extracts.

Mimi Sheller, Mobility Justice. Daniel Farber, “The Case for Climate Compensation: Justice for Climate Change Victims in a Complex World”. Utah Law Review (2008): 377. 16 17

232  Handbook on forced migration Lastly, there is also a deeper moral case for climate reparations based on the long-term effects of systems of colonial, racial capitalism and the exclusion of Black, Brown and Indigenous people from full citizenship. The call for “abolitionist climate justice” by Malini Ranganathan and Eve Bratman (2019) entails dealing with historical environmental racism and intersectional drivers of precarious lives, social trauma, and displacement beyond those narrowly associated with “climate”. It embeds climate debt in longer historical timeframes of infrastructural repair, land return, and social reparations. Whether we take a state-centric climate reparations approach, a market-centered climate damages approach, or a decolonial abolitionist approach, we must reject narrative and policies that depend on the depiction of climate refugees or forced migrants as a growing danger who will “flood” our borders. It is “our” way of life that has put people in harm’s way, both within the United States and beyond our borders. One day we all may be climate migrants, so we also owe it to ourselves to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, limit our own mobilities, and prepare fair and just international mechanisms not only for climate adaptation, but also for reparative justice that will ensure temporary shelter and permanent resettlement when needed.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Baldwin, A., Fröhlich, C., and Rothe, D. “From climate migration to Anthropocene mobilities: Shifting the debate”, Mobilities, 14, no. 3 (2019): 289–97. Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. London: Polity, 1998. Bonilla, Yarimar. “Why would anyone in Puerto Rico want a hurricane? Because someone will get rich”, Washington Post, 22 September 2017. Bonilla, Yarimar. “The coloniality of disaster: Race, empire and the temporal logics of emergency in Puerto Rico, USA”, Political Geography 78 (April 2020). Bullard, Nicola. “Climate debt: A subversive political strategy”, Climate Justice Now, 2010, accessed 14 February 2021 at https://​www​.tni​.org/​es/​node/​10897. Cook, Nancy and Butz, David, eds. Mobilities, Mobility Justice and Social Justice. London and New York: Routledge, 2020. Farber, Daniel. “The case for climate compensation: Justice for climate change victims in a complex world” (2008) 2 Utah Law Review. Huysmans, J. The Politics of Insecurity: Fear, Migration and Asylum in the EU. Abingdon: Routledge, 2006. Jones, R. Violent Borders: Refugees and the Right to Move. London: Verso, 2016. Leese, M. and Wittendorp, S., eds. Security/Mobility: Politics of Movement. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017. Loyd, Jenna and Mountz, Alison. Boats, Borders, and Bases: Race, the Cold War, and the Rise of Migrant Detention in the United States. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2018. McKittrick, Katherine, ed. Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis. London, UK and New York, USA: Duke University Press, 2015. Mercer, Harriet. “Colonialism: Why leading scientists have finally acknowledged its link with climate change”, The Conversation, 22 April 2022, https://​theconversation​.com/​colonialism​-why​-leading​ -climate​-scientists​-have​-finally​-acknowledged​-its​-link​-with​-climate​-change​-181642. Moore, S.S., Allewaery, M., Gómez, P.F. and Mitman, G. “Plantation legacies”, Edge Effects, 22 January 2019, accessed 5 June 2019 at http://​edgeeffects​.net/​plantation​-legacies​-plantationocene/​. Mountz, Alison. “Specters at the port of entry: Understanding state mobilities through an ontology of exclusion”, Mobilities 6, no. 3 (2011): 317–34. Mountz, Alison, Coddington, K., Catania, R.T. and Loyd, J. “Conceptualizing detention: Mobility, containment, bordering and exclusion”, Progress in Human Geography 37, no. 4 (2012): 522–41. Nail, Thomas. Theory of the Border. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Nail, Thomas. “Forum 1: Migrant climate in the Kinocene”, Mobilities 14, no. 3 (2019): 375–80.

Theorizing mobility justice in contexts of climate mobilities  233 Popescu, Gabriel. Bordering and Ordering the Twenty-first Century: Understanding Borders. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2011. Pulido, Linda. “Racism and the Anthropocene”, in Future Remains: A Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene, eds G. Mitman, M. Armiero and R.S. Emmett, pp. 116–28. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017. Ranganathan, Malini and Bratman, Eve. “From urban resilience to abolitionist climate justice in Washington, D.C.”, Antipode, 28 June 2019. Sheller, Mimi. Mobility Justice: The Politics of Movement in an Age of Extremes. London, UK and New York, USA: Verso, 2018. Sheller, Mimi. Island Futures: Caribbean Survival in the Anthropocene. Durham: Duke University Press. 2020. Squire, Vicki, ed. The Contested Politics of Mobility: Borderzones and Irregularity. New York: Routledge, 2011. Walia, Harsha. Border & Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism and the Rise of Racist Nationalism. New York: Haymarket Books, 2021.

24. Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration Anne Hendrixson

A photo of refugees at sea in an open boat dominates the cover of the provocatively titled book, The Scramble for Europe: Young Africa on its Way to the Old Continent.1 Written by journalist Stephen Smith, the 2018 book influenced French President Macron’s restrictive immigration policy of the same year. Macron reportedly called the book “a perfect description of Africa’s demographic time bomb”.2 The picture also appears on a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Kenya blog post, “Promise or Peril? Africa’s 830 million young people by 2050”, which forewarns that African population growth could drive overwhelming outmigration.3 The UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health uses a similar image with the caption, “would-be illegal migrants from Africa to Europe”, as the cover illustration for a 2015 report which anticipates population-driven precarity, worsened by climate change.4 The photos depict recent events, but they are also politically charged illustrations of Black and Brown people adrift, without basic resources or apparent national roots, seemingly on the verge of catastrophe. Such images draw on population alarmist rhetoric of the past, some of which is unapologetically anti-immigrant. An example is ecologist Garret Hardin’s 1974 essay, “Lifeboat ethics: The case against helping the poor”. For Hardin, the lifeboat represented limited planetary resources, like land, which predetermined the boat’s capacity and its exclusive passenger list.5 Through this thought experiment, Hardin disparaged imaginary migrants, who, he argued, would ultimately capsize the boat to escape the poverty, hunger and environmental devastation caused by “overpopulation”. As Okyere-Manu synthesizes,

1 Stephen Smith, The Scramble for Europe: Young Africa on Its Way to the Old Continent (Cambridge, UK and Medford, MA, USA: Polity Press, 2019). 2 Thomas Meaney, “Who’s Your Dance Partner?” London Review of Books 41, no. 21 (2019), https://​www​.lrb​.co​.uk/​the​-paper/​v41/​n21/​thomas​-meaney/​who​-s​-your​-dance​-partner. 3 The UNDP Kenya bloggers caution that African population growth drives economic, security and environmental problems, thereby propelling migration, insecurity and the threat of rebel movements. “Without urgent and sustained action, the spectre of a migration crisis looms that no wall, navy or coastguard can hope to stop.” Siddarth Chatterjee and John Dramani Mahama, “Promise or Peril? Africa’s 830 Million Young People by 2050”, UNDP Kenya, 14 August 2017, https://​www​.ke​.undp​.org/​content/​ kenya/​en/​home/​blog/​2017/​8/​14/​Promise​-Or​-Peril​-Africa​-s​-830​-Million​-Young​-People​-By​-2050​.html. 4 UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, “Population Dynamics and the Sustainable Development Goals”, (APPG report, London, July 2015), 1–44, https://​static1​.squarespace​.com/​static/​5dc18​cebdf3c7b5​76d0caacf/​t/​5ee27​c84a3f18d6​821f8fabc/​ 1591901354721/​Population+​Dynamics+​and+​the+​Sustainable+​Development+​Goals+​2015​.pdf. 5 Garrett Hardin, “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”, Psychology Today (1974): 800–12.

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Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration  235 “Hardin argues that overpopulation is the major cause of our present ecological crisis [… and] that affluent countries have no moral obligation towards poorer countries.”6 The above media and many others take the stance that population is a problem; that young and growing populations, particularly in Africa, are a driver of migration to an aging western world, intensified in the context of climate change. This chapter challenges contemporary “lifeboat discourse” as a populationist ideology, in line with other authors who have highlighted a diversity of challenges – ethical, cultural and feminist – in the lifeboat metaphor. Populationism blames population size, growth and composition for economic, environmental and social problems and advocates for interventions into fertility and migration rates to resolve those problems.7 The chapter offers a brief overview of population age trends, as a backdrop to lifeboat discourse, then critically addresses existing population theories linked to migration. It focuses on a critique of the lifeboat discourse, which proposes to (1) engineer large working age groups within national populations through controlled migration and increased family planning; (2) anticipate and mitigate “safety valve” South to North migration, including climate-related youth migration, through security and development interventions; and (3) exert a racialized and age-based valuation of populations that excludes passengers from the hypothetical lifeboat. The chapter stresses the dangers of such approaches in current migration and political narratives and concludes on a necessary reframing of the narrative based on evidence.

CHANGING POPULATION TRENDS Globally, the most rapidly expanding age group is over 65 years old. Falling fertility rates and longer life expectancy have created older cohorts that are larger than the generations succeeding them. By 2050 the number of people 65 years and over is expected to double.8 Japan and countries in Eastern Europe are among the 55 nations that are expected to undergo population decrease because there are more deaths than births.9 All countries are expected to follow this trajectory, though at different paces. At the same time, there are large numbers of people of reproductive age who contribute to continued global population growth. Global growth comes primarily from countries with the youngest populations, many of which are in Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to contribute to the majority of world population growth, followed by Central and Southern Asia.10 Global growth is projected to peak at the end of this century, followed by a leveling out or slow decline. The 2019 UN World Population Prospects estimates that the world population was 7.7 billion in 2019 and could grow to 10.9 billion by 2100.11

Beatrice Okyere-Manu, “Overpopulation and the Lifeboat Metaphor: A Critique from an African Worldview”, International Studies of Philosophy of Science 30, no. 3 (2016): 280, https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1080/​02698595​.2017​.1316114. 7 Rajani Bhatia et al., “A Feminist Exploration of ‘Populationism’: Engaging Contemporary Forms of Population Control”, Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 27, no. 3 (2019): 333–50, doi​.org/​10​.1080/​0966369X​.2018​.1553859. 8 United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Population Division, “World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights” (UN report ST/ESA/SER.A/423, 2019), 17. 9 UNDESA, “World Population Prospects 2019”, 12. 10 UNDESA, “World Population Prospects 2019”, 6. 11 UNDESA, “World Population Prospects 2019”, 5. 6

236  Handbook on forced migration Lifeboat discourse offers an ideological interpretation of these population dynamics. It paints population aging and continued growth as in tension, driving uneven economic prosperity, geopolitical tensions, and migration crises. The next section critically addresses three population-based theories that contribute to the discourse.

EXCESS YOUTH AND DISAPPEARING ELDERLY: THE SPECTRE OF A MIGRATION CRISIS? The demographic deficit and dividend theories sustain the populationist argument that governmental and multilateral controls on migration and fertility rates can resolve national economic problems caused by “too many” dependent elders or children compared with working age laborers. Among other shortcomings, burden and boon analyses of age structure imply crisis: the demographically weakened North is in danger of being overtaken by the fertile, growing South. In this context, the “demographic deficit” simultaneously refers to a shortage of laborers and presumed economic drag of older populations. The theory predicts that when the number of elders in a population is greater than working age people there will be a decline in national economic activity.12 The concept is typical of problematic policy framings of population aging as a crisis or drain, slated to increase pension and health care costs, reduce consumer demand, and lower rates of employment. This stands in contrast to the mainstream economic position that population aging will not significantly impact growth in most countries.13 Characterizations of population aging as a “deficit” or the hyperbolic “age bomb” are examples of apocalyptic demography that incorrectly casts older age groups as homogeneous, non-contributors.14 Such conceptualizations wrongly assume that the categories of “worker” and “dependent” are mutually exclusive while also largely discounting non-waged work.15 They tend to exaggerate fears of economic burden by relying on simplistic age-dependency ratios. In contrast, Marois and co-authors suggest that there should be a more accurate measure of age-dependency factors in labor force participation and education. Their scenarios suggest that the impacts of population aging in many European Union states will be significantly less than in previous estimations.16 Likewise, measures considering falling mortality rates lower old-age dependency ratios in the UK, which has implications for health care policy.17 Skewed 12 Thomas Cooley and Espen Henriksen, “The Demographic Deficit”, Journal of Monetary Economics 93 (2018): 45–62. 13 David E. Bloom, David Canning and Gunther Fink, “Implications of Population Aging for Economic Growth” (National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 16705, 2011), http://​www​ .nber​.org/​papers/​w16705​.pdf. 14 Ruth Martin, Caroline Williams and Desmond O’Neill, “Retrospective Analysis of Attitudes to Ageing in the Economist: Apocalyptic Demography for Opinion Formers?” British Medical Journal 339, no. 7735 (19–26 December 2009): 1435–7. 15 Ellen M. Gee, “Miscomprehensions and Misapprehensions About Population Aging”, International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (2002): 750–53. 16 Guillaume Marois, Alain Bélanger and Wolfgang Lutz, “Population Aging, Migration, and Productivity in Europe”, PNAS 117, no. 14 (2020): 7690–95, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1073/​pnas​.1918988117. 17 Jereon Spijker and John MacInnes, “Population Ageing: The Timebomb that Isn’t?” BMJ 347 (16 November 2013): 20–22.

Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration  237 assumptions of inevitable old-age burden overemphasize the role of population size in driving health care costs, and ignore factors of price, volume, and the spread of technology.18 More sophisticated measures of age-dependency ratios challenge the policy assumption that there is a demographic need for large-scale in-migration to counterbalance population aging, particularly in Europe. Nevertheless, the idea that mass migration is necessary persists. For instance, a 2021 report from the Center for Global Development asks, “Can Africa Help Europe Avoid its Looming Age Crisis?”19 The crisis narrative is bolstered by continued media misrepresentations of United Nations Population Division’s demographic projections from 2000. Though the report stated that it would be nearly impossible to achieve replacement population level migration in European countries, media outlets warned of a coming influx of millions of migrants to offset aging populations.20 In contrast to the assumed burden of so-called shrinking populations, the demographic dividend theory anticipates economic boon. It suggests that large youth populations can strengthen national economies when they have fewer dependents and are supported with educational opportunities, health services and policies that encourage free trade.21 Michael Hilbig and co-authors have found that the dividend theory appeals to some policy-makers because of its simplistic demographic explanation for economic growth.22 Critics question the theory’s emphasis on labor supply rather than demand and stress the need for an “economic miracle” to generate adequate employment.23 Few challenge its basic premise: that fertility reduction is the necessary precursor to economic growth. An exception is demographer Wolfgang Lutz and co-authors’ assessment of age structure and human capital in 165 countries from 1980 to 2015. It shows that educational attainment is the primary driver of economic growth, not demographics. Investments in human capital can result in a “demographic dividend” without first reducing fertility rates. Further, the authors conclude that the theory cannot justify investments in family planning in terms of national economic gain.24

Michael K. Gusmano and Kieke G.H. Okma, “Population Aging and the Sustainability of the Welfare State”, Special Report: What Makes a Good Life in Late Life? Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies, Hastings Center Report 48, no. 5 (2018): S57–S61, DOI: 10.1002/hast.915. 19 Charles Kenny and George Yang, “Can Africa Help Europe Avoid its Looming Age Crisis?” (Center for Global Development, Working paper 584, June 2021), 1–26, https://​www​.cgdev​.org/​sites/​ default/​files/​can​-africa​-help​-europe​-avoid​-looming​-aging​-crisis​.pdf. 20 Michael S. Teitelbaum, “The Media Marketplace for Garbled Demography”, Population and Development Review 30, no.2 (June 2004): 317–27. 21 David E. Bloom, David Canning and Jaypee Sevilla, “The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change” (RAND, Santa Monica, 2003), http://​www​.rand​.org/​content/​dam/​rand/​pubs/​monograph​_reports/​2007/​MR1274​.pdf. 22 Michael Hilbig, Elke Loichinger and Bernhard Köppen, “‘It Makes the Buzz’—Putting the Demographic Dividend under Scrutiny”, Geographica Helevetica 77 (2022): 149, https://​doi​.org/​10​ .5194/​gh​-77​-141​-2022. 23 Shankar Acharya, “India’s Growth Prospects Revisited”, Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 41 (9–15 October 2004): 4537–42; Andrew Fischer, “The Social Value of Employment and the Redistributive Imperative for Development” (UNDP Human Development Report Office, New York, 2014), 14, https://​hdr​.undp​.org/​content/​social​-value​-employment​-and​-redistributive​-imperative​ -development. 24 Wolfgang Lutz et al., “Education Rather than Age Structure brings Demographic Dividend”, PNAS 116, no. 26 (25 June 2019): 12798–803, www​.pnas​.org/​cgi/​doi/​10​.1073/​pnas​.1820362116. 18

238  Handbook on forced migration Nonetheless, development strategies endorse contraception provision to young people with the dual goals of reducing fertility rates and building the economy. Contraception is an essential part of comprehensive sexual and reproductive health services, but such a “win–win” approach to provision runs the risk of undermining human rights.25 As development expert Catherine Nyambura notes, “demographic dividend thinking on sexual and reproductive health is anchored on a population and development premise, rather than principles of agency, choice, and control over one’s own body. This is highly problematic for women and girls, as it sees them as a means to the end of economic development.”26 Saha and co-authors agree that the theory takes “an instrumental approach to young people rather than focusing on equality and rights”.27 It is unlikely that demographic dividend aspirations will be realized in most nations. An analysis of labor and savings trends in India shows that lack of employment and educational opportunities hold back economic growth in most states with large working age cohorts.28 Likewise the UNFPA’s 2017 Demographic Dividend Atlas for Africa points to a gap in educational opportunities and formal sector employment opportunities in most African countries that could hamper the African Union’s aspirations for “harnessing” youth.29 Further, a lack of meaningful youth engagement could weaken development efforts that do not respect the diversity of youth needs and potential. As Nyambura argues, “The demographic dividend agenda does not seek to empower young women or men, or to challenge the current model of development in which decision-making is taken by older decision-makers who are still predominantly men.”30 In lifeboat discourse, failure to reduce population growth rates and realize a dividend is thought to unleash a dangerous and mobile “youth bulge”. For example, the Mixed Migration Centre of the Danish Refugee Council warns “the failure of African governments and economies to provide jobs for their growing working-age populations creates potentially dangerous dynamics that could exacerbate extremism, militancy, and civil conflict, which also serve as migration drivers”.31 Such statements – now common in the narrative of governments and practitioners – need to be carefully reviewed, critiqued, and moved on from. A critique of the youth bulge theory follows.

Naila Kabeer, “Gender, Demographic Transition and the Economics of Family Size: Population Policy for a Human-Centered Development” (UNRISD Occasional Paper 7, United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, 1998), http://​hdl​.handle​.net/​10419/​148813. 26 Catherine Nyambura, “Repoliticising Women’s Rights in Development: Young African Feminisms at the Cutting Edge”, Gender & Development 26, no. 3 (2018): 432, DOI:10.1080/13552074.2018.1523 284. 27 Pushpita Saha et al., “Paid Work: The Magic Solution for Young Women to Achieve Empowerment? Evidence from the Empower Youth for Work project in Bangladesh”, Gender & Development 26, no. 3 (2018): 551, DOI:10.1080/13552074.2018.1525869. 28 Ajit Kumar Singh, “India’s Demographic Dividend: A Skeptical Look”, Indian Journal of Human Development 10, no. 1 (2016): 10–26, DOI: 10.1177/0973703016636445. 29 Kathrin Weny, Rachel Snow and Sainan Zhang, “Demographic Dividend Atlas for Africa: Tracking the Potential for a Demographic Dividend” (United Nations Population Fund, September 2017), https://​www​.unfpa​.org/​sites/​default/​files/​resource​-pdf/​UNFPA​_African​_Atlas​_KW​_RS​_SZ​.pdf. 30 Nyambura, “Repoliticising Women’s Rights”, 431–2. 31 Chris Horwood, Bram Frouws and Roberto Forin (eds), “Mixed Migration Review 2019. Highlights” (Mixed Migration Centre, Geneva, 2019), 118, http://​www​.mixedmigration​.org/​. 25

Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration  239

“SAFETY VALVE” FOR DANGEROUS BODIES Lifeboat discourse seeks to anticipate and mitigate “safety valve” migration of youth from the global South to the North as a security and development priority. It builds on the youth bulge theory which maintains that a large proportion of young people in a population corresponds with increased risk of political unrest. An early version of the theory says a youth bulge occurs when cohorts aged 15–19 and 20–24 make up 20 percent or more of a country’s population.32 Modifications of the theory analyze male violence through a socio-biological lens, as a natural hormonal response that is heightened by population pressures.33 The theory extends damaging national security intelligence about “overpopulation” from the past to today’s youth cohorts. As scholars Mayssoun Sukarieh and Stuart Tannock argue, “Youth bulge discourse is the direct successor to claims in previous eras that framed the problem of ‘overpopulation’ in the Global South as a threat to US national security, and population control in these regions as an essential development priority for protecting US security.”34 The youth bulge theory projects inaccurate analyses of youth behaviors, particularly in varied African contexts; perpetuates gendered and racialized stereotypes about Black and Brown male violence and female fecundity; misreads Muslim youth organizing and politics; relies on population alarmism to generate international security and policy attention; and can misdirect development policy.35 As Schultz shows, in Germany the theory contributes to crisis narratives of an explosive, young South invading the contracting, old North that influence nationalistic population policies.36 Despite salient critiques, the “youth bulge” remains a dominant theoretical construct in population and migration politics and thinking. According to some theorists, when youth bulge pressures build, so-called “safety valve” migration can relieve them. Policy-makers and scholars often cite political scientist Henrik Urdal’s claim that “developing countries that today export a substantial part of their excess youth to more developed countries would otherwise risk a rise in youth discontent”. However, support for this claim is slim. Urdal bases it on historian Herbert Moller’s speculations that emigration defused the violent potential of youth cohorts in nineteenth-century Europe.37 Even 32 Gary Fuller and Forrest R. Pitts, “Youth Cohorts and Political Unrest in South Korea”, Political Geography Quarterly 9, no. 1 (1990): 9–22. 33 Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer, Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population (Boston: MIT Press, 2004) and Christian G. Mesquida and Neil I. Weiner, “Male Age Composition and the Severity of Conflicts”, Politics and the Life Sciences 18, no. 2 (1999): 81–9. 34 Mayssoun Sukarieh and Stuart Tannock, “The Global Securitisation of Youth”, Third World Quarterly 39, no. 5 (2018): 854–70, doi​.org/​10​.1080/​01436597​.2017​.1369038, 857. 35 Leila Austin, “The Politics of the Youth Bulge: From Islamic Activism to Democratic Reform in the Middle East and North Africa”, SAIS Review of International Affairs 31, no. 2, (2011): 81–96, doi​.org/​10​.1353/​sais​.2011​.0019; Anne Hendrixson and Betsy Hartmann, “Threats and Burdens: Challenging Scarcity-Driven Narratives of ‘Overpopulation’”, Geoforum 101 (2019): 250–59, https://​ doi​.org/​10​.1016/​j​.geoforum​.2018​.08​.009; Lesley Pruitt, “Rethinking Youth Bulge Theory in Policy and Scholarship: Incorporating Critical Gender Analysis”, International Affairs 93, no. 3 (2020): 711–28. 36 Susanne Schultz, “Demographic Futurity: How Statistical Assumption Politics Shape Immigration Policy Rationales in Germany”, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 37, no. 4 (2019): 644–62, DOI:10.1177/0263775818772580, 645. 37 Henrik Urdal, “The Devil in the Demographics: The Effect of Youth Bulges on Domestic Armed Conflict, 1950–2000”. Social Development Papers: Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction (World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004), 17–18.

240  Handbook on forced migration a proponent of safety valve thinking recognizes it as “popular belief more than a rigorous academic theory”.38 Nevertheless, she builds on it in her analysis of the demography of the Pacific Islands. In her populationist argument, population growth is outpacing opportunities and outmigration is the best way to curb youth violence. Recent data challenges the assumption that population pressures are driving youth migration flows. There is not a significant association between the number of young people in a population and emigration. Migration and development scholars de Haas and Fransen show that demographic trends do not play a direct role in migration and that the data on population and migration, “defies push-pull models and Malthusian explanations of migration”.39 They argue that further research is needed to understand the complex reasons for migration. Nonetheless, lifeboat discourse recognizes “youth bulge” population pressure as the primary reason for mass migration, particularly from Africa. Journalist Stephen Smith argues that African population pressure will lead to an “unstoppable” outmigration to Europe, claiming that 150 million Africans will migrate to Europe by 2050. However, Smith bases this scenario on incorrect data. African migration and trade researcher Julien Brachet cites significantly lower International Monetary Fund projections that predict 34 million Africans will settle in all Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries by 2050.40 The youth bulge theory builds on powerful environmental security thinking. Specifically, it relies on populationist “degradation narratives” that blame population growth and poverty for environmental degradation and scarcity, link them with unrest and violence, and suggest migration increases the risk of spreading conflict. The narrative upholds security and development rationales for fertility reduction.41 For example, analyst Richard Cincotta argues that without fertility control, the youth bulge in the Western Sahel adds to “rapid population growth, which tends to drive declines in per-capita availability of freshwater and other critical natural resources: factors that are associated with the risk of persistent violent conflict and represent powerful push factors for migration”.42 This ignores how poor governance blocks equitable access to resources in the Sahel, exacerbated by natural resource-grabbing by foreign investors, as in Mali.43 Further, it sidelines the role of government security forces in perpetuating violence.44

Helen Ware, “Demography, Migration and Conflict in the Pacific”, Journal of Peace Research 42, no. 4 (2005): 436, DOI 10.1177/0022343305054090. 39 Hein de Haas and Sonja Fransen, “Social Transformation and Migration: An Empirical Inquiry” (International Migration Institute, Working Paper Series 141, January 2018), 34, https://​www​ .migrationinstitute​.org/​publications/​social​-transformation​-and​-migration​-an​-empirical​-inquiry. 40 Julien Brachet, “The Scramble for Europe: Young Africa on its Way to the Old Continent”, The Black Scholar 50, no. 1 (2020): 75, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​00064246​.2020​.1690962. 41 Anne Hendrixson and Betsy Hartmann, “Threats and Burdens”, 252. 42 Richard Cincotta, “Emulating Botswana’s Approach to Reproductive Health Services Could Speed Development in the Sahel”, New Security Beat, Wilson Center, 27 January 2020, https://​ www​.newsecuritybeat​.org/​2020/​01/​emulating​-botswanas​-approach​-reproductive​-health​-services​-speed​ -development​-sahel/​. 43 Daniela Calmon, Chantal Jacovetti and Massa Koné, “Agrarian Climate Justice as a Progressive Alternative to Climate Security: Mali at the Intersection of Natural Resource Conflicts”, Third World Quarterly 42, no. 12 (2021): 2785–803, DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2021.1965870. 44 Betsy Hartmann, The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War and our Call to Greatness (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2017), 224. 38

Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration  241 In this era of climate change, environmental security has become climate security. Lifeboat discourse reinforces problematic climate security narratives about “climate refugees” or “climate migrants”, terms which overstate the role of climate change in propelling migration. Feminist scholar Betsy Hartmann argues that these narratives paint migrants, often youth, as a threat to Northern borders, while portraying the poor communities they come from as prospective hotspots of climate conflict and war. The war in Syria is an example. Media headlines and politicians described it as a “climate war”, with drought creating a wave of young “climate refugees”, foretelling a grim future of forced mass migration to the global North. There are serious flaws with this assertion. Meteorological data shows the drought was not caused by climate change. Further migrants were not thought to be involved in the 2011 political protests that triggered the Syrian civil war.45 However, the idea of “climate war” cemented a false correlation between climate change, increased rates of population-driven conflict, and inflated migration rates. Increased climate-related shocks, like floods, storms, droughts and short-term changes in temperature and precipitation, can increase migration rates among youth in countries that are agriculture dependent.46 This finding highlights the need for policy and programming that addresses the migration challenges facing young people, particularly poverty-affected youth. However, the extent of such youth migration is unknown. According to analysts Selby and Daoust, there are no rigorous global estimates of people migrating due to climate-related shocks, nor is there evidence of an overall upward trend. They caution against using high-end projections of future climate-related migration – some of which anticipate migration in the hundreds of millions – because such estimates fail to account for in-place adaptation, despite evidence that such adaptation is significant.47 Deficits, Dividends, and Threats Lifeboat discourse projects a dangerous us-against-them mentality which narrowly frames contemporary population and migration trends as a battle of young against old, South against North, and Black against white in the context of anticipated climate insecurity and environmental scarcity. The lifeboat discourse also applies a systematic valuation to populations that determines who should get a seat in the hypothetical lifeboat. It stokes anti-immigrant sentiment. Ecologist and eugenicist Garret Hardin would probably have been pleased to see how his populationist ideas about environmental limits resonate in population and migration debates on both the Left and Right. On the Far Right, Hardin is canonized by some white supremacists and eco-fascists, who see his work as prescient.48 Far Right factions warn of an anticipated demographic “great replacement” as a threat to whiteness. Great replacement conspiracy repeats the argument that white populations will be overtaken by the mass migration of Black Hartmann, The America Syndrome, 230–34. Jan Selby and Gabrielle Daoust, “Rapid Evidence Assessment on the Impacts of Climate Change on Migration Patterns” (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, London, 2021), https://​www​ .preventionweb​.net/​publication/​rapid​-evidence​-assessment​-impacts​-climate​-change​-migration​-patterns. 47 Selby and Daoust, “Rapid Evidence Assessment”, iv. 48 Alex Amend, “First as Tragedy, Then as Fascism: Ecologist Garret Hardin’s Enduring Gift to the Nativist Right”, The Baffler, 26 September 2019, https://​thebaffler​.com/​latest/​first​-as​-tragedy​-then​-as​ -fascism​-amend. 45 46

242  Handbook on forced migration and Brown peoples. Such dangerous calculations of racial “purity” have pushed xenophobic agendas. Psychologist Milan Obaidi and co-authors show how this perception is associated with anti-Muslim persecution and increased Islamophobia in Scandinavian countries.49 In the US, Republican lawmakers, conservative news pundits and white supremacist groups go so far as to suggest that the great replacement is a Democratic conspiracy to replace white, “real Americans” with left-leaning, Black and Brown immigrant voters.50 At the same time, Far Right political parties in Europe suggest keeping out immigrants to protect the European environment. Such “ecobordering” arguments suggest that Black and Brown immigrants are a threat to “pure” nature and that anti-immigrant border policies are a tool for environmental protection.51 US conservatives apply similar eco-fascist arguments to US border politics. The Arizona Attorney General unsuccessfully sued the Biden administration for failing to uphold Trump-era immigration restrictions, including construction of the border wall, on the grounds this will encourage migrants who will degrade the environment. Brnovich asserted that this violated the US National Environmental Protection Act because “as more and more people come into the country, it has a more and more devastating impact on our environment”.52 Taken to its extreme, lifeboat discourse dangerously suggests that only a white, educated elite merit seats in the lifeboat. Even in its more tempered forms, lifeboat discourse distills aging and youth populations to racialized, age-based and gendered stereotypes and narrows definitions of national belonging. While Far Right threads of lifeboat discourse take it to extremes, they point to the treacherous assumptions undergirding it. Perhaps it is time to employ a fleet of lifeboats, conceptual and actual, rather than systematically and intentionally leaving so many abandoned and adrift.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Acharya, Shankar. “India’s Growth Prospects Revisited”. Economic and Political Weekly 39, no. 41 (9–15 October 2004): 4537–42. Amend, Alex. “First as Tragedy, Then as Fascism: Ecologist Garret Hardin’s Enduring Gift to the Nativist Right”. The Baffler, 26 September 2019. Austin, Leila. “The Politics of the Youth Bulge: From Islamic Activism to Democratic Reform in the Middle East and North Africa”. SAIS Review of International Affairs 31, no. 2, (2011): 81–96.

Milan Obaidi, Jonas Kunst, Simon Ozer and Sasha Y. Kimel, “The ‘Great Replacement’ Conspiracy: How the Perceived Ousting of Whites can Evoke Violent Extremism and Islamophobia”, Group Process and Intergroup Relations (2021): 14, DOI: 10.1177/13684​3022110282​93journals​ .sagepub​.com/​home/​gpi. 50 Ronald Brownstein, “The ‘Racist Replacement Theory’ has it All Backward”, CNN Politics, 23 April 2021, https://​www​.cnn​.com/​2021/​04/​23/​politics/​race​-immigration​-replacement​-theory​ -demographics/​index​.html. 51 Joe Turner and Dan Bailey, “‘Ecobordering’: Casting Immigration Control as Environmental Protection”, Environmental Politics 30, no. 1 (2021): 110–131, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​09644016​.2021​ .1916197. 52 Howard Fischer, “Border Wall Construction”, KAWC On Point, 12 April 2021, https://​www​.kawc​ .org/​border​-news/​2021​-04​-13/​arizonas​-ag​-looks​-to​-use​-federal​-environmental​-laws​-to​-continue​-border​ -wall​-construction. 49

Challenging the “lifeboat discourse” on population and migration  243 Bhatia, R., J.S. Sasser, D. Ojeda, A. Hendrixson, S. Nadimpally and E.E. Foley. “A Feminist Exploration of ‘Populationism’: Engaging Contemporary Forms of Population Control”. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 27, no. 3 (2019): 333–50. Bloom, David E. Bloom, David Canning and Gunther Fink. “Implications of Population Aging for Economic Growth”. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 16705, 2011. Bloom, David E., David Canning and Jaypee Sevilla. “The Demographic Dividend: A New Perspective on the Economic Consequences of Population Change”. RAND, Santa Monica, 2003. Brachet, Julien. “The Scramble for Europe: Young Africa on its Way to the Old Continent”. The Black Scholar 50, no. 1 (2020): 73–6. Brownstein, Ronald. “The ‘Racist Replacement Theory’ has it All Backward”. CNN Politics, 23 April 2021. Calmon, Daniela, Chantal Jacovetti and Massa Koné. “Agrarian Climate Justice as a Progressive Alternative to Climate Security: Mali at the Intersection of Natural Resource Conflicts”. Third World Quarterly 42, no. 12 (2021): 2785–803. Chatterjee, Siddarth and John Dramani Mahama. “Promise or Peril? Africa’s 830 Million Young People by 2050”. UNDP Kenya, 14 August 2017. Cincotta, Richard. “Emulating Botswana’s Approach to Reproductive Health Services Could Speed Development in the Sahel”. New Security Beat, Wilson Center, 27 January 2020. Cooley, Thomas and Espen Henriksen. “The Demographic Deficit”. Journal of Monetary Economics, 93 (2018): 45–62. de Haas, Hein and Sonja Fransen. “Social Transformation and Migration: An Empirical Inquiry”. International Migration Institute, Working Paper Series 141, January 2018. Fischer, Andrew. “The Social Value of Employment and the Redistributive Imperative for Development”. UNDP Human Development Report Office, New York, 2014. Fischer, Howard. “Border Wall Construction”. KAWC On Point, 12 April 2021. Fuller, Gary and Forrest R. Pitts. “Youth Cohorts and Political Unrest in South Korea”. Political Geography Quarterly 9, no. 1 (1990): 9–22. Gee, Ellen M. “Miscomprehensions and Misapprehensions About Population Aging”. International Journal of Epidemiology 31 (2002): 750–53. Gusmano, Michael K. and Kieke G.H. Okma. “Population Aging and the Sustainability of the Welfare State”. Special Report: What Makes a Good Life in Late Life? Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies, Hastings Center Report 48, no. 5 (2018): S57–S61. Hardin, Garrett. “Lifeboat Ethics: The Case Against Helping the Poor”. Psychology Today (1974): 800–12. Hartmann, Betsy. The America Syndrome: Apocalypse, War and our Call to Greatness. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2017. Hendrixson, Anne and Betsy Hartmann. “Threats and Burdens: Challenging Scarcity-Driven Narratives of ‘Overpopulation’”. Geoforum 101 (2019): 250–59. Hilbig, Michael, Elke Loichinger and Bernhard Köppen. “‘It Makes the Buzz’—Putting the Demographic Dividend under Scrutiny”. Geographica Helvetica 77 (2022): 141–51. Horwood, Chris, Bram Frouws and Roberto Forin. “Mixed Migration Review 2019. Highlights”. Mixed Migration Centre, Geneva, 2019. Hudson, Valerie M. and Andrea M. den Boer. Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population. Boston: MIT Press, 2004. Kabeer, Naila. “Gender, Demographic Transition and the Economics of Family Size: Population Policy for a Human-Centered Development”. UNRISD Occasional Paper 7, UN Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva, 1998. Kenny, Charles and George Yang. “Can Africa Help Europe Avoid its Looming Age Crisis?” Center for Global Development, Working Paper 584, June 2021. Kumar Singh, Ajit. “India’s Demographic Dividend: A Skeptical Look”. Indian Journal of Human Development 10, no. 1 (2016): 10–26. Lutz, W., J.C. Cuaresma, E. Kebede, A. Prskawetz, W.C. Sanderson and E. Striessnig. “Education Rather than Age Structure brings Demographic Dividend”. PNAS 116, no. 26 (25 June 2019): 12798–803. Marois, Guillaume, Alain Bélanger and Wolfgang Lutz. “Population Aging, Migration, and Productivity in Europe”. PNAS 117, no. 14 (2020): 7690–95.

244  Handbook on forced migration Martin, Ruth, Caroline Williams and Desmond O’Neill. “Retrospective Analysis of Attitudes to Ageing in the Economist: Apocalyptic Demography for Opinion Formers?” British Medical Journal 339, no. 7735 (19–26 December 2009): 1435–7. Meaney, Thomas. “Who’s Your Dance Partner?” London Review of Books 41, no. 21 (2019). Mesquida, Christian G. and Neil I. Weiner. “Male Age Composition and the Severity of Conflicts”. Politics and the Life Sciences 18, no. 2 (1999): 81–9. Nyambura, Catherine. “Repoliticising Women’s Rights in Development: Young African Feminisms at the Cutting Edge”. Gender & Development 26, no. 3 (2018): 432. Obaidi, Milan, Jonas Kunst, Simon Ozer and Sasha Y. Kimel. “The ‘Great Replacement’ Conspiracy: How the Perceived Ousting of Whites can Evoke Violent Extremism and Islamophobia”. Group Process and Intergroup Relations (2021): 1–21. Okyere-Manu, Beatrice. “Overpopulation and the Lifeboat Metaphor: A Critique from an African Worldview”. International Studies of Philosophy of Science 30, no. 3 (2016): 279–89. Pruitt, Lesley. “Rethinking Youth Bulge Theory in Policy and Scholarship: Incorporating Critical Gender Analysis”. International Affairs 93, no. 3 (2020): 711–28. Saha, P., S. Van Veen, I. Davies, K. Hossain, R. van Moorten and L. van Mellaert. “Paid Work: The Magic Solution for Young Women to Achieve Empowerment? Evidence from the Empower Youth for Work project in Bangladesh”, Gender & Development 26, no. 3 (2018): 551. Schultz, Susanne. “Demographic Futurity: How Statistical Assumption Politics Shape Immigration Policy Rationales in Germany”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 37, no. 4 (2019): 644–62. Selby, Jan and Gabrielle Daoust. “Rapid Evidence Assessment on the Impacts of Climate Change on Migration Patterns”. Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, London, 2021. Smith, Stephen. The Scramble for Europe: Young Africa on its Way to the Old Continent. Cambridge, UK and Medford, MA, USA: Polity Press, 2019. Spijker, Jereon and John MacInnes. “Population Ageing: The Timebomb that Isn’t?” BMJ 347 (16 November 2013): 20–22. Sukarieh, Mayssoun and Stuart Tannock. “The Global Securitisation of Youth”. Third World Quarterly 39, no. 5 (2018): 854–70. Teitelbaum, Michael S. “The Media Marketplace for Garbled Demography”. Population and Development Review 30, no. 2 (June 2004): 317–27. Turner, Joe and Dan Bailey. “‘Ecobordering’: Casting Immigration Control as Environmental Protection”. Environmental Politics 30, no. 1 (2021): 110–31. UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. “Population Dynamics and the Sustainable Development Goals”. APPG report, London, July 2015. United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division. “World Population Prospects 2019: Highlights”. UN report ST/ESA/SER.A/423, 2019. Urdal, Henrik. “The Devil in the Demographics: The Effect of Youth Bulges on Domestic Armed Conflict, 1950–2000”. Social Development Papers: Conflict Prevention and Reconstruction. World Bank, Washington, D.C., 2004. Ware, Helen. “Demography, Migration and Conflict in the Pacific”. Journal of Peace Research 42, no. 4 (2005): 435–54. Weny, Kathrin, Rachel Snow and Sainan Zhang. “Demographic Dividend Atlas for Africa: Tracking the Potential for a Demographic Dividend”. United Nations Population Fund, September 2017.

25. Climate mobility and accountability Karen Jacobsen and Susan Martin

INTRODUCTION Human mobility in the context of environmental change has been on the global policy agenda since 1992. Two parallel processes have emerged: one from climate-related organizations beginning with the Earth Summit in 1992 then proceeding with the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC);1 and the other from migration-related ones, most recently via the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).2 The climate-related process began when the Earth Summit adopted the Rio Declaration, which pointed out that “policies and programmes should be developed for handling the various types of migrations that result from or induce environmental disruptions, with special attention to women and vulnerable groups”.3 The COP first addressed human mobility in discussions under the 2007 Bali Action Plan. In 2010, the COP adopted the Cancun Adaptation Framework, which called on all countries to take “measures to enhance understanding, coordination and cooperation with regard to climate change induced displacement, migration and planned relocation, where appropriate, at national, regional and international levels”.4 The 2015 COP in Paris established a Task Force on Displacement under the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM) to develop recommendations for “integrated approaches to avert, minimize and address displacement related to the adverse impacts of climate change”.5 The 2015 COP Task Force issued its first set of recommendations in 2018, calling on States to adopt and implement national and sub-national legislation, policies, and strategies to avert, minimize, and address displacement consistent with human rights; enhance research, data collection, and risk analysis; strengthen preparedness; protect and assist internally displaced persons and strengthen efforts to find durable solutions; and facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration in accordance with international labor standards. It also recommended the UNFCCC strengthen its own coordination, coherence and collaboration across its relevant subunits. The Task Force’s current plan of action includes activities aimed at assisting governments and other actors to incorporate evidence regarding climate mobility into laws, policies and disaster risk strategies. In particular, the Task Force plans to produce supplementary 1 At each COP, states make commitments to combat climate change, propose initiatives, and advocate for policies in support of environmental conservation, clean energy, climate adaptation and preparedness, among other climate- and environment-related issues. 2 General Assembly Resolution adopted on 19 December 2018 on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, 2018 (available at: https://​www​.iom​.int/​resources/​global​-compact​-safe​ -orderly​-and​-regular​-migration/​res/​73/​195). 3 Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3–14 June 1992. Resolutions Adopted by the Conference. A/CONF.151/26/Rev.l (Vol. l). 4 The Cancun Agreements, para. 14(f). 5 COP 21, 2015, p. 8.

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246  Handbook on forced migration guidelines on integrating human mobility into the formulation and implementation of National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). A parallel process for addressing climate mobility is taking place in the context of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM).6 The compact was negotiated and adopted by 164 participating States in 2018 as a follow-up to the 2016 NY Declaration on Large Movements of Migrants and Refugees. In December 2018, it was endorsed by the UN General Assembly. Unlike the UNFCCC process, which addresses both internal and cross-border movements, the GCM process focuses primarily on international migration. Although non-binding, States committed to take action to ameliorate adverse drivers and structural factors that compel people to leave their home countries, by seeking to build resilience, reduce disaster risk, help mitigate climate change, and enable people to adapt to its negative effects.7 States are also called on to “integrate displacement considerations into disaster preparedness strategies”.8 The Compact calls for cooperation between countries to ensure more effective “early warning, contingency planning, stockpiling, coordination mechanisms, evacuation planning, reception and assistance arrangements, and public information”.9 This provision is important for more effective responses, especially in the case of acute natural hazards, in which early preparedness and response save lives and reduce the number of displaced people. The GCM calls for strategies to identify “risks and threats that might trigger or affect migration movements”.10 These strategies include strengthening early warning systems, developing emergency procedures and toolkits, launching emergency operations, and supporting post-emergency recovery. Such improvements require national, sub-regional and regional mechanisms that improve “joint analysis and sharing of information to better map, understand, predict and address migration movements”.11 Finally, the GCM sets out policies that help manage migration that is inevitable even with the best measures in place.12 The Compact aims to enhance availability and flexibility of pathways for regular migration, including national and regional practices that provide for admission and stay.13 Humanitarian visas, private sponsorships, access to education for children, and temporary work permits are cited as actions States can and do take in this regard. The GCM also addresses movements from slow-onset environmental degradation related to climate change, such as desertification, land degradation, drought, and sea level rise.14 Planned relocation and visas are cited as options in cases where adaptation in – or return to – the country of origin is not possible. Importantly, States commit to not returning a person to “risk of death … or other irreparable harm”, which may be read to protect against return to States

6 General Assembly, Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 19 December 2018 on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration, 2018 (available at: https://​www​.iom​.int/​ resources/​global​-compact​-safe​-orderly​-and​-regular​-migration/​res/​73/​195). 7 GCM, para. 18(b). 8 Ibid, para. 18(j). 9 Ibid, para. 18(j). 10 Ibid, para. 18(c). 11 Ibid, para. 18(h). 12 Walter Kaelin, The Global Compact on Migration: A Ray of Hope for Disaster-Displaced Persons. International Journal of Refugee Law, 30(4), 664–7. 2018. 13 GCM, para. 21(g). 14 Ibid, para. 21(h).

Climate mobility and accountability  247 (such as low-lying islands) that become unhabitable.15 A core premise of the GCM is that States can uphold national sovereignty while extolling the benefits of shared responsibility in managing migration, a process that crosses national borders. It emphasizes the need for new partnerships in finding and implementing effective solutions to the pressing issues identified by the Compact. A large number of UN agencies, other intergovernmental processes, and non-governmental organizations are also engaged in efforts to improve global responses to climate mobility. There are too many to describe in detail in this chapter.16 Some of the most active initiatives are: the UN Network on Migration (which coordinates UN agencies with interest in migration, has a work stream on migration and environmental change, and funds projects under the Migration Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF)); the International Organization for Migration (which has a division dedicated to research and analysis on these issues); the World Bank (which underwrites a number of national and regional projects dedicated to environmental migration); the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (which has issued guidelines on planned relocation and situations in which environmental migrants may qualify for protection as refugees); the International Labour Organization (which operates numerous programs to build the resilience of workers and their families affected by climate change); and the Platform for Disaster Displacement (which seeks to implement the Agenda for the Protection of Cross-Border Displaced Persons in the Context of Disasters and Climate Change, adopted by 109 States in 2015).

MONITORING AND ACCOUNTABILITY Unlike ratified international conventions, the COP agreements and the GCM are non-binding on the States that support their implementation. As with all non-binding international agreements, monitoring is needed to ensure that commitments translate to policy reform. Climate-related migration has been on the agenda of successive COPs but there is no monitoring system to hold governments accountable for addressing the recommendations by the Task Force on Disaster Displacement. It would be useful to systematically track whether and how climate-related migration is handled by parties to the UNFCCC.17 Searching for terms related to migration in COP documents is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Even the most Kaelin 2018. For more information on these initiatives, see T. Alexander Aleinikoff and Susan Martin, “The responsibility of the international community in situations of mobility due to environmental events”, Zolberg Institute working paper series / 2022-1, Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility, 2022. 17 Tufts University has begun the “COP Accountability Project”, based at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, in collaboration with The New School in New York. The goal of the project is to monitor how climate-related migration is being discussed at the COP. We began by analyzing documents relating to the preparation of the Sixth IPCC Assessment Report and those of the COP26 meetings in Glasgow in 2021. We analyzed the content and context of over 200 agenda documents, side event notes, speeches presented at the last two COPs, order to identify the states that made commitments to climate-related migration, and the extent to which states have followed up on these commitments. The team analyzed 68 agenda documents, 165 speech transcripts, 2 mandated event transcripts, 24 decision documents, 207 side events and 197 Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) documents. We searched for mentions of a set of terms pertaining to climate-related migration. For more detail, see our report. We conducted interviews with 15 16

248  Handbook on forced migration general terms, such as “migration” and “displacement” are seldom mentioned except in the context of Committees, such as the one on Adaptation, and the Task Force on Displacement. Conversations on these issues occur in side-events organized by governments, international organizations and civil society groups, but few countries bring migration, displacement or planned relocation up in COP plenaries. In COP26, for example, only 24 out of 191 countries explicitly mentioned climate-related migration or displacement.18 The GCM has a more defined monitoring system through the International Migration Review Forum (IMRF), which meets every four years, and regional review forums that meet in between the IMRFs. It also has a funding mechanism to support new initiatives via the MPTF and provide technical assistance through the UN Network on Migration’s work stream on environmental change and migration. The GCM also includes indicators of good practices for governments. Yet, monitoring does not necessarily translate into national policy change. There are no penalties for failure to adhere to the commitments made in the GCM. Nevertheless, there has been progress towards measuring the impact of the agreement on state practice. At the 2022 IMRF, one of four roundtables on implementation of the GCM focused specifically on steps taken to address environmentally-driven movements of people.

WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES TO MORE EFFECTIVE POLICY? These initiatives do not yet have the capacity to hold States accountable for implementing their commitments in the COPs and Global Compact processes, largely because the agreements on climate-related migration are not binding. There are other constraints on progress. For a long time there was general reluctance to attribute climate change impact to migration, since migration is driven by a range of factors. This reluctance inhibited data collection, which in turn constrained evidence-based policy. Timon McPhearson19 gives an example of this lack of data: after Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in 2017, many people left the island, but there is little verified data about people’s motivations for leaving, where people moved to, and who returned and who did not. Nor is there data, several years later, about the impact of migration on the destination areas. Some US cities were unprepared to receive displaced Puerto Ricans, while others had anticipated that they would need resources to receive victims of natural disasters. (At this writing, September 2022, Puerto Rico is suffering from the effects of Hurricane Fiona, which occurred exactly five years after it was hit by Hurricane Maria, the most destructive Atlantic storm on record.) A second obstacle to effective policy is a political one: adaptation strategies that involve migration are a hard sell for leaders. The view that climate-related migration could have positive outcomes for receiving areas is not widely held or understood by city and national governments. Instead, they tend to adopt a more pragmatic focus on “loss and damages”. For

experts on climate-related migration from academia, the United Nations, the advocacy community, and non-governmental organizations. 18 According to the Tufts COP Accountability Project report, these countries fell into three categories: Small Island Developing States (SIDs) anticipating sea level rise; poor and developing countries that anticipate disruption to their food security and livelihoods that will result in climate-related migration; and countries that anticipate an influx of climate migrants from neighboring countries. 19 Interview with Timon McPhearson.

Climate mobility and accountability  249 city governments, identifying loss and damages often means easier access to central government funding, for both emergency response and longer-term recovery. Yet adaptation funding would enable city governments to help people stay where they are, if possible, and move if needed or desired.20 Bangladesh is a good example of a country whose national government has sought to promote adaptation by putting (preliminary) policies in place to increase the resilience of coastal towns and villages, in an effort to reduce out-migration.21 Resources are another constraint. As yet, the UNFCCC has few financial resources for either adaptation programs or loss and damage. A bright spot is the World Bank’s focus on climate change and migration over the past few years. The Bank has published two Groundswell reports: Part 1, Preparing for Internal Climate Migration, came out in 2018, and Part 2, Acting on Internal Climate Migration, came out in 2021. Both reports focus on internal migration, which makes sense as most climate-related migration occurs within countries rather than across borders. The Bank has used the Groundswell results to initiate a series of projects, particularly in Africa, to build resilience to address climate-induced pressures on migration.22 Another reason policy makers are reluctant to link migration to policy is their concerns about the political consequences of taking responsibility for climate change that occurs because of past practice – which means losses and damages are the responsibility of people who haven’t caused the problem. Acknowledging this responsibly carries issues of liability and reparations. For this reason, the US and other governments of the major GHG-emitting countries have stymied discussions on responsibility.23

FUTURE DIRECTIONS COP27 was held in November 2022 at Sharm el Sheik, Egypt. Prior to the meeting there was reason to believe that migration would be on the agenda. According to Rachel Kyte: I think COP27 will be much more about adaptation and L&D [loss and damages], and migration, which is increasingly discussed at the COP. First you talk about it at side events and then it makes its way onto the official agenda. As we understand more about how climate migration is affecting everything, so it becomes more central to the agenda. For now it’s more likely to be brought up in African or Asian meetings than the full COP, but I think it will come up more and more.24

The UN Network on Migration is developing its recommendations to inform those discussions as well as its own work moving forward. The following are two perspectives we believe should guide future work by the international community that could improve monitoring and accountability.

Interview with Susan Martin. Geun Ji, Hyeng. 2019. “The evolution of the policy environment for climate change migration in Bangladesh: Competing narratives, coalitions and power”, Development Policy Review, 37: 603–20. 22 See, for example, Simeon Ehuikanta and Kumari Rigaud, “Climate migration – deepening our solutions”, World Bank. 2022. https://​blogs​.worldbank​.org/​climatechange/​climate​-migration​-deepening​ -our​-solutions. 23 Interview with Rachel Kyte. 24 Interview with Rachel Kyte. 20 21

250  Handbook on forced migration First, as many have noted, the efforts of the international community should be directed primarily at assisting national governments, as most climate-related migration occurs within state boundaries. There are significant problems, however, with bringing all the information and models together to promote greater monitoring and accountability: at the country level, there’s a lot that needs to change. There is an energy transition underway, food system needs to be redesigned, transportation system needs to be fixed. Nobody knows how to do all of these things at the same time. Especially in developing countries, who have to achieve all of the SDGs and are being told to fully implement their NDCs – they can’t do it all. So how do we make it more manageable and communicate to people how to make it happen?25

One way is to strengthen the systems already in place to track progress in addressing climate-related migration. Within the COP, it is essential to strengthen the capacity of both the Adaptation Committee and the Task Force on Displacement so they can monitor what states are doing to address these movements. Within the GCM, there should be a concerted effort to develop metrics to measure progress in implementing the commitments made to reduce pressures to migrate, where possible and appropriate, and to facilitate mobility when necessary as a means of adaptation to climate change. Second, steps should be taken to improve monitoring and accountability at the regional level. International efforts can support the development of regional norms and practices relating to cross-border movement as well as monitoring and accountability measures. Regional conversations should be happening, in places such as the Caribbean, where there are clear and provable climate impacts leading to migration. A regional focus makes it easier to put a price on loss and damages, and regional funds could help pay for the costs that people are bearing to adapt to climate change.26 An example is the World Bank’s Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project, which seeks to “improve collaborative management of the transboundary natural resources of the Lake Victoria basin for the shared benefits of the East African Community (EAC) partner states”.27 Sub-regional groups should also be supported to address the lack of regional data on climate-related migration. One example of such initiatives is a project funded by the Migration Multi-Partnership Trust Fund, entitled “Addressing drivers and facilitating safe, orderly and regular migration in the contexts of disasters and climate change in the IGAD region”.28 The dearth of data often stems not from a lack of capacity, but because there is less priority and inadequate funding allocated toward the issue.29 The way forward in addressing climate change-related movements of people is now and will likely in the future be through non-binding agreements amongst States. Integrating effective monitoring and accountability measures into international and regional agreements is an important step in ensuring progress in improving prevention, responses and solutions to climate-related migration and displacement.

Rachel Kyte. Rachel Kyte. 27 World Bank, AFCC2/RI-Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project Phase II. https://​ projects​.worldbank​.org/​en/​projects​-operations/​project​-detail/​P100406. 28 See: https://​migrationnetwork​.un​.org/​projects/​addressing​-drivers​-and​-facilitating​-safe​-orderly​ -and​-regular​-migration​-contexts​-disasters. 29 Interview with Robert Muthami. 25 26

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INTERVIEWEES Alphabetized list of experts (interviews conducted by the COP Accountability project, from January to mid-March, 2022). T. Alexander Aleinikoff, Director of the Zolberg Center on Migration and Mobility and University Professor, The New School, New York, USA. Achilles Kallergis, Assistant Professor and Director of the Project on Cities and Migration at the Zolberg Center on Migration and Mobility, New York. Rachel Kyte, Dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Group on Climate Action. Former Chief Executive Officer of Sustainable Energy for All, and Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy. Susan Martin, Donald G. Herzberg Chair in International Migration, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. Timon McPhearson, Director, Urban Systems Laboratory, The New School, New York. Contributing Author to 2022 IPCC Report. Robert Muthami, Climate Change Specialist, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Office, Nairobi, Kenya. Kanta Kumari Rigaud, Lead Environmental Specialist, World Bank. Amali Tower, Founder and Executive Director, Climate Refugees. Mariam Traore Chazalnoel, Associate Expert, Migration, Environment and Climate Change, IOM. Lauren Wang, Senior Policy Advisor, The Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, New York.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aleinikoff, T. Alexander and Susan Martin, 2022. “The responsibility of the international community in situations of mobility due to environmental events”, Zolberg Institute working paper series / 2022-1, Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. Cancun Agreements, para. 14(f). See Report of the Conference of the Parties on its sixteenth session, held in Cancun 29 November–10 December 2010. Part Two: Decision 1/CP.16. https://​unfccc​.int/​ resource/​docs/​2010/​cop16/​eng/​07a01​.pdf. COP21, 2015. Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 12 December, 2015, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104. COP21, 2015, p. 8. Ehuikanta, Simeon and Kumari Rigaud, 2022. “Climate migration – deepening our solutions”. World Bank. https://​blogs​.worldbank​.org/​climatechange/​climate​-migration​-deepening​-our​-solutions. GCM (Global Compact on Migration), 2018. United Nations General Assembly Resolution adopted on 19 December 2018 on the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. https://​www​.iom​ .int/​resources/​global​-compact​-safe​-orderly​-and​-regular​-migration/​res/​73/​195. Hyeng, Geun Ji, 2019. “The Evolution of the Policy Environment for Climate Change Migration in Bangladesh: Competing Narratives, Coalitions and Power.” Development Policy Review, 37(5), 603–20. Kaelin, Walter, 2018. “The global compact on migration: A ray of hope for disaster-displaced persons”. International Journal of Refugee Law, 30(4), 664–7. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3–14 June 1992. Resolutions Adopted by the Conference. A/CONF.151/26/Rev.l (Vol. l). United Nations, 2021. “Addressing drivers and facilitating safe, orderly and regular migration in the contexts of disasters and climate change in the IGAD Region”. https://​migrationnetwork​.un​.org/​projects/​ addressing​-drivers​-and​-facilitating​-safe​-orderly​-and​-regular​-migration​-contexts​-disasters. World Bank, AFCC2/RI-Lake Victoria Environmental Management Project Phase II. https://​projects​ .worldbank​.org/​en/​projects​-operations/​project​-detail/​P100406.

 

Poem: I Would Steal a Car for You

Martín Espada Papo stole a car so he wouldn’t be late for school, the first bell and the last chapter of the book you taught in English class. He wanted to know how the story would end. His story ended in handcuffs and jail, his gold star attendance record ruined. I would steal a car for you, even though the keys no longer dangle from the ignition as they did the year I was born. I’ve never stolen a car, though I confess to vandalism, ripping the hood ornament off a Mercedes to improvise a belt buckle. My pants fell down anyway, leaving me with skinned knees, a mouth spraying obscenities and a story to tell. My pants still fall down today, and you laugh till your face turns birthday-balloon pink, so I do it again, a rodeo clown rehearsing the rescue of the cowboy from the horns of a charging bull. I may be sixty-two, but I wish I could steal a car for you. You would spin the wheel and parallel park, graceful as an ice skater gliding backwards in a figure-eight. I would have a story to tell, not a story where I play all the parts with all the voices, only to learn that you’ve heard the story a dozen times before. I would steal a car to hear your stories, the tale of the boy who stole a car so he would not be late for school. I’ve heard the story many times before, but tell me again about the first time we sat together and you knew what all the crooners of all the ballads on all the car radios in history could never find the words to sing: I felt my blood flinch, you say. Tell me again how you offered up a bag of raw almonds in your hand and my fingers dipped into the bag. Tell me again and again how we slow-danced in the parking lot to the crooning of a Cuban ballad singer on the car radio.

Narrative: Waiting in transit

Antje Missbach Being “in transit” is commonly understood as being temporarily in a place that is neither one’s place of origin nor one’s desired destination – for example, in an airport passenger lounge. It has always been a part of a long journey, even before fortified borders pushed many refugees and other migrants into a state of perpetual transit. Yet this “going across” is far from straightforward. Arrows on maps suggest that large groups of people migrate without interruption and along linear passages from war zones to peaceful places and from underdeveloped to more prosperous countries, but, in reality, migrant journeys are anything but direct.1 Migration sometimes includes swift border crossings and onward movements, but mostly it is about unanticipated detours, long periods of waiting, and even entrapment by traffickers, as migrants and refugees navigate changing routes and externalized borders.2 In short, transit is a fragmented, non-linear, and protracted phenomenon. “Waiting in transit” has a temporal element (the time it takes to travel, and time spent waiting) as well as geopolitical, legal and social elements, and can determine mobility in different ways. Even if refugees and other migrants travel along the same well-known and well-established migratory routes, waiting will be longer for some (e.g., refugees in camps, asylum seekers without refugee status stuck at borders) and shorter for others (e.g., those who can pay smugglers and have good luck, or have their claims to migration quickly recognized). Much of this waiting experience depends on legal status, which can be difficult to determine in groups of mixed migrants or for a single migrant with competing motivations for their journey. Doors that open for asylum seekers who gain recognition as refugees often remain closed to those who are deemed economic migrants without claims to asylum. Temporary or permanent waiting has material consequences for migrants: waiting can determine when migrants run out of funds for their journey. But waiting also has temporal, geopolitical, legal, and social dimensions. On the temporal dimension, transit can last for days, weeks, or even years. For example, recruited Indonesian care workers are made to wait for months in transit centres, where they are charged exorbitant fees per day, while they await their placement with a new employer overseas.3 Migrants waiting in Tijuana, Mexico or Ceuta-Melilla, Spain are often stuck at the border for months or even years. In the worst of cases, transit can last an entire lifetime and over multi-generations, as with the millions of refugees living in camps. UNHCR defines 1 Henk van Houtum and Rodrigo Bueno Lacy, “The Migration Map Trap: On the Invasion Arrows in the Cartography of Migration”, Mobilities 15, no. 2 (2020): 196–219. 2 Joris Schapendonk, Ilse van Liempt, Inga Schwarz and Griet Steel, “Re-Routing Migration Geographies: Migrants, Trajectories and Mobility Regimes”, Geoforum 116 (2020): 211–16. 3 Olivia Killias, “The Politics of Bondage in the Recruitment, Training and Placement of Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers”, Sociologus 59, no. 2 (2009): 145–72.

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254  Handbook on forced migration “protracted refugee situations” as those in which 25 000 or more refugees of the same nationality live in a host country for at least five consecutive years after their initial displacement, with no immediate prospect of a durable solution. By the end of 2021, UNHCR estimated that about 15.9 million refugees were living in protracted situations in more than 31 host countries.4 Waiting for long periods of time for an undetermined outcome can have significant negative impacts on people and their mental health.5 This is particularly apparent in immigration detention settings, such as offshore camps and prison-like compounds like those built by Australia in the Pacific, which are notorious for their high rates of suicide and self-harm.6 But even outside these extreme settings, protracted waiting can result in demoralization and desperation. Ghassan Hage coined the term “stuckedness” to capture the notion of “existential immobility”, where people are prevented not only from moving physically but also from progressing socially and socioeconomically, which leads to boredom and unproductiveness that may result in a loss of skills and self-reliance.7 This is evident in situations where refugees and migrants exist in liminal spaces for an extended period of time. On the geopolitical dimension, protracted transit can occur anywhere between leaving home and reaching a desired destination. Typical places of extended transit include refugee camps, prisons, and migrant shelters, but states make use of other spaces as well. With ever-more refined techniques of border reconfiguration, even certain parts of airports are now declared transit zones, or some kind of “no man’s land”. An extraordinary example is the case of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian refugee who spent almost 18 years at France’s Charles de Gaulle Airport after losing his documents en route to the United Kingdom – where he was refused entry and sent back to Paris.8 Alison Mountz writes of an “enforcement archipelago” made of immigration detention centres on remote islands around the world, that employ similar migration control tactics to deter, detain, and deflect migrants and refugees from the shores of desired destination countries.9 These remote detention islands are obscured from journalistic and government scrutiny, and offer jurisdictional advantages to states that wish to keep unwanted migrants and refugees in outsourced and often substandard conditions in third countries. Australia has been a pioneer in the use of offshore detention, which it has refined in order to avoid legal repercussions, and Australian statesmen have vigorously promoted it to other states around the world as a model.10 The legal dimension of being in transit refers to how migrants move through a variety of legal statuses, as described by Cerone in this Handbook. Some migrants arrive in a destination UNHCR Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2021 (Copenhagen: UNHCR Global Data Service, 2022). 5 Pia Juul Bjertrup, Malika Bouhenia, Philippe Mayaud, Clément Perrin, Jihane Ben Farhat and Karl Blanchet, “A Life in Waiting: Refugees’ Mental Health and Narratives of Social Suffering after European Union Border Closures in March 2016”, Social Science & Medicine 215 (2018): 53–60. 6 Caroline Fleay and Sue Hoffman, “Despair as a Governing Strategy: Australia and the Offshore Processing of Asylum-Seekers on Nauru”, Refugee Survey Quarterly 33, no. 2 (2014): 1–19. 7 Ghassan Hage, “Waiting Out the Crisis: On Stuckedness and Governmentality,” in Waiting, edited Ghassan Hage (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 2016), 97–106. 8 Andrew Donkin and Alfred Mehran, The Terminal Man, London: Corgi, 2004. 9 Alison Mountz, “The Enforcement Archipelago: Detention, Haunting, and Asylum on Islands”, Political Geography 30, no. 3, (2011): 118–28. 10 Madeline Gleeson, “Protection Deficit: The Failure of Australia’s Offshore Processing Arrangements to Guarantee ‘Protection Elsewhere’ in the Pacific”, International Journal of Refugee Law 31, no. 4 (2019): 415–63. 4

Narrative: Waiting in transit  255 country with valid passports, visas, and even work permits but later become undocumented or “irregular(ized)” because those documents lose their validity after a certain period of time. Others arrive with no papers at all, or with fraudulent papers provided by facilitators, smugglers, or bribed officials, and thus have to live “under the radar” or find a way to legalize their status, which is easier to do in some countries than in others.11 Among these “irregular” migrants, some are not recognized as citizens anywhere, including in their country of birth, rendering them “stateless”, as in the case of the one million Rohingyas in Myanmar. Asylum seekers also enter the mix, living in transit while they await their status determination. These legal statuses are shifting and temporary and can contribute to shorter or longer periods of waiting depending on myriad factors: politics of the destination or transit country, international migration trends, policy decisions at the national and international level, and the extent of humanitarian assistance, amongst others. On the social dimension, “waiting in transit” can exacerbate migrant exploitation and maltreatment when transit states (or liminal areas of externalized or interiorized borders) and their citizens do not acknowledge the basic rights of people in transit. This is evident in states that restrict migrants’ ability to work in transit or while waiting for legal status. Restricted work policies and limited opportunities for formal work foster high levels of precarity for migrants in transit, because often the only employment they can find is in the informal economy. Here, transit migrants face insecure, unsafe, and uncertain working conditions – as well as a high risk of arrest, detention and even deportation – before reaching their final destination. Migrants in most places of transit, no matter how remote, still find opportunities for creating strategic alliances and viable livelihoods. Some people stuck in transit end up in highly exploitative scenarios or even forced labour, but others adapt to opportunities and develop new skills, deploy existing skills, or take up collective responsibilities, such as educational and income-generating initiatives for fellow migrants and refugees. When people in transit invest (both socially and emotionally) in creating new attachments and building strong social networks with the host population, violence and other mistreatment tends to diminish. Places of transit can transform into destinations as a result of these investments, suggesting that the idea of a “transit place” is itself a transient concept.12 But staking claims to a place of transit can also raise concerns with the host country, especially if the country perceives itself as only a transit country and not a destination country. Mixed flows make it difficult to develop and deploy state-level policies that can be easily put into practice to determine who remains, and who leaves. Protracted waiting in transit is increasingly something to be expected, as states continue to externalize their borders and attempt to limit migrants’ movement. It is therefore incumbent upon migration scholars and practitioners to better understand the multiple forms that “waiting” takes, as well as its affective, physical, legal, and socioeconomic impact on migrants in mixed flows.

11 Some countries, for example, grant amnesty to undocumented migrants and thus legalise their residency. 12 Antje Missbach and Melissa Phillips, “Reconceptualizing Transit States in an Era of Outsourcing, Offshoring, and Obfuscation”, Migration and Society 3, no. 1, (2020): 19–33.

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BIBLIGOGRAPHY Bjertrup, Pia Juul, Malika Bouhenia, Philippe Mayaud, Clément Perrin, Jihane Ben Farhat and Karl Blanchet, “A Life in Waiting: Refugees’ Mental Health and Narratives of Social Suffering after European Union Border Closures in March 2016”, Social Science & Medicine 215 (2018): 53–60. Donkin, Andrew and Alfred Mehran, The Terminal Man, London: Corgi, 2004. Fleay, Caroline and Sue Hoffman, “Despair as a Governing Strategy: Australia and the Offshore Processing of Asylum-Seekers on Nauru”, Refugee Survey Quarterly 33 no. 2 (2014): 1–19. Gleeson, Madeline, “Protection Deficit: The Failure of Australia’s Offshore Processing Arrangements to Guarantee ‘Protection Elsewhere’ in the Pacific”, International Journal of Refugee Law 31, no. 4 (2019): 415–63. Hage, Ghassan, “Waiting Out the Crisis: On Stuckedness and Governmentality”, in Waiting, edited Ghassan Hage (Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press, 2016), 97–106. Killias, Olivia, “The Politics of Bondage in the Recruitment, Training and Placement of Indonesian Migrant Domestic Workers”, Sociologus 59, no. 2 (2009): 145–72. Missbach, Antje and Melissa Phillips, “Reconceptualizing Transit States in an Era of Outsourcing, Offshoring, and Obfuscation,” Migration and Society 3, no. 1 (2020): 19–33. Mountz, Alison, “The Enforcement Archipelago: Detention, Haunting, and Asylum on Islands”, Political Geography 30, no. 3 (2011): 118–28. Schapendonk, Joris, Ilse van Liempt, Inga Schwarz and Griet Steel, “Re-Routing Migration Geographies: Migrants, Trajectories and Mobility Regimes”, Geoforum 116 (2020): 211–16. UNHCR Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2021 (Copenhagen: UNHCR Global Data Service, 2022). van Houtum, Henk and Rodrigo Bueno Lacy, “The Migration Map Trap: On the Invasion Arrows in the Cartography of Migration,” Mobilities 15, no. 2 (2020): 196–219.

PART V URBAN SETTINGS

26. The urbanisation of displacement Lucy Earle

The world is experiencing the urbanisation of displacement. In the past 15 years, the percentage of refugees who have sought shelter in urban areas is estimated to have increased from around 15 per cent in 20031 to more than 60 per cent today.2 Syrian refugees in the Middle East, who have largely settled in towns and cities, have driven this increase. However, this demographic shift was already in evidence before the onset of the Syrian crisis in 2011.3 Estimates of urban IDP populations are more complex because of the lack of data on internal displacement, particularly arising from disasters or long-term environmental changes, and on returns.4 There is also lack of consistency between countries around the point at which IDPs are no longer considered to be displaced.5 The majority of refugees remain close to home, crossing into a neighbouring country, and as such they are often seeking safety in the towns and cities of low and middle-income countries.6 These towns and cities share the characteristics of density, dynamism and diversity7 with urban areas in the Global North. However, they are often characterised by complex and overlapping governance systems (including in relation to land), and poor households rely on the informal sector for housing, shelter, basic services and livelihoods. The demographic shift towards towns and cities on the part of displaced people has not been accompanied by a shift in policy and programming on the part of host governments, donors and humanitarian actors. UNHCR introduced an urban policy in 2009 that aimed to “set out the broad contours and underlying principles of UNHCR’s engagement with urban refugees”.8 Briefly touched upon by Leeson et al. in this Handbook and explored in depth by Crisp,9

1 Sara Feldman, “Development Assisted Integration: A Viable Alternative to Long Term Residence in Refugee Camps?” Praxis The Fletcher Journal of Human Security, vol. xxii (2007). 2 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019 (Geneva: UNHCR, 2019). 3 Jeff Crisp, “Finding Space for Protection: An Inside Account of the Evolution of UNHCR’s Urban Refugee Policy”, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 33, no. 1 (2017). 4 IDMC, Global Report on Internal Displacement 2019. Geneva: IDMC, 2019. 5 The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) refuses to be drawn on the proportion of IDPs in urban areas as data is often not disaggregated in this regard. Further, there does not appear to be any evidence for the oft-cited figure of 80 per cent of IDPs globally residing in urban areas. However, in 2019, UNHCR did estimate that in the IDP situations where UNHCR was playing an active role, two-thirds of IDPs were in urban areas; see UNHCR, Global Trends. 6 UNHCR, Global Trends. 7 Jo Beall, Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis and Ravi Kanbur, “Beyond the Tipping Point: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Urbanization and Development”. In Urbanization and Development: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Jo Beall, Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis and Ravi Kanbur (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). 8 UNHCR, Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas (Geneva: UNHCR, 2009). 9 Crisp, “Finding space”.

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The urbanisation of displacement  259 Muggah and Abdenur10 suggest that it “was never fully accepted and suffered from uneven implementation”. The level of funding flows to urban refugee populations is hard to estimate, not least because donors and humanitarian agencies do not report on their funding in a way that facilitates disaggregation by location. This is perhaps an indication of the “novelty” of urban displaced populations for many actors. It is also perhaps related to a general drift away from urban-focused policy and programming by many donor governments during the past two decades. Anecdotal evidence suggests funding is still heavily geared towards camp-based populations. More recent displacement-related policy discussions within UNHCR and the international community have been focused on the Global Compact on Refugees. The Compact was agreed at a UN summit in 2018, and sets out the steps UN Member States should take to decrease the overall number of refugees globally, while also reducing the “burden” of refugee hosting by poorer countries. The document is structured around four pillars: (1) increased financial support for destination countries; (2) more resettlement places in third countries (generally in the Global North); (3) support for refugees to return safely to countries of origin; and (4) facilitating self-reliance of refugees. Self-reliance is defined by UNHCR as the “social and economic ability of an individual, a household or a community to meet its essential needs in a sustainable manner and with dignity”.11 Self-reliance is not a new concept – as Easton-Calabria and Omata recount.12 There is a long history of programming by governments and aid agencies aimed at helping refugees achieve collective self-sufficiency, and more recently individual financial independence. The measures that are needed to support refugee self-reliance will be very different in a camp, a rural area and a city. But the outcome document of the Summit, known as the New York Declaration, its associated Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework and the Global Compact on Refugees are written at a very high level of abstraction. This means that there is little discussion of different refugee hosting contexts. While the Compact lists the different sectors that are integral to a comprehensive refugee response, how this is to be achieved across different types of locations is left undefined. Urban areas are mentioned in the Compact but always in conjunction with “rural areas”, in a catch-all reference to those who are outside camps. For example: Humanitarian assistance remains needs-driven and based upon the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence. Wherever possible, it will be delivered in a way that benefits both refugees and host communities. This will include efforts to deliver assistance through local and national service providers where appropriate (including through multipurpose cash assistance), instead of establishing parallel systems for refugees from which host communities do not benefit over time. Increasingly, refugees find themselves in urban and rural areas outside of camps, and it is important to also respond to this reality.13

10 Robert Muggah and Adriana Erthal Abdenur. 2018. Refugees and the City: The Twenty-First-Century Front Line (Ontario: World Refugee Council, 2018), 1. 11 UNHCR, Handbook for Self-Reliance (Geneva: UNHCR, 2005). 12 Evan Easton-Calabria and Naohiko Omata. “Panacea for the Refugee Crisis? Rethinking the Promotion of ‘Self-Reliance’ for Refugees”. Third World Quarterly 39, no. 8 (2018): 1458–74. 13 UNHCR. Global Compact on Refugees (New York: United Nations, 2018), 12–13.

260  Handbook on forced migration However, many organisations that work on displacement have limited experience in urban centres and may not know how to “respond to this reality”. There is, by contrast, likely to be more familiarity with programming in rural areas, given the history of establishing rural settlements for refugees, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. It was in these more remote contexts, in response to famine, flood and cross-border movements that the humanitarian profession evolved in the post-war period.14 While the urban nature of the Syrian response has increased agencies’ exposure to urban refugees, in many other parts of the world there is little familiarity in providing protection or supporting service delivery for the urban displaced. The presence of displaced people in towns and cities is not new. It has been documented since the 1970s.15 However, the general perception in the latter half of the twentieth century was that urban refugees were a “problem” and a disproportionately expensive population to support. These attitudes persist until today. According to Haysom the urban displaced are considered “an expense and a security threat”.16 Evidence from Nairobi in the 2000s would suggest significant improvements in protection and services can be achieved for urban refugees and without great cost. Campbell documents steps taken by the Nairobi UNHCR office that included investing in community services, establishing partnerships with refugees and civil society, leveraging resources from the private sector and other agencies, and, critically, working with government.17 But this “cultural shift” in Nairobi is singled out as an exception rather than a broader movement replicated elsewhere. To understand the situation for urban refugees and IDPs, we must turn our attention to camps. This is because many host governments, UN policy-makers and NGO practitioners view the urban displaced as “out of place”18 and assume that “refugees belong in camps”,19 the vast majority of which are in remote areas.20 In many well-documented examples from the 1970s until the 1990s, refugees living in remote camps or rural “settlements” were expected to open the agricultural frontier and become self-sufficient small-scale farmers on previously uncultivated land.21,22,23

Lucy Earle, “Urban Crises and the New Urban Agenda”. Environment and Urbanization 28, no. 1 (2018). 15 Crisp, “Finding space”. 16 Simone Haysom, Sanctuary in the City? Urban Displacement and Vulnerability (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2013). 17 Elizabeth Campbell, “Increasing Urban Refugee Protection in Nairobi: Political Will or Additional Resources?” in Urban Refugees: Challenges in Protection, Services and Policy, edited by Koichi Koizumi and Gerhard Hoffstaedter (London: Routledge, 2015), 12. 18 Cathrine Brun and Anita H. Fábos, “Mobilizing Home for Long-Term Displacement: A Critical Reflection on the Durable Solutions”. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9, no 2 (2017). 19 Jeff Crisp, Tim Morris and Hilde Refstie, “Displacement in Urban Areas: New Challenges, New Partnerships”. Disasters 36, Suppl.1 (2012), 25. 20 However, there are notable and very famous exceptions, such as the Palestinian camps in the cities of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria that became encircled by, if not fully integrated into, growing cities. 21 Barbara Harrell-Bond, Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986). 22 Tania Kaiser, “Between a Camp and a Hard Place: Rights, Livelihood and Experiences of the Local Settlement System for Long-Term Refugees in Uganda”. Journal of Modern African Studies 44 no. 4 (2006). 23 Liisa Malkki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). 14

The urbanisation of displacement  261 As a result, from a policy and programming perspective, the camp is the opposite of the city. It is the specific flipside to the “urban and rural” catch-all references in international agreements and is always present in discussions around and conceptualisations of urban displacement – “the camp haunts the city”.24 This can be seen with recent and ongoing attempts to relocate people from urban areas “back” to camps. For example, in Kenya in 2014 Somalis refugees were forcibly removed from Nairobi and relocated to Dadaab, from where it was planned they would be returned to Somalia.25 Additionally, in 2021, Eritrean refugees who had fled Adi Harush camp in Tigray after fighting between the Ethiopian government and an opposition group, sought sanctuary in Addis Ababa, but were forcibly returned to the camps.26 As Darling puts it: “The idealized vision of the refugee camp as a temporary ‘solution’ to displacement continues to position the camp as a focus of policy, legitimation and humanitarianism, and in doing so helps to explain the production of urban refugees as ‘problematic’ by comparison.”27 Camps have lasting appeal for a number of key actors. For aid agencies, camps make distribution of aid easier, and provide a “visible tool” for raising funds.28 By contrast, where refugees live lives of relative normality alongside other residents of towns and cities, they may not be obviously identifiable as a population in need: “local integration makes refugees less visible”.29 The aspect of visibility is important for host governments and their relationships with their own citizens and constituents as “camps are a tangible demonstration that a government is actively responding to a refugee crisis”.30 The use of camps to mobilise resources leads Sanyal to categorise them as “carrots” that encourage host countries to allow refugees to remain.31 They also “play into the narrative that refugees are outsiders, foreigners or a security threat demanding close scrutiny until such time as they can return home”.32 There have been many decades of critique of camps – notably the “anti-warehousing” campaign of the 2000s. It documented the negative social, environmental and geopolitical impacts of camps, and highlighted how encampment was denying refugees their rights and putting lives on hold for decades.33 Nevertheless, camps continue to be a default response to emerging refugee crises. This despite the fact that they are also an enormous expense, sucking

Jonathan Darling, “Forced Migration and the City: Irregularity, Informality, and the Politics of Presence”. Progress in Human Geography 41, no. 2 (2017), 182. 25 Sorcha O’Callaghan, Farah Manji, Kerrie Holloway and Christina Lowe, The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework: Progress in Kenya (London: Overseas Development Institute Humanitarian Policy Group, 2019). 26 BBC, “Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: UN ‘alarmed’ by treatment of Eritrean refugees”, BBC News Online, 11 December 2020. https://​www​.bbc​.co​.uk/​news/​world​-africa​-55277843. 27 Darling, “Forced Migration”, 182. 28 Lucy Hovil, “Local Integration”. In The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long and Nando Sigona (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 29 Iffat Idris, “Effectiveness of Various Refugee Settlement Approaches”. K4D Helpdesk Report 223 (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2017), 10. 30 Idris, “Effectiveness”, 14. 31 Romola Sanyal, “Urbanizing Refuge: Interrogating Spaces of Displacement”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38, no. 2 (2014), 559. 32 Hovil, “Local Integration”. 33 USCRI, “Lives in Storage: Refugee Warehousing and the Overlooked Humanitarian Crisis” (Arlington: USCRI, 2019). 24

262  Handbook on forced migration huge levels of resources into parallel systems of service provision that are often of almost zero benefit to the host government or populations. UNHCR’s long-awaited urban refugee policy and the choice by Jordan in the 2000s to accommodate Iraqi refugees in its cities, gave hope to Verdirame and Pobjoy that displacement actors could respond to future crises differently.34 However, the opposite occurred. It is widely recognised that Jordan’s later decision to establish Syrian refugee camps was a direct reaction to the lack of support actors in Jordan received in their urbanised response to the arrival of Iraqi refugees.35,36 For now, it seems, refugee camps are here to stay. And it has become fashionable to look at overlaps between camp and city. Clearly there are links between them, and it is important to recognise these if we are to understand how the economies of camps evolve. In many cases there are regular and repeated flows of goods, people and capital between the camp and the city, as individuals and families try to maximise income-generating strategies by ensuring ongoing eligibility for humanitarian assistance while also finding other ways to find returns on available household labour and to establish and grow businesses. Camps begin to resemble urban informal settlements (sometimes referred to as slums) as their structures become more permanent. This and other practices of home-making have been widely documented. Jansen’s detailed ethnography of Kakuma in Kenya argues that an emerging “urbanity” among refugees is proof of the evolving nature of camps where they evolve into something more like a town or city.37 He demonstrates how rich political, social and economic lives do emerge in camp settings, despite physical and legal restrictions. He argues that the camp eventually becomes a resource that refugees use to make a livelihood, as they might do in a city. Facets of “humanitarian urbanism” as he dubs it, include “the diversification and organization of livelihoods and lifestyles”,38 and entrepreneurial activities that are “metaphorically ‘urban’, that is, non-agricultural: trade, bartering and service provision such as catering or running restaurants and entertainment activities”.39 Other aspects Jansen deems urban in camp settings are the emergence of social strata and cosmopolitanism derived through exposure to people of different ethnicities and income status. But it is important not to confuse urbanism with urbanisation. Unless a camp is located in a place where it is both sensible and feasible for an urban centre to emerge, it is very unlikely a camp can evolve into a self-sustaining city. These issues are examined by Aubrey in this Handbook. Where does this leave us? There is a generally-held assumption that refugees and IDPs who choose to leave or bypass camps where they would be eligible for humanitarian assistance must be achieving self-reliance. However, as repeatedly flagged in the literature, this

34 Guglielmo Verdirame and Jason Pobjoy, “The End of Refugee Camps?” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Migration Law, Theory and Policy, edited by Satvinder Juss (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013). 35 Juline Beaujouan and Amjed Rasheed, “The Syrian Refugee Policy of the Jordanian Government.” In Syrian Crisis, Syrian Refugees: Voices from Jordan and Lebanon, edited by Juline Beaujouan and Amjed Rasheed (London: Palgrave, 2020). 36 Victoria Kelberer, “Negotiating Crisis: International Aid and Refugee Policy in Jordan”. Middle East Policy 24, no. 4 (2017). 37 Bram Jansen, Kakuma Refugee Camp: Humanitarian Urbanism in Kenya’s Accidental City (London: Zed, 2018). 38 Jansen, Humanitarian Urbanism, 107. 39 Ibid, 110–111.

The urbanisation of displacement  263 is a problematic assumption. Along with Crawford et al.,40 Easton-Calabria and Omata argue that it may be expedient to describe refugees as self-reliant when they live without external assistance.41 But “the fact that some groups may have not received much or any assistance over a long period of time […] should not be equated with those people having achieved satisfactory self-reliance and sustainable livelihoods”.42 Crawford et al.’s warning is particularly critical in urban settings, since there is a widely-held assumption that those who move to towns and cities are innately more able to support themselves, with the “weakest and most vulnerable stay[ing] within the camps”.43 However, reducing or denying aid altogether based on this assumption, “runs the risk of compromising the protection of refugees and undermining their welfare”.44 Slaughter agrees, writing specifically with reference to urban refugees in Kenya: “One might argue that, since the majority of refugees in Nairobi are not receiving aid, they are by definition self-reliant. However, the quality and sustainability of life for many remain a question”.45 As noted above, self-reliance is a current issue in international policy discussions on refugee response. It falls outside of the agreed durable solutions of resettlement, return and local integration. However, ongoing insecurity and conflict in the countries of origin of some of the largest global refugee populations, combined with diminishing numbers of third-country resettlement places and the politically unpalatable nature of de jure local integration, has led commentators to note that a fourth “all too durable solution” has evolved. Brun and Fábos describe this as a type of long-term “invisibilization of refugees beyond the view of settled populations”.46 They also refer to it as “integration lite”, “where people may be able to survive, but their refugee status is not ended and their refugee predicament is no closer to being addressed”.47 A similar situation is apparent for IDPs in situations where the government is determined to see these populations return to their place of origin – often for political reasons. This leads to situations of “permanent impermanence”48 where lives are “on hold”.49 There is perhaps a danger that the convenient labelling of self-settled urban refugees as self-reliant will prevent more meaningful debates on what this really entails in towns and cities. It also risks that follow-up to pledges made in light of the Global Compact on Refugees will focus on camps and new rural “settlements” such as Kalobeyei in Kenya that are far from the seats of power and where the presence of refugees has few strategic or political implications. There is, however, a glimmer of hope and potential new directions through which to approach urban displacement. Humanitarian actors’ tendency to bypass or ignore sub-national 40 Nicholas Crawford, John Cosgrave, Simone Haysom, and Nadine Walicki, Protracted Displacement: Uncertain Paths to Self-Reliance in Exile (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2015). 41 Easton-Calabria and Omata, “Panacea”. 42 Crawford et al. Protracted Displacement, 26. 43 Idris, Effectiveness, 4. 44 Easton-Calabria and Omata, “Panacea”, 1467. 45 Amy Slaughter, 2020. “Fostering Refugee Self-Reliance: A Case Study of an Agency’s Approach in Nairobi”. Journal of Refugee Studies 33, no. 1 (2020), 111. 46 Brun and Fábos, “Mobilizing home”, 178. 47 Ibid, 179. 48 Cathrine Brun, “Active Waiting and Changing Hopes toward a Time Perspective on Protracted Displacement”. Social Analysis 59, no. 1 (2015). 49 Brun and Fábos, “Mobilizing home”.

264  Handbook on forced migration governments is widely documented by Shawarbeh and Saliba in this Handbook, and by Betts, Memişoğlu, and Ali50). The UN and bilateral donors negotiate humanitarian access with national governments, and this, combined with the assertion of the humanitarian principles of impartiality, neutrality and independence, can be deployed to excuse meaningful engagement with sub-national authorities. However, with the hardening of national positions towards displaced populations occurring alongside the movement of refugees and IDPs into urban areas, some realignment has begun to occur. In Jordan and Lebanon, te Lintelo notes a “strong shift” towards more support by the international community for municipal authorities hosting Syrian refugees over the past five years,51 although Zapater queries in the Lebanese context whether their stabilising role is recognised and adequately understood by international donors.52 Mayors themselves are emerging as leaders in displacement response and protection. In the mid to late 2010s, new city networks were established, founded in solidarity with displaced people and premised on a pragmatic stance towards migration and displacement.53 Municipal-level initiatives and policies will thus have significant impacts on the experiences of urban IDPs and refugees.54 A small body of literature has begun to emerge that looks more closely at the potential role that mayors and municipal authorities play in providing protection and services to displaced populations within their jurisdictions, and the strategies that can be deployed by humanitarian and development actors to incentivise municipal responses to displacement.55 Betts et al.’s study of three towns in Lebanon and three in Turkey leads them to conclude that mayors as individuals have made a positive difference to the lives of Syrian refugees, despite restrictive national policies or decrees.56 Zapater posits refugee-hosting municipalities in Lebanon as key actors in maintaining stability.57 Saliba58 and Landau et al.59 have both explored alternative understandings of and approaches to urban forced displacement, starting from the assumption that local authorities do not see themselves as humanitarian actors. “While national governments must grapple with the legal and political differences between migration statuses such as citizen, asylum seeker or refugee, city governments are

Alexander Betts, Fulya Memişoğlu and Ali Ali, “What Difference Do Mayors Make? The Role of Municipal Authorities in Turkey and Lebanon’s Response to Syrian Refugees”. Journal of Refugee Studies 34, no. 1 (2020), 491–519. 51 Dolf te Lintelo, Beyond Municipalities: Understanding Authority in Low-Income Urban Neighbourhoods in Jordan and Lebanon (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2019). This author also makes the important point that in some cities, local authorities do not have de facto control over certain neighbourhoods. 52 Josep Zapater, “The Role of Municipalities in Ensuring Stability”. Forced Migration Review 57 (2018), 12–15. 53 Darling, “Forced migration”. 54 te Lintelo, Dolf, Rajith Lakshman, Wissam Mansour, Emma Soye, Teo Ficcarelli and Will Woodward, Wellbeing and Protracted Urban Displacement: Refugees and Hosts in Jordan and Lebanon (Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2018). 55 Earle, “Urban crises”. 56 Betts et al. “What difference do mayors make?”. 57 Zapater, “The role of municipalities”. 58 Samer Saliba, Urban Refuge: How Cities Are Building Inclusive Communities (New York: International Rescue Committee, 2018). 59 Loren Landau, Caroline Wanjiku, Kihato Jean, Pierre Misago, David Obot and Ben Edwards, Becoming Urban Humanitarians: Engaging Local Government to Protect Displaced People (Washington: Urban Institute, 2016). 50

The urbanisation of displacement  265 primarily concerned with the label of resident; that is, whether or not the person resides within the city’s municipal boundary.”60 Landau et al.’s study of Johannesburg, Kampala, and Nairobi reaches the conclusion that “urban protection is a long-term process inseparable from urban politics and development”.61 While legal rights and protection for the displaced must be a focus for humanitarian agencies, and vulnerable refugees and IDPs will need tailored assistance to ensure their needs are met and rights upheld,62 “local governance and service delivery practices may matter more on a day-to-day basis” in fostering positive outcomes for refugees and other displaced people in urban areas.63 Critical to achieving these outcomes are understanding of the political and institutional environment in which the displaced find themselves, and to incorporate a recognition of “local authorities’ interests and incentives [into] strategies to align protection concerns with local political economic factors”.64 Greater awareness of the potential role of municipal authorities could prompt new ways of approaching the urban displaced for a range of stakeholders. It requires thinking not about what differentiates people, such as their status or citizenship, but about what they have in common: their presence in the city. This mode of thinking has its origins in the right to the city, as set out by the urban geographer Henri Lefebvre in his works from the 1960s.65 While a complex and loosely argued concept, at root the right to the city privileges the “use value” of the city over its “exchange value” and promotes the idea that inhabiting the city is “the key to political inclusion”. As Purcell explains, “those that inhabit the city have the right to the city”.66 This means city residents have the right to take a central role in decision-making that affects the urban life and fabric of the city, as well as the right to enjoy all that city life has to offer. This leads Lefebvre to coin the term “citadin” – as opposed to citizen (citoyen) – to refer to those who hold the right to the city. Purcell elaborates on what this might mean for non-nationals: The right to the city revolves around the production of urban space, it is those who live in the city – who contribute to the body of urban lived experience and lived space – who can legitimately claim the right to the city. […] Whereas conventional enfranchisement empowers national citizens, the right to the city empowers urban inhabitants. Under the right to the city, membership in the community of enfranchised people is not an accident of nationality or ethnicity or birth; rather it is earned by living out the routines of everyday life in the space of the city.67

More recently, Oren Yiftachel has explored the idea of “metrozenship”, which is a component of his broader attempt “to put ‘flesh on the bones’ of the academically popular, yet vague and

Saliba, Urban refuge, 12. Landau et al. Becoming urban humanitarians, 1. 62 Lucy Earle, Dyfed Aubrey, Isis Nuñez Ferrera and Stephanie Loose, “When Internal Displacement Meets Urbanisation: Making Cities Work for Internally Displaced People”. Refugee Survey Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2020). 63 Landau et al. Becoming urban humanitarians, 3. 64 Ibid, v. 65 Henri Lefevbre, Writings on Cities, edited by E. Kofman and E. Lebas (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995). 66 Mark Purcell, 2002. “Excavating Lefebvre: The Right to the City and its Urban Politics of the Inhabitant”. GeoJournal 58 (2002), 105. 67 Purcell, “Excavating Lefebvre”, 102. 60 61

266  Handbook on forced migration rarely developed Lefebvrian idea of ‘right to the city’”.68 He argues that “urban citizenship” pins rights and status to the city and to local or city authorities. But in practice, metropolitan regions are “forming a living and political space, where material (rather than formal or legal) ‘citizenship’ is being attained through residence, investment, work, invasions and struggles”.69 The term “metrozenship” is a way to describe these new ways of achieving rights, but also provides a normative foundation: a goal for full material and political status for all metropolitan residents as the foundation for a just and resilient urban democracy. It can also form a guide for the ongoing practices of urban movements while broadening their imagination and fields of action. Metrozenship, therefore, provides a concrete horizon, and ironically may reinstate the original meaning of inclusive “city-zenship”.70

To date, a handful of articles and policy reports have attempted to apply the right to the city explicitly to urban refugees. Lyytinen’s exploration of Congolese refugees in Kampala focuses on the right to live in the city (as opposed to a settlement), protection challenges, difficulties accessing assistance from UNHCR and nascent collective organisation among refugees.71 A policy-focused report from the IRC on refugees in Dar es Salaam posits the right to the city as the achievement of equitable access to services, education and livelihoods. In both cases the right to the city is used as a benchmark against which to demonstrate the limitations to refugees’ material and political status.72 There is an emergent strand of scholarship in urban studies that, while not explicitly referencing the idea of “citadins” or “metrozens”, has more in common with the approach set out by Yiftachel on new ways to achieve rights in the city. These authors counter the notion of the passive urban refugee and posit their presence and very tenacity in the city as evidence of a type of everyday politics and active (although often hidden) citizenship. Empirical work on the topic includes a recent edited collection on refugees as “city-makers” in Lebanon. In this work, Fawaz et al. reject the “tone” of humanitarian “refugee talk” that focuses on gauging levels of deprivation against standard indicators. Moving away from a depiction of refugees as victims and passive recipients of aid, as well as from the language of fear, crisis and disruption, they present refugees as “home-makers, city navigators, urban producers [and] political subjects”.73 Focused on Beirut, they set out to demonstrate how the city is “being reshaped through specific urban practices initiated by individual and collective refugee experiences”.74 As noted by Crisp et al., the voices of the displaced are rarely heard by policy-makers, such as

Oren Yiftachel, 2015. “Epilogue-from ‘Gray Space’ to Equal ‘Metrozenship’? Reflections On Urban Citizenship”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 39, no. 4 (2015), 727–8. 69 Yiftachel, “Epilogue”, 734. 70 Yiftachel, “Epilogue”, 735–7. 71 Eveliina Lyytinen, “Congolese Refugees’ ‘Right to the City’ and Urban (in)Security in Kampala, Uganda”. Journal of Eastern African Studies 9, no. 4 (2015). 72 Samer Saliba and Elizabeth Bleuer, The Right to the City for Urban Displaced: A Review of the Barriers to Safe and Equal Access to the City for the Displaced Residents of Dar Es Salaam (New York: International Rescue Committee, 2017). 73 Mona Fawaz, Ahmad Gharbieh, Mona Harb, and Dounia Salamé. 2018. “Editors’ Introduction – For a different type of refugee talk”. In Refugees as City-makers, edited by Mona Fawaz, Ahmad Gharbieh, Mona Harb, and Dounia Salamé (Beirut: American University of Beirut, 2018), 4. 74 Fawaz et al., “Editors’ Introduction”, 5. 68

The urbanisation of displacement  267 international agencies or host governments.75 However, Fawaz et al. argue that it is precisely because they are changing the way that the city is inhabited, navigated and “practiced” that they should be recognised as “active, competent social agents and partners in whatever relief and/or long-term development strategy is being articulated”.76 Fawaz et al.’s collection posits refugees as political agents who are making claims on the city, although generally not through overt resistance. It is a “quiet encroachment”, enacted by, for example, “consolidating their individual and collective presence”, by affirming the right to mobility, and “solidifying a tent or securing a network of apartments that establish a recognised presence in a specific urban neighbourhood”.77 This analysis has much in common with Sanyal’s discussion of urban refugees in India and Palestinian camps in Lebanon. Rather than a “grand attempt at rebellion”, acts of agency are “attempts to make spaces ‘ordinary’ through the processes of squatting and building that try to reclaim ‘normal’ life and create a ‘home’”.78 Darling argues that a more profound analysis of refugees’ engagement with the informal sector in cities will “reveal incremental and often highly tactical practices that can constitute ‘minor’ political acts”. This includes, “building precarious shelters, engaging in black markets, identity stripping, voluntary employment and anti-deportation organizing and networking”.79 Sanyal calls for recognition of a “different kind of urban politics” that emerges “from spaces and practices that seek to silence and strip subjects of political voice.”80 Such a recognition would allow us “to see how agency is exercised through ‘descending into the ordinary’ and reclaiming liveable spaces”.81 These authors ask us to see political significance in “piecemeal activities” within the informal spaces of the city, that are “articulating a different relation to citizenship”.82 The city becomes a context in which claims are based on presence, not status. For many refugees around the world living in countries with an encampment policy, the attempt to live alongside the urban poor in informal settlements is thus a form of resistance against expected behaviour and the stereotype of the passive recipient of aid. By extension, it can be seen as an emerging form of politics and the first steps to making a claim on the right to the city. What would it take to ensure displaced people are fully able to enjoy the benefits of urban life and be recognised for their contributions to the city? How can we support the inclusion of these urban residents, who are making and remaking the city on a daily basis, regardless of their nationality or documentation? How can we start to posit towns and cities as primary hosting areas, without the spectre of the camp? While varied, the contributions in this urban Part of the Handbook are linked by the idea of “urban absorption”. Regardless of whether the end goal is integration, return or resettlement, displaced people are physically present in the city, and may stay for many years. While the durable solutions framed by the international community remain out of reach, there is nevertheless a moral, economic and social imperative to draw displaced people into the urban environment – into its built fabric and the systems that sustain urban life. These are systems that provide basic services, systems of land, housing and Jeff Crisp et al. “Displacement in Urban Areas”. Fawaz et al., “Editors’ Introduction”, 5. 77 Ibid, 7. 78 Sanyal, “Urbanizing Refuge”, 570. 79 Darling, “Forced migration”, 189. 80 Sanyal, “Urbanizing Refuge”, 569. 81 Ibid. 82 Darling, “Forced migration”, 189. 75 76

268  Handbook on forced migration job markets, transport and basic infrastructure, education and healthcare. Purposefully, the contributors to this Part are not predominantly from the academic world of refugee studies, or practitioners in humanitarian response. In the main they are urbanists: urban planners and architects, urban anthropologists and sociologists. Rather than setting out to identify displaced people and set them apart through targeted interventions, these authors map out existing city systems and processes, and document the challenges and opportunities these present for the urban displaced to achieving a fulfilling, safe life in the city. It is with this mentality that we need to approach the issue of the urbanisation of displacement – with those who understand city systems, and how they can work for everyone. The first group of contributions to the urban Part of this Handbook considers the spatial aspects of displacement. Dyfed Aubrey’s chapter considers the ways displaced people can be accommodated within existing towns and cities, in ways that are complementary to urban and regional development plans. Arguing against the construction of camps in remote, unconnected areas, his piece posits local authorities as leaders in response to displacement and makes suggestions for how accommodating displaced people within cities can be achieved in ways that are both financially and environmentally sustainable. Land and property are central concerns in situations of urban displacement, particularly where large numbers of IDPs are forced to resettle following the destruction of their homes resulting from conflict or disaster. Christopher Ward and Louis Jadotte’s chapter on Haiti demonstrates how displacement in the wake of the 2010 earthquake triggered huge changes to Port au Prince’s footprint as hundreds of thousands of residents built new homes on previously unoccupied land. The earthquake also triggered a massive humanitarian response, but most responders failed to pay attention to the urban transformations that were both inevitable and happening before their very eyes. The chapter is a clear demonstration of the lack of skills and preparedness of most humanitarian actors to respond effectively to crises in complex urban environments. Deen Sharp’s contribution explores the relationship between conflict and the built environment, and its implications for displacement. He illustrates how contemporary urban warfare is linked to the construction and planning of the city as well as its destruction. Focusing on Syria, Sharp demonstrates how reconstruction has been weaponised in the country, as the government uses land clearance and new developments to solidify territorial gains, cement demographic change and punish civilian populations aligned with the opposition. His chapter is a critical reminder that conflict-affected populations are not just displaced by warfare and he encourages the reader to de-link reconstruction from visions of peace and post-conflict. The second group of contributions considers the economy of displacement through a critical examination of the default to self-reliance for urban displaced populations. As Kellie Leeson, Paul Karanja, Galo Quizanga Zambrano and Dale Buscher explain, while currently in vogue in international policy circles, self-reliance has no fixed definition or methods of measurement. The progress on the issue in international policy discourse is welcome, but there has been little systematic attention among donors or international agencies on how to support self-reliance for the urban displaced. Instead, there is a tendency for NGOs and UN agencies to maintain a narrow focus on promoting livelihoods for displaced people through training, with very little scrutiny of its impact. These approaches fail to consider or support displaced people’s wider economic networks and the very varied types of work, and businesses they are involved with. These achievements are remarkable, in the face of widespread restrictions on the right to work that hamper attempts of refugees and IDPs to insert themselves into local economies.

The urbanisation of displacement  269 These issues are developed in detail by the next set of authors, Alison Brown, Peter Mackie, Patricia García Amado, Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher and Engida Esayas Dube, and who explore the challenges faced by displaced people in cities in obtaining regular and sufficient income, and their insertion into multiple aspects of the informal economy. The authors’ chapter includes the presentation of a new framework through which to explore displacement economies. Building on the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework, they advocate an approach to understanding the economic lives of displaced people that takes account of the evolution of livelihoods over time, the significance of displaced people’s own enterprises and economic networks, and the collective impact of displaced people’s entrepreneurship and work on local, national and international economies. The end goal of Brown et al.’s work is to move the discourse away from a focus on the burden of refugee hosting on markets and services, to instead shed light on the positive contribution made by refugees and IDPs in urban areas through their economic activities. The third set of contributions contains snapshots from cities affected by displacement around the world, providing an array of perspectives on the topic of integration. Deena Dajani compares experiences of refugees recently resettled in London and Berlin, leading her to conclude on the need to move away from measuring individual integration to understanding the extent to which cities and their populations facilitate access to rights, recognition and resources for refugees. In Colombia, Carolina Moreno, Gracy Pelacani and Laura Dib-Ayesta from the Universidad de Los Andes’ Legal Clinic note the critical difficulties faced by displaced Venezuelans in Bogota – specifically their access to healthcare – in a national context without consolidated legislation on their status. Additionally, the overlap of responsibilities between the national and city level can create a situation where these responsibilities are abdicated at the point of service provision – with life-limiting consequences for the displaced. The last chapter in this Part looks at the role of mayors and municipal authorities in providing protection and services to displaced people, and incorporating them into planning processes. It begins with one of the most pressing urban refugee crises of our time – Syrians in the Middle East, specifically in the Jordanian capital, Amman. The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) is one of a growing number of institutions where political leaders understand both the benefits of migration and the need for cities to be places of sanctuary for the forcibly displaced. Despite the significant number of international actors present in Amman in response to the Syrian crisis, and the hundreds of thousands of Syrians living within the municipality, the GAM is largely absent from plans established between the Government of Jordan and the international community. This is despite general recognition of the need to move away from emergency response in a situation of protracted displacement and to integrate assistance to refugees into local urban development planning. Together, these chapters give a picture of the wide range of urban areas that can be affected by forced displacement. Most of the contributing authors demonstrate, in some way, the significant role played by municipal authorities in response to this displacement. In some cases, they may be champions of new approaches to absorb displaced people – physically, socially, economically and even politically. In others they may display negligence or perpetuate unwelcoming attitudes that are focused on ending the presence of displaced people within their jurisdictions. In cases of active conflict, they may be complicit with attempts to weaponize evictions to punish populations. However, local authorities are never irrelevant. These chapters also show that despite geographical diversity, there are similar and shared challenges faced by women, men and children who have experienced the trauma of displace-

270  Handbook on forced migration ment, and are largely left unprotected and under-serviced in towns and cities. Similarly, the chapters reveal the shared determination and entrepreneurialism of refugees and IDPs who choose not to rely on assistance in a camp, and who are making real contributions to city society, economy and built environment. This suggests the need for new tools to understand self-reliance and displaced people’s economies, much greater recognition of and support for their ‘city-making’, and real efforts to recognise the right to the city for refugees and IDPs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY BBC. “Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: UN ‘alarmed’ by treatment of Eritrean refugees”, BBC News Online, 11 December 2020. https://​www​.bbc​.co​.uk/​news/​world​-africa​-55277843. Beall, Jo, Basudeb Guha-Khasnobis, and Ravi Kanbur. “Beyond the Tipping Point: A Multidisciplinary Perspective on Urbanization and Development”. In Urbanization and Development: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, edited by J. Beall, B. Guha-Khasnobis, and R. Kanbur, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. Beaujouan, Juline, and Amjed Rasheed. “The Syrian Refugee Policy of the Jordanian Government”. In Syrian Crisis, Syrian Refugees: Voices from Jordan and Lebanon, edited by J. Beaujouan and A. Rasheed, London: Palgrave, 2020. Betts, Alexander, Fulya Memişoğlu, and Ali Ali. “What Difference Do Mayors Make? The Role of Municipal Authorities in Turkey and Lebanon’s Response to Syrian Refugees”. Journal of Refugee Studies 34, no. 1 (2020): 491–519. Brun, Cathrine. “Active Waiting and Changing Hopes toward a Time Perspective on Protracted Displacement”. Social Analysis 59, no. 1 (2015): 19–37. Brun, Cathrine, and Anita H. Fábos. “Mobilizing Home for Long-Term Displacement: A Critical Reflection on the Durable Solutions”. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9, no. 2 (2017): 177–83. Campbell, Elizabeth. “Increasing Urban Refugee Protection in Nairobi: Political Will or Additional Resources?” In Urban Refugees: Challenges in Protection, Services and Policy, edited by Koichi Koizumi and Gerhard Hoffstaedter, London: Routledge, 2015. Crawford, Nicholas, John Cosgrave, Simone Haysom, and Nadine Walicki. Protracted Displacement: Uncertain Paths to Self-Reliance in Exile. London: Overseas Development Institute, 2015. Crisp, Jeff, “Finding Space for Protection: An Inside Account of the Evolution of UNHCR’s Urban Refugee Policy”, Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 33, no. 1 (2017): 87–96. Crisp, Jeff, Tim Morris, and Hilde Refstie. “Displacement in Urban Areas: New Challenges, New Partnerships”. Disasters 36, Suppl. 1 (2012): S1–22. Darling, Jonathan. “Forced Migration and the City: Irregularity, Informality, and the Politics of Presence”. Progress in Human Geography 41, no. 2 (2017): 178–98. Earle, Lucy. “Urban Crises and the New Urban Agenda”. Environment and Urbanization 28, no. 1 (2018): 77–86. Earle, Lucy, Dyfed Aubrey, Isis Nuñez Ferrera, and Stephanie Loose. “When Internal Displacement Meets Urbanisation: Making Cities Work for Internally Displaced People”. Refugee Survey Quarterly 39, no. 4 (2020): 494–506. Easton-Calabria, Evan, and Naohiko Omata. “Panacea for the Refugee Crisis? Rethinking the Promotion of ‘Self-Reliance’ for Refugees”. Third World Quarterly 39, no. 8 (2018): 1458–74. Fawaz, Mona, Ahmad Gharbieh, Mona Harb, and Dounia Salamé. “Editors’ Introduction”. in Refugees as City-makers, edited by M. Fawaz, A. Gharbieh, M. Harb, and D. Salamé. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 2018. Feldman, Sara J. “Development Assisted Integration: A Viable Alternative to Long Term Residence in Refugee Camps?” PRAXIS The Fletcher Journal of Human Security vol. xxii (2007): 49–68. Harrell-Bond, Barbara. Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986. Haysom, Simone. Sanctuary in the City? Urban Displacement and Vulnerability. London: Overseas Development Institute, 2013.

The urbanisation of displacement  271 Hovil, Lucy. “Local Integration”. In The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Idris, Iffat. “Effectiveness of Various Refugee Settlement Approaches”. K4D Helpdesk Report 223. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2017. Jansen, Bram. Kakuma Refugee Camp: Humanitarian Urbanism in Kenya’s Accidental City. London: Zed, 2018. Kaiser, Tania. “Between a Camp and a Hard Place: Rights, Livelihood and Experiences of the Local Settlement System for Long-Term Refugees in Uganda”. Journal of Modern African Studies 44, no. 4 (2006): 597–621. Kelberer, Victoria. “Negotiating Crisis: International Aid and Refugee Policy in Jordan”. Middle East Policy 24, no. 4 (2017): 148–65. Landau, Loren, Caroline Wanjiku, Kihato Jean, Pierre Misago, David Obot, and Ben Edwards. Becoming Urban Humanitarians Engaging Local Government to Protect Displaced People. Washington: Urban Institute, 2016. Lefevbre, Henri. Writings on Cities, edited by E. Kofman and E. Lebas. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. te Lintelo, Dolf. Beyond Municipalities: Understanding Authority in Low-Income Urban Neighbourhoods in Jordan and Lebanon. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2019. te Lintelo, Dolf, Rajith Lakshman, Wissam Mansour, Emma Soye, Teo Ficcarelli, and Will Woodward. Wellbeing and Protracted Urban Displacement: Refugees and Hosts in Jordan and Lebanon. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2018. Lyytinen, Eveliina. “Congolese Refugees’ ‘Right to the City’ and Urban (in)Security in Kampala, Uganda”. Journal of Eastern African Studies 9, no. 4 (2015): 593–611. Malkki, Liisa. Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Muggah, Robert, and Adriana Erthal Abdenur. Refugees and the City: The Twenty-First-Century Front Line. Ontario: World Refugee Council, 2018. O’Callaghan, Sorcha, Farah Manji, Kerrie Holloway, and Christina Lowe. The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework: Progress in Kenya. London: Overseas Development Institute, 2019. Purcell, Mark. “Excavating Lefebvre: The Right to the City and its Urban Politics of the Inhabitant”. GeoJournal 58 (2002): 99–108. Saliba, Samer. Urban Refuge How Cities are Building Inclusive Communities. New York: International Rescue Committee, 2018. Saliba, Samer, and Elizabeth Bleuer. The Right to the City for Urban Displaced: A Review of the Barriers to Safe and Equal Access to the City for the Displaced Residents of Dar Es Salaam. New York: International Rescue Committee, 2017. Sanyal, Romola. “Urbanizing Refuge: Interrogating Spaces of Displacement”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 38, no. 2 (2014): 558–72. Slaughter, Amy G. “Fostering Refugee Self-Reliance: A Case Study of an Agency’s Approach in Nairobi”. Journal of Refugee Studies 33, no. 1 (2020): 107–24. UNHCR. Global Compact on Refugees. New York: United Nations, 2018. UNHCR. Handbook for Self-Reliance. Geneva: UNHCR, 2005. UNHCR. Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas. Geneva: UNHCR, 2009. UNHCR. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019. Geneva: UNHCR, 2019. USCRI. Lives in Storage: Refugee Warehousing and the Overlooked Humanitarian Crisis. Arlington: USCRI, 2019. Verdirame, Guglielmo, and Jason Pobjoy. The End of Refugee Camps? In The Ashgate Research Companion to Migration Law, Theory and Policy, edited by Satvinder Juss. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. Yiftachel, Oren. “Epilogue – from ‘Gray Space’ to Equal ‘Metrozenship’? Reflections on Urban Citizenship”. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 39, no. 4 (2015): 726–37. Zapater, Josep. “The Role of Municipalities in Ensuring Stability”. Forced Migration Review, no. 57 (2018): 12–15.

27. If not camps, then … cities? Dyfed Aubrey

INTRODUCTION Forced displacement is increasingly protracted and urban in character. Traditional camp solutions, which are designed for short periods of displacement, are ill-suited for the increasingly long-term nature of displacement. Camps do not typically have permanent infrastructure or public space requirements. Life in camps invokes a high level of dependency as camp-based populations are often unable to benefit from local economies and services. That means that in situations of protracted displacement, as residents replace temporary shelters with more robust informal structures, slums are formed over camp settlement footprints. As widely documented, the majority of people forced to migrate now seek safety in cities.1 There they hope to find access to shelter, basic services, solidarity and importantly, to achieve self-reliance. But the arrival of large numbers of displaced people into urban areas brings its own set of challenges. Patterns of forced migration vary according to context, but affected towns and cities face common challenges such as increased competition for housing, basic services and work opportunities as well as the proliferation of informal settlements. The latter is a particular problem in cities that are ill-prepared to manage sudden and significant population increases. Yet progress is being made by the humanitarian and development community to find new ways of understanding and supporting cities as places of sanctuary, and local authorities as responders to displacement. Three types of approach are emerging in response to the increasingly urban and protracted nature of displacement, namely: (1) integration of displaced populations within the existing urban fabric through enhancing basic services and housing supply; (2) developing city extensions to accommodate growth; and (3) designing and managing camps as new urban settlements within interconnected networks of existing towns and cities. While the first response offers more immediate opportunity for social and economic integration, the latter two may be preferable in situations where the volume of arriving populations outweighs the capacity of the existing urban fabric to meet basic needs. This chapter reviews each type of response, then reflects on how cities can be supported to serve as responders to displacement.

1 The definition of a “city” varies from country to country. In this chapter it is used as a synonym for “urban area”.

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If not camps, then … cities?  273

URBAN SETTLEMENT OPTIONS Integration within the Urban Fabric Integration within the urban fabric involves accommodating displaced populations within existing or new structures in urban communities. In cities, displaced people are often hosted by relatives, and they also rent or seek other forms of informal accommodations. Refugees and IDPs make use of local education services, health facilities and public infrastructure, such as transportation and energy. They seek livelihoods within the local economy, with consequences for employment markets and business competition. While these activities can facilitate integration and self-reliance, and can contribute meaningfully to local economies, they can also strain the city’s systems and the capacity of the urban host population to support them. This can be manifested in inflation of housing rental costs, overstretched schools and basic services, decreased availability of medicines and health services and perceived competition for jobs. Host communities and displaced persons jointly experience these strains. Insufficient support to host populations in areas with high densities of displaced people inevitably leads to a proliferation of unplanned settlements, sometimes referred to as slums.2 Here, displaced populations live amongst the urban poor. These unplanned settlements are characterized by self-built shacks made of non-durable materials and often lack of access to running water, sanitation services, or electricity. They also lack tenure security, which means increased demand for shelter can put host and displaced households alike at risk of eviction. In Lebanon, the government’s non-camp policy has resulted in numerous unplanned settlements, often managed by private owners, where refugees have experienced disparities in access to aid, support and security.3 In Somalia, IDPs in privately managed settlements are vulnerable to eviction because their presence over time and infrastructure investment by humanitarian agencies have resulted in increasing land values. Purported landowners seek higher paying tenants, or try to sell the land.4 These experiences underline the importance of ensuring adequate tenure security for displaced populations, which in turn requires close engagement with local authorities.5 Humanitarian organizations, sometimes working with local authorities, have adopted various approaches to support urban integration. These take the form of “demand side” support, such as the provision of cash grants to displaced households, and “supply side” support that strengthens the capacity of host communities and local authorities to accommo-

UN-HABITAT defines a slum household as a group of individuals living under the same roof in an urban area who lack one or more of the following: durable housing of a permanent nature that protects against extreme climate conditions: sufficient living space, which means not more than three people sharing the same room: easy access to safe water in sufficient amounts at an affordable price: access to adequate sanitation in the form of a private or public toilet shared by a reasonable number of people; security of tenure that prevents forced evictions. 3 Romola Sanyal, “A no-camp policy: Interrogating informal settlements in Lebanon”, Geoforum, 2017, 117–25. 4 “Eviction trend analysis”, UN Habitat and Somalia Protection Cluster, NRC, last modified 27 August 2018. 5 Useful guidance is provided in NRC’s “Security of tenure in humanitarian shelter operations”, NRC, IFRC, last modified 28 June 2013, and by the Global Land Tool Network’s “Social tenure domain model”, Global Land Tool Network, accessed 5 September 2022. 2

274  Handbook on forced migration date displaced populations. For example, in Jordan, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) provided grants or loans to host households, which enabled them to build additional rooms in their houses that they then rented to Syrian refugees.6 At the municipal level, international support takes the form of funding and strengthening the capacity of local institutions in area-based planning, service delivery and local economic development. Examples include the Municipal Empowerment and Resilience Project in Lebanon,7 Midnimo Project in Somalia8 and the SHURA project in Afghanistan.9 Urban Infills and Planned City Extensions One interesting way in which cities can accommodate displaced people is through urban infills and extensions. These involve the planned development of private- or publicly-owned vacant land within cities or ‘extensions’ on their peripheries to accommodate displaced people. These settlements are planned in accordance with local urban design norms, taking into consideration minimum plot sizes, street widths and the designation of land for public spaces. They are generally located with reasonable access to schools, health facilities and livelihood opportunities. An example is Lega’Tafo on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, one of 11 intermediary cities in the Oromia Region designated by the Oromia Regional Authority in 2017 to accommodate IDPs in planned settlements. The local government provided temporary housing on standard minimum sized plots (105 square meters) with electricity, shared basic services and tenure rights. A school, health facility, market and play area were also provided on site. By adhering to local urban planning standards, the settlement was designed to be upgraded over time with improved site infrastructure and individual household service connections. Ensuring legal plot sizes and planning standards also enables the provision of tenure rights. This reduces eviction risk and supports economic and social integration, putting households in a better position to upgrade their temporary shelters into more permanent housing over time. When people fear eviction, they “are less likely to realize their full potential as workers, or as citizens are unlikely to invest in improving their homes and neighbourhoods”.10 Applying planning standards can help put displaced people on the land tenure “continuum”.11 Group tenure rights (i.e. a group of registered IDPs living in one settlement) that guarantee use rights can lead to individual tenure rights that are transferrable. This provides greater flexibility for IDPs wishing to relocate or return to their places of origin. Settlements that have access to livelihoods, basic infrastructure and social services and with tenure security can support the self-reliance and protection of displaced people (as would be

6 “In search of a home: Access to adequate housing in Jordan”, NRC Jordan, last modified June 2015. 7 “Municipal Empowerment and Resilience Project (MERP)”, UNDP Lebanon, accessed 5 September 2022. 8 Charlotte Mohn, Facilitating Durable Solutions in Somalia – Experiences from Midnimo-I and the Application of Human Security (UN-Habitat: 2020). 9 “Sustainable Human settlements in Urban areas to support Reintegration in Afghanistan (SHURA)”, UN-Habitat, accessed 5 September 2022. 10 Geoffrey Payne and Alain Durand-Lasserve, Holding On: Security of Tenure – Types, Policies, Practices and Challenges. Geoffrey Payne and Associates, 2012, 11. 11 Ibid, p. 17; also refer to Global Land Tool Network, “Access to land and tenure security”, accessed 5 September 2022.

If not camps, then … cities?  275 the case in managed camps). However, planned settlements require suitably located land and the active role of local government. Where land is privately owned, regulation is essential to ensure rental affordability and prevent forced evictions. An appropriate legal framework that protects tenure rights and provides incentives for landowners can increase the likelihood of land being made available to displaced people. For example, landowners could be offered prioritized connections to services and investment in on-site infrastructure. Various hybrids can be effective. One is to offer a combination of options so that displaced people can choose to settle either within the existing urban fabric or in a planned settlement, with the latter serving as a safety net for the most vulnerable and helping to offset strains on city systems. For example, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, displaced people were able to move between the city of Erbil and a planned settlement in Baharka on the city’s peripheries, as their personal circumstances changed. Another approach is to allow displaced and host populations to live in planned settlements (urban infills and extensions).12 Benefiting both host and displaced households helps reduce strains on host communities and allows the city to benefit from infrastructure investment provided in response to crisis. However, technical solutions must go hand-in-hand with political solutions. For example, while several of the IDP camps in Iraq were designed to become permanent settlements suitable for a range of long-term outcomes, there was a sudden wave of camp closures in October 2020, some of which were conducted “without adequate notice and consultation with camp residents”.13 Planning decisions need to be made as soon as possible following crisis, but political decisions may evolve over time. One approach is to ensure that new settlements on vacant urban sites or on city peripheries are built on land already designated for residential use. This way, infrastructure investments provided as solutions for displaced populations are also helping to realize existing urban plans and may be less likely to be dismantled. New Cities for Displaced Communities Another option involves building a new settlement for displaced people, that is managed as a stand-alone municipality, a satellite city or a small urban center within a network of villages and towns. In theory, by ensuring the new settlement is integrated into the local urban governance and service provision system, and by developing a self-sustaining local economy, the new settlement could be a positive response to protracted displacement. One example is Kalobeyei settlement, near the Kakuma refugee camp complex in Kenya. It was founded in 2015, after the population of Kakuma expanded beyond its capacity to 183 000 following new waves of displacement that began in 2013.14 Kakuma accommodates 2000 small businesses, including an informal market, street shops, internet cafés, restaurants and beauty salons, and according to a World Bank report generates a 56 million USD economy.15 The World Bank and UNHCR found the refugee camp to be positively perceived by the host community on account of its 12 This was recommended by UN-Habitat and MindEarth in Iraq in their study on long-term uses for new settlements. See: “Planning vision and guidance for the upgrading and integration of IDP camps in urban areas in Iraq”, UN-Habitat, MindEarth, last modified 2019. 13 Firas Al Khateeb, “Returning Iraqis face dire conditions following camp closures”, UNHCR, last modified 27 May 2021; BBC, “Iraq camp closures ‘could leave 100,000 displaced people homeless’”, last modified 9 November 2022. 14 “Kalobeyei Settlement”, UNHCR Kenya, accessed 5 September 2022. 15 “Kakuma as a Marketplace”, International Finance Corporation (IFC), last modified April 2018.

276  Handbook on forced migration economic impact.16 But movement restriction, lack of property rights, informal taxes, low education, low financial literacy and low savings are barriers to greater economic potential.17 Kalobeyei settlement was intended to encourage economic integration between refugees and host populations.18 It was planned with urban standards to accommodate up to 60 000 people, supported by a range of livelihood assistance programs to aid eventual self-reliance. However, at least one study in 2018 found that only 10 percent of its residents reported access to any form of income.19 Strategic siting of cities is key to facilitating self-reliance. Cities emerge in strategic locations that are connected to economic infrastructure and natural resources. Camps, however, are often situated on low-value land that lacks potential for agricultural use, and are rarely sited in locations that are strategic for urban development. Camps are thus often poorly suited to become future cities. Linked to the challenge of location is the issue of scale. Kakuma/ Kalobeyei is located in Turkana, Kenya’s largest county by area but one of Kenya’s least densely populated counties, with a population of 786 185.20 The arid region’s nomadic populations rely on pastoralism and small-scale trade. Turkana county’s towns, including the capital, Lodwar, have small populations of less than 50 000.21 These towns give some indication of the scale of human settlement that could be self-sustained within the territorial economy if suitably located. By comparison, the 185 000 mainly “urban” or camp-based population across Kakuma/Kalobeyei dwarfs the other cities in the county. This challenge of scale undermines the potential for self-reliance in this arid pastoral economy without major infrastructure investment and huge cost. But allowing refugees to move to and live in Turkana’s existing market towns, where they could benefit from and contribute to the local economy, would reduce the overstretched population of Kakuma and Kalobeyei. Finally, an approach that is gaining some attention is the creation of new towns for refugees in special economic zones (SEZs).22 The approach is also applies to retrofitting existing camps as SEZs. It compensates for poor economic conditions associated with location by creating areas with different trade and business laws to the rest of the country, with the aim of increasing investment and trade, and generating employment. These new settlements require special legal and administrative practices (ID, housing, work and business permits, etc.) that allow their residents, including refugees, access to the formal sector. Depending on location and linkages to highways and infrastructure, SEZs may require significant private investment in services and transport infrastructure. The model poses additional questions. Are host governments interested in hosting “refugee cities” over the long term? Can they guarantee foreign investment? Are their populations planning to remain and provide a sustainable labor force?

Apurva Sanghi, Harun Onder and Varalakshmi Vemuru, “‘Yes’ in My Backyard? The economics of refugees and their social dynamics in Kakuma, Kenya”, UNHCR. World Bank, 2016. 17 “Kakuma as a marketplace”, International Finance Corporation (IFC), last modified April 2018. 18 “Community driven public space rehabilitation in Turkana, Kenya”, UN-Habitat, last modified 2019. 19 Alexander Betts, Naohiko Omata and Olivier Sterck, “The Kalobeyei Settlement: A self-reliance model for refugees?”, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2020, 189–223. 20 “Kenya Population and Housing Census”, Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), last modified 2019. 21 Ibid. 22 See, for example: https://​sdzalliance​.org/​. 16

If not camps, then … cities?  277 There are also governance questions, including whether refugees would be allowed freedom of movement and whether their rights would be protected by the state. The idea of accommodating displaced populations in new cities or SEZs requires careful consideration of economic viability, natural resources and political will, all of which require serious study and years to plan. At best, the idea of new cities can only occur as part of existing territorial and economic development plans, where such matters have already been studied.

CONCLUSION: SUPPORTING CITIES AS RESPONDERS TO DISPLACEMENT Cities adapt to changing circumstances, including factors that cause their populations to expand and sometimes contract. As set out in the New Urban Agenda, urban in-migration can be harnessed as a driver of economic, social and environmental sustainability – but this requires supportive policies, long-term and integrated urban planning and design, and innovative and sustainable financing frameworks. These “enablers” could give towns and cities a central role in forced displacement.23 Where high numbers of displaced people place significant strain on the provision of services or trigger housing cost inflation, new settlements within or on the peripheries of cities should be considered. These should be aligned with local spatial development plans, so that humanitarian investment is channeled into the implementation of already planned city expansions. The idea of new “cities” should be avoided or reserved for very exceptional circumstances, and only then when detailed feasibility studies are already in place. Such cities should be well connected with others and fully integrated into the existing multi-level governance system. As urban displacement occurs ever more frequently, cities need to plan and manage in ways that respond to change.

REFERENCES Al Khateeb, Firas. “Returning Iraqis face dire conditions following camp closures”. UNHCR. 27 May 2021. BBC. “Iraq camp closures ‘could leave 100,000 displaced people homeless’”. 9 November 2022. Betts, Alexander, Naohiko Omata and Olivier Sterck. “The Kalobeyei Settlement: A self-reliance model for refugees?” Journal of Refugee Studies, 2020. International Finance Corporation (IFC). “Kakuma as a marketplace”. International Finance Corporation (IFC), April 2018. Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS). “Kenya population and housing census”. Last modified 2019. Mohn, Charlotte. “Facilitating durable solutions in Somalia – Experiences from Midnimo-I and the application of human security”. UN-Habitat, 2020. NRC. “Eviction trend analysis”. UN Habitat and Somalia Protection Cluster. Last modified 27 August 2018. NRC Jordan. “In search of a home: Access to adequate housing in Jordan”. Last modified June 2015. Payne, Geoffrey and Alain Durand-Lasserve. “Holding on: Security of tenure – types, policies, practices and challenges”. Geoffrey Payne and Associates, 2012.

23

“The New Urban Agenda”, United Nations, last modified October 2016, paragraph 28.

278  Handbook on forced migration Sanghi, Apurva, Harun Onder and Varalakshmi Vemuru. “‘Yes’ in my backyard? The economics of refugees and their social dynamics in Kakuma, Kenya”. UNHCR, World Bank, 2016. Sanyal, Romola. “A no-camp policy: Interrogating informal settlements in Lebanon”. Geoforum, 2017. UNDP Lebanon. “Municipal Empowerment and Resilience Project (MERP)”. 2022. UN-Habitat. “Community driven public space rehabilitation in Turkana, Kenya”. 2019. UN-Habitat. “Planning vision and guidance for the upgrading and integration of IDP camps in urban areas in Iraq”. MindEarth. 2019. UN-Habitat. “Sustainable Human settlements in Urban areas to support Reintegration in Afghanistan (SHURA)”. Accessed 5 September 2022. UNHCR Kenya. “Kalobeyei settlement”. Accessed 5 September 2022. United Nations. “The new urban agenda”. October 2016.

28. Aid-induced informal settlement creation following disaster: The cautionary tale of Port-au-Prince’s Canaan slum Christopher Ward and Louis Jadotte

INTRODUCTION On the day of the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, the area known as Canaan was a largely barren plain lying just beyond the northern border of the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince. Over ten years later, Canaan is a sprawling informal settlement home to at least 200 000 people and is one of the largest urban centers in the country. The story of Canaan’s sudden emergence, phenomenal expansion and ongoing consolidation presented in this chapter offers a highly instructional example of the large-scale and long-term impacts that can result from humanitarian policy and programming decisions in fragile urban contexts. Specifically, it provides three related insights that relief and reconstruction actors would do well to heed in future urban disasters. First, it offers a stark reminder of the need to pay attention to the complex political economy of urban disaster contexts. These include the historical setting, local urban development dynamics and trajectories, and the underlying governance capacities of the State. Second, it highlights the need to better understand and appreciate informal markets and practices within aid programming. Finally, it points to ongoing challenges for the aid community in acknowledging, understanding, and supporting “self-recovery” efforts. With growing urbanization in many fragile states, so-called “crisis-cities”1 – which combine high levels of vulnerability with low levels of governance capacity – are likely to proliferate, making this cautionary tale unfortunately all-too-relevant for future crisis responders.

CANAAN, BEFORE AND AFTER THE QUAKE Over the past 50 years, Port-au-Prince’s population has surged, and much of this growth has occurred in informal settlements. Many of these communities are high-density slums, with completely inadequate basic services and infrastructure and thus have a high vulnerability to risk.2 Multiple aspects of the Haitian political economy have contributed to the spread of informal settlements in Port-au-Prince, but dysfunctional land markets are a central part of the story. Land in the city is the object of a constant battle at all levels of society, with competing parties using legal and political maneuvering, surreptitious encroachment, intimidation, and even



1 2

Boer, “Resilience and the Fragile City”. Lozano-Gracia and Garcia Lozano, Haitian Cities: Actions for Today with an Eye on Tomorrow.

279

280  Handbook on forced migration violence to gain access and maintain control of parcels large and small. The land on which the emerging city of Canaan was to arise had a typically complicated political and legal history. Originally used for sisal production in the 1940s, the land lay unused for decades, but was nonetheless subject to multiple competing legal claims. The 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Port-au-Prince on 12 January 2010 devastated large swaths of the capital, destroying 105 000 buildings and damaging another 208 000.3 In the immediate aftermath of the disaster, terrified residents flocked to open spaces throughout the city. These temporary refuges quickly turned into hundreds of internal displacement tent camps. As the rainy season approached in the Spring of 2010, the international community placed extraordinary pressures on the Haitian government to make land available for the emergency relocation of IDPs in dozens of camps that were deemed to be at particularly high risk of flooding and mudslides. Acquiescing to these demands, the Government initiated a process of eminent domain to expropriate a large swath of undeveloped land on the northern border of Port-au-Prince, in the zone that was to become Canaan. Subsequently, in March 2010, the Government authorized a small area within the larger zone for the construction of an emergency relocation camp, known as Corail. Approximately 5000 people from two separate IDP camps were relocated there in April 2010, with the involvement of the UN, the US Military, and several prominent international NGOs and charities. Almost immediately, the well-publicized initiation of eminent domain proceedings, coupled with the start of construction on camp Corail, ignited a large-scale land invasion in the zone.4 Over the next two years, Canaan’s population increased rapidly, with as many as 100 000 individuals believed to be residing there less than a year later.5 While detailed population data have not been collected, informed estimates cited upwards of 200 000 residents calling Canaan home by 2016.6 On one hand, Canaan’s growth provided a badly needed area for (informal) housing stock construction following the devastating earthquake, without which the IDP population mired in temporary camps would have had nowhere to go. At the same time, however, the formally unregulated nature of the settlement, the inability of the Haitian state to provide consistent security or basic services in the zone, and its location at the crossroads of two of the country’s most strategic national highways have made it a persistent source of concern for domestic policymakers and their international partners.7 The potential negative outcomes of Canaan’s formation and development trajectory were further exacerbated by international actors’ decision to forgo virtually any type of relief or reconstruction in the zone for several years after its formation. This was driven by fears over the murky land tenure situation in the zone, and a conviction on the part of a number of key international actors that the zone was “unviable”.8 The decision to eschew proactive intervention to help guide the early stages of Canaan’s development has compounded the political and financial costs of addressing the governance, 3 World Bank, What Did We Learn? The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, xiii. 4 Richener, “Reconstruction et Environnement Dans La Région métropolitaine de Port-Au-Prince: Cas de Canaan Ou La Naissance d’un Quartier Ex-Nihilo”, 15. 5 World Bank, 152. 6 American Red Cross, “In Canaan, Haiti, Residents Guide the City’s Development”. 7 Alphonse, “Sortie Nord”. 8 Levine, “Avoiding Reality”.

The cautionary tale of Port-au-Prince’s Canaan slum  281 infrastructural and socioeconomic challenges the zone now poses. By moving more quickly to guide development, preserve rights-of-way and public spaces, and helping improve overall construction quality, a different Canaan may have been possible. Approximately three years after its initial emergence, both the Haitian state and a small coalition of international actors (including the American Red Cross, Habitat for Humanity-Haiti, UN-Habitat and USAID) began to reconsider their lack of involvement in the zone, with modest investments in urban planning and infrastructure upgrading projects carried out between 2013 and 2018. However, given the high relative costs of retroactive slum upgrading,9 and the current size of Canaan, significant additional investments will undoubtedly be required. Moreover, given the political crisis and funding challenges that have beset Haiti, the likelihood that these efforts will materialize in the near term are increasingly remote. Indeed, as of 2020, the large amounts of reconstruction funding that flowed after the quake have long since dried up. Some of the only resources available are for relatively low-cost – yet politically challenging – governance initiatives. One prominent example is the mapping and enumeration of nearly 35 000 plots in the zone led by Habitat for Humanity-Haiti, which hopes that this project will eventually become the basis for a land registry and associated municipal taxation and zoning regulations in Canaan.

NEGOTIATING URBAN COMPLEXITY AND INFORMALITY AMIDST CRISIS Reflecting on aid programming’s role in first helping to create – and then neglecting to effectively address – Canaan’s emergence helps shed light on more general shortcomings in relief and reconstruction policy and practice in urban crisis settings. First, the case of Canaan provides yet another lesson in how aid programming that is insufficiently grounded in local political economy can have deleterious consequences for the societies it is ostensibly supporting.10 In particular, the initial plans by prominent international actors to push for the eminent domain decree and the establishment of an emergency relocation camp within its boundaries significantly underestimated the possibility of an uncontrolled land invasion and the Haitian Government’s ability to stop it. The history of informal urban development in the capital city, with its decades of steady slum growth, provided a clear template for what was likely to happen, but were unrecognized or dismissed. As Canaan demonstrates, such poorly planned, context-blind interventions can have particularly large and long-term consequences in urban crises.11 Second, the collective reluctance of humanitarian and reconstruction actors to intervene in Canaan once its size and permanence became clear reveals the aid community’s systematic challenges for dealing with urban informality. This is a significant shortcoming since informality has been posited as representing “the distinguishing feature of contemporary urban life

9 Tacoli, McGranahan, and Satterthwaite, “Urbanisation, Rural–Urban Migration and Urban Poverty”. 10 Collinson, Power, Livelihoods and Conflict. 11 Earle, “Urban Crises and the New Urban Agenda”, 79.

282  Handbook on forced migration in the Global South”.12 Given their stated priorities of increasing housing stock and lessening camp populations in post-quake Port-au-Prince, international actors’ choice to ignore the zone seems, on the surface, a curious one. Indeed, according to an authoritative report issued by the World Bank in 2016, the number of housing units in Canaan was likely greater than all temporary and permanent units produced by donor-supported post-disaster housing reconstruction combined.13 Failing to capitalize on this outpouring of Haitian-led rebuilding was a major missed opportunity in the reconstruction. Part of the reason for this dynamic was the tendency of relief and reconstruction actors to systematically overlook, undervalue or even denigrate (urban) informality.14 This is part of a larger current of thinking in policymaking (both in the Global North and the Global South) in which informality is too often seen as something to be eradicated or quarantined, rather than a force for development to be supported.15 Somewhat more benignly, this lack of interest in the zone also probably stemmed from the fact that for many actors, Canaan lacked “legibility”, and was thus largely invisible. This underscores the difficulty that international organizations have in parsing informal urban environments like Port-au-Prince, which are often more diverse and more dynamic, with more variegated elite structures, than the rural contexts with which they are more familiar.16 Such challenges extend to difficulties working with non-state and informal actors that tend to be prevalent in such zones.17 Finally, the failure to engage in Canaan represents a frequent bias against working with and through messy­– but locally-owned and typically large scale – “self-recovery” processes.18 The massive scope of the Haitian-led construction in Canaan puts the lie to the persistent view of an undifferentiated mass of desperately poor households that seemed to permeate international actors’ thinking (and programming) at the time. Contemporary estimates from UN-Habitat highlighted that just three years after the quake, Haitian households had invested over $100 million19 in the construction of houses, businesses, schools, churches, markets, and parks, dwarfing the investments of many formal reconstruction projects. Neglecting to support and guide this outpouring of financial resources and sweat equity was thus an enormous missed opportunity.

REFLECTING ON LESSONS LEARNED FOR FUTURE URBAN CRISES Over 10 years have passed since the world’s attention briefly but intensely focused on the devastation in Haiti. The repercussions of that period, however, are still being felt on the ground, and the critical role that aid programming played in triggering the rise of Canaan merits further 12 Auerbach et al., “State, Society, and Informality in Cities of the Global South”, 262 (italics in the original). 13 World Bank, 154. 14 Twigg and Mosel, “Informality in Urban Crisis Response”. 15 Brown, Msoka, and Dankoco, “A Refugee in My Own Country”. 16 Brown et al., “Urban Crises and Humanitarian Responses: A Literature Review”. 17 Lintelo et al., “Contested Public Authority in Marginal Urban Areas: Challenges for Humanitarians”. 18 Archer and Dodman, “Editorial: The Urbanization of Humanitarian Crises”; Flinn, Schofield, and Miranda Morel, “The Case for Self-Recovery”. 19 Personal communication with UN-Habitat.

The cautionary tale of Port-au-Prince’s Canaan slum  283 examination, given the relative size, scope and permanence that the emergence of the slum has had on the built environment of Haiti’s capital city. As discussed above, Canaan presents a cautionary tale regarding the large-scale and long-term impacts that can result when humanitarian and reconstruction agencies and their government partners pursue uninformed or poorly contextualized policies. This is true of any post-crisis context, but is arguably even more critical when dealing with the inherently complex and interconnected urban systems and institutions found in fragile urban settings.20 Humanitarian and reconstruction actors responding to future urban crises would do well to consider this history when planning and executing interventions in similar contexts, where physically and institutionally dense urban settlements overlap with low levels of governance capacity.21 An appreciation of the complex political economy they are working with in such situations would both help head off unintended consequences, as well as harness the often untapped power of informal market forces, community-level governance and self-recovery that will ultimately decide success or failure.

REFERENCES Alphonse, Roberson. “Sortie Nord: Il est Presque Trop Tard Pour Aménager …”, Le Nouvelliste, 22 August 2017. American Red Cross. “In Canaan, Haiti, Residents Guide the City’s Development”, 14 January 2016. Archer, Diane, and David Dodman. “Editorial: The Urbanization of Humanitarian Crises”. Environment and Urbanization 29, no. 2 (28 September 2017): 339–48. Auerbach, A., Adrienne LeBas, Alison E. Post, and Rebecca Weitz-Shapiro. “State, Society, and Informality in Cities of the Global South”. Studies in Comparative International Development 53, no. 3 (2018): 261–80. Boer, John de. “Resilience and the Fragile City”. Stability: International Journal of Security and Development 4, no. 1 (2015): 17. Brown, A., C. Msoka, and I. Dankoco. “A Refugee in My Own Country: Evictions or Property Rights in the Urban Informal Economy?” Urban Studies 52, no. 12 (2015): 2234–49. Brown, D., C. Johnson, J. Walker, J. Vivekananda, and C. Boano. “Urban Crises and Humanitarian Responses: A Literature Review”, Bartlett Development Planning Unit, UCL, London (2015), 68. Collinson, Sarah. Power, Livelihoods and Conflict: Case Studies in Political Economy Analysis for Humanitarian Action. London: HPG, Overseas Development Institute, 2003. Earle, Lucy. “Urban Crises and the New Urban Agenda”. Environment and Urbanization 28, no. 1 (1 April 2016): 77–86. Flinn, B., H. Schofield, and L.M. Morel. “The Case for Self-Recovery”. Forced Migration Review 55 (June 2017). Goodfellow, Tom. “Seeing Political Settlements through the City: A Framework for Comparative Analysis of Urban Transformation”. Development and Change 49, no. 1 (2018): 199–222. Levine, S. “Avoiding Reality: Land, Institutions and Humanitarian Action in Post-Earthquake Haiti”. HPG Working Paper. Overseas Development Institute, September 2012. Lintelo, D., H. Ford, T. Liptrot, W. Mansour, and A. Rahbany. “Contested Public Authority in Marginal Urban Areas: Challenges for Humanitarians”. Forced Migration Review, no. 63 (2020). Lozano-Gracia, Nancy, and Marisa Garcia Lozano. Haitian Cities: Actions for Today with an Eye on Tomorrow. World Bank, 2017. Meaux, Andrew, and Wale Osofisan. “A Review of Context Analysis Tools for Urban Humanitarian Response”. Working Paper. London: IIED, November 2016. Meaux and Osofisan, “A Review of Context Analysis Tools for Urban Humanitarian Response”. Goodfellow, “Seeing Political Settlements through the City”.

20 21

284  Handbook on forced migration Richener, Noêl. “Reconstruction et Environnement Dans La Région Métropolitaine de Port-Au-Prince: Cas de Canaan Ou La Naissance d’un Quartier Ex-Nihilo”. Port-au-Prince: Groupe URD, 2012. Tacoli, Cecilia, Gordon McGranahan, and David Satterthwaite. “Urbanisation, Rural–Urban Migration and Urban Poverty”. Working Paper. IIED, 2015. Twigg, John, and Irina Mosel. “Informality in Urban Crisis Response”, March 2018, 32. World Bank. What Did We Learn? The Shelter Response and Housing Recovery in the First Two Years after the 2010 Haiti Earthquake. The World Bank, 2016.

29. Reconstruction as violence and forced displacement in Syria Deen Sharp

Human geographers and architectural theorists have argued that the urbanization of violence and conflict has intensified over the past twenty years.1 Contemporary urban warfare can involve policies and practices that construct, design and organize the built environment. These include discriminatory planning and building regulations; restrictions on and uses of certain materials such as cement; the introduction of surveillance systems; the construction of “steel rings” and/or checkpoints; and the construction of infrastructure and logistical systems, such as roads and tunnels. The construction and planning of the built environment – of housing, schools, roads, hospitals, and basic urban infrastructure – are embedded in conflict. Warfare can encompass not only the destruction and eradication of urban life, it can extend and intensify processes of urbanization and transform built fabrics. In Syria, competing warring factions have contributed to urbanization processes by providing their own basic urban services, including water and electricity, as well as governance, to solidify their territorial gains.2 It is not only the destruction of urban contexts that generates displacement. This construction and planning of the built environment to achieve war aims can also lead to forcible displacement. This chapter sets out the implications of the urbanization of violence and conflict for our understanding of processes like “reconstruction” and for phenomena such as forced displacement. Using the idea of “reconstruction as violence”, I argue that the urbanization of warfare transforms our understanding of the process of reconstruction.3

RECONSTRUCTION AS VIOLENCE The scale of violence that the Syrian conflict has unleashed over the past decade defies assessment. The Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) estimates that 350 209 individuals have been killed in the conflict between March 2011 and March 2021.4 Michelle

1 See: Stephen Graham, ed. Cities, War, And Terrorism: Toward an Urban Geopolitics (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004); Eyal Weizman, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (London: Verso, 2007). 2 Deen Sharp, “Urbicide and the Arrangement of Violence in Syria”, in Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings, ed. Deen Sharp and Claire Panetta (New York: Urban Research, 2016), 120. 3 For further context on the idea of “reconstruction as violence”, see: Nasser Rabbat and Deen Sharp, eds. Reconstruction as Violence: The Case of Syria (Cairo: American University of Cairo Press, Forthcoming). 4 OHCHR, “Oral update on the extent of conflict-related deaths in the Syrian Arab Republic”, 48th Session of the Human Rights Council, 21 September 2021. Accessed: https://​www​.ohchr​.org/​EN/​ NewsEvents/​Pages/​DisplayNews​.aspx​?NewsID​=​27531​&​LangID​=​E.

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286  Handbook on forced migration Bachelet, the High Commission for Human Rights, stressed the difficulty OHCHR has had in obtaining accurate data and that the numbers only include those people identified by their full name, with an established date of death, and who died in an identified governorate. This figure, Bachelet said: “indicates a minimum verifiable number, and is certainly an under-count of the actual number of killings”. The true scale of the lives lost in the Syrian conflict will never be known. Tens of thousands of Syrian lives will never be counted. Organizations trying to assess the complex scale of displacement have similarly been overwhelmed by the task. It is widely recognized among experts that UNHCR figures for registered Syrian refugees in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan do not capture the total number of Syrians that have been forcibly displaced to these countries.5 Within Syria there has also been an enormous number of displacements: the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center recorded nearly 6.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs) at the end of 2019.6 Most professionals agree that Syria represents one of the largest displacement crises in modern history – regarding displacements both inside and outside the country. The data on IDPs, however, is poor and entangled with struggles for resources (mainly donor contributions). The German diplomat and former Senior Expert for Intra-Syrian Talks, Carsten Wieland, notes that both the Syrian government and opposition groups often manipulate their data on the number of IDPs to increase the “need factor” within the respective territories.7 An accurate figure of those that have died and been forcibly displaced in this protracted and ongoing conflict is thus not possible. Attempts by international organizations, and others, to assess the physical damage of the conflict – from dwellings to basic urban infrastructure – have been met with similar challenges. Estimates by the United Nations and the World Bank have ranged from billions of dollars to one trillion.8 The level of destruction is unquantifiable. It is not merely the scale of death, displacement and destruction in Syria that we must try to come to terms with – as scholars, policy makers, experts, practitioners and fellow humans. The conflict has transformed an entire region, with global implications. In addition, the conduct of the war has illuminated a trend in warfare that affects how we understand socio-spatial relations and urban life; specifically the urbanization of violence and conflict. We need to retool our understanding of established concepts and processes in relation to both war and urbanization. For instance, I have written elsewhere on how the urbanization of warfare has resulted in concrete and cement becoming key weapons of war.9 In this chapter, I focus on the critical need to reformulate our normative understandings of urban reconstruction, especially in protracted conflicts. Reconstruction includes the (re)construction of built artifacts (i.e. housing, schools, offices) and basic urban infrastructure (such as roads, electricity networks and sanitation systems); and the removal of rubble. It also concerns the legal framework related to the built environment, including Housing, Land and Property (HLP) rights (i.e. deeds); the cadastral system; and representations of the built environment, such as promotional videos, architectural render5 Ala Al-Mahaidi, “Securing Economic Livelihoods for Syrian Refugees: The Case for a Human Rights-based approach to the Jordan Compact”, The International Journal of Human Rights, 25, no. 2 (2021), 204. 6 Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Syria, https://​www​.internal​-displacement​.org/​countries/​ syria. 7 Carsten Wieland, Syria and the Neutrality Trap (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 63. 8 POMEPS, The Politics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction (POMEP Studies 30), September 2018. 9 Deen Sharp, “Concretising conflict”, The Journal of Architecture 27 (2022).

Reconstruction as violence and forced displacement in Syria  287 ings and urban plans. The concept of “reconstruction as violence” refers to situations where reconstruction is used to achieve military objectives and/or to subject the civilian populations to violence, displacement, dispossession and unsettlement. It should be stressed that, even in conflict situations, not all reconstruction projects are violent and/or aimed at the displacement and dispossession of civilians. The rebuilding of a school, the construction of housing, the repair of a road can assist in peacebuilding processes and join communities together. But the purpose of this chapter is to highlight the ways the built environment can be used as a tool in warfare and how infrastructure and basic urban services can divide and oppress rather than repair, reconcile and provision urban populations. Normative understandings of reconstruction are strongly linked to peace and post-conflict eras. The aim of this chapter is to trouble this understanding. Scholars, analysts and policymakers often overlook the political and societal dimensions of reconstruction, although the social challenges of reconstruction in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Lebanon are attracting greater attention.10 Reconstruction is not only a technocratic exercise, but is closely embedded in questions of politics, economics and, most important, justice. Reconstruction is the “distribution through rebuilding” of material resources, but it is also about cultural identity and recognition. In a context of meagre and contested resources, decisions about where a road or school gets built or repaired, or the type of housing that is built, has profound social implications. It is important to understand not only the scale of rebuilding needed, but the socio-economic and political dynamics behind reconstruction efforts. Analysts too often frame reconstruction simply as marking the start of a post-war period, tied to peace and development. In English, the word “reconstruction” is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “the act of rebuilding a devastated area in the aftermath of war”. However, as illustrated below in the case of Syria, reconstruction is embedded within the dynamics of past, present and future conflict in the country and not separate from them.

RECONSTRUCTION IN SYRIA The Assad regime has attempted to use reconstruction to solidify territorial gains, to cement demographic changes and displace populations deemed to be a threat. It has also used reconstruction to reward geopolitical allies (like Russia and Iran), distribute favors to new and old elites and other supporters, and for self-enrichment. For example, the flagship regime-led reconstruction project Marota City, that I detail below, has been developed through a plan that mainly parcels out land to a series of private individuals and joint-stock corporations who have strong links to the regime. These consist of key businessmen, including figures like Samer Foz, Mazen al-Tarazi and Rami Makhlouf. Meanwhile, Assad has given Russia sovereignty over several strategic military zones and special access to oil, gas, mining, transportation and telecommunications sectors. As the conflict has dragged on, the power of the Assad regime has been eroded, even as it has recaptured territory. The conflict has significantly weakened its ability to collect taxes and extend bureaucratic control over its territory.11 This See: POMEPS, The Politics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction. Raymond Hinnebusch, “The Battle over Syria’s Reconstruction”, Global Policy 11, Issue 1 (February 2020), 114. 10

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288  Handbook on forced migration has resulted in decentralization and the establishment of local fiefdoms. Distributing funding for reconstruction in the early phases of the conflict has proven to be a way for the regime to keep local leaders onside and to impose some authority over these quasi-autonomous areas. Reconstruction as violence is thus integral to the conflict. Several scholars have described the reconstruction in Syria as the new battlefield, given that direct violence and conflict have declined.12 Central to my argument in this chapter is that reconstruction processes have been deeply ingrained in the conflict itself from the start: reconstruction as violence. Since 2011, the regime has issued more than sixty laws and decrees in relation to HLP that constitute the legal framework for reconstruction.13 These revised legal frameworks grant the state powers to designate development zones and expropriate property. Most notably in 2012, the Syrian parliament approved Decree 66/2012 that targeted two large zones in South-West Damascus: the Basateen al-Razi area and the combined areas of Mazzeh, Kafr Sousseh, Qanawat, Basateenn, Daraya and Qadam. These zones were notable in the early stages of the conflict for their residents’ support of the opposition and as sites of protest against the regime.14 Decree 66 allowed the Damascus governorate to expel their populations.15 Satellite imagery of these two formerly densely population residential neighborhoods now show two barren landscapes. In Qaboun, North-East of Damascus, the Syrian government has also used urban planning to cement its authority.16 In the Basateen al-Razi area the Assad regime announced the urban mega-project “Marota City” through a media campaign, including slickly produced YouTube videos. This new city, according to the elaborate advertisements, includes housing for 60 000 people, two sky-scrapers with an air-bridge, luxury-apartments with swimming pools, schools, restaurants, and shopping malls.17 Plans for Marota City have been promoted through an array of press and trade conferences focused on the reconstruction.18 Although Marota City is yet to be built, it has acted as an important anchor for the regime to project the idea that reconstruction is now underway and the post-conflict phase has begun. To realize this project, the government announced several government-backed joint-stock companies, most notably Damascus Cham Holding.

12 See: Benedetta Berti, “Is Reconstruction Syria’s Next Battleground?” Carnegie, 5 September 2017; Steven Heydemann, “Syria Reconstruction and the Illusion of Leverage”, Atlantic Council, 18 May 2017; Hinnebusch, “The Battle over Syria’s Reconstruction”. 13 Asseburg, Muriel, “Reconstruction in Syria: Challenges and Policy Options for the EU and its Member States”. Policy File, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 2020. 14 Tom Rollins, “Decree 66: The Blueprint for al-Assad’s Reconstruction of Syria?” The New Humanitarian, 20 April 2020; Joseph Daher, “Decree 66 and the Impact of its National Expansion”, Atlantic Council, 7 March, 2018. 15 Joseph Daher, “The Political Economic Context of Syria’s Reconstruction: A Prospective in Light of a Legacy of Unequal Development”, European University Institute Research Paper, 2018. 16 Urban Analysis Network for Syria (UrbAN-S), “Qaboun: District Case Study”, UrbAN-S, January 2020. 17 Marota City, “Marota City”, https://​www​.youtube​.com/​watch​?v​=​J2lOhyRCwJo; Marota City, “Marota City – Progress”, https://​www​.youtube​.com/​watch​?v​=​dKxF9xHpzjg. 18 Steven Heydemann, “Rules for Reconstruction in Syria”, Brookings, 24 August 2017, https://​www​ .brookings​.edu/​blog/​markaz/​2017/​08/​24/​rules​-for​-reconstruction​-in​-syria/​.

Reconstruction as violence and forced displacement in Syria  289 In April 2018, the regime expanded Decree 66 to the national level with the passing of Law no. 10, which empowers local authorities to assign redevelopment zones in the country.19 This law declared that the property rights would be transferred from residents to the state if owners failed to prove ownership within thirty days (extended later by an amendment to one year). This was accompanied in 2018 by the passing of Law no. 3, giving the government the power to assess and designate buildings for rubble removal and demolitions. Many areas in Damascus – including the Tadamon district, Jobar, Barzeh and Qaboun – have been targeted for “reconstruction” by this new law, and all are known for their population’s support of the opposition. Human Rights Watch has documented cases in which the government has seized and demolished property without compensation, on the basis that residents were deemed supporters of the opposition.20 Both the European Union and the United States have been swift to react to the efforts by the Assad regime to weaponize reconstruction. But they have also recognized how they can, in turn, use reconstruction as a weapon against the regime. In 2019, the European Union targeted eleven businessmen who had financial links to Damascus Cham Holding and the construction of Marota City.21 In 2018, the United States issued the No Assistance for Assad Act, followed in 2019 by the Caesar Act, which directly targeted the reconstruction process. Notably, the Caesar Act states that it aims to deter “foreign persons from entering into contracts related to reconstruction” and prohibits individuals from providing “significant construction or engineering services to the Government of Syria”.22 The Caesar Act also targets the electricity and oil sectors, which are critical to any reconstruction attempt. Rather than engage with the complex political dynamics of reconstruction directly, Western powers, led by the US, have taken an absolutist anti-reconstruction stance toward Syria. Debates are raging within and across UN agencies – between member states and analysts, staff members, and amongst Syrians themselves – over the international provision of assistance to the reconstruction in Syria. The Syrian regime has become adept at channeling international money back into regime-controlled entities and even directly to members of the Assad family (despite the sanction regime).23 The ability of the Assad regime to channel humanitarian aid to itself is an example of how reconstruction processes will first and foremost be directed at rebuilding and strengthening the Assad state. Human Rights Watch warns that UN agencies, corporations and government bodies who participate in reconstruction efforts risk complicity in the government’s human rights violations, “financing a machinery of repression”, and contributing to forced displacement.24 Meanwhile, several analysts have noted the “chilling” effect the Act has had on foreign companies in dealing with any Syrian individual or (even non-sanctioned) entities and the wide-ranging negative impact on the civilian population.25

Human Rights Watch, “Rigging the System: Government Policies Co-Opt Aid and Reconstruction Funding in Syria”, Human Rights Watch, 2019. 20 Human Rights Watch, “Rigging the System”, 8. 21 European Union, “Council Implementing Decision (CFSP) 2019/87”, 21 January 2019. 22 United States Congress, “H.R.31”, 3 June 2019. 23 Wieland, Syria and the Neutrality Trap, 95. 24 Human Rights Watch, “Rigging the System”, 3. 25 See, for example, Zaki Mehchy and Rim Turkmani, “Understanding the Impact of Sanctions on the Political Dynamics in Syria”, Conflict Research Programme (January 2021); Jon Unruh, “The Priority Dilemma of Western Sanctions on Syria’s Agricultural Reconstruction”, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding (2022), 16. 19

290  Handbook on forced migration Although food and medicine, for instance, are exempt, over-compliance with sanctions has resulted in severe issues in their importation, small businesses have all but collapsed and costs for nearly all basic necessities have risen even further.26 The absolutist anti-reconstruction position taken by the West is one inflected by an outdated and narrow understanding of reconstruction, one firmly tied to post-conflict (not applicable in a protracted conflict like Syria) and in which only the state can be engaged. The German diplomat Carsten Wieland articulates the bind that the UN and the West finds itself in. “Non-action punishes a large part of the population, no matter on which side they stand. It would perpetuate the Syrian disaster by creating a […] quasi failed state in the middle of a strategically highly sensitive region in Europe’s neighbourhood. These are pressure points of which the regime in Damascus is well aware”, Weiland writes.27

RULES FOR RECONSTRUCTION? Steven Heydemann suggests four “rules” for Syrian reconstruction: bypass Assad; go local; go small; and go slow.28 The first of these rules, bypassing Assad, in effect, promotes a policy of complete disengagement from reconstruction – anti-reconstruction. As scholars like Joshua Landis and Steven Simon have pointed out, such approaches deprive the country of the chance to rebuild even the most basic infrastructure.29 They contend that Heydemann’s “rules”, and the current approach by the US, serve to turn Syria into a quagmire for Russia and to pressure the Syrian government into political reform.30 Indeed, following Russia’s invasion of Syria, President Obama in 2015 argued that Russia’s attempt to prop up Assad would result in them stuck in a “quagmire”. More recently, in 2020, US Special Representative James Jeffrey re-stated this position: “My job is to make it [Syria] a quagmire for the Russians.”31 Targeted sanctioning of the reconstruction process to achieve military objectives should therefore also be considered reconstruction as violence. It is difficult to bypass Assad in government-controlled territory, since the Syrian regime requires all proposed projects to be submitted for approval. In practice this has meant that UN agencies and other actors are effectively bartering with the Syrian regime for how, when and where it can implement reconstruction projects.32 The “rule” of going local has been advanced in both European and American policy forums as the most viable – perhaps the only – option for Western reconstruction assistance.33 There Greg Shupak, “Writing Out Empire: The Case of the Syria Sanctions”, in Stuart Davis and Immanuel Ness (eds), Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy (London: Brill, 2021). 27 Wieland, Syria and the Neutrality Trap, 120. 28 Heydemann, “Rules for reconstruction in Syria”. 29 Steven Simon and Joshua Landis, “The pointless cruelty of Trump’s new Syria sanctions”, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 17 August, 2020. 30 Simon and Landis, “The pointless cruelty of Trump’s new Syria sanctions”. 31 David Brennan, “U.S. Syria Representative Says His Job is to Make the War a ‘Quagmire’ for Russia”, Newsweek (2020). 32 Human Rights Watch, “Rigging the System”. 33 See: Julien Barnes-Dacey, “Society Max: How Europe can help Syrians survive Assad and Coronavirus”, European Council on Foreign Relations, April 2020; Samer Abboud, “Imagining Localism in Post-Conflict Syria: Prefigurative Reconstruction Plans and the Clash Between Liberal Epistemology and Illiberal Conflict”, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding (2020). 26

Reconstruction as violence and forced displacement in Syria  291 is much to commend in the focus on bottom-up approaches and local interventions. However, caution must be taken regarding the idea of the local as automatically being outside of regime control. As Samer Abboud notes, “The specific geography of Syrian locality is vague, ill-defined, or altogether ignored in intervention recommendations”. The Assad regime is not absent from the “local” and has developed a policy and legal framework to co-opt reconstruction assistance.34 Several “local” projects underway in Syria, supported by international NGOs and the UN, could be framed as reconstruction. While rarely explicitly acknowledged, the weaponization of reconstruction has led to a situation in which the term “reconstruction” has become anathema among the donor community. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for example, goes to extraordinary lengths not to mention the term “reconstruction”; instead it is undertaking “rehabilitation and recovery work”, and “building resilience”. UNDP was careful to call its work in Aleppo the “revival” of the souqs, not reconstruction.35 Likewise, UN Habitat is engaging in “rehabilitation” in Syria. I have been in direct discussions and public forums where Syrian NGO workers and even UN officials themselves have noted the absurd situation in which the UN is not undertaking certain work for no other reason than the fear it would be labeled as reconstruction. UN officials and consultants have expressed their frustration at the fact that, for instance, the rebuilding and repair of a school could only occur up to the first floor. To undertake work on the second floor would mean crossing an imaginary threshold into “reconstruction”. This chapter does not seek to instill further fear about utilizing the term “reconstruction”, or to stop UN agencies undertaking it. Rather, the goal is to emphasize the political dynamics of reconstruction and the built environment, and to highlight the risk that rebuilding a road or even a school could contribute to further violence and division. What is required is not avoidance of the term “reconstruction” but an approach that recognizes and assesses the political stakes and implications of reconstruction processes. UN agencies and others working in Syria must ensure that reconstruction projects support efforts toward peace and abide by the principle of “do no harm”. A deliberative effort and intent is required by anybody engaging in reconstruction to ensure that it does not facilitate oppression and/or displacement of civilian populations. The urbanization of warfare and violence, and the framing of reconstruction as violence demonstrate that thinking about conflict is not only about destruction. The construction and organization of the built environment can also be embedded in the conduct of war. This has profound implications for how we think about, engage, fund and support processes that carry the term “reconstruction” or the growing industry of similar interventions labeled “resilience”, “stabilization” or “revival”. Reconstruction should not automatically be linked to peace or viewed as the marker of a post-war era. Reconstruction can displace, unsettle and kill civilian populations, as much as the destruction of the built environment can. In Syria, reconstruction as violence has compounded the suffering of civilians, who are caught between a durable oppressive regime and a crumbling urban and social fabric. The search for the path in which reconstruction leads to justice and settlement continues.

Human Rights Watch, “Rigging the System”, 4; Wieland, Syria and the Neutrality Trap. UNDP, “Revival of 4 ancient markets in the Old City of Aleppo”, 26 June 2019.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Abboud, Samer, “Imagining Localism in Post-Conflict Syria: Prefigurative Reconstruction Plans and the Clash Between Liberal Epistemology and Illiberal Conflict”, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding 15, no. 4 (2020). Al-Mahaidi, Ala, “Securing Economic Livelihoods for Syrian Refugees: The Case for a Human Rights-based approach to the Jordan Compact”, The International Journal of Human Rights, 25, no. 2 (2021). Asseburg, Muriel, “Reconstruction in Syria: Challenges and Policy Options for the EU and its Member States”. Policy File, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 2020. Barnes-Dacey, Julien, “Society Max: How Europe can Help Syrians Survive Assad and Coronavirus”, European Council on Foreign Relations, April 2020. Berti, Benedetta, “Is Reconstruction Syria’s Next Battleground?” Carnegie, 5 September 2017. Brennan, David, “U.S. Syria Representative Says His Job is to Make the War a ‘Quagmire’ for Russia”, Newsweek (2020). Daher, Joseph, “Decree 66 and the Impact of its National Expansion”, Atlantic Council 7 March 2018, https://​www​.atlanticcouncil​.org/​blogs/​syriasource/​decree​-66​-and​-the​-impact​-of​-its​-national​ -expasion/​. Daher, Joseph, “The Political Economic Context of Syria’s Reconstruction: A Prospective in Light of a Legacy of Unequal Development”, European University Institute Research Paper, 2018. European Union, “Council Implementing Decision (CFSP) 2019/87”, 21 January 2019, https://​eur​-lex​ .europa​.eu/​legal​-content/​en/​TXT/​PDF/​?uri​=​CELEX:​32019D0087​&​from​=​EN. Graham, Stephen, ed., Cities, War, and Terrorism: Toward an Urban Geopolitics (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004). Heydemann, Steven, “Syria Reconstruction and the Illusion of Leverage”, Atlantic Council, 18 May 2017. Heydemann, Steven, “Rules for Reconstruction in Syria”, Brookings, 24 August 2017, https://​www​ .brookings​.edu/​blog/​markaz/​2017/​08/​24/​rules​-for​-reconstruction​-in​-syria/​. Hinnebusch, Raymond, “The Battle over Syria’s Reconstruction”, Global Policy 11, no. 1 (February 2020), 114. Human Rights Watch, “Rigging the System: Government Policies Co-Opt Aid and Reconstruction Funding in Syria”, Human Rights Watch, 2019. POMEPS, The Politics of Post-Conflict Reconstruction (POMEP Studies 30), September 2018. Rollins, Tom, “Decree 66: The Blueprint for al-Assad’s Reconstruction of Syria?” The New Humanitarian, 20 April 2020, https://​www​.thenewhumanitarian​.org/​investigations/​2017/​04/​20/​decree​-66​-blueprint​ -al​-assad​-s​-reconstruction​-syria. Sharp, Deen, “Urbicide and the Arrangement of Violence in Syria”, in Beyond the Square: Urbanism and the Arab Uprisings, ed. Deen Sharp and Claire Panetta (New York: Urban Research, 2016), 120. Sharp, Deen, “Concretising conflict”, The Journal of Architecture, 27 (2022). Shupak, Greg, “Writing Out Empire: The Case of the Syria Sanctions”, in Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy, ed. Stuart Davis and Immanuel Ness (London: Brill, 2021). Simon, Steven and Joshua Landis, “The Pointless Cruelty of Trump’s New Syria Sanctions”, Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 17 August 2020, https://​quincyinst​.org/​2020/​08/​17/​the​-pointless​ -cruelty​-of​-trumps​-new​-syria​-sanctions/​. UNDP, “Revival of 4 Ancient Markets in the Old City of Aleppo”, 26 June 2019. United States Congress, “H.R.31”, 3 June 2019. Unruh, Jon, “The Priority Dilemma of Western Sanctions on Syria’s Agricultural Reconstruction”, Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, 16 (2022). Urban Analysis Network for Syria (UrbAN-S), “Qaboun: District Case Study”, UrbAN-S, January 2020. Weizman, Eyal, Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Occupation (London: Verso, 2007). Wieland, Carsten, Syria and the Neutrality Trap (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 63.

30. Self-reliance in urban contexts for displaced people Kellie C. Leeson, Paul Karanja, Galo Quizanga Zambrano and Dale Buscher

Global displacement is increasingly urban and more protracted, and necessitates re-thinking about how humanitarian assistance is delivered and for how long. More than two-thirds of refugees face protracted displacement, with the average length of exile around ten years.1 But this dire picture also holds an opportunity – because of the urban nature of their displacement. Urban centers are drivers of economic development and host to a myriad of opportunities. Cities are hubs of talent, services, and diversity, with vibrant markets, resources, and wealth that attract more talent and ever higher concentrations of opportunity compared with rural and less-developed areas.2 These urban opportunities are also available to displaced populations – particularly those in a situation of protracted displacement. Historically, humanitarian assistance to refugees centered on refugee camps.3 UNHCR professionalized and standardized the delivery of basic assistance to refugees (shelter, schools, latrines, etc.) but for years such refugee assistance did not include access to livelihoods, freedom of movement, or opportunities for refugees to move forward with their lives.4 They were simply being “warehoused”.5 UNHCR issued its first policy on urban refugees in 1997, predicated on the belief that most urban refugees were young males who could provide for themselves.6 The policy faced internal and external backlash and led to an internal review in 2003 which placed new emphasis on the need for UNHCR to advocate on behalf of the civil and socio-economic rights of urban refugees.7 Pressure from NGOs and UNHCR’s own staff and leadership led to a new policy, UNHCR Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas, adopted in 2009. Xavier Devictor and Quy-Toan Do, “How Many Years Have Refugees Been in Exile?”, Population and Development Review 7 (June 2017): 355–69. 2 Dale Buscher, “Refuge in the City”, Social Sciences 7, Issue 12 (December 2018): 263. 3 Claudena Skran and Evan Easton-Calabria, “Old Concepts Making New History: Refugee Self-reliance, Livelihoods and the ‘Refugee Entrepreneur’”, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, Issue 1 (March 2020): 9. 4 Iffat Idris, Effectiveness of Various Refugee Settlement Approaches, K4D Helpdesk Report 223 (Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies, 2017), https://​gsdrc​.org/​publications/​effectiveness​-of​ -various​-refugee​-settlement​-approaches/​. 5 Merrill Smith, “Development Without Refugee Rights?”, Fordham International Law Journal 28, Issue 5, Article 7 (2004): 1–27. 6 “Where refugees are assisted in settlements or camps outside urban areas, UNHCR should provide assistance in urban areas to refugees from the same country of origin only with the agreement of the government and if there are compelling reasons to do so.” UNHCR Policy on Refugees in Urban Areas. (Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1997), 1. 7 Jeff Crisp, “Finding Space for Protection: An Inside Account of the Evolution of UNHCR’s Urban Refugee Policy”, Refuge 33, No. 1 (2017): 87–96. 1

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294  Handbook on forced migration “Urban areas”, the policy asserts, “are a legitimate place for refugees to reside and to enjoy their rights”.8 This acknowledgement, and the subsequent development of UNHCR’s Policy on Alternatives to Camps in 2014, led to a re-imagining of how to deliver assistance and programming in urban areas. Practice and programming have not kept pace with urban displacement. Too many refugees in urban areas still receive minimal, if any, support. Widely dispersed and often under the radar, they provide for themselves however they can. Municipal services are often neither accessible nor affordable for refugees, and humanitarian support is uncoordinated and at times out of reach for the most vulnerable who simply blend into a landscape of urban poverty, a widely dispersed, often hidden population. Few donors use their financial resources to maximum effectiveness, for example, by funding area-based approaches and improvement of basic community social services.

THE RE-EMERGENCE OF SELF-RELIANCE The 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) made self-reliance for refugees one of its four goals. The idea of self-reliance for refugees is not new. It began in the 1920s with efforts by the League of Nations to assist refugee “self-sufficiency”.9 In 2006, Jeff Crisp posited self-reliance as an alternative to the care and maintenance of refugees, and UNHCR’s 2013 policy on Alternatives to Camps recognized the importance of self-reliance in the face of protracted displacement.10 In the Self-Reliance Handbook, UNHCR defines self-reliance as “the social and economic ability of an individual, a household or a community to meet essential needs in a sustainable manner and with dignity” and as a program approach, self-reliance refers to “developing and strengthening livelihoods”.11 In practice, self-reliance programs are typically undertaken by livelihoods teams who emphasize entrepreneurship and vocational skills. After 2012, the war in Syria displaced millions of Syrians throughout the region, with only a small minority settling in camps. Middle-income cities were already facing the challenges of insufficient housing, high unemployment and strained public services, and the arrival of the refugees underscored the need to support livelihoods and reinforce public services. However, donors and UN agencies have not often focused on self-reliance for urban refugees, for several reasons. First, in order to continue working in a host country, UNHCR and many NGOs depend on good relationships with host governments. But refugees are not always welcomed in cities either by host governments or their citizens, and governments are averse to advertising their support for refugees in cities. Since the COVID pandemic and the subsequent worsening of conditions for everyone in cities, this resistance to refugees has increased 8 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas (Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2009), 3. 9 Claudena Skran and Evan Easton-Calabria, “Old Concepts Making New History: Refugee Self-reliance, Livelihoods and the ‘Refugee Entrepreneur’”, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, Issue 1 (March 2020): 9. 10 Jeff Crisp, “Forced Displacement in Africa: Dimensions, Difficulties and Policy Directions”, New Issues in Refugee Research, Paper No. 126 (July 2006): 1–25. See: UNHCR Policy on Alternatives to Camps. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2013. 11 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR Handbook for Self-Reliance (Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2005), 1.

Self-reliance in urban contexts for displaced people  295 in many countries.12 Host governments often deny refugees work permission, at least in the formal economy. Governments fear competition over jobs with their own citizens and worry about wage suppression, and they fear that allowing refugees access to public services will overwhelm or weaken them, or that refugees will be perceived to be receiving preferential access. Another concern of governments is that if refugees establish themselves in their cities of displacement, they will be less likely to leave when return home is possible. All these fears are shared by members of the public, who are often vocal about them, manifest in public demonstrations and protests. A second reason why aid agencies haven’t stepped up to promoting refugees’ self-reliance is that some humanitarians believe it is not and should not be an objective of the humanitarian response. Some believe it is beyond the remit of humanitarian actors, who should focus on immediate assistance. Others worry that it is a neoliberal, welfare-for-work proposition that relinquishes humanitarians’ responsibilities towards the forcibly displaced.13 And more fundamentally, there is a lack of agreement on the concept of self-reliance itself – whether it is synonymous with jobs and incomes or a more holistic concept incorporating social well-being. However, despite the government and humanitarian attitudinal obstacles, many, including ourselves, argue that both policy and practice need to align with the need to enable refugees to support themselves, especially as refugees themselves repeatedly request jobs, income, and opportunities.14 For humanitarian agencies (and increasingly development agencies too) that do put in place economic or self-reliance interventions, few focus on their impact. Livelihood programs are often designed to assist refugees to learn new skills and/or earn small amounts of income to supplement their food rations and other in-kind inputs. Then these programs are measured by their outcomes rather than their impacts.15 Further, humanitarian response is led by distinct sectors (for example, health, education, and livelihoods) which is an impediment to addressing household needs holistically.16 As such, the humanitarian community is at an inflection point – there is a renewed emphasis in promoting refugee self-reliance but little understanding of how to achieve such and the parameters encompassed. More programs are being implemented but are reaching only a fraction of the populations in need, and the impacts of those programs are largely unknown. Without measurement, there is no evidence base for practitioners to understand the efficacy of their programs and their impacts on the lives of refugees, and thus expand their efforts.17

12 Helen Dempster and Jimmy Graham, Locked Down and Left Behind: The Impact of COVID-19 on Refugees’ Economic Inclusion (Washington, DC: Center for Global Development and Refugees International, 2020), https://​www​.cgdev​.org/​publication/​locked​-down​-and​-left​-behind​-impact​-covid​-19​ -refugees​-economic​-inclusion. 13 Evan Easton-Calabria and Naohiko Omata, “Panacea for the Refugee Crisis? Rethinking the Promotion of ‘Self-Reliance’ for Refugees”, Third World Quarterly 39, Issue 8 (2018): 1458–74. 14 Dale Buscher, “Humanitarian Response: Evolution or Revolution?”, Overture Global Magazine, April 2019. 15 Kellie Leeson et al., “Measuring the Self-Reliance of Refugees”, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, Issue 1 (March 2020): 86–106. 16 Amy G. Slaughter, “Fostering Refugee Self-reliance: A Case Study of an Agency’s Approach in Nairobi”, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, Issue 1 (March 2020): 107–24. 17 Kellie Leeson et al., “Measuring the Self-Reliance of Refugees”, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, Issue 1 (March 2020): 86–106.

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BOX 30.1 CASE STUDY: QUITO, ECUADOR In 2020, Ecuador hosted the highest number of recognized refugees in Latin America (the fourth largest host community for Venezuelans and the primary host of Colombians). The Ecuadorian Constitution grants refugees and migrants a series of rights, which has positioned the country as one of the most progressive in terms of refugee protection, although these rights have come under pressure and become more restrictive following a sharp increase in migration in 2018 and 2019. Legal migratory status sets the foundation for refugees to access a sustainable income and basic services, establish relationships in the community, and integrate into the receiving society. Refugees living in Ecuador have the right to work and access to job opportunities in diverse fields, training opportunities, and financial services to expand their income-generating opportunities, especially in cities where municipal governments support the development of small businesses. However, recent reports indicate discrimination against refugees, lack of available or certified qualifications and a mismatch between their skills and employers’ needs. These are barriers for refugees achieving self-reliance as these challenges can impact labor market participation.a A progressive policy environment prompted by host governments, NGOs, and the private sector, can play a key role in fostering a more inclusive environment for refugees by providing equal access to basic services and promoting labor inclusion. As an example, Ecuador’s Ministry of Social and Economic Inclusion will now include refugee access to national protection systems through participation in the “Family Accompaniment Service”, a Graduation Model approach developed by the Ecuadorian Government. Note: a Vannessa Lucía Cobos Garrido and Adriana Blanco Cortés, Ejercicio del Derecho al Trabajo de la Poblacion Refugiada Colombiana en el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito (Quito: Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales Universidad de Postgrado del Estado, 2018).

BOX 30.2 CASE STUDY: NAIROBI, KENYA For years, Kenya has provided asylum to thousands of forcibly displaced women, men, and children in the region. Kenya has an encampment policy and while most refugees reside in the camps, around 80 000 refugees have opted to stay in Nairobi. These individuals often present with diverse vulnerabilities including trauma and chronic health conditions. They do not have access to coordinated or comprehensive services (unlike their camp counterparts). As a result, most refugees in Nairobi live a day-to-day existence in pursuit of self-reliance. There are significant legal, social, and economic challenges. For example, given the limited availability of work permits, refugees frequently run micro-businesses peddling petty wares in a highly competitive market made more challenging for those not adequately licensed. Without proper licenses, business owners are arrested, harassed, or extorted by the authorities, a risk for refugees whose status may not be respected.a For those with professional skills, access to formal employment is derailed by expensive and inaccessible work permits. In response, one approach by an international refugee agency in Nairobi supports refugees through an integrated case management approach in which the most at-risk refugees are identified and their situation stabilized by providing them critical

Self-reliance in urban contexts for displaced people  297 basic services such as food, shelter, counseling, and medical care followed by business training and support.b This approach includes guidance for clients to navigate the difficult policy environment, including access to county and city government services and teaching them to navigate the city on their own. Addressing refugee households’ needs comprehensively can facilitate their overall well-being and assist them on their journey towards self-reliance, but such programs tend to be expensive and able only to meet the needs of a relatively small number of refugees. Such achievements can also be easily derailed by unpredictable changes to Nairobi’s legal and regulatory environment. Notes: a Sara Pavanello, Samir Elhawary and Sara Pantuliano, Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya, HPG Working Paper (London: Overseas Development Institute, 2010), https://​cdn​.odi​.org/​media/​documents/​5858​ .pdf. b RefugePoint, https://​www​.refugepoint​.org/​.

NEW INITIATIVES AND LOOKING AHEAD The Global Compact on Refugees suggests that refugees must not be excluded when creating national development plans or regional agreements.18 There are wide-ranging efforts to support these developments through collective attempts to understand refugee well-being and self-reliance, and to build evidence for self-reliance programming and policy efforts. These initiatives, led by UNHCR, think tanks, donors and NGOs, include the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative, Prospects, the Labor Market Access Advisory Group, and the Protracted Displacement in an Urban World project. The Poverty Alleviation Coalition (PAC), for example, seeks to expand the Graduation Approach with refugees in predominately urban communities. This well-respected approach, successful with the poorest communities in primarily rural development settings, is now being implemented in a range of refugee settings to build refugee self-reliance and contribute learning in the sector. The most promising developments are the policy changes. The Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework, initiated at the 2016 Leadership Summit, along with the Global Refugee Forum pledges have led diverse countries, from Ethiopia to Peru, to update national laws to provide more opportunities for refugees to achieve self-reliance by opening public education or health care to include refugees, or changing right to work and freedom of movement laws.19 The World Bank’s launch of a “game-changing” financing window to support low-income countries hosting large numbers of refugees aligning refugee response and hosting countries’ national plans further boosts these efforts.20 While xenophobia has grown, especially after COVID, and challenges remain, there is increasing acceptance of the need to assist refugees to achieve their self-articulated desire 18 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Global Trends: Forced Displacement 2019 (Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2020), 26. 19 International Rescue Committee, From Response to Resilience: Working with Cities and City Plans to Address Urban Displacement: Lessons from Amman and Kampala (New York: International Rescue Committee, 2018), https://​www​.rescue​.org/​sites/​default/​files/​document/​2424/​fr​omresponse​ toresilien​cefinalweb​.pdf. 20 Post, Lauren, Cindy Huang and Sarah Charles, World Bank Financing to Support Refugees and their Hosts: Recommendations for IDA19 (New York: International Rescue Committee, 2019).

298  Handbook on forced migration to be self-reliant. New program models, approaches and policies are being floated that will transform humanitarian response and open opportunities to lift refugees out of dependency and poverty.

REFERENCES Buscher, Dale. “Refuge in the City”. Social Sciences 7, Issue 12 (December 2018): 263. Buscher, Dale. “Humanitarian Response: Evolution or Revolution?” Overture Global Magazine, April 2019. Cobos Garrido, Vannessa Lucía and Adriana Blanco Cortés. Ejercicio del Derecho al Trabajo de la Poblacion Refugiada Colombiana en el Distrito Metropolitano de Quito. Quito: Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales Universidad de Postgrado del Estado, 2018. Crisp, Jeff. “Forced Displacement in Africa: Dimensions, Difficulties and Policy Directions”. New Issues in Refugee Research 126 (July 2006): 1–25. Crisp, Jeff. “Finding Space for Protection: An Inside Account of the Evolution of UNHCR’s Urban Refugee Policy”. Refuge 33, no. 1 (2017): 87–96. Dempster, Helen and Jimmy Graham. Locked Down and Left Behind: The Impact of COVID-19 on Refugees’ Economic Inclusion. Policy Paper 179. Washington, DC: Center for Global Development and Refugees International, 2020. Devictor, Xavier and Quy-Toan Do. “How Many Years Have Refugees Been in Exile?” Population and Development Review 7 (2017): 355–69. Easton-Calabria, Evan and Naohiko Omata. “Panacea for the Refugee Crisis? Rethinking the Promotion of ‘Self-Reliance’ for Refugees”, Third World Quarterly 39, Issue 8 (2018): 1458–74. Idris, Iffat. Effectiveness of Various Refugee Settlement Approaches. K4D Helpdesk Report 223. Brighton: Institute of Development Studies, 2017. International Rescue Committee. From Response to Resilience: Working with Cities and City Plans to Address Urban Displacement: Lessons from Amman and Kampala. New York: IRC, 2018. Leeson, K., P.B. Bhandari, A. Myers and D. Buscher. “Measuring the Self-Reliance of Refugees”, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, 1 (2020): 86–106. Pavanello, S., S. Elhawary and S. Pantuliano. “Hidden and Exposed: Urban Refugees in Nairobi, Kenya”. HPG Working Paper. London: Overseas Development Institute, 2010. Post, Lauren, Cindy Huang and Sarah Charles. World Bank Financing to Support Refugees and their Hosts: Recommendations for IDA19. New York: International Rescue Committee, 2019. Skran, Claudena and Evan Easton-Calabria. “Old Concepts Making New History: Refugee Self-reliance, Livelihoods and the ‘Refugee Entrepreneur’”. Journal of Refugee Studies 33, no. 1 (2020): 9. Slaughter, Amy G. “Fostering Refugee Self-reliance: A Case Study of an Agency’s Approach in Nairobi”, Journal of Refugee Studies 33, 1 (2020): 107–24. Smith, Merrill. “Development Without Refugee Rights?” Fordham International Law Journal 28, Issue 5, Article 7 (2004): 1–27. UNHCR. Policy on Refugees in Urban Areas. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 1997. UNHCR. UNHCR Handbook for Self-Reliance. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2005, 1. UNHCR. UNHCR Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2009. UNHCR. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019. Geneva: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2020, 26.

31. Framing urban displacement economies Alison Brown, Peter Mackie, Patricia García Amado, Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher and Engida Esayas Dube

Contemporary understanding of the urban economies of displaced people is fragmented and partial, with no coherent framework available to help examine and improve economic outcomes in the context of displacement for both displaced people and host city economies. Much existing work has focused either on individual livelihoods, or on the economic impacts of displaced populations and enterprises. The collective impact of displaced people’s work and enterprise on urban economies has not been widely studied. This chapter argues for a new concept of urban displacement economies, to capture the economic potential which displaced people bring to urban areas. Urban displacement encompasses movements from rural to urban areas, between urban areas and within urban areas. Displaced people move to cities both for anonymity and opportunity. They are often highly vulnerable, but social and kinship networks in towns and cities can provide practical support. Mobile phones and social media facilitate these contacts and movement. This chapter first examines the challenges that displaced people face in establishing livelihoods in cities. It then explores the businesses established or run by displaced people, before arguing the need for a new concept that captures the dynamic, contextual and relational aspects of displacement economies.

DISPLACED PEOPLE’S LIVELIHOODS In urban areas IDPs and refugees often find it difficult to resume their former livelihoods, and their efforts to become self-sufficient may be hampered by inadequate skills for urban work, restrictions on rights to work, lack of language skills and the loss of former social and business networks. In these settings they construct ‘livelihoods’ through temporary and poorly paid work. Urban IDPs and refugees seldom rely on a single economic activity and usually access the labour market through informal employment. Diversifying their livelihood options increases their resilience to a fast-changing urban environment where casual and short-term labour opportunities predominate.1,2 A study of refugee enterprises in Addis Ababa found about half were involved in trade – selling food, clothes, qat (a mild narcotic) or electronics. Services, leisure and construction were also prevalent.3 Different urban refugee Dale Buscher. ‘New approaches to urban refugee livelihoods’, Refuge, 2011, 28(2), 17–29. Carole Rakodi. ‘A livelihoods approach – conceptual issues and definitions’. In Carole Rakodi, with Tony Lloyd-Jones, Urban Livelihoods: A People-Centred Approach to Reducing Poverty (pp. 3–22). 2002, Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. 3 Services included hairdressing, laundry, translation, nursing and mechanics. Leisure and hospitality activities included running pool houses, bars, restaurants, hotels and internet cafés. Also common were construction-related businesses such as welding, car repairs, tram-track maintenance or driving 1 2

299

300  Handbook on forced migration communities focused on specific sectors, for example, many Somali refugees imported new and second-hand clothes, while Eritreans were more likely to be involved in car repair or the restaurant trade.4 Research in Kurdistan showed similar specialisation.5 The cumulative effects of refugee and IDP livelihoods and enterprise and the ways in which displaced people leverage their national/international networks creates new displacement economies in cities. Forced migrants in urban areas face a variety of livelihood challenges. As Jacobsen6 argues, displaced people in urban areas form subsets of two larger populations, foreign-born migrants and the urban poor, but their displacement experience distinguishes forced migrants from these populations in significant ways. Those who flee quickly may lose assets and property, incur debts from the journey or payments to people traffickers, or have faced acute personal loss.7 Cities can be hostile environments, where newcomers face social exclusion and restrictive policies, or lack the skills for urban work and social networks for survival. In cities, forcibly displaced people often join the ranks of the urban poor where, as Moser8 highlights, their challenges include the commoditisation of food, shelter and basic services making paid labour a key strategy; environmental hazards due to lack of basic services exposing them to illness, and social fragmentation which weakens their support networks, requiring ingenuity to survive. Many forced migrants arrive in cities where informal work is the norm. The urban informal economy provides jobs and makes significant contributions to the urban economy, but workers lack social protection and are vulnerable to fluctuating incomes and exploitation.9 The ‘informal economy’ is widely seen as comprising the informal sector of unincorporated or unregistered enterprises; and informal employment including own-account workers and employers, family workers and people in informal jobs. According to the ILO,10 The informal economy refers to all informal sector units and activities, informal workers, and their outputs. Larger sectors include retailing, construction, domestic work, home-based work, transport work, waste-picking, and other casual work. Informal workers often combine several income-earning activities, working at different times of day, on different days of the week or different periods of the year. Many informal workers rely on social networks to learn skills,

(see: Alison Brown, Peter Mackie, Kate Dickenson and Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher. ‘Urban refugee economies: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’, 2018, London: IIED: 25). 4 Alison Brown, Peter Mackie, Kate Dickenson and Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher. ‘Urban refugee economies: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’, 2018, London: IIED. 5 Daniel Lewis, Gulelat Kebede, Alison Brown and Peter Mackie. ‘Urban crises and the informal economy: surviving, managing, thriving in post-conflict cities’, 2019, UN-Habitat. 6 Karen Jacobsen. ‘Refugees and asylum seekers in urban areas: a livelihoods perspective’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2006, 19(3), 273–86. 7 Karen Jacobsen. ‘Livelihoods and forced migration’. In E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long and N. Sigona (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, 2014, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 8 Caroline Moser. ‘The asset vulnerability framework: reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies’. World Development, 1998, 26(1), 1–19. 9 Alison Brown and Sally Roever. ‘Enhancing productivity in the urban informal economy’, 2015, Nairobi: UN-Habitat, https://​unhabitat​.org/​enhancing​-productivity​-in​-the​-urban​-informal​-economy (accessed February 2021). 10 ILO. ‘Women and men in the informal economy: a statistical picture’, 2013, Geneva: ILO (International Labour Organization), https://​www​.ilo​.org/​wcmsp5/​groups/​public/​-​-​-dgreports/​-​-​-dcomm/​ documents/​publication/​wcms​_626831​.pdf (accessed February 2021).

Framing urban displacement economies  301 find work, access credit, or gain market introductions. However, income is unpredictable, and workers lack social or health protection and often work in hazardous conditions. For the forcibly displaced, these vulnerabilities are heightened because they often lack established support networks. The concept of ‘urban livelihoods’ emerged from research in the late 1980s.11 Simply put, a livelihood is ‘a means of securing a living’, and the livelihoods approach focused on poor people’s agency and assets, underlining their capacities and ability to escape poverty by increasing their resilience to shocks and stresses.12 The concept was further developed as the Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF), which through a people-centred approach to poverty reduction sought to strengthen assets and reduce the vulnerabilities of the poor.13 Originally applied to rural areas, in 2002 the concept was extended to urban livelihoods.14 Despite the value of the SLF in analysing poor people’s livelihoods, and its wide application to research on refugees,15,16 there is no version of the SLF tailored specifially to refugees,17 which creates gaps in research and policy application First, the SLF framework fails to consider the evolution or ‘pathways’ that displaced people’s livelihoods take over time. Second, it does not recognise the significance of ‘own-account’ work, as people use their own enterprise to survive and create employment for others. Third, there is no recognition in the SLF of the collective impact and potential of displaced people’s enterprise to contribute to economic development in their new environments. These gaps suggest the need for a new framing of displaced people’s livelihoods and enterprise, which acknowledges the cumulative economic effect of IDP and refugee lives and livelihoods, as discussed below.

DISPLACEMENT ENTERPRISE The economic contributions of displaced people to local and global markets remains under-researched. Often analysed in terms of impacts of forced displacement on host societies, studies have focused on assessing the burden of IDPs and refugees on labour markets and services, paying less attention to their net contribution as consumers, taxpayers, entrepreneurs and agents of economic development.18 Yet despite numerous barriers, IDPs and refugees

Mayke Kaag, Rik van Berkel, J. Brons, Mirjam de Bruijn, Han van Dijk, Leo de Haan, Gerben Nooteboom et al. ‘Poverty is bad: ways forward in livelihood research’. 2004, Utrecht: Livelihoods group. CERES Research School. 12 Robert Chambers and Gordon Conway. ‘Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century’, IDS Discussion Paper 296, 1992, Brighton: IDS. 13 Diana Carney. ‘Sustainable livelihoods approaches: Progress and possibilities for change’. Department for International Development (DfID), 2002, London. 14 Carole Rakodi with Tony Lloyd-Jones. Urban Livelihoods: A People-Centred Approach to Reducing Poverty, 2002, Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. 15 See, for example, Machtell de Vriese. ‘Refugee livelihoods. A review of the evidence’. Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit. 2006, Geneva: UNHCR. 16 Sangeetha Mandhavan and Loren B. Landau. ‘Bridges to nowhere: hosts, migrants and the chimera of social capital in three African cities’, Population and Development Review, 2011, 37(3), 473–97. 17 Caitlin Wake and Veronique Barbelet. ‘Towards a refugee livelihoods approach: findings from Cameroon, Jordan, Malaysia, and Turkey’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2020, 33(1), 125–42. 18 Roger Zetter. ‘Reframing displacement crises as economic opportunities’. Policy Brief. Roundtable on Solutions to Displacement, Copenhaguen, 2–3 April, 2014. 11

302  Handbook on forced migration engage with their host economies in diverse ways, and some thrive in their new environment. This section first discusses the enterprises of displaced people in urban areas, before presenting the displacement economies concept. In cities, many IDPs and refugees seek to establish their own enterprise, either directly or in partnership with local businesses, often capitalising on diaspora links and the demand of displaced communities for products and services.19 However, their economic performance is mixed, affected by regulations, access to finance and information, education and previous entrepreneurial experience, social networks, and number of years living in the city.20,21,22 Refugees are more likely to start their own business than national citizens, increasing employment opportunities,23 as seen in Nairobi’s Eastleigh neighbourhood where many Somali refugees have set up businesses. However, lack of social and legal rights leaves them exposed to harassment and threats by local authorities.24 Most displaced people’s enterprises operate at least partially in the informal economy where they are often vulnerable to high payments for market access, extortion from middle-men, abuse from competitors, or corruption from local officials. The lack of skills, experience, contacts, financial capital, and constraints in access to markets and services hinders people’s capacity to start a business in the informal economy.25 However, relatively little is known about displaced people’s enterprise and job creation, integration with local markets, value chains, or trans-border and diaspora trade. Refugees are often restricted from accessing employment by host country governments, which does not affect IDPs, but even rights to work do not guarantee a living wage, or decent working conditions. Furthermore, there are often restrictions around refugees’ legal rights to open a business, which is rarely discussed although many refugees are self-employed. Relations with local government officials are often a key determinant of survival for displaced people’s enterprise. Even where rights to work are restricted, local officials may sympathetically ‘turn a blind eye’ to their activities, until local headlines or politics makes this approach untenable. Even where national policy is supportive, municipal governments often lack the knowledge or capacity to support displaced people, particularly where their constituents include large numbers of the urban poor, and where a general lack of basic services is compounded by a sudden arrival of displaced people. The enforcement of regulations in towns and cities restricting refugees’ right to work or own a business may vary according to the lob-

Simone Haysom. ‘Sanctuary in the city? Urban displacement and vulnerability’. 2013, London: Humanitarian Policy Group, ODI. 20 Alexander Betts, Naohiko Omata and Louise Bloom. ‘Thrive or survive? Explaining variation in economic outcomes for refugees’, Journal of Migration and Human Security, 2017, 5(4), 716–43. 21 Karen Jacobsen and Rebecca Furst Nichols. ‘Developing a profiling methodology for displaced people in urban areas’. 2011, Boston: Feinstein International Center. 22 Mona Harb, Ali Kassem and Watfa Najdi. ‚Entrepreneurial refugees and the city: brief encounters in Lebanon’. Journal of Refugee Studies, 2019, 32(1), 23–41. 23 Emily Arnold-Fernández and Stewart Pollock. ‘Refugees’ right to work’, Forced Migration Review, 2013 (44), 92–3. 24 Elizabeth Campbell. ‘Urban refugees in Nairobi: problems of protection, mechanisms of survival, and possiblities for integration’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2006, 19(3), 396–413. 25 Justin Webb, Garry Bruton, Laszio Tihanyi and R. Duane Ireland. ‘Research on entrepreneurship in the informal economy: Framing a research agenda’. Journal of Business Venturing, 2013, 28(5), 598–614. 19

Framing urban displacement economies  303 bying capacity of private sector groups who seek to benefit from the competitive opportunities of cheap labour provided by displaced people.26 Furthermore, IDPs and refugees seldom have a say in urban governance and planning decisions affecting their livelihoods, and municipalities rarely consider displaced people as part of their constituencies.27 However, the International Rescue Committee has found that municipalities are generally willing to receive expert advice on managing refugee arrivals and keeping public services running, but that NGOs do not always engage with local authorities.28 Economic theory suggests that migration has an impact on both labour markets and consumption, although impacts are mixed, depending on the extent to which migrants’ skills are complementary or in competition with those of host populations. Many displaced people bring new skills to the labour market or build strong links with markets in their area of origin, drawing on kinship networks for supplies, and the demands of displaced communities for specific goods or foodstuff. This often leads to the introduction of new skills into the labour market, such as furniture-making and tourism services introduced by Syrian refugees in Kurdistan.29 For example, in Uganda, with its relatively ‘open door’ policy towards refugees, there is broad diversity in the economic lives of refugees, and refugee-run enterprises often identify refugees from other countries as their main business customers.30 Some displaced entrepreneurs work in cross-border trade, particularly where borders separate ethnic communities. Trade works both ways, with displaced people bringing products from neighbouring countries and buying local goods to sell in their countries of origin. In Kampala, Congolese and Burudian refugees work as brokers, moving back and forth across borders carrying goods.31 Informal cross-border trade is thought to have a positive effect on host enterprises, both formal and informal, and contributes to employment.32 For example, Afghan refugees use long-standing transit routes and traditional remittance systems based on lineage and trust (hawaladar) in transborder trade with Iran and Pakistan.33 Likewise, in the Ethiopian town of Dollo Ado, goods from Mogadishu (Somalia) and Madera (Kenya) are imported through traditional pastoralist routes, and refugee retailers can purchase supplies for their shops, access formal and informal remittances, and use Somali telecom networks to

26 Inge Brees. ‘Refugee business: strategies of work on the Thai-Burma border’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2008, 21(3), 380–397. 27 Patricia García Amado. Security of tenure as an element of local integration in protraced urban internal displacement. 2018, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto. 28 Samer Saliba and Innocent Silver, ‘Cities as partners: the case of Kampala’, Forced Migration Revies, 2020, 63: 41–3. 29 Alison Brown, Lina Martinez, Nesreen Barwari and Peter Mackie. The informal economy in displacement: Duhok, Kurdistan Region of Iraq, 2021, https://​www​.cardiff​.ac​.uk/​informal​-economy​ -research​-observatory/​projects/​post​-conflict​-urban​-livelihoods (accessed February 2021). 30 Alexander Betts, Louise Bloom, Josiah Kaplan and Naohiko Omata. ‘Refugee economies: rethinking popular assumptions’, 2014, Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre. 31 Betts et al., ‘Refugee economies’, 2014: 14. 32 Sally Peberdy, ‘Mobile entrepeneurship: informal sector cross-border trade and street trade in South Africa’, Development Southern Africa, 2010, 17(2), 201–19. 33 Alessandro Monsutti, ‘Afghan migratory strategies and the three solutions to the refugee problem’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2008, 27(1), 58–73.

304  Handbook on forced migration support their businesses in nearby camps.34 Thus the economic lives of displaced people often have an outward view that is quite distinct from other urban residents.

DISPLACEMENT ECONOMIES FRAMEWORK (DEF) The gaps identified above reflect the vulnerability of forcibly displaced people, but also their agency and the cumulative effect of their economic contribution in cities. To address these gaps we propose a new theoretical framework in which we define displacement economies as: ‘the collective economy created by IDPs and/or refugees through their livelihood activities, enterprise, need for services and consumption, and through their mutual support and diaspora inputs’. This concept considers both the livelihoods of individual displaced people, and the enterprises or economic units they establish or in which they work, and which evolve over time. Our approach advances the literature on migration and informality studies by centring the importance of time, place and networks to consider the collective impact of the employment and enterprise of displaced people. Each is discussed briefly below. Time is captured by stressing people’s economic pathways through displacement35 – from place of origin, to current enterprise, to future aspirations. The concept of ‘pathways’ suggests that people’s experiences, perceptions and personal circumstances influence how their livelihoods and enterprise change over time and are affected by the unpredictable experience of displacement.36 The term captures non-linear and irregular trajectories and the capacity of households to respond to shocks, stresses, and trends. This challenges a common humanitarian assumption that refugees are at their most vulnerable at the start of displacement and build resilience over time.37,38 Place focuses on understanding the political, economic and social contexts of urban displacement economies, recognising the potential mobility of displaced populations and their trans-border networks. IDPs and refugees work and establish enterprises within a wide system of consumption, production, finance and social relations, influenced by the particular environment where they are based. Large or small urban areas, formal or informal settlements, offer different prospects and opportunities. Displaced people’s perceptions and aspirations, as well as the legal and regulatory context and the norms and values of host societies, constrain or enhance their economic options. The analysis of displacement economies thus needs to take on the subjective and objective factors that shape livelihoods and enterprises, with a combined

34 Alexander Betts, Raphael Bradenbrink, Jonathan Greenland, Naohiko Omata and Olivier Sterck. ‘Refugee economies in Dollo Ado: development opportunities in a border region of Ethiopia’. 2019, Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre. 35 The pathway is an ‘iterative process in which goals, preferences, resources and means are constantly reassessed in view of unstable conditions’, Mirjam de Bruijn and Han van Dijk. ‘Introduction: climate and society in central and south Mali.’ In de Mirjam Bruijn, Han van Djik, Mayke Kaag. and Kiky van Til (eds), Sahelian Pathways: Climate and Society in Central and South Mali (pp. 1–15). 2005, Leiden: African Studies Centre. Research Report 78:9. 36 Kaag et al., 2004. 37 David Clapham, Peter Mackie, Scott Orford, Ian Thomas and Kelly Buckley. ‘The housing pathways of young people in the UK’, Environment and Planning A, 2014, 46, 2016–31. 38 Wake and Barbelet, 2020: 136.

Framing urban displacement economies  305 study of structure and agency, to understand the interaction between place and displacement economies. Relational experiences situate the economies of displaced people within ethnic and kinship networks and the wider host economy. Displacement economies are nested in local value chains, but are connected to global networks through trade, exchange, brokerage, and remittances.39 However, the integration of displaced and host enterprise at local level remains largely unexplored.40 For example, Syrian refugees in Lebanon rely heavily on their networks within and outside the country, and Lebanese businesses can expand opportunities in collaboration with them.41 Urban migrants play a key role in local economic development, helping diversify local economies and reaching new local and global markets, but the value chains accessed by displaced people and their role in the production of goods and services are under-researched. Social capital and social connections are assets for displaced people, who move to urban neighbourhoods with concentrations of people who share their language, culture or religion. Social connections establish networks of trust to help newcomers find work, or access training, market information and start-up capital. Social capital thus enables access to other forms of capital (financial, natural, physical or human). Social relations can also be detrimental, for example when social obligations like remittances draw displaced people into destitution over time.

CONCLUSION In proposing the concept of urban displacement economies, this chapter seeks to counter a gap in knowledge about displacement enterprises. While the vulnerability of individual livelihoods to shocks and stresses, and adverse institutional contexts are reasonably well studied, the dynamic character of displaced people’s livelihoods, the widespread social networks on which enterprises depend, and the collective impact of their enterprise is under-researched. As a result, the burden of IDPs and refugees on host communities is commonly emphasised, but the fragility and potential of their economic contribution is poorly understood. Narrowing those gaps in knowledge will provide an important first step towards developing a coherent new approach to studying the economic impacts of displacement.

REFERENCES Arnold-Fernández, Emily and Stewart Pollock. ‘Refugees’ right to work’, Forced Migration Review, 2013 (44), 92–3. Betts, Alexander, Naohiko Omata and Louise Bloom. ‘Thrive or survive? Explaining variation in economic outcomes for refugees’, Journal of Migration and Human Security, 2017, 5(4), 716–43. Betts, Alexander, Louise Bloom, Josiah Kaplan and Naohiko Omata. ‘Refugee economies: rethinking popular assumptions’, 2014, Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre.

Betts et al., ‘Refugee economies’, 2014. William Monteith and Shuaib Lwasa. ‘The participation of urban displaced populations in (in) formal markets: contrasting experiences in Kampala, Uganda’. Environment & Urbanization, 2007, 29(2), 383–402. 41 Harb et al., 2019. 39 40

306  Handbook on forced migration Betts, Alexander, Raphael Bradenbrink, Jonathan Greenland, Naohiko Omata and Olivier Sterck. ‘Refugee economies in Dollo Ado: development opportunities in a border region of Ethiopia’. 2019, Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre. Brees, Inge. ‘Refugee business: strategies of work on the Thai–Burma border’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2008, 21(3), 380–397. Brown, Alison and Sally Roever. ‘Enhancing productivity in the urban informal economy’, 2015, Nairobi: UN-Habitat. Brown, Alison, Peter Mackie, Kate Dickenson and Tegegne Gebre-Egziabher. ‘Urban refugee economies: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’, 2018, London: IIED. Brown, Alison, Lina Martinez, Nesreen Barwari and Peter Mackie. ‘The informal economy in displacement: Duhok, Kurdistan Region of Iraq’, 2021. Buscher, Dale. ‘New approaches to urban refugee livelihoods’, Refuge, 2011, 28(2), 17–29. Campbell, Elizabeth. ‘Urban refugees in Nairobi: problems of protection, mechanisms of survival, and possiblities for integration’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2006, 19(3), 396–413. Carney, Diana. ‘Sustainable livelihoods approaches: progress and possibilities for change’. Department for International Development (DfID), 2002, London. Chambers, Robert and Gordon Conway. ‘Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st century’, IDS Discussion Paper 296, 1992, Brighton: IDS. Clapham, David, Peter Mackie, Scott Orford, Ian Thomas and Kelly Buckley. ‘The housing pathways of young people in the UK’, Environment and Planning A, 2014, 46, 2016–31. de Bruijn, Mirjam and Han van Dijk. ‘Introduction: climate and society in central and south Mali’. In de Mirjam Bruijn, Han van Djik, Mayke Kaag and Kiky van Til (eds), Sahelian Pathways: Climate and Society in Central and South Mali (pp. 1–15). 2005, Leiden: African Studies Centre. Research Report 78. de Vriese, Machtell. ‘Refugee livelihoods. A review of the evidence’. Evaluation and Policy Analysis Unit. 2006, Geneva: UNHCR. García Amado, Patricia, ‘Security of tenure as an element of local integration in protraced urban internal displacement’. 2018, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto. Harb, Mona, Ali Kassem and Watfa Najdi. ‘Entrepreneurial refugees and the city: brief encounters in Lebanon’. Journal of Refugee Studies, 2019, 32(1), 23–41. Haysom, Simone. ‘Sanctuary in the city? Urban displacement and vulnerability’, 2013, London: Humanitarian Policy Group, ODI. ILO. ‘Women and men in the informal economy: a statistical picture’, 2013, Geneva: ILO (International Labour Organization). Jacobsen, Karen. ‘Refugees and asylum seekers in urban areas: a livelihoods perspective’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2006, 19(3), 273–86. Jacobsen, Karen. ‘Livelihoods and forced migration’. In E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh et al. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, 2014, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jacobsen, Karen and Rebecca Furst Nichols. ‘Developing a profiling methodology for displaced people in urban areas’, 2011, Boston: Feinstein International Center. Kaag, Mayke, Rik van Berkel, J. Brons, Mirjam de Bruijn, Han van Dijk, Leo de Haan and Gerben Nooteboom. ‘Poverty is bad: ways forward in livelihood research’, 2004, Utrecht: Livelihoods group. CERES Research School. Lewis, Daniel, Gulelat Kebede, Alison Brown and Peter Mackie. ‘Urban crises and the informal economy: surviving, managing, thriving in post-conflict cities’, 2019, UN-Habitat. Mandhavan, Sangeetha and Loren B. Landau. ‘Bridges to nowhere: hosts, migrants and the chimera of social capital in three African cities’. Population and Development Review, 2011, 37(3), 473–97. Monsutti, Alessandro. ‘Afghan migratory strategies and the three solutions to the refugee problem’. Refugee Survey Quarterly, 2008, 27(1), 58–73. Monteith, William and Shuaib Lwasa. ‘The participation of urban displaced populations in (in)formal markets: contrasting experiences in Kampala, Uganda’. Environment and Urbanization, 2007, 29(2), 383–402. Moser, Caroline. ‘The asset vulnerability framework: reassessing urban poverty reduction strategies’. World Development, 1998, 26(1), 1–19.

Framing urban displacement economies  307 Peberdy, Sally. ‘Mobile entrepeneurship: informal sector cross-border trade and street trade in South Africa’. Development Southern Africa, 2010, 17(2), 201–19. Rakodi, Carole. ‘A livelihoods approach – conceptual issues and definitions’. In Carole Rakodi with Tonly Lloyd-Jones, Urban Livelihoods : A People-Centred Approach to Reducing Poverty (pp. 3–22). 2002, Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. Rakodi, Carole with Tony Lloyd-Jones. Urban Livelihoods: A People-Centred Approach to Reducing Poverty, 2002, Abingdon: Taylor & Francis. Saliba, Samer and Innocent Silver, ‘Cities as partners: the case of Kampala’, Forced Migration Revies, 2020, 63, 41–3. Wake, Caitlin and Veronique Barbelet. ‘Towards a refugee livelihoods approach: findings from Cameroon, Jordan, Malaysia, and Turkey’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2020, 33(1), 125–42. Webb, Justin, Garry Bruton, Laszio Tihanyi and R. Duane Ireland. ‘Research on entrepreneurship in the informal economy: framing a research agenda’. Journal of Business Venturing, 2013, 28(5), 598–614. Zetter, Roger. ‘Reframing displacement crises as economic opportunities’. Policy Brief. Roundtable on Solutions to Displacement, Copenhaguen, 2–3 April, 2014.

32. From integration to conviviality: Syrian refugees in London and Berlin Deena Dajani

In the last decade, just over a million refugees (largely from Syria, but also Afghanis, Iraqis, and Iranians) have journeyed towards Europe with the aim of seeking asylum. Many took the “central route” across the Mediterranean Sea from North Africa, others one of the two “eastern routes” (most commonly via the Aegean Sea to Greece, or alternatively through the Turkish/ Greek border and onto the “Balkan route” towards Germany and elsewhere until Balkan states closed their borders).1 At least 19 164 refugees lost their lives crossing the Mediterranean since the IOM began recording deaths at Sea in 2014.2 A further 15 000 are estimated to have lost their lives at different points in transit, including in detention centres while waiting for their asylum applications to be considered.3 Despite the relatively small number of refugees seeking asylum in Europe compared to those seeking asylum in the Global South, by 2015 the European Commission was repeatedly using the narrative of “migration crisis” to describe the situation.4 This framing was widely adopted and informed the policy environment. By 2019, only 322 400 refugees who had sought asylum in the preceding decade had been naturalised.5 A further 1.1 million refugees were granted temporary settlement, 70 per cent of whom did so with UNHCR’s assistance.6 Together, they constitute less than 1.5 per cent of the total number of forcibly displaced people worldwide. Granted asylum, refugees found themselves facing the challenge of “integration”. Integration has been a central theme in European politics since the 1990s when the Cold War came to an end and the policies of granting refugees full and permanent residency status shifted.7 Integration was originally conceived as an understanding of what new residents need to do to adapt and function in a new society. This had been mainly analysed by looking at the differences in the social and welfare status of newcomers in comparison to older populations.8 1 Vicki Squire, Nina Perkowski, Dallal Stevens and Nick Vaughan-Williams, Reclaiming Migration: Voices from Europe’s “migrant crisis” (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021). 2 IOM, “Mediterranean Arrivals Reach 110,699 in2019; Deaths Reach 1,283. World Deaths Fall”, IOM Press Releases, 1 March 2020. 3 Niamh McIntyre and Mark Rice-Oxley, “It’s 34,361 and rising: how the List tallies Europe’s migrant bodycount”, The Guardian, 20 June 2018. 4 Squire, Perkowski, Stevens and Vaughan-Williams, Reclaiming Migration. 5 UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019 (Copenhagen, UNHCR Global Data Service, 2020). 6 UNHCR, Global Trends 2019. 7 Rinus Penninx, Dimitrina Spencer and Nicholas Van Hear, Migration and Integration in Europe: The State of Research (Oxford: COMPAS, 2008). 8 Siniša Zrinščak, “Local Immigrant Communities, Welfare and Culture: An Integration/Segregation Dilemma”, in Migration and Welfare in the New Europe: Social Protection and the Challenges of Integration, eds Emma Carmel, Alfio Cerami and Theodoras Papadopoulos (Bristol: The Policy Press, 2011), 197–212.

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From integration to conviviality: Syrian refugees in London and Berlin  309 Consequently, frameworks were developed that aimed to measure achievement across sectors including employment, housing, education and health, practices of citizenship and rights, processes of social connection within and across communities, and structural barriers including language, culture, and local environment.9 However, integration policies “inevitably overreached”.10 Integration has ultimately become a question of how the society, in which the newcomers “integrate”, defines itself. Whether in political discourse or through policy, integration has reproduced specific ideas of society, the state, the nation, as well as of culture, race, and belonging.11 It has become an “ideologically loaded” concept bound to nationalism and constructions of belonging and inclusion.12 This can set new residents apart, reinforcing a sense of difference and separation. Many scholars, arguing for the need for greater reflexivity on the paradigms on which research is conducted, are even calling for the abandonment of integration as a concept. Others argue that the issue with integration emerges from a failure “to disentangle the normative ought from the empirical is,” by producing a desired – and idealised – end goal rather than attending to the actual processes of settling in a new place.13

EXPERIENCES OF SYRIAN REFUGEES SETTLING IN LONDON AND BERLIN This chapter draws on fieldwork conducted for the research project Resilient Communities, Resilient Cities? Digital Makings in the City of Refuge in 2018–2019.14 The project focused on three European cities that received significant numbers of refugees (Athens, Berlin, and London) and aimed to analyse how cities’ capacities were tested to sustain inclusive, integrated and democratic communities. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted for the project, this chapter examines the differing policy responses to integration in two cities – Berlin and London – as experienced by Syrian refugees who settled there. Examining specifically the response to the forced displacement of over 6.6 million Syrians, on a national level, Germany and the UK responded very differently to their international commitments to shared refugee hosting, and thus integration of this group. The UK offered to settle 20 000 refugees over a six-year period (2014–2020) through two schemes with UNHCR (The Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Scheme (VPRS) and Community Sponsorship). Resettlement costs during the first year came from the UK’s overseas aid budget with the responsibility thereafter falling to city councils within their existing budgets. Germany committed to the resettlement of 1 million refugees. Federal funding was provided to state and city governments to design welfare and integration programming. 9 Alastair Ager and Alison Strang, “Understanding Integration: A Conceptual Framework”, Journal of Refugee Studies 21, no. 2 (2008): 166–91. 10 Penninx et al., Migration and Integration in Europe. 11 Mikkel Rytter, “Writing Against Integration: Danish Imaginaries of Culture, Race and Belonging”. Ethnos 84, no. 4 (2019). 12 Rytter, “Writing Against Integration”. 13 Sarah Spencer and Katherine Charsley, “Reframing ‘Integration’: Acknowledging and Addressing Five Core Critiques”, Comparative Migration Studies 9, no. 18 (2021). 14 The project was supported by LSE’s Institute of Global Affairs and the Rockefeller Foundation and was led by Professor Myria Georgiou and Dr Suzanne Hall.

310  Handbook on forced migration Flowing from these national frameworks, Berlin’s and London’s capacities to sustain inclusive city-level responses differed significantly.15 In London, a city-level response was considerably constrained by the application of the State’s border policy, the 2012 hostile environment policy, and the UK Immigration Acts of 2014 and 2016.16 Settlement was also impacted by austerity measures that saw local councils contracting out vital service provision (including housing, education, and social care) and individualising responsibility for integration onto refugees themselves.17 To meet conditions for permanent settlement and prove their “integration”, refugees in the UK – including in London – were expected to have learnt English and passed UK language tests, and to be earning a substantial income, with very limited support and services. In stark contrast to London, Berlin benefited from substantial public investment and the capacity to develop city-level programming and services. Welfare, housing, education, culture, digital and community programming were all supported under the umbrella of “integration policies”. In Berlin, “integration” constituted a normative framework that organised all refugee programming across city-level and civil society.18 Recognition as “integrated” was conditional on achieving certain benchmarks: passing an integration test that included an advanced German language exam and demonstrating acquired skills which responded to a demand within the urban economy.

REFUGEE EXPERIENCES OF INTEGRATING INTO THE URBAN ECONOMY One participant in the research project, Hadi (pseudonym), had fled Syria for Turkey when he was 16.19 He had just turned 20 when he was resettled in London in 2018 with his disabled father and carer mother via VPRS. He took part in the research project seven months after first arriving in London. His family had been given no guidance on how to register for medical care (despite his father’s medical needs) or how to register for English language lessons (despite his keenness to learn the language as soon as possible). However, he was expected to attend weekly appointments at the local Job Centre in the London borough where he lived, in which he was asked about his job-seeking efforts since the last appointment. The limited aid (via Universal Credit) his family received on a monthly basis was dependent on him attending these appointments. Just seven months into life in London, commenting on his weekly interactions with the Job Centre, Hadi said, “I feel like I have to show that I am going to stand on my feet quickly, and will not be living on benefits, that I will work and succeed.”

The relationship between nation-city governance and integration policy is discussed in detail in Oliver Schmidtke “Beyond National Models? Governing Migration and Integration at the Regional and Local Levels in Canada and Germany”. Comparative Migration Studies 1, no. 1 (2014). 16 Myria Georgiou, Suzanne Hall and Deena Dajani, “Suspension: Disabling the City of Refuge?”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 48, no. 9 (2022). 17 Deena Dajani,. “Refuge under Austerity: The UK’s Refugee Settlement Schemes and the Multiplying Practices of Bordering”. Ethnic and Racial Studies 44, no. 1 (2021). 18 Georgiou et al., “Suspension: Disabling the City of Refuge?”. 19 The author of this chapter conducted the ethnographic interviews with Hadi and his family for the research project described earlier over July and August 2019. The conversation shared here occurred during a meeting in late July 2019. 15

From integration to conviviality: Syrian refugees in London and Berlin  311 He expressed the impacts this pressure was producing on his mental health, I just wish there was a little more understanding … by the Job Centre, that as determined as a person can be, there are emotional issues we can be dealing with too … as much as refugees want to integrate … this is difficult … Everything would be going well and then I hear some news about a friend [in Syria] and for a week I feel low and helpless … there are weeks when I cannot get out of bed.

Hadi said that he felt this pressure to stop claiming benefits as a wider moral responsibility towards the millions of Syrian refugees on waiting lists for resettlement. He said, “I feel like I have to … so that they continue to support refugees and bring them over.” Yet, the pressure to integrate into the job market restricted Hadi’s ambition to realise his right to full-time education. When trying to discuss his aspirations with the Job Centre officer, he was told that although he left Syria at age 16, by the time he was resettled in the UK he was over 18, and completing his school education was not available to him. At the insistence of the Job Centre, he accepted a full-time job at Poundland, abandoning his hope of pursuing his right to education. Hadi’s experience in London demonstrates how the “normative ought” of quick integration into the urban economy without the availability of adequate support or services to support aspirations and needs (including mental health), end up limiting refugee prospects and capacities as well as their ability to settle in and build a dignified life in the city.

REFUGEE EXPERIENCES OF SOCIAL INTEGRATION In contrast to Hadi’s experience in London, funding to support city-level integration policies enabled a more structurally robust response in Berlin, where refugees were better supported to build on their aspirations and skills and become contributors to the urban economy. For example, many of the refugees interviewed for the study were enrolled in colleges and universities, worked part-time, and were active in civic initiatives. Yet, integration’s “normative ought” emerged again, this time in relation to refugees’ appearance and social conduct. Hamdi (pseudonym), also a participant in the research project, arrived in Berlin from Syria (via Jordan) in 2015. He participated in the research project in October 2019. At the time, he was already a very competent German language speaker (he has spent his first year in Berlin on an intensive German language course, made available to him through the city’s integration initiatives), he was a university student and also worked part-time as an Arabic–German translator. Through his participation in the project, he shared the following incident: I was once working as a translator at a German-Arabic workshop. A young German guy spoke up and said, “it is great that refugees are speaking German and are working and generating their own income and paying taxes, but that is not enough. They need to integrate as well.” I don’t know what he meant, what [else] does it mean to integrate? To look like him?

Another participant in the project, Enaya (pseudonym), who had arrived in Berlin in the 1970s as a refugee, and in the 1980s had established a centre to support refugee communities in the

312  Handbook on forced migration city, described this as “one-way” social integration expected of refugees, and attributed it to the lack of integration policies aimed at hosts, who are often left out of integration programming.20 The welcoming environment [in 2015] … was not supported. People in Germany hosted people in their homes, without being prepared on how to deal with trauma. They were expecting people to come to them, stay in their houses … and be grateful and thankful all the time. Hosts became frustrated that refugees appeared to them “ungrateful” … There was no understanding of … conflict, of [refugees] having to make sense of what they just experienced and what they are now receiving. There was rage and anger … They were going through so much … The expectations of the hosts were so wide off the mark … I believe the welcoming attitude was genuine, but not supported in an appropriate way. It was a missed opportunity.

This was echoed in ethnographic interviews with other participants in Berlin too. Asem (pseudonym), a recent refugee who had arrived from Syria, reflected on his own [possible] future in Berlin and noted that refugee communities that arrived in the 1960s and 1970s are still called “foreigners” by German residents.21 To that, he said, “German people need to learn how to be integrated. They need to work hard towards that.” Hamdi, Enaya, and Asem’s experiences in Berlin reveal that despite integration programming enabling better support services and programming that supported refugee aspirations, skills, and needs, the “normative ought” emerged to flatten out differences and perpetuate colonial hierarchies, leaving many refugees in Berlin feeling that to integrate is to obscure their difference.

CONVIVIAL URBANITY The experiences of newly settled refugees in London and Berlin support critiques on integration thinking discussed in the introduction to this chapter.22 However, against the backdrop of integration’s normative “ought” emerging through hostile and assimilationist tendencies, the research project also acknowledged the potential of cities as inclusive and welcoming spaces through civic solidarities built on the recognition of difference. For example, in London, the research team met with local residents who came together in their borough to push their local council to resettle refugees. They succeeded in their campaign, convincing the council to settle 11 refugee families. Asked about their motivations for coming together and engaging in local politics, residents said it was important to them that their diverse borough continues to be an open urban space. As one community resident said, “In our view, hosting refugees is for the benefit of everyone, not just refugees. A culture that is pro-respect, pro-dignity, that is for us all.”

The author of this chapter conducted the interview with Enaya for the research project in September 2019. 21 The author of this chapter conducted ethnographic interviews with Asem several times over September and October 2019 for the research project mentioned earlier. This quotation comes from an early conversation in September 2019. 22 Fran Meissner and Tilmann Heil, “Deromanticising Integration: On the Importance of Convivial Disintegration”. Migration Studies, 9, no. 3 (2021). 20

From integration to conviviality: Syrian refugees in London and Berlin  313 These experiences demonstrate migrants’ and host communities’ own resistance to hegemonic, normative integration frameworks in cities. A focus on measuring individuals’ “integration” into an existing polity can obscure the transformative nature of urban politics. Typical normative integration frameworks view migrants as working to “earn” their residence in cities through contributing to welfare systems, which places the burden of integration on migrants solely and works to obscure their difference. These narratives deny the dynamism of urban polities. Within other disciplines, including the humanities, there is an increasing acknowledgement of the concept of “conviviality” as an analytic lens that is able to recognise the city as a space of community and collaboration, but also divisions and racism.23 Described as an “urban politics of living with difference”, conviviality attends to everyday interactions in the city to understand communing (how different people come together for particular purposes) while also encompassing tension, conflict and racism as persistent everyday experiences in post-colonial cities.24 Conviviality is not an alternative to integration. However, transdisciplinary research that draws on humanities thinking encourages a shift from measuring the integration of refugees as individuals, towards better identification of the structural strengths and limits of cities – from the infrastructural to the cultural – and how they produce unequal access to resources, recognition, and rights for individuals and groups. It also calls attention for the need to address this unequal access structurally, through policy and programming that works with different urban communities, old and new, to advance inclusive cities as hopeful, collective projects, rather than placing the burden on migrants to alleviate their structural, unequal access themselves. It proposes living cities as urban collectives that “make space” and support newcomers in taking up space (through resources, recognition, and rights), generating possibilities for urban renewal and reconstruction. In this way, approaching migrants’ experiences in host communities from a point of conviviality, rather than integration, better appreciates the evidenced political and cultural dynamism of urban spaces. Additionally, conviviality pushes forward a new approach to migrants’ lives in host communities which migrants and host communities increasingly embrace. Programming and policies based on conviviality rather than integration can provide a more participatory and fruitful way forward for both migrants and their host communities.

REFERENCES Ager, Alastair and Alison Strang. “Understanding Integration: A Conceptual Framework”, Journal of Refugee Studies 21, no. 2 (2008): 166–91. Amin, Ash. Land of Strangers. Cambridge: Polity, 2012. Berg, Mette L. and Magdalena Nowicka, eds. Studying Diversity, Migration and Urban Multiculture. London: UCL Press, 2019. Dajani, Deena. “Refuge Under Austerity: The UK’s Refugee Settlement Schemes and the Multiplying Practices of Bordering”. Ethnic and Racial Studies 44, no. 1 (2021): 58–76.

Gilroy, Paul. After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? (Abingdon: Routledge, 2004). Ash Amin, Land of Strangers (Cambridge: Polity, 2012) and see also Mette L. Berg and Magdalena Nowicka eds, Studying Diversity, Migration and Urban Multiculture (London: UCL Press, 2019). 23

24

314  Handbook on forced migration Digital City of Refuge. “Research Summary”. Accessed 9 March 2021. Georgiou, Myria, Suzanne Hall and Deena Dajani. “Suspension: Disabling the City of Refuge?”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 48, no. 9 (2022). Gilroy, Paul. After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? Abingdon: Routledge, 2004. IOM. “Mediterranean Arrivals Reach 110,699 in 2019; Deaths Reach 1,283. World Deaths Fall”, IOM Press Releases, 1 March 2020. McIntyre, Niamh and Mark Rice-Oxley. “It’s 34,361 and Rising: How the List Tallies Europe’s Migrant Bodycount”, The Guardian, 20 June 2018. Meissner, Fran and Tilmann Heil. “Deromanticising Integration: On the Importance of Convivial Disintegration”, Migration Studies 9, no. 3 (2021). Penninx, Rinus, Dimitrina Spencer and Nicholas Van Hear. Migration and Integration in Europe: The State of Research (Oxford: COMPAS, 2008). Rytter, Mikkel. “Writing Against Integration: Danish Imaginaries of Culture, Race and Belonging”. Ethnos 84, no. 4 (2019): 678–97. Schmidtke, Oliver. “Beyond National Models? Governing Migration and Integration at the Regional and Local Levels in Canada and Germany”. Comparative Migration Studies 1, no. 1 (2014). Spencer, Sarah and Katherine Charsley. “Reframing ‘Integration’: Acknowledging and Addressing Five Core Critiques”, Comparative Migration Studies 9, no. 18 (2021). Squire, Vicki, Nina Perkowski, Dallal Stevens and Nick Vaughan-Williams. Reclaiming Migration: Voices from Europe’s “migrant crisis”. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021. UNHCR. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2019. Copenhagen: UNHCR 2020. Zrinščak, Siniša. “Local Immigrant Communities, Welfare and Culture: An Integration/Segregation Dilemma”, in Migration and Welfare in the New Europe: Social protection and the challenges of integration, eds E. Carmel et al., Bristol: The Policy Press, 2011.

33. National and local orders in the response to Venezuelan forced migration in Colombia: Perspective from urban settings Carolina Moreno, Gracy Pelacani and Laura Dib-Ayesta

INTRODUCTION Colombia hosts over 2.4 million Venezuelan migrants and refugees, the highest number in Latin America,1 and is also a transit country for migrants and refugees from Haiti, Cuba, and various African and Asian continents, en route to the United States.2 The Venezuelan population is concentrated in northern municipalities, and almost 20 percent of Venezuelans are in the capital, Bogota.3 Most of these municipalities4 include large cities with the institutional and financial capacity to provide access to public services.5 However, all Colombian municipalities face similar obstacles in responding to migrants’ and refugees’ needs, as a result of the tension between national and local mandates for migration policy and governance, as well as allocation of resources. Municipalities depend on funding from the central government, and gaps in national legislation prevent them from adopting inclusive measures for migrants. In the absence of government resources, municipalities rely on international funding to respond to the needs of Venezuelans. This chapter briefly describes the legal framework that governs Colombia’s response to Venezuelans, then considers what can be learned from the location of Venezuelan migrants and refugees.

1 UNHCR and OIM, Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants of Venezuela (R4V), https://​www​.r4v​.info/​en/​refugeeandmigrants. However, the data underrepresent the scale of migration. 2 These migratory flows have been present for at least a decade, but they mostly remain off the political agenda and official data are scarce. Migración Colombia, ‘En el último mes, Migración Colombia ha detectado más de 34 mil migrantes irregulares, una cifra equivalente al 51% del total de detecciones de este 2021’, 10 September 2021, at https://​www​.migracioncolombia​.gov​.co/​noticias/​en​-el​-ultimo​-mes​ -migracion​-colombia​-ha​-detectado​-mas​-de​-34​-mil​-migrantes​-irregulares​-una​-cifra​-equivalente​-al​-51​ -del​-total​-de​-detecciones​-de​-este​-2021. 3 Migración Colombia, ‘Distribución de Venezolanos en Colombia – Corte 31 de Enero de 2021’, 3 March 2021, at https://​www​.migracioncolombia​.gov​.co/​infografias/​distribucion​-de​-venezolanos​-en​ -colombia​-corte​-31​-de​-enero​-de​-2021. 4 In this chapter the term ‘municipalities’ also refers to the country’s four large metropolitan districts and Bogota, the country’s capital, which is the capital district. 5 However, this is not the case for Maicao and Villa del Rosario, which host almost 140 000 Venezuelan nationals. These municipalities are hosting Venezuelans not due to financial capacity to attend to migrants’ and refugees’ needs, but because of their geographical location near to the Venezuelan–Colombian border.

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LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR MANAGING VENEZUELAN MIGRATION Colombia is a strongly centralized state, with little administrative decentralization. Municipalities and large metropolitan districts have autonomy over certain local issues, including ensuring access to basic services such as education, health, water, and sanitation.6 However, local administrations are not financially independent and rely on annual transfers from the national government to deliver these rights and services. When it comes to the management of migration, responsibility is divided between national and subnational administrative authorities. National executive authorities – the Presidency, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Migración Colombia – govern migratory movements and establish regularization mechanisms, while local municipal authorities are constitutionally committed to delivering basic services and guaranteeing rights for non-nationals in their territories. The tension between these separate legal powers poses a challenge for local administrations who lack the institutional and financial capacity to meet their constitutional responsibilities. Until 2021, the management of Venezuelan migration was dealt with mainly through executive decrees and decisions from administrative authorities. This framework did not address the situation of many Venezuelans of which more than half were irregular. The lack of a regular migratory status prevented Venezuelan migrants from accessing services at the local level. In March 2021, the national government adopted the internationally applauded Temporary Protection Status for Venezuelan Migrants, which regularized the status of Venezuelan migrants for ten years, and provided identification documentation and access to rights.7 This was significant since the number of Venezuelans who have been recognized as refugees in Colombia is extremely low.8 Despite repeated calls by UNHCR to consider Venezuelans in need of international protection under the Cartagena Declaration,9 Colombia refuses to do so.10 In mid-2021, Colombia passed a law that sets out public policy on migration for the long-term.11 However, among other issues, this law does not substantially change the previous legal framework. It continues to place discretion and power in the hands of the Executive,

Colombia. Political Constitution, arts. 356 and 357. Colombia, Law 715/2001, art. 76. Colombia. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Decree 216 of 1 March 2021. However, Venezuelan migrants who entered the country irregularly after 31 January 2021 cannot benefit from the Temporary Protection Status. Therefore, it is difficult to say how many Venezuelan migrants will benefit from this mechanism and if it will achieve its aim in the long term. 8 UNHCR and OIM, Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants of Venezuela (R4V), available at: https://​www​.r4v​.info/​es/​Refugiados. 9 The Cartagena Declaration of 1984 expands the refugee definition of the 1951 Refugee Convention and was intended to respond to the Latin American context of massive forced displacement. Colombia, among other countries in the region, adopted this expanded definition in its national legislation. 10 This is a regional trend, since the rate of recognition of Venezuelan nationals as refugees is extremely low among the countries in the region that welcomed the higher number of Venezuelans. This is so with the exception of Brazil. UNHCR, Guidance Note on International Protection Considerations for Venezuelans – Update I, May 2019, available at: https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​5cd1950f4​.html (accessed 7 February 2021); UN, ‘UN agency hails Brazil “milestone” decision over Venezuelan refugees’, 6 December 2019, available at: https://​news​.un​.org/​en/​story/​2019/​12/​1052921. 11 Colombia. Congress. Law that establishes definitions, principles and guidelines for the regulation and orientation of the integral migration policy of the Colombian State. Colombia, Law 2136/2021. 6 7

National and local orders in response to Venezuelan forced migration in Colombia  317 it does not establish permanent and accessible routes of regularization for people from all nationalities, and it does not change the current system for the recognition of refugees as such.

VENEZUELAN MIGRANTS IN COLOMBIAN TOWNS Venezuelan migrants are mainly concentrated in nine state capitals and one large city (Maicao) on the Venezuelan border (Table 33.1). Table 33.1

Colombian municipalities and migrant numbers

Municipalities

Venezuelan migrants

Bogota 

340 711  

Barranquilla  

Between 97 494 and 90 100

Cucuta 

 

Medellin  Cali 

Between 59 571 and 41 132

Cartagena 

 

Maicao  Riohacha  Santa Marta   Bucaramanga

Note: This data is based on the information published by Migración Colombia in 2021, available at the time of writing this chapter. More recent data shows that the population of Venezuelan migrants and refugees in Colombia has grown to 2.5 million and their distribution in the country has changed up until February of 2022. Source: Prepared by the authors.

These municipalities have varying financial and administrative capacity to respond to their population’s needs. Municipalities in Colombia are categorized as large or intermediate, according to their population, revenues, geographical position, and economic relevance.12 All municipalities depend on the national government to meet their constitutional responsibilities, but intermediate municipalities struggle more as their institutional and financial structures are more fragile. Cities such as Maicao and Riohacha rely heavily on international cooperation, which provides funding to support refugees’ shelter, water, and sanitation, food security, health, education, among others.13

TENSIONS OVER ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES: IMPACT ON MIGRANTS’ AND REFUGEES’ RIGHTS The allocation of central state resources affects the rights of migrants and refugees. When resources are not sufficient to meet local demands, municipalities are still obligated to provide public services. Their inability to do so has a direct impact on migrants’ and refugees’ rights, especially their economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). One of the main concerns is Colombia. Law 1551/2012, art. 7. ‘Colombia: Briefing Departamental La Guajira – 30/06/2020 [SP]’, The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), accessed 4 October 2021 at: https://​bit​.ly/​3De4h9Y. 12 13

318  Handbook on forced migration access to healthcare. The Constitutional Court has admitted that this is a heavy burden on municipalities, since they are responsible for guaranteeing access to healthcare of the uninsured population and affiliating them to the subsidized health system.14 In 2016 the Colombian Congress allocated a budget for urgent primary healthcare to nationals of border countries and in 2017, the Ministry of Health and Social Protection issued a decree to make further resources available to local bodies in order to cover costs of this assistance, prioritizing border areas.15 The Constitutional Court also reviewed the case of a migrant child with cancer in Cúcuta, a large municipality on the border with Venezuela, who was denied diagnosis services needed to determine treatment for his condition. In light of the burden that mass migration represents on border areas, the Court established that even though the municipality was responsible for assuming the costs of health services, the state must support municipalities when needed, in order to cover the healthcare needs of non-nationals.16 The Constitutional Court also determined that the principle of solidarity demanded more effective action from the national government with greater attention to the needs of municipalities, especially those on the border, to respond to migrants and refugees with irregular migratory status.17 This decision from the Constitutional Court is significant for municipalities to fulfil the responsibilities they are legally assigned. But such decisions highlight the disconnect between national policy and local implementation. The Constitutional Court placed some responsibility for upholding ESCR at the national level and made visible the need for a state-wide approach to the design and implementation of public policy.

CONCLUSION The difficulties faced by municipalities in Colombia to respond to the needs of Venezuelan migrants and refugees are mainly caused by the lack of an effective national policy to govern human mobility and the tensions between the national and local orders. There is a disconnect between the legal responsibilities of municipalities and the allocation of resources for them to comply with such obligations. This has implications for migrants and refugees, such as when it comes to their ability to access healthcare or education. Changes are needed that promote closer coordination between national and local authorities, and to strengthen the capacity of municipalities to attend to the needs and rights of migrants and refugees. Although international cooperation and funding help with the arrival of large numbers of migrants and refugees, they should not be a substitute for local institutions, and rather focus on strengthening municipal capacity. Finally, data collection should be improved and data made public. This would allow for more accurate research, as well as contributing to appropriate public policies on migration.

14 Colombia. Constitutional Court, decision T-210, June 2018. Gloria Stella Ortiz Delgado. See also Colombia. Law 1438/2011, art. 32. 15 Colombia. Law 1815/2016. Colombia. Decree 780/2016, Ministry of Health and Social Protection, art. 2.9.2.6.1. 16 Colombia. Constitutional Court, decision T-705, November 2017. José Fernando Reyes Cuartas. 17 Colombia. Constitutional Court, decision T-210, June 2018. Gloria Stella Ortiz Delgado.

National and local orders in response to Venezuelan forced migration in Colombia  319

REFERENCES Colombia. Constitutional Court, decision T-210, June 2018. Gloria Stella Ortiz Delgado. Colombia. Constitutional Court, decision T-705, November 2017. José Fernando Reyes Cuartas. Colombia. Law 715/2001. Colombia. Law 1438/2011. Colombia. Law 1551/2012. Colombia. Law 1815/2016. Colombia. Law 2136/2021. Colombia. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Decree 216/2021. Colombia. Ministry of Health and Social Protection, Decree 780/2016. Colombia. National Planning Department, CONPES 3950, 23 November 2018. Colombia. Political Constitution. Migración Colombia, Distribución de Venezolanos en Colombia – Corte 31 de Enero de 2021, 3 March 2021. Migración Colombia, ‘En el último mes, migración Colombia ha detectado más de 34 mil migrantes irregulares, una cifra equivalente al 51% del total de detecciones de este 2021’, 10 September 2021. UN. ‘UN agency hails Brazil “milestone” decision over Venezuelan refugees’, 6 December 2019. UNHCR and OIM. Interagency Coordination Platform for Refugees and Migrants of Venezuela R4V 2021. UNHCR. ‘Guidance Note on International Protection Considerations for Venezuelans – Update I’, May 2019. United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). ‘Colombia: Briefing Departamental La Guajira – 30/06/2020 [SP]’.

34. The value of mayors in urban displacement settings: The case of Amman, Jordan Yousef Al Shawarbeh (Mayor of Amman) and Samer Saliba

The growing evidence on how best to meet the needs of the millions of migrants and displaced people living in cities has a simple through line: work with the mayors and city governments hosting them. A 2015 study on livelihoods programming in urban areas of Lebanon and Jordan found that “leveraging the partnership of municipal, community-based, and private sector actors often leads to improved programming, not only for individuals facing high levels of vulnerability but entire communities as well.”1 The study found that partnerships between international practitioners and city governments – where international humanitarian agencies enter into agreements centred on collaboration and resource sharing – pushed the possibilities of what each could deliver for both migrants and host populations, especially given restrictive national policy environments. Five years later, a 2020 study of six refugee-hosting cities in Turkey and Lebanon similarly found that working with mayors and other municipal actors promoted more progressive outcomes for refugees, or mitigated the effects of locally restrictive policies, and that mayors in particular were important in determining policy outcomes.2 Mayors who show solidarity with their refugee constituents, such as Mayor Fatma Sahin of Gaziantep, Turkey, have been instrumental in establishing inclusive, city-run entrepreneurship programmes, dedicated schools for refugee children, and the construction of supplementary housing. In Gaziantep, the result has been more than 1000 refugee-run businesses, over 75 000 refugee children enrolled in school, and over 250 000 refugees with housing they did not have before.3 The mayor achieved these results through a combination of the city’s own resources, securing resources from national government ministries, and international support from international humanitarian and development actors. Historically, responding to displacement has been the role of international humanitarian actors, including international NGOs such as the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Oxfam, and Mercy Corps; and UN agencies such as UNHCR working with the agreement of national governments. But as urban displacement increases, humanitarian actors recognise that city governments can be equal partners capable of leading a response to displacement crises and putting in place sustainable, inclusive programmes that support both refugees and marginalised residents of the receiving community. Mayors and city governments who demonstrate solidarity with their refugee constituents are certainly not typical in every city, particularly those affected by or complicit in conflict, Samer Saliba, Finding Economic Opportunity in the City: Lessons from the IRC’s Cash and Livelihoods Programmes in Cities within Lebanon and Jordan (New York: International Rescue Committee, 2016). 2 Alexander Betts et al., “What Difference do Mayors Make? The Role of Municipal Authorities in Turkey and Lebanon’s Response to Syrian Refugees”, Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 34, No. 1 (2020). 3 Son Güncellenme, “Fatma Sahin’den Surivelilere Vtandaslik Aciklamasi [Fatma Sahin’s Statement on Citizenship for Syrians]”, Milliyet, 16 July 2016. 1

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The value of mayors in urban displacement settings  321 as in some Syrian cities at present. But mayors are potentially good partners for humanitarian agencies for three reasons. First, they are more aware of the challenges on the ground and how to implement context-appropriate interventions. Second, city governments have control over existing infrastructure and service delivery channels that reach more people, compared with external actors who must rely on short-term project timeframes. Third, they are mandated to serve all city residents, including migrants, refugees, and IDPs. While mayors must fulfil their role as leaders in response to urban migration and displacement with or without international humanitarian actors, a partnership approach can maximise benefits to both displaced and receiving communities by bringing additional financial and technical support.

THE CASE OF AMMAN Ten years since the start of the Syrian conflict, there are now over 5.5 million Syrian refugees, the majority of whom reside in the neighbouring countries of Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan. Most have been displaced for five years or longer.4 Given the protracted nature of Syrian displacement, 95 per cent of Syrian refugees have made their way to cities such as Amman, where they are more likely to find work, put their children in local schools, engage in social activities, and have more chance of a “normal” life than they would in camps.5 However, the international humanitarian community still speaks of protracted Syrian displacement as if it were an immediate crisis. In 2020, UNHCR’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa stated, “the Syrian crisis remains the world’s biggest refugee crisis, and frankly the situation for many refugees and host communities is worse than it has ever been”.6 Although displacement has persisted for a decade, the response has yet to change from one of immediate emergency relief (delivered within the silos of one-to-three-year project timeframes from myriad actors) to a longer-term, holistic, and coordinated solution led by city governments. Thousands of Syrians now reside in the greater Amman metropolitan area – Jordan’s main economic hub – in search of work and social connections and away from the constant and enduring reminder of their displacement that camps symbolise. While unverified, UNHCR and the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) estimate there are approximately 194,000 Syrian refugees within the GAM, but the actual figure is likely larger. By comparison, Zaartari camp is home to 76 878 refugees.7 Azraq camp is home to 36 874 refugees.8 This means the two largest refugee camps combined host fewer refugees than the city of Amman. Yet most investment is targeted to these camps where electricity costs alone can cost millions of dollars per year.9 The movement of refugees into Amman, now with a population of some four million residents (42 per cent of Jordan’s total population) over the past ten years, has exacerbated

UNHCR, Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2016 (Geneva: UN Refugee Agency, 2016). Regional Strategic Overview 2021–2022 (Regional Refugee Resilience Plan, 2021). 6 UNDP, “Appealing for urgent support, UN agencies and partners say 2021 risks becoming more difficult than ever for Syrian refugees and their hosts”, United Nations Development Programme, 4 February 2021. 7 UNHCR, Jordan – Zaatari Camp Factsheet May 2020 (Geneva: UN Refugee Agency, 2020). 8 UNHCR, Jordan – Azraq Camp Factsheet July 2020 (Geneva: UN Refugee Agency, 2020). 9 Serena Jiwani, “Powering life in the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp”, United Nations Foundation, 18 April 2019. 4 5

322  Handbook on forced migration unemployment and put increased pressure on GAM to provide opportunity, safety, and public services under strained resources. Dozens of international humanitarian actors operate in Amman today, but only four have entered into a formal partnership agreement with GAM to support refugees directly. The multi-stakeholder response to Jordan’s refugee crisis is articulated in the 2020–2022 Jordan Response Plan, but formal implementation of this national plan has not been translated to the city level. Notably lacking is coordinated support of the refugees residing within the city, despite the willingness of GAM to serve as an implementing partner. Despite this limited support, GAM, under the leadership of its mayors past and present, has strived to fulfil the human rights of all communities within Amman. The municipality has taken actions to improve relationships between Jordanian and refugee communities, and has expanded the reach of public services, such as waste collection, employment services, and childcare, to marginalized populations. Although the scale of urban displacement has undoubtedly hindered GAM’s ability to deliver these services to its growing population, the city seems resolved to find solutions and turn these challenges into opportunities. This resolve is reflected in the Amman Resilience Strategy, which sets out GAM’s long-term vision for a resilient and inclusive Amman, and the actions that will help the municipality achieve it. Completed in 2017, GAM saw the strategy as an opportunity to connect refugee response efforts within the city to long-term resilience goals and actions. The municipality worked with an international NGO to assess the displacement context within Amman and recommend actions GAM could take to improve its accountability towards the needs and preferences of refugees within the city. For example, Action 3.B.1: “Incentivize Start-Ups/Incubators” seeks to ensure that at least 10 per cent of businesses supported through this action are refugee-owned. Since the launch of the Amman Resilience Strategy, GAM and its humanitarian partners have sought to promote inclusivity and build relationships between Jordanians and refugees by improving conditions in low-income areas where refugees typically reside, and expanding community-led initiatives such as sporting events and outdoor socialising. The city has also tried to provide job opportunities for both low-income Jordanians and refugees. These kinds of city-wide municipal–humanitarian partnerships are few and far between. While laudable in their focus on inclusion and partnership with GAM, projects such as GIZ’s Green Infrastructure, UNDP’s Heart of Amman and the 7Hills initiative are small-scale and focused on specific neighbourhoods within Amman. Since 2015, a city-level initiative on migration governance, funded by the European Union and the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation, supports mutual learning between cities affected by displacement in Europe and the Southern Mediterranean. But this project does not fund city-wide interventions. All these kinds of projects could have more impact if they were aligned with GAM’s long-term strategies and local policies. The Amman Resilience Strategy is a model for how small-scale activities and stand-alone projects could be scaled up and integrated into a broader and longer-term approach, led by the city government. In this way, the institutionalisation of participatory, inclusive processes can contribute to increased and sustained recovery at the city level, that focuses on deriving the most benefit from the presence of refugees on the city. City governments are mandated to provide public and social services to all residents. But very few international humanitarian actors take advantage of the reach and knowledge of mayors and city governments to establish meaningful partnerships, even in situations of protracted urban displacement. This constitutes a significant failing on their part, given the efficiencies and sustainable legacies that could be achieved were humanitarian aid to be

The value of mayors in urban displacement settings  323 invested in ways that support the inclusion of all vulnerable residents, whether refugee or host. The absence of city-level, long-term initiatives in partnership with city governments is remarkable in the Middle East, given the length of time most Syrians have been displaced, and their overwhelming choice to reside in urban areas. In Amman, as with other cities doing more than their fair share to accommodate the urban displaced, international responders should view city governments as critical implementers of humanitarian services and the primary custodian of sustainable, inclusionary practices for migrants and refugees within their jurisdictions. Strengthening these practices will show that mayors and city governments are best placed to respond to urban displacement locally, and that they can influence international governance on displacement issues globally. As demonstrated by the 2018 Mayors Marrakech Declaration on “Cities working together for migrants and refugees”, the leadership of mayors has gained traction in diplomatic forums. Once relegated to side events in international meetings, such as during the UNHCR Global Refugee Forum in 2019, mayors and city government representatives are now taking a more central role. The thirteenth Global Forum for Migration and Development in 2021 featured over 90 local and regional governments as active participants. This representation is a marked contrast from previous international migration and displacement diplomatic forums. When international humanitarian and development agencies work with mayors, not around them, and go beyond an emergency response, city governments can strengthen their efforts towards inclusivity and sustainability. Perhaps doing so will bring an end to the siloed, short-sighted approaches of the international humanitarian community in response to urban displacement, both in policy and in practice.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Betts, Alexander, Fulya MemiŞoĞlu and Ali Ali. “What Difference do Mayors Make? The Role of Municipal Authorities in Turkey and Lebanon’s Response to Syrian Refugees”. Journal of Refugee Studies Vol. 34, No. 1 (2020). Güncellenme, Son. “Fatma Sahin’den Surivelilere Vtandaslik Aciklamasi” [Fatma Sahin’s Statement on Citizenship for Syrians]. Milliyet, 16 July 2016. Jiwani, Serena. “Powering life in the world’s largest Syrian refugee camp”. United Nations Foundation, 18 April 2019. Regional Strategic Overview 2021–2022. Regional Refugee Resilience Plan, 2021. Saliba, Samer. Finding Economic Opportunity in the City: Lessons from the IRC’s Cash and Livelihoods Programmes in Cities within Lebanon and Jordan. New York: International Rescue Committee, 2016. UNDP. “Appealing for urgent support, UN agencies and partners say 2021 risks becoming more difficult than ever for Syrian refugees and their hosts”. United Nations Development Programme, 4 February 2021. UNHCR. Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2016. Geneva: UN Refugee Agency, 2016. UNHCR. Jordan: Azraq Camp Factsheet July 2020. Geneva: UNHCR, 2020. UNHCR. Jordan: Zaatari Camp Factsheet May 2020. Geneva: UNHCR, 2020.

 

Poem: Not for Him the Fiery Lake of the False Prophet

Martín Espada When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. Donald Trump, 16 June 2015

They woke him up by pissing in his face. He opened his mouth to scream in Spanish, so his mouth became a urinal at the ballpark. Scott and Steve: the Leader brothers, celebrating a night at Fenway, where the Sox beat the Indians and a rookie named Rodríguez spun the seams on his changeup to hypnotize the Tribe. Later that night, Steve urinated on the door of his cell, and Scott told the cops why they did it: Donald Trump was right. All these illegals need to be deported. He was a Mexican in a sleeping bag outside JFK station on a night in August, so they called him a wetback and emptied their bladders in his hair. In court, the lawyers spoke his name: Guillermo Rodríguez, immigrant with papers, crop-picker in the fields, trader of bottles and cans collected in his cart. Two strangers squashed the cartilage in his nose like a can drained of beer. In dreams, he would remember the shoes digging into his ribcage, the pole raked repeatedly across his cheekbones and upraised knuckles, the high-five over his body. Donald Trump was right, said Scott. And Trump said: The people that are following me are very passionate. His hands fluttered as he spoke, a demagogue’s hands, no blood under the fingernails, no whiff of urine to scrub away. He would orchestrate the chant of Build that Wall at rally after rally, bellowing till the blood rushed to his face, red as a demagogue in the grip of masturbatory dreams: a tribute to the new conquistador, the Wall raised up by Mexican hands, Mexican hair and fingernails bristling in the brick, Mexican blood swirling in the cement like raspberry syrup on a vanilla sundae. On the Cinco de Mayo, he leered over a taco bowl at Trump Tower.

  Not for him the fiery lake of the false prophet, reddening his ruddy face. Not for him the devils of Puritan imagination, shrieking in a foreign tongue and climbing in the window like the immigrant demons he conjures for the crowd. Not even for him ten thousand years of the Leader brothers, streaming a fountain of piss in his face as he sputters forever. For him, Hell is a country where the man in a hard hat paving the road to JFK station sees Guillermo and dials 911; Hell is a country where EMTs kneel to wrap a blanket around the shivering shoulders of Guillermo and wipe his face clean; Hell is a country where the nurse at the emergency room hangs a morphine drip for Guillermo, so he can go back to sleep. Two thousand miles away, someone leaves a trail of water bottles in the desert for the border crossing of the next Guillermo. We smuggle ourselves across the border of a demagogue’s dreams: Confederate generals on horseback tumble one by one into the fiery lake of false prophets; into the fiery lake crumbles the demolished Wall. Thousands stand, sledgehammers in hand, to await the bullhorns and handcuffs, await the trembling revolvers. In the full moon of the flashlight, every face interrogates the interrogator. In the full moon of the flashlight, every face is the face of Guillermo.

Narrative: Markets of displacement

Luigi Achilli and Kim Wilson

INTRODUCTION Understanding the struggles of migrants to garner and manage funds helps to shed light on the challenges migrants face en route. Exploring the mobility of money alongside the mobility of people illuminates how the financial aspects of the migration journey underpin the immobility and exploitation of migrants, but also their agency and entrepreneurship. This chapter is based on empirical research (interviews and observation) conducted by the authors between 2011 and 2019 in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan.1 Our research participants left their countries due to fear of violence or lack of freedom, hoping to reach a place where they could pursue new opportunities. Field research revealed to us the inadequacy of concepts like “migrant vs. refugee” and “push vs. pull factors” – and even the more encompassing notion of “mixed migration” – to describe the complex reality of people on the move. Even the idea of migrants perpetually “on the move” fails to describe our participants’ mobility patterns. During their costly and perilous journeys, often across multiple countries and continents, many people got stuck. Political and economic barriers prevented them from continuing onward or reversing course to return home. In this context of financial precarity, mixed flows, and shrinking possibilities for legal, safe mobility, the boundaries between refugees and migrants blurred. We use the word “migrant” with the caveat that the term is not sufficient to address the complexity and ambiguous status of people on the move.

THE COST OF MOBILITY Migration is a costly and perilous business. Insecurity and the shrinking of legal migration channels increasingly require migrants to use irregular means to make their journeys. This significantly increases their exposure to exploitation. Smuggling services represent the single largest reported expense for migrants’ transcontinental journeys. Our research found that smuggling prices varied considerably. For example, Nepalis using smuggling networks for their entire journeys report that their costs to get to the US ranged from $16 000 to $41 000. What accounts for this wide range? According to our respondents, first was the smuggling package on offer. Some packages are “door-to-door” – where smugglers manage all money

1 The claims in this chapter are based on unpublished field notes from field research carried out by the authors.

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Narrative: Markets of displacement  327 matters, including pocket change, others offer a bare minimum of services across short passages.2 A second factor that influences pricing is the number of journey legs that require smuggling services. Journeys often include segments that are not clandestine but involve legal travel with visas or transit passes easily obtained, and these journeys cost less than completely clandestine journeys.3 Other factors include the degree of difficulty in obtaining forged or purchased identification documents, and the mode of travel – overland versus air.4 One’s gender affects costs too. Both our male and female respondents said that women needed more protected shelter than men, and were perceived to move more slowly during trekking, mule and horse riding, or river-fording segments of the journey. For instance, for passage through the Darién wilderness that divides Colombia and Panama, smugglers assembled migrants into groups of 80 or more. The passeurs (local smugglers) were not inclined to take women and children because they slowed their trek, unless they paid a higher fee. Finally, a migrant’s ability to negotiate is crucial to the price of smuggling services. In places where smugglers are ubiquitous and competition is high, prices are more transparent and vary little. However, where smugglers are fewer or less conspicuous, a good price can depend on an individual’s ability to negotiate. As one Afghan researcher notes, individual negotiating skills are critical to getting a good deal: jor amad, meaning the way parties come to terms with one another, is key. Each pricing arrangement is custom-made.5

GATHERING RESOURCES Migrants gather funds in varied ways. For those travelling to Europe or the US, borrowing money is critical. Migrant financial portfolios contain both moneylender debt and debts to friends and family. The size, cost, and terms of loans vary by region. Family debt often takes the form of a promise to send money home once they start earning a living at their destination. Migrants from Nepal, who had made it as far as New York City, reported that portions of their journeys were funded by Nepalese moneylenders at the per annum rate of 18 per cent to 36 per cent. Interestingly, they could garner those loans only if they were bound for the US. One cab driver from the hilly, tourist areas of Nepal exclaimed: “If you want to buy land for a hotel here, you cannot find the money. If you want to invest in a taxi service, you cannot find the money. If you want to migrate to the US, the moneylenders will line up behind you.”6 Migrants also amass smuggling fees by tapping their own savings or selling assets for cash. Afghan migrants described how they accumulated savings over years with the intent of financing a long-distance journey. “We sold everything: refrigerators, a washing machine, everything”, said an Iranian woman in Greece. Imminent danger can compress the time allot2 Kim Wilson and Roxani Krystalli. The Financial Journeys of Refugees. Medford, MA: The Henry J. Leir Institute for Human Security at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2017; Khalid Koser. “Why Migrant Smuggling Pays”. International Migration 46, no. 2 (2008): 3–26. 3 Noelle Brigden, The Migrant Passage (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018). 4 David Kyle and Rey Koslowski, Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, 2nd edn (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011). 5 Qiamuddin Amiry, Searching for Smugglers in Kabul, A Recollection (Medford, MA: The Henry J. Leir Institute for Human Security at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2020). 6 From field notes of Subin Mulmi, 2019.

328  Handbook on forced migration ted to selling assets, requiring that assets be sold in a matter of days, and generating a pittance of what the assets would earn during a peacetime liquidation. In some cases, labour migration enabled onward financing of journeys. Such was the case of our Nepali migrant participants who earned comparatively good incomes in places like Dubai and Qatar. The work, however, was so gruelling that they did not wish to return to the Gulf. Brokers in the Gulf would take their passports and make them “work long days in unbearable heat”. When they returned to Nepal with cash to spare, they decided the best investment would be to make their way to the US.7 Another strategy involved receiving gifts from family and friends in the diaspora network. “Most of the time people asked us for financial support. They need money to pay their travels or to help their relatives joining them”, a young Palestinian activist explained.8 Through her informal networks, this young woman and other activists managed to raise money to support the journey of fellow Palestinians from Syria to Europe. They collected money from activists and people sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. This kind of financial support reduces the risk of entering cycles of debt typical of war economies and clandestine migration. Being caught in such a cycle increases the likelihood of exploitation and the transformation of smuggling into trafficking – a phenomenon all too common in mixed migration contexts.9

COPING WITH THE COST Sometimes borrowing money, liquidating assets, and receiving help from friends and affinity groups were not sufficient to cover journey costs. When this happened, coping with the cost of migration journeys entailed considerable risks. For example, Mahdi, a young Syrian man, financed his journey from Syria by working as a “guide” in Turkey for the smuggling organization that helped him and his family leave their country. He was in his early twenties when, in 2015, a co-author of this chapter met him in a small town in western Turkey, near Bodrum. A few years earlier he had contacted Abu Hamza, a 50-year-old man from Mahdi’s village, who was running smuggling operations in Turkey. Abu Hamza agreed to bring Mahdi’s family to Europe under the condition that Mahdi work with him to pay the smuggling fee. When we asked Mahdi whether he was forced into smuggling or got involved voluntarily, he replied: Look, it’s a dangerous job, if the Turkish or Greek police catch you, you can spend up to 10–15 years in prison. So, if I could have chosen, I would have never done that. But … Abu Hamza was there when I needed him: if it was not for him, I and my family would have died in Syria.

Kim Wilson, “Financial Elements of Human Smuggling”, in Global Migrant Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, eds Luigi Achilli and David Kyle (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming). 8 Luigi Achilli and Mjriam Abu Samra, “Beyond legality and illegality: Palestinian informal networks and the ethno-political facilitation of irregular migration from Syria”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2019): 1–22. 9 Alessandro Monsutti, War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan (New York: Routledge, 2005). Julia O’Connell Davidson, “New slavery, old binaries: Human trafficking and the borders of ‘freedom’”, Global Networks 10, no. 2 (2010): 244–61. 7

Narrative: Markets of displacement  329 Mahdi’s plan was to work as a smuggler while he waited for the last member of his family in Syria to be smuggled to Greece, then he would quit smuggling and leave for Europe. However, things did not go as planned. Mahdi agreed to do one last job for Abu Hamza and escort a dozen well-off clients who could afford a fast boat to the closest Greek island. He expected this last job to earn him a few thousand euros, and he could then join his brothers waiting for him in Greece to continue their journey to Europe along the Western Balkan route. But on the way to Greece, the boat was intercepted by Greek coastguards, and Mahdi, identified as one of the smugglers onboard, was arrested. We met Mahdi in Athens on a sunny day in spring 2016. After being detained in a Greek prison, he’d been temporarily released to await trial. At this meeting, a different picture emerged of Abu Hamza, that clashed with Mahdi’s earlier depiction of his benefactor. “He was good with me when [I worked for him],” Mahdi conceded. Yet, he continued: Abu Hamza forgets about his associates and friends in the moment of need. I tried to reach him several times, but I never got a hold of him. The only thing that he did was to send my cousin €1,000 that served to pay part of the lawyer’s fee. Now the lawyer wants more money, and I don’t have any left.

Mahdi’s story defies categorization. Even the most carefully planned journey seldom has a clear destination, and financial twists and turns play an important role in shaping journeys broadly defined as part of “mixed migration”. Mahdi planned to move with his family to some European capital, and yet he ended up in Istanbul after years of being in various states of transit through Turkey and Greece. His journey illustrates the difficulty of a linear trajectory of movement, and his ambivalent relationship with Abu Hamza is a reminder of the complexity of defining who is who in the context of mixed migration. It is hard to say whether Mahdi and many others like him were the smuggler, the migrant, the refugee, all of them, or none. Even less clear is what ultimately prompted Mahdi’s journey: was it his desire to escape war and violence, or his need to secure a livelihood for himself and his family? These questions and shifting motivations and identities also resist clear categorization and remain central to illustrating why “mixed migration” can be at once both a helpful and challenging term. This was the story of many migrants like him whom we met during our research. A focus on the financial aspect of irregular journeys poses a serious challenge to concepts like “migrants”, “refugees” and even “mixed migration”. What our research participants’ lives show is that a protracted condition of illegality exacerbates the vulnerability of people during and after migrant journeys, regardless of whether states consider them “refugees” or “migrants”. Their fragile status is compounded by the state’s constant surveillance of, impediments to, and punishments for people who are stranded and people who are on the move. Finally, state policies create tidy categories and hierarchies of migrants within the universe of “mixed migration” that constitute their bordering practices. Those policies bewilder migrants and perhaps encourage them to game the system through performing different migrant identities. These practices are costly and counterproductive for the state and migrants alike. In cities, towns, and villages, migrants live in a liminal state of transit for weeks, months, or even years as they attempt to secure money to pay smugglers, and earn enough to live on. This liminality opens the door to new types of exploitation but it also opens new avenues for agency, ultimately blurring the boundaries between victims/exploiters, refugees/migrants, origin/ destination countries, and pull/push factors – each a dichotomy pointing to the stickiness and complexity of the term “mixed migration”.

330  Handbook on forced migration

REFERENCES Achilli, Luigi and Mjriam Abu Samra, “Beyond legality and illegality: Palestinian informal networks and the ethno-political facilitation of irregular migration from Syria”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2019): 1–22. Amiry, Qiamuddin. Searching for Smugglers in Kabul, A Recollection. Medford, MA: Henry J. Leir Institute for Human Security, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2020. Brigden, Noelle. The Migrant Passage. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018. Koser, Khalid. “Why Migrant Smuggling Pays”. International Migration 46, no. 2 (2008): 3–26. Kyle, David, and Koslowski, Rey. Global Human Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives. 2nd edn. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011. Mainwaring, Ċetta and Brigden, Noelle. “Beyond the Border: Clandestine Migration Journeys”, Geopolitics, 21, no. 2 (2016): 243–62. Monsutti, Alessandro. War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan. New York: Routledge, 2005. O’Connell Davidson, Julia. “New slavery, old binaries: Human trafficking and the borders of ‘freedom’”, Global Networks 10, no. 2 (2010): 244–61. UNODC. Global Study on Smuggling of Migrants 2018. United Nations, 2018. Wilson, Kim. “Financial elements of human smuggling”, in Global Migrant Smuggling: Comparative Perspectives, eds Luigi Achilli and David Kyle (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, forthcoming). Wilson, Kim. The Other Migration: The Financial Journeys of Asians and Africans Traveling through South and Central America Bound for the United States and Canada. Medford, MA: Henry J. Leir Institute for Human Security, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2019. Wilson, Kim and Roxani Krystalli. The Financial Journeys of Refugees. Medford, MA: Henry J. Leir Institute for Human Security, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 2017.

PART VI SOLUTIONS

35. Putting people back into place Cathrine Brun

Return, resettlement and local integration – the three durable solutions as we know them today – emerged from the refugee situation in Europe after the Second World War. Today, in 2021, for most people living with displacement the durable solutions are out of reach. However, the terminology has stayed with us and applies to both refugees and internally displaced people. Why are the three solutions so persistent and enduring in the discourse on forced migration? This Part of the Handbook explores the durable solutions: their emergence, their use, the change and continuity in discourse and practice, their implications for people living with displacement. We contextualise the durable solutions and analyse the policies and discourses that surround them. In doing so, we explore how we can find real solutions to end protracted displacement as we know it today. During a series of meetings and discussions, the authors of this Part adopted a critical approach to understanding the durable solutions. The starting point and premise for this section can be summarised as follows. First, we situate the three durable solutions in a sedentarist world view where a settled – or non-migratory – way of living is the norm.1,2 In the practice and research on forced migration policy, a sedentary bias is combined with methodological nationalism: instruments and policy approaches take the nation state – a bounded territory with a coherent past, present and future – as its core unit in its spatial and temporal dimensions.3,4,5 Embedded in a sedentary bias and methodological nationalism, a solution implies a need to re-establish or maintain the permanent relationship between people and the state. The durable solutions – as they are applied – represent a particular attempt to put people back into place. Second, with Stein,6 we understand the durable solutions as always political. The solutions involve multiple state- and geopolitical interests that explain the prominence of specific durable solutions at given times. It also explains the inadequacy – or outright failure – of those solutions today. Different ways of understanding the politicisation, the geopolitical interests and the continued post-colonial sentiments embedded in refugee policy and the durable solutions foster a need for a critical and contextual approach to analysing the durable solutions. 1 Malkki, L. 1995. Purity and Exile. Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2 Fábos, A.H., L. Khan and M. Sarkis. 2001. Moving stories: Methodological challenges to mapping narratives and networks of people in diasporas. Journal of Refugee Studies 34(3): 2554–67. 3 Wimmer, A. and N. Glick Schiller. 2002. Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences. Global Networks 2(4): 301–34. 4 Sutherland, C. 2019. Stop the Clock! Taking the Nation out of Linear Time and Bounded Space. Time and Society 29(3). 5 Fábos, A.H., L. Khan and M. Sarkis. 2001. Moving stories: Methodological challenges to mapping narratives and networks of people in diasporas. Journal of Refugee Studies 34(3): 2554–67. 6 Stein, B.N. 1986. Durable solutions for developing country refugees. International Migration Review 20(2): 264–82.

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Putting people back into place  333 It requires continued reflections on the inclusions and exclusions produced as a result of the policies and practices related to durable solutions. Our examination of the durable solutions shows a clear global south–north distinction in policies, knowledge production and experience of displacement. Importantly, there is a glaring gap in conceptualisations and knowledge production across this divide. For example, one of the main shifts in discourses on durable solutions came when the so-called ‘international community’ turned its attention away from the global north and to the containment of refugees in the global south.7 Third, in order to develop solutions that are more realistic and relevant in the current geopolitical landscape, we call for further recognition of the experience and practices of people labelled forced migrants. Hence, we propose a more active engagement in both research and policy with how people live with displacement. Such a refugee-centred perspective8 would start with the practices and solutions that people themselves seek and aim for. Thus the experience of displacement should be at the centre of any policy. Keeping these three premises in mind, this introductory chapter to Part VI first provides a short history and briefly introduces the meaning and practices of the three solutions. It does this by situating the solutions in an interaction between policy and the experiences and practices of displacement and by reflecting on alternatives to displacement and recent policy developments. In order to comprehend their persistence, solutions must be situated in a political economy of displacement. Second, the chapter situates the four chapters that constitute this Part in the overall discussion of the durable solutions: the strategic use of durable solutions in the Latin American context (Chapter 39); the way housing has been used in formulating locally based solutions for internal displacement in Georgia and Ukraine (Chapter 38); the role of self-reliance and economics of displacement in promoting solutions for both refugees and internally displaced in Uganda (Chapter 37); and identifying alternatives to the durable solutions (Chapter 36).9

FROM PERMANENT TO DURABLE BUT TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, acting under the authority of the General Assembly, shall assume the function of providing international protection, under the auspices of the United Nations, to refugees who fall within the scope of the present Statute and of seeking permanent solutions for the problem of refugees by assisting Governments and, subject to the approval of the Governments concerned, private organizations to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of such refugees, or their assimilation within new national communities.10

Solutions are not mentioned in the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees Convention. However, albeit not clearly defined, there are mentions of what have become the 7 Zolberg, A.R., A. Suhrke and S. Aguayo. 1989. Escape from Violence. Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World. New York: Oxford University Press. 8 Fábos, A.H. 2019. A refugee-centred perspective. Forced Migration Review 61: 58–60. https://​ www​.fmreview​.org/​sites/​fmr/​files/​FMRdownloads/​en/​ethics/​fabos​.pdf, accessed 011121. 9 Brun, C. and A.H. Fábos. 2017. Mobilising home for long term displacement: A reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177– 83. 10 UNHCR. 1950. Statute of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR.

334  Handbook on forced migration three durable solutions. Resettlement, meaning settlement in a third country, is mentioned in the Convention in the context of asylum. Integration is mentioned in the Convention euphemistically via assimilation and naturalisation. Finally, return is an important condition in the Convention: states should not return anyone forcibly to their country of origin. These solutions as found in the Convention were informed by the time period – the massive displacement following the end of the Second World War in Europe. During this time, it was generally accepted that the displaced persons should return to their countries of origin.11 A vast effort thus ensued, resulting in the return of the majority of the six million people who fled during the war. However, for the roughly one million people unable or unwilling to return, there was a need to find an alternative solution. ‘Resettlement’ in this context was considered the second-best permanent solution: the displaced would move to a third country (generally European countries or the US) and eventually obtain residency and citizenship there. Since this time, due to the lack of precise definitions, the three solutions have often been used by states according to their political, economic, and ideological interests.12 Adding to the lack of precise definitions was the inconsistent use and gradual change of the language from ‘permanent’ solutions to ‘durable’ ones during the 1970s.13 It is unclear with what intentions the change in language from permanent to durable took place, but it coincided with dwindling funds and an increased realisation of the difficulties in finding solutions for all refugees. At the same time and amidst the decolonisation projects and conflicts in the 1960s and 1970s, attention shifted towards refugees in the global south. In 1980, the UNHCR established a durable solutions fund, primarily to assist with the hosting of large refugee populations in Africa, Asia and Latin America14 and by the mid-1980s, ‘durable solutions’ was the established technical term for repatriation, resettlement and local integration. Resettlement to Europe and North America continued as a response to ongoing displacement, but national political and economic interests restricted which refugees host countries were willing to admit. With refugees increasingly being defined as a ‘Third World Problem’, the durable solutions discourse turned to local integration and concepts of ‘self-sufficiency’ and ‘independence of aid’. In this regard, the refugee camp came to play a prominent role and represented a more temporary – as opposed to permanent – integration in the country of first asylum. This shift in attention towards the global south and camp settings represented UNHCR’s gradual shift from being a refugee agency to a humanitarian agency.15,16 At this 11 Gatrell, P. 2019. The Unsettling of Europe. The Great Migration, 1945 to the Present. Penguin. God Grew Tired of Us. Documentary. 2006. Directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn. 12 Bessa, T. 2009. From political instrument to protection tool? Resettlement of refugees and North-South relations. Refuge 26(1): 91–100. 13 Kraler, A., M. Fourer, A. Knudsen, J. Kwaks, K. Mielke, M. Noack, S. Tobin et al. 2020. Learning from the past: Protracted displacement in the post-World War II period. (TRAFIG Working Paper, 2). Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC). https://​nbn​-resolving​.org/​urn:​nbn:​de:​0168​ -ssoar​-68827​-6, accessed 1 November 2021. 14 UNHCR 1980. Addendum to the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. General Assembly. Official Records: Thirty Fifth Session Supplement No. 12A (A/35/12/Add.1). New York: United Nations. 15 Harrell-Bond, B. 1996. Refugees and the international system: The Evolution of solutions. Report, Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford, Oxford. https://​www​.rsc​.ox​.ac​.uk/​files/​files​-1/​rr​ -refugees​-international​-system​-1995​.pdf, accessed 22 March 2021. 16 Crisp, J. 2001. Mind the gap! UNHCR, Humanitarian assistance and the development process. International Migration Review 35(1): 168–91.

Putting people back into place  335 time, a logic of temporariness – where solutions became more temporary in nature – took hold despite an emerging realisation that the idea of self-sufficiency through UNHCR’s camp and settlement policy had failed. Towards the end of the 1980s, attention and discourse had shifted to return. Resettlement remained sought after, but it was a diminishing instrument of international protection: in 1979, 1 in 20 refugees was resettled, but in 1993 only 1 in 400 was resettled.17 Resettlement was also becoming more temporary. When European and North American countries were granting asylum during the Cold War, it was considered a permanent acceptance to stay.18 However, wealthier states’ fear of being overwhelmed by refugees resulted in states limiting their obligations towards refugees during the 1980s. For example, the US 1990 Immigration Act introduced a ‘temporary protected status’ to nationals from countries undergoing emergencies. These changes came due to the Cuban–Haitian boatlifts and arrival of Central Americans fleeing wars in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua in the 1980s.19 Similarly, people fleeing the wars in the Balkans towards Europe in the early and mid-1990s were gradually embedded in the Common European Asylum System and its Temporary Protection Directive formulated to respond to the sudden arrival of people.20 Gradually, during this period where the global north promoted a logic of temporariness as well, return became the most preferred durable solution and the 1990s was famously coined by former Secretary General of the UNHCR Sadako Ogata as ‘the decade of return’. Refugee policy and practice became deeply embedded in a Cold War framework which shifted dramatically with the end of the Cold War.21 Afterwards, policies and accompanying slogans such as ‘preventative protection’ and ‘the right to remain in one’s home in safety and dignity’ were promoted as more realistic solutions. Despite these developments dissuading migration, the language of the durable solutions continued to be institutionalised in reports, policy documents and in general discourse. The persistence of the durable solutions materialised in the introduction of the durable solutions language into the Guiding Principles on internal displacement.22 Based on the international human rights and humanitarian law and with refugee law by analogy, the guiding principles clearly set out the durable solutions to internal displacement with reference to the traditional solutions. Today, the durable solutions are still present in policy discourses. However, the experience of displacement continues to be precarious and uncertain. In Latin America, as Vera Espinoza shows in her chapter, during multiple and overlapping crises, the grammar of the durable solutions persists, but amidst ambiguous temporalities and shrinking protection. In Europe

Frederiksson, J. and C. Mougne. 1994. Resettlement in the 1990s: A Review of Policy and Practice. Geneva: UNHCR. 18 Gallagher, D. 1994. Durable solutions in a new political era. Journal of International Affairs 47(2): 429–50. 19 Ibid. 20 Mitrovic, O. 2015. Used during the Balkan crises, the EU’s temporary protection directive may now be a solution to Europe’s refugee emergency. LSE Blog, https://​blogs​.lse​.ac​.uk/​europpblog/​2015/​12/​ 22/​the​-eus​-temporary​-protection​-directive​-as​-a​-solution​-to​-europes​-refugee​-crisis/​, accessed 26 October 2022. 21 Gallagher, D. 1994. Durable solutions in a new political era. Journal of International Affairs 47(2): 429–50. 22 UN OCHA. 1999. Handbook for Applying the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. Washington: OCHA/The Brookings Institution. 17

336  Handbook on forced migration and North America, we may identify a ‘return-turn’23 where residence permits to refugees in a number of European countries are given with the view to temporary residence rather than permanent residence. In Denmark, the threat of cessation of refugee status even applies to resettled refugees who – in theory – already have a durable solution.24 We may be witnessing the death of asylum as we knew it25 with increasing acceptance of temporariness – even in the understanding of solutions.

THE MEANING AND EXPERIENCES OF DURABLE SOLUTIONS Zooming in from a general overview of the solutions, I now turn to discuss the meaning and experience of the durable solutions. Resettlement Resettlement oscillated in popularity over the decades. During the first 30 years of UNHCR’s existence, it was an accepted attitude that refugees from Communist states could not go back to oppressive and unacceptable conditions.26 The United States proved to be an important role model in receiving large groups of refugees, most prominently Hungarian refugees in 1956. Additionally, a need for labour helped to promote a similar welcoming attitude from other Western governments, although the support became more selective over time.27,28 For example, while almost all refugees from the expulsion of Ugandan Asians in 1972 were resettled, some refugees from Latin America in the mid-1970s had difficulties in getting accepted due to suspicion about their political allegiances. Similarly, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the context of Cold War politics and continued need for labour, the reception of Indochinese refugees (Vietnam) was overwhelmingly positive.29,30 Yet, in the aftermath of the Indochinese resettlement processes, concerns about the waves of refugees from the global south took hold.31 Over the last years, less than 1 per cent of the world’s refugees are resettled through resettlement schemes annually. Spontaneous resettlement (asylum seekers) is considered with suspi-

23 Schultz, J. 2020. The end of protection? Cessation and the ‘return turn’ in refugee law. EU Migration Law Blog. https://​www​.cmi​.no/​publications/​7097​-the​-end​-of​-protection​-cessation​-and​-the​ -return​-turn​-in​-refugee​-law, accessed 27 October 2022. 24 O’Sullivan, M. 2019. Can states cease the protection status of resettled refugees? Asylum Insight. 25 Mountz, A. 2020. The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 26 Crisp, J. 2001. Mind the gap! UNHCR, Humanitarian assistance and the development process. International Migration Review 35(1): 168–91. 27 Bessa, T. 2009. From political instrument to protection tool? Resettlement of refugees and North– South relations. Refuge 26(1): 91–100. 28 Gatrell, P. 2019. The Unsettling of Europe. The Great Migration, 1945 to the Present. Penguin; God Grew Tired of Us. Documentary. 2006. Directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn. 29 Bessa, T. 2009. From political instrument to protection tool? Resettlement of refugees and North– South relations. Refuge 26(1): 91–100. 30 Garnier, A., K.B. Sandvik and L.L. Jubilut. 2018. Introduction. Refugee resettlement as humanitarian governance. Power dynamics. In A. Garnier, L.L. Jubilut and K.B. Sandvik (eds) Refugee Resettlement: Power, Politics, and Humanitarian Governance. Oxford: Berghahn: pp. 1–27. 31 Ibid.

Putting people back into place  337 cion and considered queue jumping.32 Consequently, resettlement is currently seen as a rather marginal solution. Indeed, compared with return and integration, there has been strikingly little research on resettlement.33 There is some research into the preparation to resettlement such as for Burmese refugees in Thailand.34 Much of the research into the formalised resettlement programmes is concentrating on country-based cases with specific groups of refugees. Case studies provide insights into the experience of support systems, adaptation and integration processes. Prominent work on mental health, housing, education, employment and encounters with authorities can be found together with analyses of interaction between social characteristics of refugees and attitudes of host communities.35,36 In effect, these studies together form the basis for insights into the integration processes of resettled refugees. A main contribution from these studies is the synthesising work to create models of integration such as Ager and Strang’s37 model of integration as well as Dona and Berry’s38 model of acculturation. Another body of work takes as its starting point the narrative or dream of resettlement as expressed in refugee camps and protracted refugee situations.39 In this context, some refugee groups understand resettlement as the only solution to their plight despite its improbability.40 The process of resettlement, and the accompanying hopes and disappointments have also been captured in novels and on screen documenting the experience and process of the lost boys from Sudan and their journey towards and in the US.41,42,43 Finally, there is a small body of work focusing on the less traditional receiving states in resettlement, such as Chile and Brasil.44 Vera Espinoza points to the challenges encountered by refugees in the resettlement process in the context of the changing policies on durable Kneebone, S. and A. Macklin. 2000. Resettlement. Melbourne Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 913. Melbourne: University of Melbourne. 33 Betts, A. 2017. Resettlement: Where’s the evidence, what’s the strategy? Forced Migration Review 54. 34 Fratzke, S. and L. Kainz. 2019. Preparing for the unknown. Designing effective predeparture orientation for resettling refugees. Migration Policy Institute, Europe. https://​www​.migrationpolicy​.org/​ sites/​default/​files/​publications/​MPIE​_Pre​departureO​rientation​-FINALWEB​.pdf, accessed 6 May 2021. 35 Colic-Peisker, V. and F. Tilbury. 2003. ‘Active’ and ‘passive’ resettlement: The influence of support services and refugees’ own resources on resettlement style. International Migration 41(5): 61–91. 36 Turtiainen, K. 2012. Possibilities of Trust and Recognition between Refugees and Authorities: Resettlement as a Part of Durable Solutions of Forced Migration. Jyväskylä Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research No. 451. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. 37 Ager, A. and A. Strang, 2008. Understanding integration. A conceptual framework. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(2): 166–91. 38 Doná, G. and J.W. Berry. 1999. Refugee acculturation and re-acculturation. In Alastair Ager (ed.) Refugees: Perspectives on the Experience of Forced Migration, 169–95. London: Pinter. 39 Horst, C. 2006. Transnational Nomads. How Somalis Cope with Refugee Life in the Dadaab Camps of Kenya. New York: Berghahn. 40 Den Boer, R. 2015. Liminal space in protracted exile: The meaning of place in Congolese refugees’ narratives of home and belonging in Kampala. Journal of Refugee Studies 28(4): 486–504. 41 Eggers, D. 2006. What is the What. Penguin Books. 42 God Grew Tired of Us. Documentary. 2006. Directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn. 43 Hyndman, J. and W. Giles. 2017. Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge. Abingdon: Routledge. 44 Vera Espinoza, M. 2016. Experiences of unsettlement: Exploring the ‘integration’ of Palestinian and Colombian refugees resettled in Chile and Brazil. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield. 32

338  Handbook on forced migration solutions in Latin America. Resettlement, in this experience, did not represent an end to displacement as uncertainty continued into resettlement. Return As mentioned above, return became the most desirable of the durable solutions in the 1990s ‘not because it will resolve the human situation […], but because theoretically it eradicates the problem for states.’45 The shift towards return had already started in the 1980s and was moving gradually from voluntary to involuntary return over the decade.46 With the ‘decade of return’, research on the theme flourished and turned into a sophisticated exploration of the meaning of ‘returning home’ and the complex relationships between people and place in displacement. Research on return was also closely related to peace building and nation building.47 Two research themes may be described as most prominent in the experience of return as a durable solution: the role of the ‘myth of return’ in exile and ‘the reality of post-return’.48 The myth of return is the ever-present dreaming of return in exile.49,50,51,52 Research has shown how the myth of return is shared between displaced persons and governments, albeit with different motivations.53,54 The prevailing myth of return was shown to amplify the strong sense that displacement can only end when people are put back into place. Living with this myth affects the investments in the place of displacement which is often dominated by waiting to return home and a sense that life can only continue elsewhere.55 Return does, to some extent, solve the problem for the state by putting people back into place. Yet, at a human level, the experience of return is far from a straightforward solution. After several years of displacement and conflict, return often creates a new sense of displacement as people and places have changed. Research on post-return and reintegration, often con-

Harrell-Bond, B.E. 1986. Imposing Aid. Emergency Assistance to Refugees. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 46 Chimni, B.S. 2004. From resettlement to involuntary repatriation: Towards a critical history of durable solutions to refugee problems. Refugee Survey Quarterly 23(3): 55–73. 47 Tegenbos, J. and K. Vlassenroot. 2018. Going home? A systematic review of the literature on displacement, return and cycles of violence. Politics of Return Working Paper. London: London School of Economics. 48 Muggeridge, H. and G. Doná. 2006. Back home? Refugees’ experiences of the first visit back to their country of origin. Journal of Refugee Studies 19(4): 415–32. 49 Al-Rasheed, M. 1994. The myth of return: Iraqi Arab and Assyrian refugees in London. Journal of Refugee Studies 7(2/3): 199–219. 50 Kunz, 1981. Part II: The analytic framework: Exile and resettlement: Refugee theory. International Migration Review 15(1–2): 42–51. 51 Zetter, R. 1999. Reconceptualising the myth of return: Continuity and transition amongst the Greek-Cypriot refugees of 1974. Journal of Refugee Studies 12(1): 1–22. 52 Warner, D. 1994. Voluntary repatriation and the meaning of return to home: A critique of liberal mathematics. Journal of Refugee Studies 7(2/3): 160–74. 53 Brun, C. 2015. Active waiting and changing hopes: Toward a time perspective on protracted displacement. Social Analysis 59(1): 19–37. 54 Brun, C. 2016. Dwelling in the temporary: The involuntary mobility of displaced Georgians in rented accommodation. Cultural Studies 30(3): 421–40. 55 Brun, C. 2001. Reterritorialising the relationship between people and place in refugee studies. Geografiska Annaler 83B(1): 15–25. 45

Putting people back into place  339 nected with programmes on assisted return for specific groups of refugees, such as the case of Afghans returning from Europe,56 shows how there are profound challenges in re-establishing social ties and accessing infrastructure and services. Majidi concludes that there is a need for recognition of structural, social and psychological assistance in the return process. The growing body of research on return has showed the extent to which displacement creates translocal connections and multiple homes, such as in the case of Bosnians ensuring property restitution in Bosnia, while keeping their new residency in other European countries.57 The return research helped to question the notion of the ‘refugee cycle’ and the equation of return meaning going home by unpacking the multiple return practices pursued.58,59,60 In this Part of the Handbook, Loughna et al. compare internal displacement in Georgia and Ukraine and show that return is not always the preferred solution but depends on the conditions from where people fled and where they live in displacement. The same was evident in Afghanistan, where women living with internal displacement suggested local integration was a better alternative than return because they aimed to limit further upheaval of their families.61 Hovil62 shows how Sudanese refugees in Uganda made their own durable solution through a combination of economic and social integration within the Ugandan population and ongoing movement in and out of Sudan. These multiple and rich insights of the diverse practices involved in return led Long63 to suggest that return should be seen as (re)creation of a home as both a social and political process – a political act of renegotiating the relationship between citizen, nation, and state. Local Integration Local integration as a durable solution is the process that takes place in the first country of asylum. It is generally approached as a global south solution and sometimes confused with local settlement, which is a more informal and temporary process.64 The confusion may have led to the acceptance of local integration as a less formal – de jure – form of integration and 56 Majidi, N. 2021. Assuming reintegration, experiencing dislocation – returns from Europe to Afghanistan. International Migration 59(2): 186–201. 57 Stefansson, A.H. 2006. Homes in the making: Property restitution, refugee return, and senses of belonging on a post-war Bosnian town. International Migration 44(3): 115–39. 58 Black, R. and K. Koser (eds). 1999. The End of the Refugee Cycle? Refugee Repatriation and Reconstruction. New York: Berghahn. 59 Hammond, L. 1999. Examining the discourse of repatriation: Towards a more practice theory of return migration. In The End of the Refugee Cycle? Refugee Repatriation and Reconstruction. Edited by Richard Black and Khalid Koser. New York: Berghahn, pp. 227–44. 60 Van Hear, N. 2000. Locating internally displaced people in the field of forced migration. Norwegian Journal of Geography 54(3): 90–95. 61 Samuel Hall. 2018. Challenges to IDPs’ Protection in Afghanistan. Research Study on the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons in Afghanistan. Norwegian Refugee Council, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Joint IDP Profiling Service. 62 Hovil, L. 2010. Hoping for peace, afraid of war: The dilemmas of repatriation and belonging on the borders of Uganda and South Sudan. New Issues in Refugee Research. Research paper no. 196. UNHCR, Policy and Evaluation Service. https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​4d020dca2​.html, accessed 1 November 2021. 63 Long, K. 2013. When refugees stopped being migrants: Movement, labour and humanitarian protection. Migration Studies 1(1): 4–26. 64 Kibreab, G. 1989. Local settlements in Africa: a misconceived option? Journal of Refugee Studies 2(4): 468–89.

340  Handbook on forced migration more of a de facto informal integration process. For refugees, formal integration takes place through a process of legal, economic, social, and cultural incorporation of refugees into state and community structures, followed by the offer of citizenship and the cessation of their refugee status. For IDPs, the issue may be more complex because there is no obvious point at which their status as IDPs ends. For both refugees and displaced, local integration is constituted by the policy environment and the willingness of key groups in the host country to accept the displaced people; by livelihood opportunities of hosts and displaced; and by the relationship between hosts and displaced people.65 Harrell-Bond’s66 definition of integration as ‘a situation in which host- and refugee communities are able to co-exist, sharing the same resources – both economic and social – with no greater mutual conflict than that which exists within the host community’ is helpful in understanding how local integration processes may be experienced and practised. The most well-known example of de jure local integration is the more than 160 000 Burundian refugees who were granted citizenship in Tanzania in 2014.67,68 However, de jure integration is the exception. A critical question for today’s forced migration studies is thus whether one can achieve local integration without being naturalised.69 This question brings us back to the temporariness that has come to be associated with the durable solutions. After the decade of return followed a ‘decade of protracted emergencies’.70 With the realisation of never-ending displacement becoming prominent, local integration was again receiving more attention. In 2005, local integration was seen in the context of important burden-sharing initiatives, supporting refugee hosting countries and channelling development assistance from the international community.71 In later years, many researchers studied local integration processes in cases without much hope for de jure integration. These studies often adopted Ager and Strang’s72 conceptual framework in studying the experiences and practices of local integration. They also addressed particular dimensions of integration, such as the multiple dimensions of rights,73 livelihood, culture, and education74 and with an increased emphasis on the multiple informal local inte-

65 Jacobsen, K. 2001. The forgotten solution: Local integration for refugees in developing countries. Working Paper no. 45, New Issues in Refugee Research. UNHCR. http://​www​.unhcr​.ch/​. 66 Harrell-Bond, B.E. 1986. Imposing Aid. Emergency Assistance to Refugees. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 67 Milner, J. 2014. Can global refugee policy leverage durable solutions? Lessons from Tanzania’s naturalisation of Burundian refugees. Journal of Refugee Studies 27(4): 553–73. 68 Buxton, R. 2020. Justice in waiting: The harms and wrongs of temporary refugee protection. European Journal of Political Theory. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177​%2F1474885120973578, accessed 1 November 2021. 69 Fielden, A. 2008. Local integration: An under-reported solution to protracted refugee situations. Research Paper No. 158. New Issues in Refugee Research. Geneva: UNHCR. 70 Crisp, J. and K. Long. 2016. Safe and voluntary refugee repatriation: From principle to practice. Journal on Migration and Human Security 4(3): 141–7. 71 Fielden, A. 2008. Local integration: An under-reported solution to protracted refugee situations. Research Paper No. 158. New Issues in Refugee Research. Geneva: UNHCR. 72 Ager, A. and A. Strang. 2008. Understanding integration: A conceptual framework. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(2): 166–91. 73 Polzer, T. 2009. Negotiating rights: The politics of integration. Refuge 26(2): 92–106. 74 Ilcan, S. 2018. The humanitarian–citizenship nexus: The politics of citizenship training in self-reliance strategies for refugees. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 100(2), 97–111.

Putting people back into place  341 gration processes in which forced migrants participate. Additionally, since Robert Chambers’75 paper on hosts as the ‘hidden losers’ in refugee settings, a small body of research considers the impact of refugees and displaced on hosts.76,77 Over time, the literature on local integration focused more on research with self-settled and urban refugees and displaced persons78,79 rather than camps. It is often in the absence of other relevant solutions, such as return and resettlement, that local integration comes into the discussion.80 The multiple practices and degrees of informality regarding how people experience and live with protracted displacement constitute the diverse avenues through which local integration is pursued and achieved.

NO SOLUTIONS IN SIGHT: INFORMAL PATHWAYS, SOLUTIONS LITE AND THE LETHARGIC POLICY DISCOURSE For most forced migrants today, the three traditional solutions are out of reach. Fewer than 1 per cent of refugees resettle each year; very few IDPs and refugees return due to ongoing conflict; and local integration operates mainly on an informal level through people’s own everyday practices. Consequently, policy changes emerging over the past years reflect a slow realisation that more attention must be paid to the strategies that refugees and displaced populations are seeking out for themselves. The shift towards a non-camp approach and an emphasis on settlement in urban areas are examples of how policy has slowly incorporated what was in fact the most common way of living in displacement. Never-ending displacement often means negotiating ever-present restrictions that come from being labelled as displaced. People get on with their lives and pursue the best possible strategies that can provide them with a life, livelihoods and a future, despite not being recognised as members of the societies in which they live. Some researchers have pegged these multiple informal pathways, such as mobility, transnationalism, urban settlement and home-

75 Chambers, R. 1986. Hidden losers? The impact of rural refugees and refugee programs on poorer hosts. International Migration Review 20(2): 245–63. 76 Aukot, E. 2003. ‘It’s better to be a refugee than a Turkana in Kakuma’: Revisiting the relationship between hosts and refugees in Kenya. Refuge 21(3): 73–83. 77 Brun, C. 2010. Hospitality: Becoming ‘IDPs’ and ‘hosts’ in protracted displacement. Journal of Refugee Studies 23(3): 337–55. 78 Campbell, E. 2006. Urban refugees in Nairobi: Problems of protection, mechanisms of survival, and possibilities for integration. Journal of Refugee Studies 19(3): 396–413. 79 Hovil, L. 2007. Self-settled refugees in Uganda: An alternative approach to displacement? Journal of Refugee Studies 20(4): 599–620. 80 Agblorti, S.K.M. and M.R. Grant. 2019. Conceptualising obstacles to local integration of refugees in Ghana. Refugee Survey Quarterly 38: 195–213.

342  Handbook on forced migration making in exile, as ‘the fourth durable solutions’.81,82,83,84,85 Sometimes, these informal pathways are strategies for avoiding the refugee status or displaced label as it tends to fix people in place and make them more vulnerable. They thus represent people finding alternative means of regularising their presence which avoids the refugee route.86,87,88,89 Yet, at the same time, research has shown that when refugees take their mobility into their own hands and pursue such informal avenues included among ‘the fourth durable solutions’, there may be a backlash in the form of border restrictions and other exclusionary structures, as we have seen in some European countries.90 There is a tension between policy – the refugee regime’s attempt to ‘fix’ people in place – and the practices of refugees in displacement. Many refugees do not sit in one place and wait for a solution, but struggle to get on with life due to the restrictions on employment, mobility and access to services that are imposed on them. While these fourth – or alternative – durable solutions discussed above and addressed in the second chapter in this Part (Chapter 36) mainly take what people do as their starting point, other initiatives have taken a more macro or top-down orientation from within the existing policy regimes. In Betts and Collier’s91 case, access to employment is a key issue. They suggest solving the problem closer to the origin countries of refugees by establishing special economic zones (SEZs). For Aleinikoff and Zamore,92 on the other hand, global solidarity is more important, as they suggest a responsibility sharing-approach with expanded rights and protections for refugees. Informal pathways and different ways of reforming the system have to some extent been reflected in what could be described as the main policy development concerning refugees generally and the discussion on durable solutions specifically: the Global Compact on Refugees confirmed by the UN General Assembly in 2018. Internal displacement is not included in these

Van Hear, N. 2002. From ‘durable solutions’ to ‘transnational relations’: Home and exile among refugee diasporas. CDR Working Paper 02.9. Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen. 82 Long, K. 2010. Home Alone? A Review of the Relationship Between Repatriation, Mobility and Durable Solutions for Refugees. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Policy Development and Evaluation Service. Geneva: UNHCR. 83 Landau, L.B. and M. Duponchel. 2011. Laws, policies, or social position? Capabilities and the determinants of effective protection in four African cities. Journal of Refugee Studies 24(1): 1–22. 84 Montenegro, C. 2016. Social protection: A fourth durable solution? Forced Migration Review 51, January 2016: 62–3. 85 Brun, C. and A.H. Fábos. 2017. Mobilising home for long term displacement: A reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177–83. 86 Hovil, L. 2002. Free to stay, free to go? Movement, seclusion and integration of refugees in Mojo District. Refugee Law Project Working Paper No 4. Kampala: Refugee Law Project. https://​www​ .refugeelawproject​.org/​files/​working​_papers/​RLP​.WP04​.pdf, accessed 1 November 2021. 87 Landau, L.B. and M. Duponchel, 2011. Laws, policies, or social position? Capabilities and the determinants of effective protection in four African Cities. Journal of Refugee Studies 24(1): 1–22. 88 Janmyr, M. and L. Mourad. 2018. Modes of ordering: Labelling, classification, and categorization in Lebanon’s refugee response. Journal of Refugee Studies 31(4): 544–65. 89 Cole, G. 2021. Pluralising geographies of refuge. Progress in Human Geography 45(1): 88–110. 90 Capo, J. 2015. ‘Durable solutions’, transnationalism, and homemaking among Croatian and Bosnian former refugees. Refuge 31(1): 19–29. 91 Betts, A. and P. Collier. 2017. Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. Milton Keynes: Allen Lane. 92 Aleinikoff, T.A. and L. Zamore. 2019. The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime. Redwood City: Stanford University Press. 81

Putting people back into place  343 discussions. In the Compact, return and resettlement are mentioned as the preferred solutions. The Compact mentions local integration and legal naturalisation but states that de jure local integration is up to the host government. Yet, as I showed above, most host governments in the major refugee hosting states today are not willing to naturalise refugees. Further legal access to employment, protection and welfare is subject to the willingness of the host government. Consequently, the Compact suggests alternative local solutions – which is what most refugees today are left with. The Compact thus leads us back to the more temporary local settlement option mentioned above. The magic formula in these alternative local solutions is self-reliance. Self-reliance is not a new concept93 and famously, as Serwajja and Refstie describe in their chapter on Uganda, became part of Uganda’s strategy for refugees in 1999. Self-reliance is also adopted in the language of the durable solutions in the regional instruments for refugee protection in Latin America (Chapter 39). With self-reliance, forced migrants can stay in the place of displacement, be independent of aid, but may not become members of the societies where they live. Despite more emphasis on the right of refugees to employment seen very prominently in the Jordan Compact, Ethiopia and Thailand,94 self-reliance, is durable solutions lite95 as it does not formally bring an end to displacement. Self-reliance may be closer to how refugees and displaced lead their precarious lives, but these current policies also may mean that displaced people are settled in areas where they compete with their hosts for scarce resources in a sort of ‘shared poverty’96 where forced migrants always constitute part of the marginalised social groups in society. The Compact then is a clear indication on current policies on durable solutions: The never-ending experience of displacement has become more accepted, informality and precarity have become the norm, and protection has moved from legal to social. There have been significant changes in policy orientation and initiatives since the Second World War, but the refugee experience might not have changed much due to what may be considered a policy lethargy.

A CONTINUED SOUTH–NORTH DIVIDE: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DURABLE SOLUTIONS A political economy approach to durable solutions may help to alleviate the stalemate, lethargy and inadequacy of the durable solutions today. With ‘political economy’ I simply refer to the coming together of political and economic interests in understanding how refugee and displacement situations are governed locally, nationally, regionally and globally. The Compact and its foundation, the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), emerged in the context of discussions on shifting from relief to development in refugee responses (the 93 Crisp, J. 2004. The local integration and local settlement of refugees: a conceptual and historical analysis. Working Paper No. 102, New Issues in Refugee Research. Geneva: UNHCR. 94 Arnold-Fernández, E.E. 2019. National governance frameworks in the Global Compact on Refugees: Dangers and opportunities. International Migration 57(6): 188–207. 95 Brun, C. and A.H. Fábos. 2017. Mobilising home for long term displacement: A reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177–83. 96 Stepputat, F. 1992. Beyond Relief? Life in a Guatemalan Refugee Settlement in Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, Institute of Cultural Sociology, University of Copenhagen.

344  Handbook on forced migration humanitarian–development nexus); a changing time perspective that came with the realisation of the long-lasting reality of most displacement crises; and increased emphasis on self-reliance and releasing burdens on host countries.97 All three elements are key points of connection between political and economic interests. Reflecting the geopolitical interests in current refugee policies, the Compact is not meant to address the arrival of refugees in the global north. Rather, the Compact aims to mobilise multiple development actors in responding to refugee situations and attract more assistance to the front-line countries hosting refugees.98 Mainly organisations and actors based in the global north in addition to host states in the global south were involved in formulating the compacts, whereas refugees and national NGOs were not represented.99 Of the important critical reflections on the Compact, those related to the role of the host states are particularly relevant here. The (non-binding) call for funding to host states does not come with conditions that host states guarantee refugee rights, such as right to work or freedom of movement, or requesting that states consider de jure local integration. The emphasis is on the discretion of the host states with limited accountability structures and conditionalities embedded in the resource flows. The dominant narrative is that host states have already done enough, taken the brunt of the burden, and hence the emphasis is on the responsibility to host states rather than the responsibility of host states.100 Consequently, as the policy instruments on forced migration are flexible enough for states to adapt and interpret them according to their own interests, the durable solutions have been subject to a stalemate embedded in national interests rather than a more refugee-centred approach. The flexibility of the system means policy decisions are often governed by non-convention and economically driven criteria.101 One example of how national governments use displacement in their national and international policies is Jordan’s attempt to inflate numbers of Iraqi refugees to attract aid.102 In many countries, most resources that are used to assist refugees and displaced in areas such as schooling, housing and health are primarily sourced from international funding.103 In their chapter, Serwajja and Resfstie discuss this political economy approach to understand the management of displacement in Uganda. In the process of providing aid, international actors could influence the direction of these policies to some extent, but rarely go against the host states whose national agendas and interests of making sure refugees and displaced are temporarily settled in their places of displacement are often in the forefront. Regardless of whether a refugee or an internally displaced, there is a clear mismatch between the current forced migration realities and the forced migration regime’s original 97 Nannerini, A. 2020. The Global Compact on Refugees: International development in the service of refugee protection and national self-interest. Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi Volume LIV, June 2020: 169–96. 98 Aleinikoff, T.A. 2018. The unfinished work of the Global Compact on refugees. International Journal of Refugee Law 30(4): 611–17. 99 Arnold-Fernández, E.E. 2019. National governance frameworks in the Global Compact on Refugees: Dangers and opportunities. International Migration 57(6): 188–207. 100 Ibid. 101 Mourad, L. and K.P. Norman. 2020. Transforming refugees into migrants: Institutional change and the politics of international protection. European Journal of International Relations 26(3): 687–713. 102 Seeley, N. 2010. The Politics of Aid to Iraqi Refugees in Jordan. MEAP. 103 Shuayb, M. 2020. How a generation of Syrian children in Lebanon were robbed of their education. Open Democracy. https://​www​.opendemocracy​.net/​en/​north​-africa​-west​-asia/​how​-generation​-syrian​ -children​-lebanon​-were​-robbed​-their​-education/​, accessed 26 October 2022.

Putting people back into place  345 purpose. A key message is that there is too little representation of refugees in policy processes. Buxton104 suggests that a more independent role of the UNHCR would be helpful for representing refugees and changing the current power dynamics within the political economy of solutions.

CONCLUSION: WHEN DOES DISPLACEMENT END? The durable solutions serve as a population management strategy for the state that legitimates keeping populations on hold while waiting for a solution to be realised.105 The consequence of maintaining the durable solutions in policy language but not mobilising political willingness for achieving them, is the assumption that people who cannot be returned to full nation-state belonging should be obliged to wait for years or even decades for a solution. A key question is: do we still need the durable solutions, or is this the time to mobilise for alternative and more realistic solutions? The authors in this Part of the Handbook will open up the question on durable solutions for critical exploration. Displacement cannot simply be erased from someone’s experience. Displacement does not just end with going back or by re-establishing the relationship between people and the state. The problem is that we think about solutions as ‘putting people back into place’. In the durable solutions, finding the end to displacement lies in the past rather than identifying possible futures.106 Even in conflicts where the physical violence comes to a halt, people may not find that there is a closure to their displacement. Afterall, the defining end to a war or conflict is always contested.107 Ending displacement is about re-establishing productive lives, it is about finding a place in society.108,109 People may have settled in a new place permanently, but may not have been rehabilitated.110 Most people are negatively affected by displacement, marginalised and deprived of finding ways of moving on.111 Regardless of whether a refugee or an IDP, the label ‘displaced’ lives on as a social category: refugees and displaced become part of the marginalised in the society.112

104 Buxton, R. 2020. Justice in waiting: The harms and wrongs of temporary refugee protection, European Journal of Political Theory. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177​%2F1474885120973578, accessed 3 December 2021. 105 Brun, C. and A.H. Fábos. 2017. Mobilising home for long term displacement: A reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177–83. 106 Brun, C. 2016. Dwelling in the temporary: The involuntary mobility of displaced Georgians in rented accommodation. Cultural Studies 30(3): 421–40. 107 McIntosh, C. 2016. War through a temporal lens: Foregrounding temporality in international relations’ conceptions of war. In Time, Temporality and Global Politics edited by A. Hom, C. McIntosh, A. McKay and L. Stockdale. Bristol: International Relations Publishing, 115–33. 108 Weiss Fagen, P. 2003. Looking beyond emergency response. Forced Migration Review 17: 19–21. 109 Brun, C. 2003. Local citizens or internally displaced persons? Dilemmas of long term displacement in Sri Lanka. Journal of Refugee Studies 16(4): 376–97. 110 Cernea, M. 2003. The question not asked: When does displacement end? Forced Migration Review 17: 24–6. 111 Ibid. 112 Brun, C. 2010. Hospitality: becoming ‘IDPs’ and ‘hosts’ in protracted displacement. Journal of Refugee Studies 23(3): 337–55.

346  Handbook on forced migration The impasse in the solutions that we can identify today may be partly explained by the policy regime’s exceptionalism in treating the refugee and displaced person: due to its political nature, there is exceptionalism relative to the citizens (non-migrants) but also to some extent relative to other migrants residing in the nation state. In this Part of the Handbook, we attempt to look at the present and future of protracted displacement and situate the discussion of durable solutions in the political and economic interests and realities of present-day displacement. We consider these macro and meso developments in interaction with the ways in which people move on with the experience of displacement and manoeuvre the present-day realities between those political conditionalities, economic hardships, and the need for social and legal protection. In order to situate the durable solutions in their contingent futures, we reflect on and suggest alternatives that can help to bring displacement to an end.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Agblorti, S.K.M. and M.R. Grant. 2019. Conceptualising obstacles to local integration of refugees in Ghana. Refugee Survey Quarterly 38: 195–213. Ager, A. and A. Strang, 2008. Understanding integration. A conceptual framework. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(2): 166–91. Al-Rasheed, M. 1994. The myth of return: Iraqi Arab and Assyrian refugees in London. Journal of Refugee Studies 7(2/3): 199–219. Aleinikoff, T.A. 2018. The unfinished work of the Global Compact on refugees. International Journal of Refugee Law 30(4): 611–17. Aleinikoff, T.A. and L. Zamore. 2019. The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime. Redwood City: Stanford University Press. Arnold-Fernández, E.E. 2019. National governance frameworks in the Global Compact on Refugees: Dangers and opportunities. International Migration 57(6): 188–207. Aukot, E. 2003. ‘It’s better to be a refugee than a Turkana in Kakuma’: Revisiting the relationship between hosts and refugees in Kenya. Refuge 21(3): 73–83. Bessa, T. 2009. From political instrument to protection tool? Resettlement of refugees and North-South relations. Refuge 26(1): 91–100. Betts, A. 2017. Resettlement: Where’s the evidence, what’s the strategy? Forced Migration Review 54, https://​www​.fmreview​.org/​resettlement/​betts, accessed 6 May 2021. Betts, A. and P. Collier. 2017. Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. Milton Keynes: Allen Lane. Black, R. and K. Koser (eds). 1999. The End of the Refugee Cycle? Refugee Repatriation and Reconstruction. New York: Berghahn. Brun, C. 2001. Reterritorialising the relationship between people and place in refugee studies. Geografiska Annaler 83B(1): 15–25. Brun, C. 2003. Local citizens or internally displaced persons? Dilemmas of long term displacement in Sri Lanka. Journal of Refugee Studies 16(4): 376–97. Brun, C. 2010. Hospitality: Becoming ‘IDPs’ and ‘hosts’ in protracted displacement. Journal of Refugee Studies 23(3): 337–55. Brun, C. 2015. Active waiting and changing hopes: Toward a time perspective on protracted displacement. Social Analysis 59(1): 19–37. Brun, C. 2016. Dwelling in the temporary: The involuntary mobility of displaced Georgians in rented accommodation. Cultural Studies 30(3): 421–40. Brun, C. and A.H. Fábos. 2017. Mobilising home for long term displacement: A reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177–83. Buxton, R. 2020. Justice in waiting: The harms and wrongs of temporary refugee protection. European Journal of Political Theory, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1177/​1474885120973578.

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348  Handbook on forced migration Hovil, L. 2007. Self-settled refugees in Uganda: An alternative approach to displacement? Journal of Refugee Studies 20(4): 599–620. Hovil, L. 2010. Hoping for peace, afraid of war: The dilemmas of repatriation and belonging on the borders of Uganda and South Sudan. New Issues in Refugee Research. Research paper no. 196. UNHCR, Policy and Evaluation Service. Hyndman, J. and W. Giles. 2017. Refugees in Extended Exile: Living on the Edge. Abingdon: Routledge. Ilcan, S. 2018. The humanitarian–citizenship nexus: The politics of citizenship training in self-reliance strategies for refugees. Geografiska Annaler 100(2): 97–111. Jacobsen, Karen. 2001. The forgotten solution: Local integration for refugees in developing countries. Working Paper no. 45, New Issues in Refugee Research. UNHCR. Janmyr, M. and L. Mourad. 2018. Modes of ordering: Labelling, classification, and categorization in Lebanon’s refugee response. Journal of Refugee Studies 31(4): 544–65. Kibreab, Gaim. 1989. Local settlements in Africa: A misconceived option? Journal of Refugee Studies 2(4): 468–89. Kneebone, S. and A. Macklin. 2000. Resettlement. Melbourne Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 913. Melbourne: University of Melbourne. Kraler, A., M. Fourer, A. Knudsen, J. Kwaks, K. Mielke, M. Noack, S. Tobin et al. 2020. Learning from the past: protracted displacement in the post-World War II period. TRAFIG Working Paper, 2. Bonn: Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC). Krause, U. 2021. Colonial roots of the 1951 Convention and its effects on the global refugee regime. Journal of International Relations and Development 24: 599–626. Kunz, 1981. Part II: The analytic framework: Exile and resettlement: Refugee theory. International Migration Review 15 (1–2): 42–51. Landau, L.B. and M. Duponchel. 2011. Laws, policies, or social position? Capabilities and the determinants of effective protection in four African cities. Journal of Refugee Studies 24(1): 1–22. Long, K. 2010. Home alone? A review of the relationship between repatriation, mobility and durable solutions for refugees. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Policy Development and Evaluation Service. Geneva: UNHCR. Long, K. 2013. When refugees stopped being migrants: Movement, labour and humanitarian protection. Migration Studies 1(1): 4–26. Majidi, N. 2021. Assuming reintegration, experiencing dislocation – returns from Europe to Afghanistan. International Migration 59(2): 186–201. Malkki, L. 1995. Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McIntosh, C. 2016. War through a temporal lens: Foregrounding temporality in international relations’ conceptions of war. In Time, Temporality and Global Politics edited by A. Hom, C. McIntosh, A. McKay and L. Stockdale. Bristol: International Relations Publishing, pp. 115–33. Milner, J. 2014. Can global refugee policy leverage durable solutions? Lessons from Tanzania’s naturalisation of Burundian refugees. Journal of Refugee Studies 27(4): 553–73. Mitrovic, O. 2015. Used during the Balkan crises, the EU’s temporary protection directive may now be a solution to Europe’s refugee emergency. LSE Blog. Montenegro, C. 2016. Social protection: A fourth durable solution? Forced Migration Review 51, January 2016: 62–3. Mountz, A. 2020. The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Mourad, L. and K.P. Norman. 2020. Transforming refugees into migrants: Institutional change and the politics of international protection. European Journal of International Relations 26(3): 687–713. Muggeridge, H. and G. Doná. 2006. Back home? Refugees’ experiences of the first visit back to their country of origin. Journal of Refugee Studies, 19(4): 415–32. Nannerini, A. 2020. The Global Compact on Refugees: International development in the service of refugee protection and national self-interest. Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi Volume LIV, June 2020: 169–96. O’Sullivan, M. 2019. Can states cease the protection status of resettled refugees? Asylum Insight. Polzer, T. 2009. Negotiating rights: The politics of integration. Refuge 26(2): 92–106.

Putting people back into place  349 Samuel Hall. 2018. Challenges to IDPs’ Protection in Afghanistan. Research study on the protection of internally displaced persons in Afghanistan. Norwegian Refugee Council, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, Joint IDP Profiling Service. Schultz, J. 2020. The end of protection? Cessation and the ‘return turn’ in refugee law. EU Migration Law Blog, https://​eumigrationlawblog​.eu/​the​-end​-of​-protection​-cessation​-and​-the​-return​-turn​-in​ -refugee​-law/​, accessed 1 November 2021. Seeley, N. 2010. The Politics of Aid to Iraqi Refugees in Jordan. MEAP. Shuayb, M. 2020. How a generation of Syrian children in Lebanon were robbed of their education. Open Democracy. Stefansson, A.H. 2006. Homes in the making: Property restitution, refugee return, and senses of belonging on a post-war Bosnian town. International Migration 44(3): 115–39. Stein, Barry N. 1986. Durable solutions for developing country refugees. International Migration Review 20(2): 264–82. Stepputat, F. 1992. Beyond Relief? Life in a Guatemalan Refugee Settlement in Mexico. Ph.D. Dissertation, Institute of Cultural Sociology, University of Copenhagen. Sutherland, C. 2019. Stop the clock! Taking the nation out of linear time and bounded space. Time and Society 29(3). Tegenbos, J. and K. Vlassenroot. 2018. Going home? A systematic review of the literature on displacement, return and cycles of violence. Politics of Return Working Paper. London: London School of Economics. Turtiainen, K. 2012. Possibilities of trust and recognition between refugees and authorities: Resettlement as a part of durable solutions of forced migration. Jyväskylä Studies in Education, Psychology and Social Research No. 451. Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä. UNHCR. 1950. Statute of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. UNHCR. UNHCR. 1980. Addendum to the report of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. General Assembly. Official Records: Thirty Fifth Session Supplement No. 12A (A/35/12/Add.1). New York: United Nations. UNHCR. 1981. Refugee Integration: A New Start. UNHCR Special Report, UNHCR, Geneva. UN OCHA. 1999. Handbook for Applying the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement. OCHA/The Brookings Institution, Washington. Van Hear, N. 2000. Locating internally displaced people in the field of forced migration. Norwegian Journal of Geography 54(3). Van Hear, N. 2002. From ‘durable solutions’ to ‘transnational relations’: Home and exile among refugee diasporas. CDR Working Paper 02.9. Centre for Development Research, Copenhagen. Vera Espinoza, M. 2016. Experiences of Unsettlement: Exploring the ‘integration’ of Palestinian and Colombian refugees resettled in Chile and Brasil. PhD thesis, University of Sheffield. Warner, D. 1994. Voluntary repatriation and the meaning of return to home: A critique of liberal mathematics. Journal of Refugee Studies 7(2/3): 160–74. Weiss Fagen, P. 2003. Looking beyond emergency response. Forced Migration Review 17: 19–21. Wimmer, A. and N. Glick Schiller. 2002. Methodological nationalism and beyond: Nation-state building, migration and the social sciences. Global Networks 2(4): 301–34. Zetter, R. 1999. Reconceptualising the myth of return: Continuity and transition amongst the Greek-Cypriot refugees of 1974. Journal of Refugee Studies 12(1): 1–22. Zolberg, A.R., A. Suhrke and S. Aguayo. 1989. Escape from Violence: Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in the Developing World. New York: Oxford University Press.

36. Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement: What are the alternatives? Cathrine Brun, Anita H. Fábos, Maha Shuayb and Nicholas Van Hear in conversation

INTRODUCTION: THE NEED TO RETHINK SOLUTIONS The durable solutions – resettlement, return and local integration – formulated to address the challenges of people displaced in Europe in the aftermath of World War II, have waxed and waned since the 1950s. However, they remain prominent in policy discussions. In the context of protracted displacement, the durable solutions come with particular meanings and expectations, but these expectations are seldom fulfilled, as stark statistics demonstrate. A recent annual report from UNHCR1 shows that only 34 000 refugees were resettled in 2021 compared to 107 800 the previous year. A mere 3.4 million out of a total of 82.4 million forcibly displaced people returned to their countries of origin in 2020; of those who returned, only a quarter of a million were refugees, and the bulk of that figure comprised IDPs moving within the borders of their country. Local integration is not even mentioned in the latest report by UNHCR, indicating the scanty application of the solution in today’s durable solutions landscape. Never-ending displacement seems to have become the norm in the international system. It is as if we accept that for most forced migrants across the world, a durable solution is simply out of reach. At the same time, people living with displacement continue to get on with their lives and develop their own solutions, although with significant limitations on access to rights and resources. Pathways to deal with this stalemate include self-reliance, as promoted by the Global Compact for Refugees. Yet ‘self-reliance’, to a large extent, is quite close to what forced migrants already do to survive and get on with their lives in exile. Self-reliance and other similar attempts, such as the so-called durable housing solutions for IDPs in Georgia,2,3 represent what we have called ‘solutions lite’.4 Solutions lite provide the appearance of ‘solutions’, but may only have limited positive effect and do not necessarily result in re-establishing forced migrants’ rights and recognition as full members of a society. Hence, forced migrants continue to linger in a state of permanent temporariness, deprived of

1 UNHCR. 2022. Global Trends Forced Displacement in 2021. UNHCR. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​ flagship​-reports/​globaltrends/​, accessed 24 October 2022. 2 Brun, C. 2022. Understanding protracted displacement through the dwelling: The temporal injustice of the not quite, not yet solutions to refugee crises. In Howayda Al Harithy (ed.) Urban Recovery. Intersecting Displacement with Recovery. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 141–166. 3 Loughna, S., O. Ivanova and J. Kharasvili, Chapter 38, this volume. 4 Brun, C. and Fábos, A.H. 2017. Mobilising home for long-term displacement: A critical reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177–83.

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Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement  351 a say in the future of a place where they live, and retaining only limited control over their own futures and development. How can we rethink the durable solutions based on the current reality when the international community and host states are unwilling to provide access to durable solutions? Are there ways of changing our current policies and practices that can contribute to alternative and more realistic solutions? This discussion comes out of a conversation between Cathrine Brun, Anita Fábos, Maha Shuayb and Nick Van Hear on ways to rethink the durable solutions. Our discussion introduced and reflected on ideas around home, ‘social science fiction’ (explained below), and education to develop modes of challenging existing policies and thinking. In what follows we take each of the contributions in turn, before offering a synthesis of our discussion.

CATHRINE BRUN: RE-IMAGINING DURABLE SOLUTIONS Our conversation builds on a growing recognition that the current durable solutions are out of reach for most displaced people. Over the years, a number of scholars have introduced or suggested approaches to reforming the current system or have designed alternatives to the traditional solutions. These seem to fall into two main categories: those that are parallel approaches, existing alongside the societal mainstream, and those that are integrative and exist within current socio-political structures. In addition, these approaches can also be categorised along a number of other axes. Some suggestions are closer to current policies and hence, policy-oriented, while other suggestions represent a more radical shift away from current policies and are more refugee-centred – oriented towards what people do in practice. Some proposals are more locally or nationally based, while others focus on more transnational or global solutions including mobility. Finally, some proposals are more individual – focusing on the individual refugee’s choices – while other solutions are more collective. Parallel approaches that find solutions for forced migrants specifically and with less reference to ‘whole society’ thinking include Betts and Collier’s proposal5 for solutions nearer to refugees’ origin countries by establishing special economic zones where refugees can work and hence responding to restrictions to labour policies in the refugee-hosting country. This parallel labour market is aligned with current refugee policy and solutions, and can be seen as a segmented approach. The experiment in social science fiction of Refugia by Robin Cohen and Nick Van Hear6 formulates a very different parallel solution: a radically alternative way of thinking about how refugees can organise their lives in the context of the ever-increasing state hostility towards hosting refugees. Nick Van Hear describes this more refugee-centred parallel alternative below. Further, Maha Shuayb reflects upon whether an International Baccalaureate for refugees could be a sector-specific solution to the problem of accessing quality education for people living with displacement. This parallel approach could serve as a refugee-centred, transnational model for a way of refugees continuing to lead full lives in hostile host states. Integrative approaches to the solutions emerge from what displaced people and the communities in which they are based are currently doing, but also address the question of whether 5 Betts, A. and Collier, P. 2017. Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. Milton Keynes: Allen Lane. 6 Cohen, R. and Van Hear, N. 2020. Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement. Abingdon: Routledge.

352  Handbook on forced migration even solutions lite can address current precarious realities. These approaches – sometimes referred to as ‘fourth durable solutions’ – include mobility as a strategy for people living with displacement. For example, the Mercosur visa arrangements encourage mobility (labour mobility in this case) rather than keeping people in one particular place, which often is the case with refugee status. Indeed, mobility can better allow for protection through documents and rights as well as access to the job market, to food, and to social services.7 Long8 describes this strategy as an acknowledgement of ‘labour mobility’ or, in IOM’s conception, ‘livelihood mobility’.9 Van Hear10 has pointed to the wider processes of developing transnational lives and enabling transnational connections, created by the changing relationships between people and places that come as a result of displacement. States have increasingly recognised refugees’ own mobile strategies by adapting residency rights to accommodate temporary protection without citizenship11 or by calling upon shared religious or cultural backgrounds to offer temporary status to refugees.12 Aleinikoff and Zamore13 propose similar ideas on the role of mobility and the need for including refugee voices in formulating solutions. They advocate more emphasis on responsibility-sharing and solidarity. Along the same lines, Hathaway and Neve14 and Hathaway and Ghezelbash15 have suggested a move away from the nation state which increasingly does meet the standards of refugee protection as described in the 1951 Convention towards a regional approach that could also be categorised as a collective responsibility. In a different way, Cohen and Van Hear’s Refugia incorporates a move away from nation state-based solutions and emphasises transnational mobility. Each of these examples relies on what people actually do as a jumping off point, and as such they connect the livelihood strategies of a growing percentage of the global population, whether forcibly displaced or not. The multi-scalar integration of communities through transnationalism, global awareness, and mobility is also key to Brun and Fábos’ proposal (below) of ‘home’ as an alternative solution. Home, they suggest, is a shared value that connects

Montenegro, C. 2016. Social protection: A fourth durable solution? Forced Migration Review 51, January 2016: 62–3. 8 Long, K. 2010. Home Alone? A Review of the Relationship Between Repatriation, Mobility and Durable Solutions for Refugees. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Policy Development and Evaluation Service. Geneva: UNHCR. 9 IOM. 2016. The progressive resolution of displacement situations. https://​www​.iom​.int/​sites/​ g/​files/​tmzbdl486/​files/​our​_work/​DOE/​humanitarian​_emergencies/​Progressive​-Resolution​-of​ -Displacement​-Situations​.pdf, accessed 24 October 2022. 10 Van Hear, N. 2006. Refugees in diaspora: from durable solutions to transnational relations. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 23(1): 9–14. https://​doi​.org/​10​.25071/​1920​-7336​.21338, accessed 21 July 2021. 11 Mountz, A., Wright, R., Miyares, I. and Bailey, A.J. 2002. Lives in limbo: Temporary protected status and immigrant identities. Global Networks 2(4): 335–56. 12 Fábos, A.H. 2014. Between Ghurba and Umma: Mapping Sudanese Muslim moralities across national and Islamic space. In Managing Muslim Mobilities: Between Spiritual Geographies and the Global Security Regime. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 103–28. 13 Aleinikoff, T.A. and Zamore, L. 2019. The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime. Redwood City: Stanford University Press. 14 Hathaway, J.C. and Neve, R.A. 1997. Making international refugee law relevant again: A proposal for collectivized and solutions-oriented protection. Harvard Human Rights Journal 10(1997): 115–211. 15 Hathaway, J. and Ghezelbash, D. 2018. There’s a workable alternative to Australia’s asylum policy. The Guardian 31 May 2019, https://​www​.theguardian​.com/​commentisfree/​2018/​may/​31/​theres​ -a​-workable​-alternative​-to​-australias​-asylum​-policy, accessed 20 July 2021. 7

Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement  353 people’s home-making practices wherever they are to other ideas, places, and identities. In our current international system, the common experience of national belonging, upon which both citizenship norms and the refugee system are based, interacts with our daily practices and ideals in a way that can produce common ground, and an alternative solution to displacement. We expand our contributions to the timely rethinking of the durable solutions, from the integrative to the parallel, below.

ANITA H. FÁBOS: MOBILISING HOME AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE DURABLE SOLUTIONS Cathrine Brun and I came to the idea of home as an alternative to the durable solutions through our frustration with the notion of ‘limbo’ used to describe the circumstances of those who have not been able to access one of the three durable solutions. Our earlier work argued that there was a disconnect between the policy and practice to do with ‘protracted refugee situations’ on the one hand, and what people living with displacement actually do. We showed that limbo was a concept that described the suspended policy response to inadequate durable solutions that fail to address huge numbers of displaced people living in circumstances not of their own choosing. People themselves, on the other hand, experienced this policy limbo in ways that made their lives feel ‘stuck’ or on hold, certainly, but also as agents making sense of their predicament, planning for the short and long term, and living their lives. In our experience in a range of places, people living with displacement end up doing things day after day that contribute to a slow cultivation of familiarity, memory, and strategy. Doing Equals Living with Displacement We began to think more carefully about what people do in states of never-ending exile. To live with displacement is unbearable in many ways, additionally so because the nation-state system provides both the solution – national belonging – and the fatal flaw for those who cannot avail themselves of national belonging. Nevertheless, people engage in basic and universal practices to recreate familiar patterns and spaces in displacement. We noted that ‘home-making’ is a very human process – something that we all do to meet our basic needs – and that it includes both material and immaterial activities, both practical daily and long-term strategies, and incorporates the past, present, and future. In further unpacking what people do, we came up with the metaphor of a constellation that represents home as three interconnected dimensions: the daily practices that ground people in a place; the ideals and norms that give home meaning at different scales; and our current geopolitical paradigm of national homelands. In our written work we visually represent the three dimensions of the constellation as home, Home, and HOME.

354  Handbook on forced migration Home as an Interface We use the term ‘constellations of home’ to try to describe this dynamic and multi-scalar assemblage of ideas, practices, and expectations that people themselves perform.16 As I mentioned, it includes the durable solutions as the framing context. This is because people living in displacement are strategising their lives within the border restrictions and static and ahistorical assumptions of home and ‘not-home’ of the nation-state system. Mobility is one such strategy. But, while my own academic training and research is in diaspora and mobility studies, Cathrine and I felt the need to see beyond mobility alone as an alternative to full nation-state participation. Mobility does not fully address the need for all human beings, even the most mobile or translocal, to organise their cultural, social, and biological needs with reference to specific places and resources. Instead, we think of home as an interface between settled and displaced people. Mobilising home in this way addresses long-term displacement, acknowledges the nation-state framework, recognises the bounded-ness of the state and its identity-making role, and identifies the daily practices of home-making that connect people to both places and mobilities. We hope this approach might take us beyond thinking about the ability to survive and earn a living in a place of displacement – ‘local integration lite’ or ‘solutions lite’ – and towards an aim of creating similar living conditions for displaced and non-displaced people through encouraging and supporting processes of home-making, including local place-making practices, connections to heritage identities, and acknowledgement of mobility as both common and shared. Home in this context is not an end-point but a process – an acknowledgment of the everyday practices and geopolitical acts that most people, both displaced and settled, are involved in as they go about their lives.

NICK VAN HEAR: REFUGIA AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO THE DURABLE SOLUTIONS My approach to the question of alternatives to the solutions is through an experiment in social science fiction that my colleague Robin Cohen and I have been engaged in over the past few years.17 Social science fiction is a relatively new genre that draws on what used to be called science fiction and more recently ‘speculative fiction’, in which new or alternative societies or worlds are envisaged. Drawing on this genre,18 we have imagined a new kind of transnational entity, called Refugia, that has tentatively established itself by the year 2030, against the background of continuing global turmoil and displacement. Refugia has been built up incrementally and organically from the transnational practices of refugees and other people on the move, helped by sympathetic citizens whom we call ‘Solidarians’.

Brun, C. and Fábos, A.H. 2015. Homemaking in limbo? A conceptual framework. Refuge 31(1): 5–18. 17 Cohen, R. and Van Hear, N. 2020. Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement. Abingdon: Routledge. 18 Three examples that we have drawn on are: Frase, P. 2016. Four Futures: Visions of the World After Capitalism, London: Verso Books; Hamid, M.N. 2017. Exit West. London: Hamish Hamilton; Miéville, C. 2011. The City and the City. London: Pan Books. 16

Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement  355 Refugia is a transnational polity governed by and for refugees that is neither a nation-state nor an international organisation – though it has some features of both. We see it as a kind of transnational archipelago connecting different spaces and territories; it exists alongside the nation-state system and to some degree poses an alternative to that system. Refugia comprises a number of linked territories and spaces that we call Refugiums, and these in aggregate (we envisage something like 300 of these have been established by 2030) make up the umbrella polity Refugia. Though we have drawn on utopian thinking to imagine this transnational polity, Refugia is not itself a utopia, not least as it must co-exist with nation-states, some of which are hostile to it. Hence Refugia has inevitably to make compromises in its uneasy co-existence with the nation-state system. How does Refugia sit in relation to the durable solutions? As we see it, the essential objective of these is for refugees to re-gain effective citizenship: by this is meant not just titular citizenship, but citizenship that one can exercise effectively (this language comes from the discourse on statelessness and Hannah Arendt). So, in the durable solutions framework, refugees either recover the effective citizenship of their origin country, by returning, or get a new citizenship in the country of first asylum or the country of resettlement. Refugia was conceived as an alternative to the current refugee regime, including the ‘regime’ of durable solutions, which (as we have seen above) are rarely accessible for the majority of displaced people. But if we think of Refugia in terms of the durable solutions, the imagined transnational polity suggests a number of perspectives on them. First, since Refugia sits outside the nation-state system, it could arguably be seen as an alternative to the durable solutions, providing a form of membership and belonging different from conventional citizenship. In this strand of thinking, which resonates with the ‘parallel’ approach outlined above, refugees come to regain effective citizenship by becoming Refugians, by virtue of which they ‘belong’ to the whole dispersed but connected transnational polity of Refugia. Another perspective, in some ways cast within the durable solutions framework (in perhaps a semi-detached way, or on the edges of it), is that becoming a Refugian could be seen as a ‘fourth durable solution’ in its own right, since Refugia offers membership to a new polity – that is, a kind of ‘alter-nation state’. This is perhaps similar to the argument some have made that transnational mobility and living is or could be a ‘fourth durable solution’19,20 (see also above). A third perspective could place becoming a Refugian more squarely and conventionally within the durable solutions framework. Since Refugiums are necessarily located in nation-states (we call them Somewherelands in our book) – that is, either in areas neighbouring conflicts (first asylum countries) or in countries removed from conflict areas (third countries of resettlement) – an argument could be made that accommodating refugees in such Refugiums could be seen as local integration or resettlement in the Somewhereland states within which Refugiums are located. This resonates with the ‘integrative’ approach outlined

19 Van Hear, N. 2006. Refugees in diaspora: From durable solutions to transnational relations. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 23(1): 9–14. https://​doi​.org/​10​.25071/​1920​-7336​.21338, accessed 24 July 2021. 20 Long, K. 2010. Home Alone? A Review of the Relationship Between Repatriation, Mobility and Durable Solutions for Refugees. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Policy Development and Evaluation Service. Geneva: UNHCR.

356  Handbook on forced migration above. However, this local integration or resettlement would likely be short of full citizenship in the Somewhereland host state, depending on the disposition of that state. As we see Refugia as a kind of alter-transnationalism, and are generally not well disposed to the nation-state system, we incline to the first position – Refugia as an alternative to the durable solutions. But Refugians perhaps would not be bothered as to what form of durable solution they achieve – which is perhaps a somewhat semantic debate. What really matters is that Refugia should offer Refugians guaranteed security, a decent dignified life, a life worth living – in short, an assured life for themselves and those who are close to them in viable communities. As we see it, that is most likely to be achieved collectively and connectedly through the emergence of a ‘transnational good society’, by which we mean the ideal society envisaged by political philosophers from ancient Greece to the present day,21 but this time on a transnational rather than a national scale.

MAHA SHUAYB: RECONCILING A NATIONAL AND GLOBAL APPROACH THROUGH EDUCATION: TOWARDS ‘PARTICIPATORY AND SOCIALLY JUST’ FRAMEWORKS FOR EDUCATION IN PROTRACTED DISPLACEMENT Education is a long-term and future-oriented process which aims to contribute to children’s wellbeing on various levels and equip them with the skills to participate in their communities socially, economically, politically and culturally. While the nature and process of education embodies and necessitates durable solutions, education of refugee children has often overlooked this aspect by adopting the ‘education in emergencies’ discourse. Education for refugees has seen a surge in interest and has been firmly institutionalised by the refugee regime into most responses in refugee crises, often under the umbrella of Education in Emergencies.22 The success of Education in Emergencies has seen more refugee children accessing school.23 Yet, significant challenges remain. For example, only 24 per cent of secondary school aged refugees are enrolled in secondary school, and just 3 per cent access higher education.24 Thus, the ‘education in emergencies’ potential has not been utilised. In our chapter we attempt to unpack some of the underlying shortcomings of this approach and suggest potential alternatives. Shortcomings of Education in Emergencies Education is future-oriented and may be a vehicle used to promote the shift from a humanitarian towards a development approach. At first glance, education in humanitarian settings 21 See, for example, from just the ‘western’ philosophical canon, and in date order: Plato. 375BCE/2007. The Republic. London: Penguin Classics; More, T. 1516/2012. Utopia. London: Penguin Classics; Lippman, W. 1938. The Good Society. Boston: Little, Brown; Arblaster, A. and Stephen, L., eds. 1971. The Good Society: A Book of Readings, London: Methuen; Buxton, R. and Whiting, L. 2020. The Philosopher Queens: The Lives and Legacies of Philosophy’s Unsung Women. Unbound. 22 INEE. 2020. 20 Years of INEE: Achievements and Challenges in Education in Emergencies. New York: INEE, https://​inee​.org/​resources/​20​-years​-inee​-achievements​-and​-challenges​-education​ -emergencies. Accessed 28 April 2022. 23 UNHCR. 2019. Ukraine 2019: Participatory Assessment. UNHCR. 24 Ibid.

Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement  357 can imply a commitment to durable solutions, yet a closer look at recent developments in the education in emergencies discourse reveals many tensions. For example, the migration management sector’s position on offering education for refugees vis-à-vis return has fluctuated, affecting decisions such as which curricula should be taught for refugees (the curricula of the country of origin or the host country). Whilst we see an increasing shift to teach the curriculum of the host country, refugees are often excluded in the learning spaces and offered limited adaptations to the curriculum where it would better suit their needs and context. Moreover, refugee communities (parents and teachers) are often excluded from these learning spaces, which emphasises students’ feelings of isolation.25 Local and national actors approach education in isolation from other forms of integration, such as social and economic integration. Finally, the general discourse on education in emergencies has been vague concerning the longer-term objectives and purpose of education. Further, the education in emergencies discourse has been narrow in focusing on issues of certification and accreditation without addressing the wider implications and context of the educational process that might affect outcomes, thus reducing most programmes to literacy initiatives (as the majority of refugees drop out before reaching secondary school). This has led to a preference for state-led formal education instead of NGOs and community based non-formal programmes. While there are numerous advantages for formal and certified education, the limited access and quality offered by many schools in addition to students’ low attainment and completion rates have prompted questions as to whether education in emergencies is the best approach for donors interested in promoting education in humanitarian settings. An Alternative Approach to Education of Refugee Children? The empirical insights presented so far prompt us to think of alternative approaches to the education of refugee children. Our suggested starting point is recognitive justice, which we believe is the main value in which education should be embedded. Fraser26 defines justice as ‘parity of participation’ and emphasises that overcoming injustice can only be achieved by dismantling institutionalised obstacles that prevent some people from participating on a par with others as full partners in social interaction. Recognitive justice encompasses distribution, participation, and recognition. So far, most education programmes for refugees have focused on distribution (i.e. access to education while overlooking participation and recognition). Fraser argues that distribution alone does not address the structural causes that often accentuate exclusion and create a subordinate position for refugees: ‘Participation on par with others, as full partners in social interaction’ must encompass socio‐cultural remedies for better recognition and political representation.27 A commitment to a just education system thus requires a paradigm shift from a focus on access and minimum standards to a system where refugees participate on par with others28 – a system that increases educational outcomes for refugees and for the host community.

Shuayb, M., Hammoud, M. and Samhoury, O. (under review). The schooling experiences of refugees in Lebanon, Australia and Turkey. A comparative longitudinal study. 26 Fraser, N. 2005. Reframing justice in a globalised world. New Left Review 36: p. 73. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid. 25

358  Handbook on forced migration The second integral point in our suggested alternative education paradigm focuses on transcending the nation state system, which often results in further marginalisation and exclusion. Host states are often unwilling to consider full local participation and recognition of refugees. Even when included in the national educational systems, host states often exclude refugees socially, culturally, and economically. Attempts to integrate refugees into the host country’s educational system require willingness on various levels starting with policy makers, teaching and school leadership teams, the community, and parents. When there is resistance to refugee integration, we propose replacing the nation-state paradigm with an international/global and accredited one. We already have several examples of global curricula or frameworks such as the International Baccalaureate or the French Baccalaureate which are available for an elite sector of the society, mostly expats. A similar but more accessible system can be made available for refugees.29 A flexible and adapted curriculum that addresses the specific refugee context and includes the refugee community in planning and implementation would offer more recognition and participation in the schooling experience. There have already been several attempts in this direction, yet to date these efforts have not materialised. While this solution does not solve the issue of economic and social integration in the host country, it can offer improved access to quality education where the refugee community can have a higher degree of participation and recognition. Finally, to address the exclusion of non-refugee children from this system, the global curriculum framework may be available for local pupils if the host country agrees to accredit it. This could potentially address one of the critiques of this alternative system, that is, creating a parallel and exclusionary system.

DISCUSSION: REFLECTIONS ON A DIFFERENT REALITY Our interventions set out above range widely by sector and in scope. The common thread is that they emerge from the realisation that the current conventional durable solutions approach to displacement has reached a stalemate. In our reflections above, we engage with what a different society might look like. The conversations from which this chapter draws emerged from a pragmatic recognition of what alternative solutions are available for people living with displacement within the confines of the nation-state. We see solutions as necessarily transnational, from the determination to find opportunities to build a ‘transnational good society’. By transnational solutions we mean (as noted above) the good society sought by philosophers, but existing on a transnational scale rather than just a national one. Any solutions that emerge must take into account the spaces and places where people with different sets of rights vis-à-vis the state are going about making homes and creating a life worth living for themselves, their families, and their communities. This common ground starts with what refugees and other displaced people actually do and builds from there to also recognise what host communities do and want. From different angles, our interventions explore ways in which homes and communities can be made or re-made. They all aim to engage with the reality of refugees and forced migrants that is both local and transnational, reflecting the current reality for most displaced and 29 Brun, C. and Shuayb, M. 2020a. Exceptional and futureless humanitarian education of Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Prospects for shifting the lens. Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 36(2): 20–30.

Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement  359 non-displaced and contesting the inherent understanding of the conventional solutions as tied to one place. Consequently, the three contributions above attempt to strengthen some of the existing arrangements that are present in the durable solutions and the international refugee regime and follow what people displaced by conflict are doing themselves to create a life during displacement. Each of the three contributions does this in a refugee-centred way, in contrast to current policy-making in this sphere. The outcome of current policies is often that when refugees take their mobility into their own hands, there may be a backlash in the form of border restrictions and other exclusionary structures, as we have seen in some European countries faced with refugees and other forced migrants at the border. This is an indication that the state is still strongly present, and a mobilities-based durable solution is highly constrained at this particular moment30 – even more so under pandemic conditions (now thankfully easing). We thus cannot entirely bypass the challenges that refugee status raises for resolving displacement. Inherent in the conventional durable solutions is the crucial role of the nation-state in making a solution happen, and this dominant role of nation-states leaves the question of who represents the interests of the refugees open. As Jeff Crisp31 has shown, UNHCR is now and has been for some time a humanitarian agency, rather than an international body representing refugees. Maha Shuayb and Cathrine Brun’s work in Lebanon and Jordan shows that refugee status is not the only cause of marginalisation and that many refugees share marginalisation with poorer hosts.32,33,34 In this context, socioeconomic status is prominent as vulnerabilities spill over and affect status and social positions (even for nationals, despite their legal status). Consequently, we propose a more integrative approach toward solutions for both the host and refugee communities. In many sectors, such as education (as Maha Shuayb suggested above), there will be very few differences between refugees and nationals and it would be more productive to emphasise their shared realities. This is where home can also act in an integrative manner, as a collective concept that includes refugees and settled people, hence serving as an interface between different groups of people. Home represents another area where building on ideas of shared experiences also extends to the idea of mobility: we may recognise that mobility as a bridge between settled and mobile people and transnationalism is something that many settled people do not recognise. Finding multiple shared practices that address the needs of both displaced and settled people may provide more opportunities to create that interface. It is in this interface that we can also relate to Refugia. The idea of Refugia has been criticised for perpetuating the status or identity of refugees, rather than accommodating the many people who want to escape that refugee status or identity. Even the very name Refugia suggests

30 Brun, C. and Fábos, A.H. 2017. Mobilising home for long-term displacement: A critical reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177–83. 31 Crisp, J. 2001. Mind the gap! UNHCR, Humanitarian assistance and the development process. International Migration Review 35(1): 168–91. 32 Brun, C. and Shuayb, M. 2020a. Exceptional and futureless humanitarian education of Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Prospects for shifting the lens. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 36(2): 20–30. 33 Brun, C. and Shuayb, M. 2020b. Education in emergencies: Five critical points for shifting the power, https://​lebanesestudies​.com/​education​-in​-emergencies​-at​-20​-five​-critical​-points​-for​-shifting​-the​ -power/​. accessed 29 April 2022. 34 Shuayb, M. and Brun, C. 2020. For young Syrian refugees, education and employment cannot remain apolitical. Open Democracy, https://​www​.opendemocracy​.net/​en/​north​-africa​-west​-asia/​young​ -syrian​-refugees​-education​-and​-employment​-cannot​-remain​-apolitical/​, accessed 24 October 2022.

360  Handbook on forced migration this. In this sense, Refugia leans towards the parallel alternatives mentioned above. However, the imagined transnational polity does envisage the emergence of some kind of co-identity of ‘Refugian’ which would help to forge and reinforce a form of membership and is thus ‘integrative’ in the sense used above. Moreover, the Refugia idea envisages strong linkages between Refugians and sympathetic Somewhereland citizens, called Solidarians, who may indeed become Refugians themselves. Refugians could be members or citizens of the Refugia transnational polity; they could be citizens of the particular Refugium in which they live; and/or they could have some kind of dual citizenship between Refugia and the Somewhereland host state. The ultimate form of membership hinges crucially on the strength of the transnational polity – conceived as a collectivity of linked places – as it consolidates itself.35 As our discussion and interventions show, a focus on people living with displacement is not only tied to specific places. The current displacement realities necessarily bring out the translocal and transnational aspects of people’s lives, livelihoods, and identities. Displacement creates conditions of transnational connections but currently requires the nation-state to provide the rights and protection within national boundaries, a role that they are increasingly unwilling to play. At the same time, members of ‘host communities’ are increasingly mobile, but treated in radically different ways with access to services that normalise everyday transnationalism. For example, the option for children living in mobile and transnational families to access the International Baccalaureate and the network of international schools and programmes is one example of services and mechanisms acknowledging movement and transnational living. Access to a transnational or International Baccalaureate education credential for refugees and other people living with displacement could set the stage for other alternative solutions that acknowledge the mobility of displaced as well as ‘settled’ people. What other dimensions are necessary for producing a ‘transnational good society’ that all three interventions aspire to? Segregating refugees and other forcibly displaced persons from the services and rights of settled society perpetuates the notion that they are not part of society. The contemporary encouragement of ‘self-reliance’ for people living with displacement (e.g. within the framework of the Global Compact for Refugees) acknowledges the ongoing existence of refugee denizenship in host societies while maintaining the idea of segregation and exclusion for people without full rights in a society. While there are mechanisms for welcome and integration of newcomers into an existing social system, a more radical shift would be rethinking society to incorporate the inclusion and ongoing participation of refugee participants. This way of thinking builds on the notion of ‘self-reliance’ encouraged by the Global Refugee Compact while simultaneously highlighting and encouraging translocal and transnational alliances of solidarity across nation-states that are unwilling or unable to extend meaningful belonging and rights to non-citizens. Some municipal initiatives championed by progressive mayors illustrate such an approach, and to the extent that they are transnationally connected, such approaches echo the kind of transnational vision encompassed by Refugia – the combination of refugee-initiated approaches made stronger by alliances with sympathetic citizens is key here. The idea of Refugia also provides a transnational alternative for people living with displacement. In this vision, the solutions are more collective than individually based, as is largely the case with the conventional durable solutions. Arguably, as we cannot rely on nation-states, or the 35 Cohen, R. and Van Hear, N. 2020. Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement. Abingdon: Routledge.

Rethinking solutions in never-ending displacement  361 nation-state system, to do the right thing, we have to organise ourselves to find collective solutions that are not reliant on the nation-state and promote other less top-down solutions that bring about justice by circumventing the nation-state. This leads us to question the conventional durable solutions. To differing degrees, the ideas for new or alternative ‘solutions’ that we have outlined in this chapter are currently practised through sanctuary cities and solidarity networks of various kinds in a range of refugee situations. We see the resolution of displacement as lying in such kinds of solidarity: those that mobilise at local, national and transnational scales, and which seek to transcend the nation-state system, while recognising the continuing salience of that system – whether we like it or not.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aleinikoff, T.A. and L. Zamore. 2019. The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime. Stanford University Press. Betts, A. and P. Collier. 2017. Refuge: Transforming a Broken Refugee System. Milton Keynes: Allen Lane. Brun, C. 2022. Understanding protracted displacement through the dwelling: The temporal injustice of the not quite, not yet solutions to refugee crises. In Howayda Al Harithy (ed.) Urban Recovery: Intersecting Displacement with Recovery. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 141–66. Brun, C. and A.H. Fábos. 2015. Homemaking in limbo? A conceptual framework. Refuge 31(1): 5–18. Brun, C. and A.H. Fábos. 2017. Mobilising home for long-term displacement: A critical reflection on the durable solutions. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9(2): 177–83. Brun, C. and M. Shuayb. 2020a. Exceptional and futureless humanitarian education of Syrian refugees in Lebanon: Prospects for shifting the lens. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 36(2): 20–30. Brun, C. and M. Shuayb. 2020b. Education in emergencies: Five critical points for shifting the power, https://​lebanesestudies​.com/​education​-in​-emergencies​-at​-20​-five​-critical​-points​-for​-shifting​-the​ -power/​, accessed 29 April 2022. Cohen, R. and N. Van Hear. 2020. Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement. Abingdon: Routledge. Crisp, J. 2001. Mind the gap! UNHCR, humanitarian assistance and the development process. International Migration Review 35(1): 168–91. Fábos, A.H. 2014. Between Ghurba and Umma: Mapping Sudanese Muslim moralities across national and Islamic space. In Managing Muslim Mobilities: Between spiritual geographies and the global security regime. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 103–28. Frase, P. 2016. Four Futures: Visions of the World After Capitalism, London: Verso Books. Fraser, N. 2005. Reframing justice in a globalised world. New Left Review 36: 79–88. Hamid, M.N. 2017. Exit West. London: Hamish Hamilton. Hathaway, J. and D. Ghezelbash. 2018. There’s a workable alternative to Australia’s asylum policy. The Guardian, 31 May 2019. Hathaway, J.C. and R.A. Neve. 1997. Making international refugee law relevant again: A proposal for collectivized and solutions-oriented protection. Harvard Human Rights Journal 10(1997): 115–211. INEE. 2020. 20 Years of INEE: Achievements and Challenges in Education in Emergencies. New York: INEE, https://​inee​.org/​resources/​20​-years​-inee​-achievements​-and​-challenges​-education​-emergencies, accessed 28 April 2022. IOM. 2016. The Progressive Resolution of Displacement Situations. https://​www​.iom​.int/​sites/​g/​files/​ tmzbdl486/​files/​our​_work/​DOE/​humanitarian​_emergencies/​Progressive​-Resolution​-of​-Displacement​ -Situations​.pdf, accessed 24 October 2022. Long, K. 2010. Home Alone? A Review of the Relationship Between Repatriation, Mobility and Durable Solutions for Refugees. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Policy Development and Evaluation Service. Geneva: UNHCR. Miéville, C. 2011. The City and the City. London: Pan Books.

362  Handbook on forced migration Montenegro, C. 2016. Social protection: A fourth durable solution? Forced Migration Review 51, January 2016: 62–3. Mountz, A., R. Wright, I. Miyares and A.J. Bailey. 2002. Lives in limbo: Temporary protected status and immigrant identities. Global Networks 2(4): 335–56. Shuayb, M. and C. Brun. 2020. For young Syrian refugees, education and employment cannot remain apolitical. Open Democracy. Shuayb, M., M. Hammoud and S. Chatila (under review). Determinants of refugee children educational performance: A comparative study of refugees in Lebanon, Turkey, and Australia. UNHCR. 2019. Refugee Education 2030: A Strategy for Refugee Inclusion. UNHCR. UNHCR. 2019. Ukraine 2019: Participatory Assessment. UNHCR. UNHCR. 2021. Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2020. UNHCR. UNHCR. 2022. Global Trends Forced Displacement in 2021. UNHCR. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​flagship​ -reports/​globaltrends/​, accessed 24 October 2022. Van Hear, N. (2006). Refugees in Diaspora: From Durable Solutions to Transnational Relations. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees 23(1): 9–14. https://​doi​.org/​10​.25071/​1920–7336​.21338.

37. Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda Eria Serwajja and Hilde Refstie

INTRODUCTION As they re-establish or maintain the relationship between the displaced and the State, voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement are the globally preferred durable solutions to displacement. However, as stated in previous chapters, many refugees are neither repatriated, integrated, nor resettled. In this section we look at how refugee host countries are devising alternative strategies to address the rising numbers of displaced people, specifically by building displaced people’s self-reliance. The UNHCR handbook on self-reliance defines this strategy of encouraging self-reliance as “developing and strengthening livelihoods of people of concern by addressing or preventing their long-term dependence on humanitarian assistance”.1 More specifically, this means reinforcing “the social and economic ability of an individual, a household, or a community to meet essential needs (including protection, food, water, shelter, personal safety, health, and education) in a sustainable manner and with dignity”.2 As donors, humanitarian organizations and refugee host States promote self-reliance as a stepping stone for, or alternative to achieving ‘durable solutions’, it is important to understand how these convoluted processes unfold from the vantage point of the displaced. To explore this, we use examples from Uganda, which has been called a ‘trailblazer country’ for implementing the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF), which includes self-reliance as a key pillar. Uganda has a long history of hosting forced migrants. In addition to dealing with internally displaced persons (IDPs) from conflict and disaster affected areas, Uganda is the third-largest refugee hosting country in the world, with close to 1.5 million refugees.3 Many refugees and IDPs in Uganda have stayed in their current places of residence in rural and urban areas for a decade or more. Meanwhile, new refugees continue to arrive from neighbouring countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, and Burundi. The numbers of refugees and IDPs have been consistently high over the years and Uganda has developed multiple national mechanisms to handle surging numbers. The country has also served as a testing ground for regional and global policies and is often considered a paradigmatic case for implementing such policies. The most recent example is the implementation of the UN Global Compact on Refugees and the application of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF).4 While Uganda’s refugee policies are currently promoted as the most progressive in the world due to the country’s open border policies and focus on refugee self-reliance, there are UNHCR, “Handbook for Self-Reliance”, no. 1 (2006): 334, http://​www​.unhcr​.org/​44bf7b012​.pdf. Ibid, p. 1. 3 UNHCR, “Uganda comprehensive refugee response portal”, 2021c. 4 UNHCR, “Uganda: an overview of how the global compact on refugees is being turned into action in Uganda”, Online Webpage, 2021b, https://​g​lobalcompa​ctrefugees​.org/​article/​uganda. 1 2

363

364  Handbook on forced migration some critical gaps that remain unaddressed. First, naturalization of refugees is not provided for, which means that full citizenship is out of reach.5 Secondly, there appears to be limited consideration in terms of establishing durable solutions for IDPs specifically.6 Uganda therefore provides a good case for discussing local integration as a lost solution, and the potential that self-reliance models hold in terms of reinvigorating this avenue. In this chapter, we first briefly outline the history of IDP and refugee response in Uganda. We then use the experiences of different categories of displaced people and their hosts as a departure point to explore the durable solutions that the current self-reliance model in Uganda inhibits and enables. Lastly, we show how Uganda’s displacement policy frameworks are positioned in the national and international political economy and discuss how the convergence of multiple agendas influences the prospects of finding durable solutions for both refugees and IDPs residing in the country.

UGANDA’S REFUGEE AND INTERNAL DISPLACEMENT HISTORY Uganda’s refugee regime predates its independence in 1962. In the 1940s, Uganda hosted 7000 Polish refugees fleeing the devastation of World War II. The country also received South Sudanese refugees and Kenyans fleeing the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, large numbers of Rwandan Tutsi refugees fleeing the post-independence political turmoil were followed by thousands of Congolese refugees.7 Since then, the country has continued to host large numbers of refugees from the region fleeing conflict and human rights violations. While Uganda has some of the most welcoming refugee policies worldwide in terms of open border movement from neighbouring countries such as South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Ugandan government has been reluctant to facilitate local integration of large numbers of refugees, citing resource burdens and fear of security problems. De jure integration (often referred to as naturalization) of refugees has therefore not been considered a viable option and assistance has first and foremost concentrated on aid. This focus reflects the general trend in the region from the 1980s and onwards where “a consensus was forged around the notion that repatriation – normally but not necessarily on a voluntary basis – was the only viable solution to refugee problems in Africa and other low-income regions”.8 As a result, refugees in Uganda were confined in camps that were clearly separated from the resident local communities over an extended period of time. The facilities were often

Samuel G. Walker, “From refugee to citizen? Obstacles to the naturalisation of refugees in Uganda”, August 2008: 1–15. https://​www​.refugeelawproject​.org/​files/​briefing​_papers/​Naturalisation​ _Of​_Refugees​.pdf. 6 Oosterom, M.A., 2016. “Internal displacement, the camp and the construction of citizenship: Perspectives from northern Uganda”. Journal of Refugee Studies 29(3): 363–87. 7 Jean P. Safari, “Rwanda – Uganda’s bilateral relations: Do refugees contribute?” World Mediation Organization, 2022. https://​worldmediation​.org/​rwanda​-ugandas​-bilateral​-relations​-do​-refugees​ -contribute/​. 8 Jeff Crisp, “No solutions in sight: The problem of protracted refugee situations in Africa”, New Issues in Refugee Research (Geneva, UNHCR, 2003), https://​escholarship​.org/​content/​qt89d8r34q/​ qt89d8r34q​.pdf. 5

Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda  365 congested, without adequate living spaces, and short of key social services such as water, housing and sanitation. There were restrictions on freedom of movement and the right to work as the refugees awaited repatriation.9 Mobility restrictions in Uganda have extended to IDPs. In 1995, during the conflict in northern Uganda, the Government of Uganda forcibly moved nearly two million of its own citizens into “protected villages” to separate civilians from combatants in the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The displaced communities lived in dire conditions in insecure camps for 13 years without government support and fully dependent on aid. Some authors have described this treatment as “social torture”10 and argued that humanitarian actors were complicit in this strategy by distributing aid in the camps, “effectively enabling the government’s policy of forcible encampment to continue long after it would otherwise have become untenable”.11 Restrictions on movements for IDPs have also been evident in the semi-arid Karamoja sub-region in Uganda, where weather-related disasters and violent incidents connected to cattle rustling between pastoralist groups and government disarmament exercises have led to displacement.12 Under the banner of humanitarianism, the Ugandan government has continued to criticize the nomadic and pastoral practices of the Karamajong people. It has deployed several coercive measures including the deployment of the military to restrict movement of the Karamajong and use of force to compel them to abandon nomadic pastoralism and transition to agriculture which entails permanent settlement in a defined area. The Ugandan government has frequently justified its actions on the premise that agriculture, as opposed to what it has framed as backward and ancient nomadic pastoralism, is less conflictual, more sustainable and better aligned with twenty-first-century development processes.13 In addition, since the majority of the Karamajong population have been dependent on food support from NGOs and the State, it is assumed that settled agriculture would reduce the food distribution burden on the government and promote self-reliance (believed to be more of a “durable solution” than dependence on food rations) amongst the Karamojong. However, the local people have continued with their nomadic and pastoral practices, defying the government’s attempts to “put them in place”.14 The creation of camp-like conditions for both refugees and IDPs illustrates the sedentary policies and restrictive actions of the Ugandan State in its past. However, from the mid-2000s onwards, the Uganda government significantly relaxed both IDP- and refugee regimes. In 2005 the Government of Uganda launched its National Policy on Internally Displaced Persons, which was the first of its kind globally.15 The policy focused mainly on IDPs living in camps,

Sarah Dryden-Peterson and Lucy Hovil, “Local integration as a durable solution: Refugees, host populations and education in Uganda” (Switzerland, 2003), https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​research/​working/​ 3f8189ec4/​local​-integration​-durable​-solution​-refugees​-host​-populations​-education​.html. 10 Chris Dolan, Social Torture: The Case of Northern Uganda, 1986–2006 (Berghahn Books, 2009). 11 Chris Dolan and Lucy Hovil, “Humanitarian Protection in Uganda: A Trojan Horse?”, December (2006). 12 Mark O’Keefe, “Chronic crises in the arc of insecurity: A case study of Karamoja”, Third World Quarterly 31, no. 8 (2011): 1271–95. 13 Frank Muhereza, “Pastoralist and livestock development in Karamoja, Uganda: A rapid review of African regional policy and programming initiatives” (Kampala, Uganda, 2017). 14 Brun, C. “Putting people back into place” (Chapter 35 in this volume). 15 Lucy Hovil and Chrispus Okello, Only Peace Can Restore the Confidence of the Displaced. Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (Geneva, Switzerland, 2006). 9

366  Handbook on forced migration neglecting the large number of IDPs who make their way to urban centres.16 The IDP policy did, however, explicitly state the rights of IDPs in receiving protection and humanitarian assistance from national and district authorities and thus reasserted their right to freedom of movement in the country.17 Similarly, the government passed a Refugees Act in 2006, replacing the much-criticized Control of Alien Refugees Act from 1960. While the Control of Alien Refugees Act instituted stringent conditions for refugees including the requirement to obtain permits to stay in the country, restricted rights to movement, and permitted arrest and detention of refugees,18 the 2006 Refugees Act upheld refugee rights and provided more freedoms for refugees. The new Act has been described as a progressive policy that, unlike the previous Act, meets international protection standards. It is hospitable towards asylum seekers and allows for integration of refugees within host communities, giving them the same rights to enjoy services as nationals. As part of the Act, refugees have relative freedom of movement, the right to own property and the right to work. Refugees are also allowed to form non-political and non-profit-making associations and have access to courts of law including legal assistance under the applicable laws of Uganda. Lastly, under the policy, each refugee family is to receive a piece of land for settlement and farming to promote self-reliance.19 Given these developments, Uganda is now regarded as unique in the region in its refugee response and has, as mentioned in the introduction, even been hailed as a “refugee paradise” by some.20,21 In conjunction with the more open policies, Uganda has been the testing ground for a number of other international and national strategies addressing short- and long-term displacement. Most recently, Uganda was one of the first countries to pilot the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework that informed the Global Compact on Refugees affirmed by all UN member states in 2018.22 The CRRF marks a move towards recognizing the protracted nature of displacement in the region and the need to promote self-reliance amongst refugees and their hosts as part of national development frameworks. In Uganda, the framework builds on the national Self Reliance Strategy (SRS) introduced in 1999, which emphasized integrated assistance to both refugees and hosts under the overall objective of building refugee self-sufficiency. However, as Hovil23 argues, self-reliance remained a myth under the SRS as

16 Refugee Law Project, “A drop in the ocean: Assistance and protection for forced migrants in Kampala” (Kampala, Uganda, 2005), https://​www​.refugeelawproject​.org/​files/​working​_papers/​RLP​ .WP16​.pdf. 17 Government of Uganda, “The National Policy for Internally Displaced Persons. Kampala: Uganda” (Kampala, Uganda, 2004), https://​reliefweb​.int/​report/​uganda/​national​-policy​-internally​ -displaced​-persons​-august​-2004. 18 Government of Uganda, “Uganda: Control of Alien Refugees Act”, Cap. 64 of 1960 (1960), https://​www​.refworld​.org/​cgi​-bin/​texis/​vtx/​rwmain/​opendocpdf​.pdf​?reldoc​=​y​&​docid​=​544e48d84. 19 Government of Uganda, “The Refugees Act 2006”, Act 21 (2006), http://​www​.judiciary​.go​.ug/​ files/​downloads/​Act No. 21of 2006 Refugees Act2006.pdf. 20 Julie Schiltz and Kristof Titeca, “Is Uganda really a ‘refugee paradise’? The grim reality behind the euphoric coverage of Uganda’s ‘exemplary’ refugee policy”, Aljazeera, 29 July 2017, https://​www​ .aljazeera​.com/​opinions/​2017/​7/​29/​is​-uganda​-really​-a​-refugee​-paradise. 21 Yusuf Serunkuma, “Notes on Uganda’s ‘refugee paradise’”, Kujenga Amani, 17 July 2019, https://​ kujenga​-amani​.ssrc​.org/​2019/​07/​17/​notes​-on​-ugandas​-refugee​-paradise/​. 22 UNHCR, “Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework”, 2020. 23 Lucy Hovil, “Free to go, free to stay? Movement, seclusion and integration of refugees in Moyo District” (Kampala, Uganda, 2002), https://​137​.63​.185​.66/​files/​working​_papers/​RLP​.WP04​.pdf.

Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda  367 it was supposed to be attained within the confines of the refugee settlement structure. As such, the CRRF has more potential than the SRS for promoting self-reliance amongst refugees and hosts, as it is with the 2006 Refugees Act implemented together with a lift in restrictions on refugee movement.

SEEKING REFUGE IN UGANDA: WHAT DOES SELF-RELIANCE MEAN FOR THE DISPLACED COMMUNITY THEMSELVES? Self-reliance, similar to the durable solutions, either directly or indirectly aims to develop and strengthen the socio-economic capacities of refugees to meet their short and long-term food, nutrition, housing and other needs independently.24 In their study considering what difference Uganda’s self-reliance model makes compared to that of Kenya – which has more restrictive refugee policies – Betts et al.25 show that refugees in Uganda enjoy greater mobility and higher income than refugees in neighbouring Kenya. The refugees in Uganda also face lower transaction costs for economic activities and enjoy possibly more sustainable sources of employment. At the same time, refugee employment levels are quite low in Uganda in comparison with refugees in Kenya as well as with Ugandan nationals. In addition, there is limited access to education opportunities for refugees in Uganda compared to those in Kenya. Agricultural livelihood strategies form a substantial part of Uganda’s self-reliance model. Ugandan refugees are sometimes allocated land for farming. However, the viability of Uganda’s current land allocation practices in promoting self-reliance is questionable.26,27,28 First, land resources are scarce and not all refugees have access to them. At Nakivale settlement, 80 per cent of the Congolese households that arrived before 2012 have access to land compared with just 17 per cent of those that arrived after 2012.29 Second, having access to a small parcel of land (50×50 in some settlements and 30×30 in others) without other agricultural inputs such as improved seed varieties, farming equipment, and fertilizer does not guarantee food security. Agriculture is heavily compromised in periods characterized by unreliable and changing climate, and many refugee populations lack the ability to cope with and adapt

UNHCR, “Handbook for Self-Reliance” (Geneva, Switzerland, 2005), https://​www​.refworld​.org/​ docid/​4a54bbf40​.html. 25 Alexander Betts, I. Chaara, N. Omata and O. Sterck (2019). Refugee Economies in Uganda: What Difference does the Self-reliance Model Make? (Oxford: University of Oxford, 2019). 26 Kelly Clements, Timothy Shoffner and Leah Zamore, “Uganda’s approach to refugee self-reliance”, Forced Migration Review 52, no. 49 (2014). 27 Frank Ahimbisibwe, “The self reliance strategy and refugee livelihoods: Evidence from Oruchinga Refugee Settlement, South Western Uganda”, International Research Journal of Social Sciences 4, no. 5 (2014), http://​ir​.must​.ac​.ug/​handle/​123456789/​1651. 28 Tania Kaiser, “Sudanese refugees in Uganda and Kenya”, in Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications, ed. Gil Loescher, Milner Milner and Edward Newman (UNU Press, 2008), 248–76; Tania Kaiser, “UNHCR’s withdrawal from Kiryandongo: Anatomy of a handover”, 2000, https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​research/​working/​3ae6a0ca0/​unhcrs​-withdrawal​ -kiryandongo​-anatomy​-handover​-tania​-kaiser​.html; Tania Kaiser, “‘Moving up and down looking for money’: Making a living in a Ugandan refugee camp”, in Livelihoods at the Margins: Surviving the City, ed. James Staples (West Coast Press, 2007), 302–20. 29 Betts et al., Refugee Economies in Uganda: What Difference does the Self-reliance Model Make? 24

368  Handbook on forced migration to these climatic changes as well.30 Third, agricultural skills are also unevenly distributed. Therefore, the possibilities for agricultural self-reliance vary within and across refugee groups depending on their skill sets, resource inputs, and access to networks. In Nakivale refugee settlement, for example, Congolese households commonly take up agricultural activities, while Somalis tend to refrain from doing so.31 Somali refugees instead engage in commercial activities. The possibilities for making use of the opportunities presented by the self-reliance model therefore vary across and within refugee populations. The same goes for IDP groups whose skill sets and networks are unevenly distributed. As of 2021, there were 31 refugee settlement centres in Uganda distributed over 11 districts.32 In the centres the refugees live together with host communities and have the same access to health, educational and legal systems as Ugandan nationals. According to the Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC), this side-by-side treatment of host communities and displaced people has caused social and economic tension in the district as the population growth has strained local resources such as water, trees, housing, energy, schools, health facilities, and police services.33,34 In 2018, the EU Ambassador to Uganda noted that it was only a matter of time before the competition for scarce resources caused more violence to spill into the refugee settlements.35 To prevent conflict in the settlements, the Government of Uganda has developed a Refugee and Host Population Empowerment (ReHoPE) strategic framework to bring together a wide range of stakeholders in area-based programming. ReHoPE is a key component in the implementation of the CRRF. It aims to strengthen the resilience and self-reliance of both hosts and refugees in line with national development planning. The results of the programme have, however, been limited as the needs continue to outweigh the resources available.36 Given the high population growth in Uganda (from 34 million in 2014 to 47 million in 2021) and that land is more or less a fixed resource, it is difficult to see how the Ugandan State sustains land allocation to refugees. According to Ahaibwe and Ntale,37 land size per refugee household has in some areas already been reduced to accommodate new arrivals and manage the lack of new land to settle them on. Food insecurity remains a thorny issue as refugees queue up for hours at distribution points. Some of the food distribution points are far away and so some refugees have to walk up to 10 kilometres to pick up their rations. This has led to

Tania Kaiser, “UNHCR’s withdrawal from Kiryandongo: Anatomy of a handover”. Betts et al., Refugee Economies in Uganda: What Difference does the Self-reliance Model Make? 32 UNHCR, “Refugees and asylum-seekers in Uganda: Uganda refugee response” (Kampala, Uganda, 2021a). 33 Relief Web, “Refugees multiply Uganda woes”, 2018. 34 Refugee Law Project, “South-Sudan Crisis: Impact on Northern Uganda: A rapid assessment report, January 2014”, January 2014. https://​www​.refugeelawproject​.org/​files/​ACCS​_activity​_briefs/​14​ _01​_24​_Rapid​_Assessment​_Brief​_Impact​_of​_South​_Sudan​_Crisis​_in​_Uganda​.pdf. 35 Frank Ahimbisibwe, Bert Ingelaere and Sarah Vancluysen, 2019, “Rwandan refugees and the cessation clause: The possibilities for local integration in Uganda”, in Conjonctures de l’Afrique Centrale. Eca-Creac.Eu, accessed 31 August 2022 at: https://​www​.eca​-creac​.eu/​sites/​default/​files/​ pdf/​2019​_​-​_16​_​-​_f​.​_ahimbisibwe​_b​.​_ingelaere​_s​.​_vancluysen​_​-​_rwandan​_refugees​_and​_the​_cessation​ _clause​_the​_possibilities​_for​_local​_integration​_in​_uganda​.pdf. 36 UHRC, Uganda Human Rights Commission: The 21st Annual Report 2018 (Kampala, Uganda, 2019). 37 Geema Ahaibwe and Anita Ntale, “Uganda: Can Uganda afford more South Sudan refugees?”, Allafrica.Com, 2018, https://​allafrica​.com/​stories/​201801260140​.html. 30 31

Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda  369 frustrations amongst refugees, with the outcome being violence meted on staff of humanitarian organizations.38 Some refugees can opt for monthly cash payments of UGX 31 000 (about 8 USD), but the UHRC holds that the money is not sufficient to cover basic needs and the sum is progressively being reduced. Moreover, as noted by the UHRC, quite a few asylum seekers also settle in the settlements without being registered by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM),39 meaning they cannot access these food and non-food items. Instead, they share food rations with family members or others who are registered, which means that food portions become inadequate. Without registration, they are not recognized as refugees and are treated as illegal immigrants by Ugandan officials, such as the police. While the majority of the displaced people are in reception, resettlement, and settlement centres, there is a growing tendency for displaced people to move to urban centres to search for employment and better services. This has always been the case in Uganda where about 81 000 refugees live in the capital Kampala alone.40 In the past, city authorities and the government were hostile towards both urban refugees and IDPs.41,42 Yet, refugees are protected under the 2006 Act and given identification cards and letters outlining their right to stay in urban areas and work in both the formal and informal sector. Refugees and IDPs are, however, ineligible for humanitarian assistance if they settle in urban areas as they are expected to meet their own costs. Sometimes refugees keep their registration in the original settlement so they can return to the settlements for food distribution.43 An unknown number of asylum seekers and refugees also live in urban areas without any refugee identification documents. Arua municipality, for example, estimates that self-settled refugees make up 24 per cent of its total population. These refugees are not registered by municipal authorities and are not included in the census.44 Similarly, IDPs from the conflict in Northern Uganda who reside in urban centres were not registered in any way or considered de facto IDPs under the National IDP policy. Consequently, they could not access assistance and were not included in the return and resettlement frameworks developed by the Ugandan government towards the end of the conflict.45

UNHCR, “Uganda – Refugee Statistics April 2019 – Nakivale”, 2019, https://​reliefweb​.int/​sites/​ reliefweb​.int/​files/​resources/​69449​.pdf. 39 UNHCR Press Release, “UNHCR – Ugandan Government and UNHCR Announce Verification and Profiling of Asylum Seekers and Refugees”, 21 October 2021, https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​africa/​news/​ news​-releases/​ugandan​-government​-and​-unhcr​-announce​-verification​-and​-profiling​-asylum​-seekers. 40 World Food Programme, “Denmark contributes US$1 million to cash relief for refugees in Kampala. World Food Programme”, World Food Programme, 10 July 2020, https://​www​.wfp​.org/​news/​ denmark​-contributes​-us1​-million​-cash​-relief​-refugees​-kampala. 41 Refugee Law Project, “‘A drop in the ocean’: Assistance and protection for forced migrants in Kampala”. 42 H. Refstie and C. Brun, “Towards transformative participation: Collaborative research with ‘urban IDPs’ in Uganda”, Journal of Refugee Studies 25, no. 2 (2012): 239–56. 43 UHRC, Uganda Human Rights Commission: The 21st Annual Report 2018. 44 Cities Allience, “Arua: Strengthening mechanisms for receiving, managing and integrating involuntary migrants within the municipal council”, 2019. 45 H. Refstie et al., “Urban IDPs in Uganda: Victims of institutional convenience”, Forced Migration Review no. 34 (2010): 32–4. 38

370  Handbook on forced migration Many self-settled refugees and IDPs are integrated into their host community, pay taxes, contribute to the local economy, and even run in local council elections.46 Others live on the margins, struggling to eke out an existence. Life in the city can particularly be uncertain, unpredictable, and costly. At the same time, urban areas provide opportunities for employment, trade, and education, and thus self-reliance. Cities also provide a form of protection for displaced people who for various reasons seek a more anonymous existence outside of refugee and IDP frameworks.47 Cities thus attract registered and unregistered displaced people who act as “refugee entrepreneurs”, deploying their skills, agency, and creativity to make a living and transform their socio-economic status in refugee settings.48 One example that Hovil49 and Kaiser50 highlight is how Sudanese refugees in Uganda make their own “durable solution” through a combination of economic and social integration within the Ugandan population and ongoing movement in and out of Sudan. Other examples are how Ugandan nationals and Burundian and Congolese refugees join forces to establish small start-up businesses related to the skill-sets that the refugees have brought with them such as hairdressing, tailoring, and cloth making (Interview NGO working with refugees and hosts in Kampala, February 2021). While these efforts are often limited to livelihood advancements and community building, better-off refugees sometimes use their economic status, social relations and networks to access more formalized rights such as land ownership and even in some cases Ugandan national ID documents (Interview South-Sudanese refugee, February 2021). Self-reliance can thus be achieved both within and outside of formal refugee and IDP frameworks.

SELF-RELIANCE AS A DURABLE SOLUTION OR A CONVENIENT “SOLUTIONS LITE”? At the heart of refugee and displacement politics are considerations of how the moral obligation of receiving and protecting refugees weighs against national interests and political capital.51 While some sections of Ugandan society regard refugees as a burden to the economy and criticize open border policies, there are multiple positive linkages emanating from the “refugee

46 L. Hovil, “Free to go, free to stay? Movement, seclusion and integration of refugees in Moyo District”. 47 H. Refstie and C. Brun, “Towards transformative participation: Collaborative research with ‘urban IDPs’ in Uganda”. 48 L. Turner, “‘#Refugees can be entrepreneurs too!’ Humanitarianism, race, and the marketing of Syrian refugees”, Review of International Studies 46, no. 1 (2020): 137–55. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1017/​ S0260210519000342. 49 Lucy Hovil, “Hoping for peace, afraid of war: The dilemmas of repatriation and belonging on the borders of Uganda and South Sudan” (Geneva, Switzerland, 2010). 50 Tania Kaiser, “Dispersal, division and diversification: Durable solutions and Sudanese refugees in Uganda”, Journal of Eastern African Studies 4, no. 1 (2010): 44–60, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​ 17531050903550116. 51 Alexander Betts, The Wealth of Refugees: How Displaced People Can Build Economies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021b).

Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda  371 industry”.52,53 In their study on “refugee economies” in two rural refugee settlements (Nakivale and Kyangwali) and one urban area (Kampala), Betts et al.54 show how refugees contribute to social and economic transformation in Uganda through engagement in production, exchange, entrepreneurship, the development of financial and capital markets, and consumption of food and non-food items. Uganda remains a hotspot for NGOs and international aid cooperation as it continues to host large financial flows, a humanitarian job market, and material supply contracts connected to the country’s reception of refugees as well as management of IDPs. This has contributed to labelling Uganda as having an “aid” and “refugee industry” that benefits the country, and specifically the ruling political party, the National Resistance Movement (NRM).55 The continued reception of refugees has helped the Ugandan Government to attract external financial, material and political support as well as foreign exchange.56 Some critics also argue that the State and its extensions – both directly and indirectly – profiteer from the “refugee industry” through back-door deals, material supply contracts, and corruption, leading to a commodification of migrants.57 In addition to being part of the broader strategy of engaging with the international community, Uganda’s open-door policy has been key in boosting its reputation internationally.58 The refugee industry is seen as “providing leverage to push back on international scrutiny of wider domestic concerns” particularly the country’s bad governance record and human rights violations.59 The open border policy and focus on self-reliance in Uganda can thus be said to represent a strategy that suits international donor agencies facing domestic pressure to “help refugees where they are” instead of opening up their own borders. At the same time, Ugandan authorities gain international goodwill and resources that feed into the general economy. In fact, some scholars argue that it is exactly the convergence of political economic interest between domestic and international actors that has made the open border policy and self-reliance model in Uganda possible.60 Speaking to the political realism of refugee management, this may present the only “sustainable” solution for politicians and other decision makers: National host governments need to be able to credibly argue that hosting refugees brings benefits that are in the national interest. And the wider world of donor governments needs to derive benefits that 52 Dany Bahar, “Why accepting refugees is a win–win–win formula”. Brookings Up Front, 2018, June, https://​www​.brookings​.edu/​blog/​up​-front/​2018/​06/​19/​refugees​-are​-a​-win​-win​-win​-formula​-for​ -economic​-development/​. 53 Franklin Draku, “Onek to UN: Buy food here or shift refugees”, Daily Monitor, 22 April, 2021. 54 Alexander Betts et al., Refugee Economies: Rethinking Popular Assumptions (Oxford, 2014). 55 Linda Givetash, “How have refugees boosted Uganda’s economy? ”, World Economic Forum, 17 November 2015, https://​www​.weforum​.org/​agenda/​2015/​11/​how​-have​-refugees​-boosted​-ugandas​ -economy/​. 56 Karen Hargrave, Irina Mosel and Amy Leach, “Public narratives and attitudes towards refugees and other migrants: Uganda country profile”, 2020, https://​cdn​.odi​.org/​media/​documents/​uganda​ _migration​_country​_profile​_final​.pdf. 57 Y. Serunkuma, “Notes on Uganda’s ‘refugee paradise’”. 58 Lucy Hovil, Uganda’s Refugee Policies: The History, the Politics, the Way Forward, IRRI Rights in Exile Series, 2018, http://​refugee​-rights​.org/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2018/​10/​IRRI​-Uganda​-policy​-paper​ -October​-2018​-Paper​.pdf. 59 K. Hargrave et al., “Public narratives and attitudes towards refugees and other migrants: Uganda country profile”. 60 Alexander Betts, The Wealth of Refugees: How Displaced People Can Build Economies, 2021b.

372  Handbook on forced migration justify the allocation of scarce national resources towards supporting host countries in other parts of the world.61

Enhanced freedom of movement and extension of rights have led to improvements in the wellbeing and welfare of refugees in Uganda. It might also be that self-reliance is the only solution currently acceptable to international and national decision makers. At the same time, there are some real dilemmas in accepting self-reliance as the end station for discussions on durable solutions. Self-reliance forms an important part of the durable solution of local integration. However, the Ugandan constitution does not provide formal citizenship for refugees, refugee children, or even grandchildren, who can neither repatriate nor settle in a third country.62 The inability to become “permanent residents” or citizens in the short and long-term keeps refugees in limbo and makes them de facto stateless citizens. There is also no clear timeline and definition of “when displacement ends” for IDPs and refugees who are often on the move. Also unclear is what constitutes local integration for those who are not able or willing to return to their areas of origin, or do not have a fixed place to return to.63 While self-reliance and resilience might hypothetically be in reach for displaced people, de jure local integration is not. Many displaced people get by both within and outside of formal assistance frameworks in Uganda, but the differentiated citizenship for refugees and some groups of IDPs impact on how they can imagine and plan their futures. In her study of Nakivale Refugee Settlement, Ilcan64 shows how refugee education aims to construct enterprising neoliberal subjects that are self-sufficient, productive, and responsible for finding their own solutions. Together with Rygiel,65 she argues that this form of “resiliency humanitarianism” produces subjects who do not look to the state to secure their wellbeing because they have been disciplined into believing the necessity to secure it for themselves. The “entrepreneurial approach”66 inherent in such models of self-reliance works to constrain active exertions of citizenship that aims to address social, legal, and political injustice for refugees, including appeals for regularization, the right to remain, and the possibility to “raise a voice for change”.67 Most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent restrictions instituted by the Ugandan government have not only compromised, but also exposed, the ambivalence that lies

Alexander Betts, The Wealth of Refugees: How Displaced People Can Build Economies, 2021b. Alexandre Marc, “Conflict and violence in the 21st century: Current trends as observed in empirical research and statistics” (Washington DC, 2016). 63 Marjoke A. Oosterom, “Internal displacement, the camp and the construction of citizenship: Perspectives from Northern Uganda”, Journal of Refugee Studies 29, no. 3 (2016): 363–87, https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1093/​jrs/​few010. 64 Suzan Ilcan, “The humanitarian–citizenship nexus: The politics of citizenship training in self-reliance strategies for refugees”. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 100, no. 2 (2018): 97–111, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1080/​04353684​.2018​.1453754. 65 Suzan Ilcan and Kim Rygiel, “‘Resiliency Humanitarianism’: Responsibilizing refugees through humanitarian emergency governance in the camp”, International Political Sociology 9, no. 4 (2015): 333–51, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​ips​.12101. 66 L. Turner 2020, “‘#Refugees can be entrepreneurs too!’ Humanitarianism, race, and the marketing of Syrian refugees”. 67 Suzan Ilcan, “The humanitarian–citizenship nexus: The politics of citizenship training in self-reliance strategies for refugees”. 61 62

Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda  373 in the “non-citizenship” of refugees.68 The surge in the pandemic resulted in the placing of all refugee settlements under total lockdown, with a complete ban on new arrivals and movement of refugees within and outside the settlements.69 The refugees who relied on petty trade and other livelihood activities within and around the settlements were severely impacted by these restrictions. For many households, the restrictions accentuated hunger and food insecurity, with close to 90 000 refugees facing extreme hunger, and another 400 000 hit by acute food crisis and on the brink of starvation.70 The measures put in place by the Government of Uganda for the COVID-19 pandemic made visible the differentiated citizenship allocated to refugees and accentuated their uncertain position in Ugandan society. This exemplifies how millions of refugees and IDPs in Uganda continue to live, within improved but uncertain circumstances, under self-reliance schemes in a state of “permanent impermanence”.71,72 Dryden-Peterson and Hovil’s73 observation therefore still stands: that in Uganda “often the mere structural integration of services is seen as a substitute for the more complex process of local integration”.74

CONCLUSION What can the Ugandan case teach us? There is much to gain from extending rights to displaced people in terms of facilitating self-reliance and wellbeing. At the same time, it is not clear how self-reliant displaced people actually are in existing schemes, or whether the model in Uganda is sustainable in the long run. Moreover, self-reliance is not the same as local integration. As long as refugees do not have access to formal citizenship rights, continue to receive differentiated treatment during national crises, and/or lack a sense of belonging to their communities, the self-reliance strategy in Uganda represents more of what Brun and Fábos75 describe as a political and economic “solutions lite” than a durable solution for refugees. The same goes for IDPs who face restrictions on their freedom of movement or are prevented from pursuing pastoralist lifestyles.

Suzan Ilcan, “The humanitarian–citizenship nexus: The politics of citizenship training in self-reliance strategies for refugees”. 69 Halima Athumani, “Uganda refugee camp locked down after Coronavirus surge”, Voanews, 1 September 2020, https://​www​.voanews​.com/​a/​africa​_uganda​-refugee​-camp​-locked​-down​-after​ -coronavirus​-surge/​6195276​.html. 70 Samuel Okiror, “Aid cuts and Covid force Uganda refugees to brink of starvation”, The Guardian, 9 October 2020. 71 Adrian J. Bailey et al., “(Re)producing Salvadoran transnational geographies”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92, no. 1 (2002): 125–44, https://​doi​.org/​10​.1111/​1467–8306​ .00283. 72 Julie Schiltz et al., “Resilient and self-reliant life: South Sudanese refugees imagining futures in the Adjumani refugee setting, Uganda”, Children and Society 33, no. 1 (2019): 39–52, https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1111/​chso​.12304. 73 S. Dryden-Peterson and L. Hovil, “Local integration as a durable solution: Refugees, host populations and education in Uganda”. 74 S. Dryden-Peterson and L. Hovil, “Local integration as a durable solution: Refugees, host populations and education in Uganda”. 75 Cathrine Brun and Anita H. Fábos, “Mobilizing home for long-term displacement: A critical reflection on the durable solutions”. Journal of Human Rights 9, no. 2 (2017): 177–83. 68

374  Handbook on forced migration Self-reliance models are often presented as providing a win–win solution that supports the economic agency of displaced people and reduces the financial burden of hosting long-term displaced populations. However, in “resiliency humanitarianism”, displaced populations risk becoming second-class non-citizens valued for their ability to make it by themselves, more to reduce the obligations of the State and humanitarian actors than to secure their own wellbeing.76 Self-reliance, while possibly representing a political economic sustainable solution for donors and host governments, should therefore “not be overly romanticised as a panacea for the refugee crisis”.77

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahaibwe, G. and Ntale, A. (2018). “Uganda: Can Uganda afford more South Sudan refugees?” Allafrica. com. Ahimbisibwe, F. (2014). “The self reliance strategy and refugee livelihoods: Evidence from Oruchinga Refugee Settlement, South Western Uganda”. International Research Journal of Social Sciences 4, no. 5: 59–65. Ahimbisibwe, F., Ingelaere, B. and Vancluysen, S. (2019). “Rwandan refugees and the cessation clause: The possibilities for local integration in Uganda”. In Geenen, S., Bisoka, A.N. and Alidou, S. (eds) Conjonctures de l’Afrique Centrale, Chapter 16. Athumani, H. (2020). “Uganda refugee camp locked down after Coronavirus surge”. Voanews 1 September. Bahar, D. (2018). “Why accepting refugees is a win-win-win formula”. Brookings Up Front. Bailey, A.J., Wright, R.A., Mountz, A. and Miyares, I.M. (2002). “(Re)producing Salvadoran transnational geographies”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92, no. 1: 125–44. Betts, A. (2021a). “Refugees and patronage: A political history of Uganda’s ‘progressive’ refugee policies”. African Affairs, 120, no. 479: 243–76. Betts, A. (2021b). The Wealth of Refugees: How Displaced People Can Build Economies. New York: Oxford University Press. Betts, A., Bloom, L., Kaplan, J. and Omata, N. (2014). Refugee Economies: Rethinking Popular Assumptions. Humanitarian Innovation Project, Oxford: University of Oxford. Betts, A., Chaara, I., Omata, N. and Sterck, O. (2019). Refugee Economies in Uganda: What Difference does the Self-reliance Model Make? Oxford: University of Oxford. Brun, C. and Fábos, A.H. (2017). “Mobilizing home for long-term displacement: A critical reflection on the durable solutions”. Journal of Human Rights Practice 9, no. 2: 177–83. Cities Alliance (2020). Arua: Strengthening Mechanisms for Receiving, Managing and Integrating Involuntary Migrants Within the Municipal Council. Clements, K.T., Shoffner, T. and Zamore, L. (2016). “Uganda’s approach to refugee self-reliance”. Forced Migration Review no. 52: 49. Crisp, J. (2003). “No solutions in sight: The problem of protracted refugee situations in Africa”. New Issues in Refugee Research Working Paper. Geneva: UNHCR. Dolan, C. (2009). Social Torture: The Case of Northern Uganda, 1986–2006. Berghahn Books. Dolan, C. and Hovil, L. (2006). Humanitarian Protection In Uganda: A Trojan Horse? ODI Working Paper, Humanitarian Policy Group. Draku, F. (2021). “Onek to UN: Buy food here or shift refugees”. Daily Monitor.

S. Ilcan and K. Rygiel, “‘Resiliency humanitarianism’: Responsibilizing refugees through humanitarian emergency governance in the camp”. 77 E. Easton-Calabria and N. Omata 2018, “Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees”, Third World Quarterly 39, no. 8 (3 August 2018): 1458–74, https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1080/​01436597​.2018​.1458301. 76

Self-reliance and refugee economics in Uganda  375 Dryden-Peterson, S. and Hovil, L. (2003). “Local integration as a durable solution: Refugees, host populations and education in Uganda”. Working Paper no. 93. Refugee Law Project. Easton-Calabria, E. and Omata, N. (2018). “Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees”. Third World Quarterly 39, no. 8: 1458–74. Givetash, L. (2015). “How have refugees boosted Uganda’s economy?” World Economic Forum. 17 November, 2015. https://​www​.weforum​.org/​agenda/​2015/​11/​how​-have​-refugees​-boosted​-ugandas​ -economy/​. Government of Uganda (1960). “Uganda: Control of Alien Refugees Act”, Cap. 64 of 1960. https://​www​ .refworld​.org/​cgi​-bin/​texis/​vtx/​rwmain/​opendocpdf​.pdf​?reldoc​=​y​&​docid​=​544e48d84. Government of Uganda (August 2004). “The National Policy for Internally Displaced Persons”. Kampala: Uganda. Government of Uganda (2006). “The Refugees Act 2006”. Kampala: Government of Uganda. Hargrave, K., Mosel, I. and Leach, A. (2020). “Public narratives and attitudes towards refugees and other migrants: Uganda country profile”. ODI. Hovil, L. (2002). “Free to go, free to stay? Movement, seclusion and integration of refugees in Moyo District”. Refugee Law Project Working Paper no. 4. Hovil, L. (2010). “Hoping for peace, afraid of war: The dilemmas of repatriation and belonging on the borders of Uganda and South Sudan.” New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR Working Paper. 196. Geneva: UNHCR. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​4cf5018b1​.pdf. Hovil, L. (2018). Uganda’s Refugee Policies: The History, the Politics, the Way Forward. IRRI Rights in Exile series. Hovil, L. and Okello, M. (2006). Only Peace Can Restore the Confidence of the Displaced. Geneva: Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. Ilcan, S. (2018). “The humanitarian–citizenship nexus: The politics of citizenship training in self-reliance strategies for refugees”. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 100, no. 2: 97–111. Ilcan, S. and Rygiel, K. (2015). “‘Resiliency humanitarianism’: Responsibilizing refugees through humanitarian emergency governance in the camp”. International Political Sociology 9, no. 4: 333–51. Kaiser, T. (2000). “UNHCR’s withdrawal from Kiryandongo: Anatomy of a handover”. New Issues in Refugee Research, UNHCR Working Paper 32. UNHCR. Kaiser, T. (2007). “Moving up and down looking for money: Making a living in a Ugandan refugee camp.” In Staples, J. (ed.), Livelihoods at the Margins: Surviving the City (pp. 302–20). Walnut Creek, CA: West Coast Press. Kaiser, T. (2008). “Sudanese refugees in Uganda and Kenya.” In Loescher, G., Milner, J., Newman, E. and Troeller, G. (eds) Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications (pp. 248–76). Tokyo, Japan and New York, USA: UNU Press. Kaiser, T. (2010). “Dispersal, division and diversification: Durable solutions and Sudanese refugees in Uganda”. Journal of Eastern African Studies 4, no. 1: 44–60. Marc, Alexandre (2016). “Conflict and violence in the 21st century: Current trends as observed in empirical research and statistics” (Washington DC). Muhereza, E.F. (2017). Pastoralist and Livestock Development in Karamoja, Uganda: A rapid review of African Regional Policy and Programming Initiatives. Karamoja Resilience Support Unit, USAID/ Uganda, Kampala. Karamoja Resilience Support Unit, USAID/Uganda, Kampala. O’Keefe, M. (2011). “Chronic crises in the arc of insecurity: A case study of Karamoja”. Third World Quarterly 31, no. 9: 1271–95. Okiror, S. (2020). “Aid cuts and Covid force Uganda refugees to brink of starvation”. The Guardian. Oosterom, M.A. (2016). “Internal displacement, the camp and the construction of citizenship: Perspectives from northern Uganda”. Journal of Refugee Studies 29, no. 3: 363–87. Refstie, H. and Brun, C. (2012). “Towards transformative participation: Collaborative research with ‘Urban IDPs’ in Uganda”. Journal of Refugee Studies 25, no. 2: 239–56. Refstie, H., Dolan, C. and Okello, M.C. (2010). “Urban IDPs in Uganda: Victims of institutional convenience”. Forced Migration Review no. 34: 32–4. Refugee Law Project (2005). “‘A drop in the ocean’: Assistance and protection for forced migrants in Kampala”. Refugee Law Project Working Paper No. 16. Refugee Law Project (2007). “What about us? The exclusion of urban IDPs from Uganda’s IDP related policies and interventions”. Briefing Paper December 2007.

376  Handbook on forced migration Refugee Law Project (2014). “South-Sudan Crisis: Impact on Northern Uganda”. January. https://​www​ .refugeelawproject​.org/​files/​ACCS​_activity​_briefs/​14​_01​_24​_Rapid​_Assessment​_Brief​_Impact​_of​ _South​_Sudan​_Crisis​_in​_Uganda​.pdf. Relief Web (2018). Refugees Multiply Uganda Woes. Safari, Jean P. (2022). “Rwanda – Uganda’s bilateral relations: Do refugees contribute?” World Mediation Organization. https://​worldmediation​.org/​rwanda​-ugandas​-bilateral​-relations​-do​-refugees​ -contribute/​. Schiltz, J. and Titeca, K. (2017). “Is Uganda really a ‘refugee paradise’? The grim reality behind the euphoric coverage of Uganda’s ‘exemplary’ refugee policy”. Aljazeera Opinions. Schiltz, J., Derluyn, I., Vanderplasschen, W. and Vindevogel, S. (2019). “Resilient and self‐reliant life: South Sudanese refugees imagining futures in the Adjumani refugee setting, Uganda”. Children & Society 33, no. 1: 39–52. Serunkuma, Y. (2019). “Notes on Uganda’s ‘Refugee Paradise’”. Kujenga Amani. Turner, L. (2020). “‘#Refugees can be entrepreneurs too!’ Humanitarianism, race, and the marketing of Syrian refugees”. Review of International Studies 46, no. 1: 137–55. UHRC (2019). Uganda Human Rights Commission: The 21st Annual Report 2018. Kampala: Government of Uganda. UNHCR (2006). Handbook for Self-Reliance. Geneva UNHCR. UNHCR (2019). “Uganda – Refugee Statistics April 2019 – Nakivale”, https://​ reliefweb​ .int/​ sites/​ reliefweb​.int/​files/​resources/​69449​.pdf. UNHCR (2020). Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework. UNHCR (March 2021a). “Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Uganda: Uganda Refugee Response”. UNHCR (March 2021b). “Uganda: An Overview of how the Global Compact on Refugees is being Turned into Action in Uganda”. UNHCR (April 2021c). “Uganda Comprehensive Refugee Response Portal”. UNHCR (April 2021d). “Uganda: Funding Update/2021”. UNHCR Press Release (2021). “UNHCR – Ugandan Government and UNHCR Announce Verification and Profiling of Asylum Seekers and Refugees”, 21 October, https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​africa/​news/​ news​-releases/​ugandan​-government​-and​-unhcr​-announce​-verification​-and​-profiling​-asylum​-seekers. Walker, S.G. (2008). “From refugee to citizen? Obstacles to the naturalisation of refugees in Uganda”, August 2008: 1–15. https://​www​.refugeelawproject​.org/​files/​briefing​_papers/​Naturalisation​_Of​ _Refugees​.pdf. World Bank (2016). An Assessment of Uganda’s Progressive Approach to Refugee Management. New York: World Bank. World Food Programme (2020). “Denmark contributes US$1 million to cash relief for refugees in Kampala”. World Food Programme. https://​www​.wfp​.org/​news/​denmark​-contributes​-us1​-million​ -cash​-relief​-refugees​-kampala.

38. Displacement limbo: Durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine Sean Loughna with Olga Ivanova and Julia Kharasvili1

INTRODUCTION Territorial disputes, ethnic tensions and separatist struggles have resulted in the protracted displacement of millions of people across several countries of the former Soviet Union subsequent to its demise. Since gaining independence, both Georgia and Ukraine have endured armed conflicts that are rooted in historical, regional divisions and separatist sentiments, which have been exploited and manipulated by the Russian Federation for its own strategic objectives in the region. There are similarities in how Georgia and Ukraine have been affected by displacement. These include how particular groups of the displaced, notably older people, have been disproportionately affected; how housing has been critical to achieving durable solutions; and how limited access to civil and political rights, as well as healthcare needs, have raised questions about the treatment of internally displaced people as “full citizens”.2 However, there have also been significant differences. These include differing attitudes toward return versus local integration among displaced populations, and distinct government policies surrounding displaced people and durable solutions. In this chapter, we argue that many of these impacts and responses – from governmental authorities in particular – present obstacles to achieving solutions to displacement that are durable. Therefore, alternative approaches are required. This chapter briefly outlines the context of displacement in Georgia and Ukraine, which have similarities in their historical roots, dynamics of warfare and the resulting displacement. It then argues that housing is central to achieving a durable solution for most displaced people in both countries, whether they integrate locally or return to their places of origin. Both Georgia and Ukraine represent dilemmas for durable solutions for internally displaced persons (IDPs) across the world. By demonstrating some of the key dilemmas and showing how important the local and national contexts are for understanding the outcome of durable solutions, this chapter highlights how durable solutions are always an interaction between a government’s political interests and the struggle of displaced people for a dignified life.

1 This chapter was written prior to the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation on 24 February 2022. While the scale and dynamics of displacement in Ukraine have altered dramatically as a result of the war, the historical context of durable solutions in the country examined in the chapter remain worthy of discussion. 2 See also, Brun, C., Fábos, A.H. and El Abed, O. 2017. Displaced citizens and abject living: The categorical discomfort with citizens out of place. Norwegian Journal of Geography 71(4): 220–232.

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REGIONAL DISPLACEMENT CONTEXT Protracted displacement has been a challenge in Georgia since 1991 and in Ukraine since 2014, with no comprehensive durable solutions in sight for the affected populations. In both countries, the governments continue to affirm IDPs’ legal right to return to their homes in territories that are illegally occupied and separatist-controlled with the support of the Russian Federation. In this regard, these governments enjoy the support of international legal instruments, most of the international community, and the majority of IDPs themselves. However, the Russian Federation’s military, political, and economic strategy points to a long-term intention to consolidate, and even expand, its influence in the separatist regions. Moreover, there seems to be little prospect of a negotiated settlement between the governments of Georgia and Ukraine and the de facto authorities in their respective separatist regions, and there is widespread recognition in both countries that any large-scale return of IDPs is unlikely anytime soon. Protracted displacement in these regions is thus likely to continue in the medium to long term, which the chapter will argue has led to a move towards “interim” durable solutions that are rooted in local integration. While some IDPs have returned to their homes in both contexts, the chapter will argue that for the majority of displaced people this is not a solution that can be currently regarded as durable. Georgia and Ukraine share challenges stemming from their shared experience of Russian-backed separatism (by way of military, political and economic support), destabilizing cyber warfare, misinformation campaigns, and large-scale internal displacement. These challenges have shaken government institutions and inhibit long-term solutions for IDPs, demonstrating again3 how deeply politicized durable solutions are. The effective expulsion of people living in Russian-occupied territories loyal to the governments in Kyiv and Tbilisi necessitates their protracted displacement from the perspective of the separatists and their backers. For most IDPs, return to their homes in the separatist-controlled regions has not been politically possible or socially acceptable. This has fostered political and social tensions, as well as economic hardship, within both countries. For example, the Government of Georgia has been much more assertive in calling for the right-of-return than has been the case in Ukraine. This is reflected in returns: twice as many IDPs in Georgia claim that their intention is to return to their homes than in Ukraine, even though most Georgian IDPs were displaced over two decades earlier.4 In contrast, return has been possible for many IDPs in Ukraine and large numbers have already taken advantage of their opportunity to return. Those that have returned to their homes in the non-government-controlled (NGCA) areas must register as IDPs with the Government of Ukraine (GoU) and periodically go back to the government-controlled areas (GCA) in order to access payments and services that they are legally entitled to as citizens of Ukraine. This registration requirement also applies to those living in the NGCA who have not been displaced (or are no longer displaced) but wish to access pension payments and services from the GoU, thus creating a category of what we might call “non-displaced IDPs”. While life in the NGCA is more restricted than elsewhere in Ukraine in terms of civil and political rights as well as economic opportunities, many have returned (or never left) because the homes Brun, C. Putting people back into place (Chapter 35, this volume). Bazaluk, O. and Balinchenko, S. 2020. Dynamic coordination of internal displacement: Return and integration cases in Ukraine and Georgia. Sustainability 12: 4123. 3 4

Displacement limbo: Durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine  379 they own and their families are there. While smaller numbers of IDPs have returned to reside semi-permanently in their own homes in non-government-controlled regions of Georgia, this cannot be characterized as a durable solution given their limited legal rights and lack of security in the separatist-controlled regions. Rather than a durable solution, return in both cases represents a means for IDPs to cope better socioeconomically than they would have done by remaining in their location of displacement. There is little prospect of a large-scale return for either population of IDPs in the near future: the Abkhaz authorities (as well as those in South Ossetia) have made clear that large-scale return of Georgians will not be allowed; and most displaced Ukrainians claim that they do not intend to return to live under de facto authority rule, or they have no intention of returning at all.5 In response, both governments (with the support of various international and civil society organizations) have introduced limited policies and programmes to facilitate IDPs’ integration in their place of displacement, or in a resettled location within the territory under government control. In particular, this has included “durable housing solutions”, as well as employment and livelihoods support. Yet there are also significant differences in how the two countries have responded to protracted displacement and prioritized durable solutions based on political pressures. The chapter will argue that while long-term security of tenure (particularly home ownership) is central to achieving a durable solution for IDPs in both countries, factors such as the duration of displacement and the demands of IDPs themselves have forged different approaches from their respective governments. The following subsections dive deeper into the individual IDP landscapes in Georgia and Ukraine. Georgia According to the Government of Georgia (GoG), the country currently hosts some 300 000 IDPs, among a total population of almost 4 million people.6 Conflict-induced displacement in Georgia began in the early 1990s, and coincided with a period of widespread socioeconomic and political crisis that accompanied the fall of the Soviet Union. There have been several phases of displacement in Georgia since 1991. The largest wave of displacement followed the armed conflict in Abkhazia between August 1992 and September 1993. Another escalation in violence in 1998 in Gali led to further displacement, with some people being displaced for a second time. Renewed conflict over South Ossetia occurred in August 2008 in a war between Georgia and the Russian Federation, which led to mass displacement in the Shida Kartli region. While Georgia and the Russian Federation reached an agreement to halt open warfare, this did not include provisions on the return of IDPs and refugees.7,8 However, there have been some international diplomatic efforts to restore the territorial integrity of the separatist regions in Georgia and for the return of the displaced population. Since July 1993, the UN Security Council has adopted 32 Resolutions in support of a peaceful

Ibid. IDMC. 2021. Country Information: Georgia. 7 Kalin, W. 2005. Report of the Representative of the Secretary-General on the human rights of internally displaced persons, Walter Kälin. Mission to Georgia (21–24 December 2005). UN Commission on Human Rights, Doc. E/CN.4/2006/71/Add.7. 24 March 2006. 8 NRC. 2009. Evaluation of the Projects: Shelter; Information, Counselling and Legal Advice (ICLA); and Education in Georgia. Evaluation Report. Tbilisi: NRC. 5 6

380  Handbook on forced migration resolution of the conflict in Abkhazia and calling for the return of all IDPs and refugees.9 However, none have been implemented. At the Geneva International Discussions, the Abkhaz and South Ossetian representatives (with Russian backing) have refused to discuss the issue of IDP return. Efforts to discuss the possible return of IDPs with the Abkhaz authorities usually lead to an immediate break in negotiations.10 While the possibility of IDP returns is broadly unacceptable to Abkhazia’s de facto administration, the Gali district administration regards its residents differently. Prior to the conflict, the Gali district was populated exclusively by ethnic Georgians. Many of those displaced from this region have returned, but live with limited security guarantees and civil rights. These “returnees” were required to relinquish their Georgian citizenship and obtain a local “passport”, and subsequently a residence permit, which serves to hinder the reintegration process.11 Moreover, the so-called “Law of the Republic of Abkhazia on Citizenship of the Republic of Abkhazia” stipulates that dual citizenship is only possible for citizens of the Russian Federation.12 The de facto administration in South Ossetia announced immediately after the war that it was not possible for IDPs to return. Thus, although the right to return has subsequently been formally acknowledged, there have been no return and reintegration measures implemented in practice.13 At the same time, there has been ever greater integration between South Ossetia and the Russian Federation, particularly in relation to citizenship and residency.14 For many years, the GoG was not willing to even discuss introducing measures in support of the local integration of its IDPs. The Government, and many representatives of the displaced population, argued that their immediate return was the only acceptable outcome. The GoG has long stressed the necessity for all IDPs in the country to be able to return to their homes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,15 even as these separatist regions remain largely under Russian control. This rhetoric shifted with the introduction of a national strategy on IDPs in 2007, and

9 UN Security Council. 2021. Security Council Report: UN Documents for Georgia: Security Council Resolutions. 10 Kamian, H. 2019. U.S. Statement on the Geneva International Discussions on the Conflict in Georgia. Delivered by Chargé d’Affaires Harry Kamian to the Permanent Council, Vienna on 19 December 2019. Available at: https://​osce​.usmission​.gov/​on​-the​-geneva​-international​-discussions​-3/​ (Accessed on 13 December 2021). 11 IWPR. 2002. Special Abkhazia Issue: Ten Years after the War. Report, Institute for War and Peace Reporting. IWPR: London. 12 Embassy of Abkhazia. 2005. Law of the Republic of Abkhazia on Citizenship of the Republic of Abkhazia. 13 IDMC. 2009. Georgia: IDPs in Georgia still need attention. A Profile of the Internal Displacement Situation. Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. IDMC: Geneva, p. 47. 14 Parliament of South Ossetia. 2018. Law of the Republic of South Ossetia on Amendment to the Treaty on Alliance and Integration between the Russian Federation and the Republic of South Ossetia, available at: http://​www​.parliamentrso​.org/​node/​2287; and (2008) ‘Law of the Republic of South Ossetia on Citizenship of the Republic of South Ossetia’. 15 IWPR. 2002. Special Abkhazia Issue: Ten Years after the War. Report, Institute for War and Peace Reporting. IWPR: London.

Displacement limbo: Durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine  381 subsequent measures have adopted a more nuanced approach.16 In this climate, local integration of IDPs has thus continued to be regarded as a temporary solution.17 Ukraine In July 2020, after seven years of military conflict in eastern Ukraine, nearly 1.5 million Ukrainian citizens were registered as IDPs out of a population of 43 million people, according to the Ministry of Social Policy.18 From March 2014 until the end of 2021, the ongoing conflict between Ukrainian armed forces and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine led to the deaths of over 13 000 people, including more than 3300 civilians.19 The crisis erupted when Russian special forces occupied and annexed Ukraine’s Autonomous Republic of Crimea in March 2014, and in short order, provided support to separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. During the weeks that followed, inhabitants of the Donbas region fled to the Russian Federation and mainly to government-controlled Ukraine, where 50 000 displaced Crimeans also settled.20 The Minsk Package of Measures of 2014 and 2015 represented an agreement to halt the war in the Donbas region, but did not directly address IDP issues, nor did it lead to an end to the armed conflict. No other comparable high-level forum has held such discussions thus far on the situation of IDPs in Ukraine. It is estimated that some 800 000 of the government-registered IDPs permanently reside in the GCA, which represents about half of the registered IDPs. Most others reside – at least partially – in the NGCA, which are controlled by the de facto administrations of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR). Every month, thousands of Ukrainians cross the “line of contact” – a 427km-long stretch of land within a buffer zone that divides the regions of the GCA and the NGCA.21 One of the main reasons IDPs make this crossing is to access social assistance and pension payments. Receipt of these payments is contingent upon residency in the GCA and being registered as an IDP with the GoU. In practice, and often for financial reasons, many registered IDPs have returned to their own properties in the NGCA, or have never left them. Consequently, the GoU is publicly advocating for the right-of-return for IDPs, but at the same time incentivizing their continued displacement.

In 2007, the Government of Georgia introduced the country’s first State Strategy towards IDPs; in 2009, the first Action Plan; and in 2014, a Livelihoods Strategy. Measures introduced by the State aimed at promoting of rights of IDP include the National Action Plan for the Implementation of UNSC Resolutions 1325; Human Rights Strategy and the Action Plan and the IDP State Strategy and Action Plan 2021–22. 17 UN. 2019. General Assembly Adopts Text on Status of Georgia’s Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, Calls upon Participants in Geneva Discussions to Intensify Efforts. General Assembly Plenary Seventy-third Session. In Proceedings of the 88th Meeting (PM) GA/12151, New York, NY, USA, 4 June 2019. New York: UN. 18 IOM. 2020. National Monitoring System Report on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons, June 2020. 19 UNHCR. 2021. Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2020. UNHCR. 20 Jaroszewicz, M. 2019. Years After Crimea’s Annexation, Integration of Ukraine’s Internally Displaced Population Remains Uneven, Migration Policy Institute, 19 September 2019. Washington DC: MOI. 21 Due to the restrictions imposed associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, people have been crossing these checkpoints in much smaller numbers. 16

382  Handbook on forced migration Government policies related to IDP integration, as well as IDP return, date back to 2014.22 In 2015 and 2018, President Petro Poroshenko promoted the notion of return for IDPs from the Donbas, but this did not garner public support. The former President characterized the IDPs as a “Ukrainian anchor of Donbas” that “holds the Donbas region in Ukraine”, given their potential ability to vote in local elections in their places of origin.23 Civil society and IDP representatives criticized this suggestion, arguing that the State should not shift responsibility for the reintegration of the Donbas region onto IDPs. Currently, the only durable solution that is discussed as viable in any meaningful way in Ukraine is local integration, although none of the government’s legislative measures actually define “integration”.

RETURN AS A “NON-DURABLE SOLUTION” As stated previously, return is the most desirable durable solution for the majority of Georgian IDPs, and a significant proportion of Ukrainian IDPs assert the same.24 However, the extent to which returns will represent a solution that is “durable” in each of these contexts is questionable. For example, some IDPs from Georgia’s Gali and Akhalgori districts have the possibility to visit their homes, to work their agricultural lands and possibly even remain there. But they lack guarantees for their safety and security. The issues of housing and cost of living are reasons in particular that determine the extent to which a solution is “durable” for both Ukrainian and Georgian IDPs. Overall, older people in Georgia and Ukraine tend to favour return more than younger people, who often view the economic prospects as more limited in their places of origin. While lower public pensions in areas of origin represent a challenge for returnees, especially for the elderly who tend to have more health care needs, this is offset to some extent by living in properties they own rather than rent.25 For example, some older people feel compelled to return to their own property in the NGCA once they retire or if they have limited income, as paying rent in the GCA often represents a significant cost. By registering as an IDP with the GoU, they can return periodically to the GCA to claim the pensions they are legally entitled to there. However, among the majority of IDPs in Ukraine and particularly in Georgia, there is an apparent reluctance to return if it

22 Ukraine’s first law addressing internal displacement, the Act on Ensuring the Rights and Freedoms of Internally Displaced Persons, was adopted by the Parliament of Ukraine (the Verkhovna Rada) on 20 October 2014. On 24 December 2015, the Parliament adopted the current version of this Act and it entered into force on 6 January 2016. In 2017, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine adopted the Strategy for the Integration of Internally Displaced Persons and implemented long-term policy measures on internal migration for the period until 2020. 23 CCL. 2018. Я – не якір. Чому переселенці з Донбасу мають право голосувати [I am not an anchor. Why displaced from Donbass have the right to vote], Center for Civil Liberties, 5 March 2018. 24 Loughna, S. 2021. Profiling the Situation of IDPs in Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, with Particular Attention to Housing. IOM Housing Project, IOM, Kyiv, June 2021; UNHCR. 2015. Intentions Survey on Durable Solutions: Voices of Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia, p. 12. Available at: www​.refworld​.org/​pdfid/​55e575924​.pdf (accessed 24 October 2022). 25 Loughna, S. 2021. Profiling the Situation of IDPs in Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, with Particular Attention to Housing. IOM Housing Project, IOM, Kyiv, June 2021; UNHCR. 2015. Intentions Survey on Durable Solutions: Voices of Internally Displaced Persons in Georgia, p. 12. Available at: www​.refworld​.org/​pdfid/​55e575924​.pdf (accessed 24 October 2022).

Displacement limbo: Durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine  383 means living under the de facto rule of the separatist administrations.26 In addition, the de facto administrations have made it legally and practically not feasible for some Ukrainians and most Georgians to return. Further relocation (after their initial displacement) within the government-controlled areas of both countries is largely determined by needs and preferences in relation to housing and employment opportunities. There is also a reluctance to re-register after secondary movements (including return) for fear of losing access to pension and social welfare payments. Furthermore, while some IDPs have returned to their homes in both countries, for many this does not seem to represent a durable solution in as much as it does not allow them full access to their civil and political rights. For example, those IDPs who have returned to the Gali district in Abkhazia have been forced to obtain Abkhaz passports and then residency permits to be able to reside there and to travel, leaving them in the legally vulnerable situation of being classed as a “foreigner”. This also has implications with respect to housing: as a “foreigner”, property rights are limited. In practice, these returnees cannot purchase property or sell their own homes. This also extends to other civil and political rights, such as educating their children in their native (Georgian) language and participating in elections.

DURABLE HOUSING AS A DURABLE SOLUTION Numerous studies conducted in recent years demonstrate that a lack of a durable housing solution is consistently one of the most important concerns for IDPs in both Georgia and Ukraine.27,28 A durable housing solution does not in itself necessarily mean an end to displacement, but it may help to facilitate IDPs’ integration when they are unable to return to their homes – and thus contribute towards achieving a durable solution. In both countries, a disproportionately high number of IDPs do not own their current residences and lack tenure security. They are also more broadly socioeconomically worse off than the wider population. Because most displaced families in Georgia and Ukraine own their properties (and sometimes land) in their places of origin, they resent having to now pay market-rate rent for housing, which they can often ill afford. As a consequence, IDPs in both Georgia and Ukraine experience a strong desire, and often an economic need, to return to their original homes.29,30 In Georgia, there has been a concerted government effort to provide durable housing solutions to a significant proportion of the IDP population, either in their location of displacement or in a place of resettlement. For many years, IDP households in Georgia were not provided with housing that was adequate for long-term residency: it was often overcrowded, unsafe and

Bazaluk, O. and Balinchenko, S. 2020. Dynamic coordination of internal displacement: Return and integration cases in Ukraine and Georgia. Sustainability 12: 4123. 27 Loughna, S. 2015. An Assessment of Socio-economic Integration and Livelihood Needs of IDPs in Georgia. Tbilisi: EU/ACT/Human Dynamics. 28 NRC. 2021. Profiling of IDP situation in Luhansk Region, Ukraine: Data-driven approach to durable solutions. Norwegian Refugee Council. 29 Loughna, S. 2016. Mapping and Profiling of the Housing Needs of IDPs in Georgia. Final Report, Forging Ahead: Process-oriented Technical Assistance to the MRA: EuropeAid/133979/C/SER/GE. Brussels, September 2016. 30 UNHCR. 2019. Ukraine 2019: Participatory Assessment. UNHCR. Available at: https://​bit​.ly/​ 2MsGv3F (accessed 23 April 2021). 26

384  Handbook on forced migration in a poor state of repair. In this way, the GoG could leverage the plight of IDPs as a visible, politicized reminder of the country’s suffering and loss. This approach changed following the 2008 war, and the GoG prioritized improving the living conditions of IDPs. Subsequently, Georgian IDPs have come to expect that the government should provide them with suitable long-term housing at no cost to the household (as envisaged in the IDP State Strategy of 2007). However, providing durable housing solutions is proving to be a lengthy and costly process in practice, with the GoG attempting in recent years to present this as a mission accomplished and looking to move on. While some IDPs have received adequate housing that has enabled them to attain relative prosperity and integrate, for others, inadequate housing, livelihoods, and employment opportunities have exacerbated inequality and remain a challenge.31 While hundreds of thousands of IDPs in Ukraine are thought to have permanently returned to their homes in the NGCA since their initial displacement in 2014, return is not viewed as a viable option for many, or is viewed as less desirable than remaining in situ. Many of those who do plan to return reside close to the line of contact and some conduct periodic visits to the NGCA, often to check on their properties or visit family and friends. But close to half of those still residing in the GCA say they have no intention to return, or are unlikely to do so, even when the conflict is over and it is safe to do so. Some 89 per cent of IDPs in Ukraine regard housing as the most important issue to be addressed to achieve integration.32 Until 2018, the GoU has paid scant attention to the issue of durable housing solutions. But as displacement became more protracted, the issue became more prominent in the demands of civil society organizations and some policy makers. The central government called upon local authorities to improve and extend the provision of housing, with mixed results. Nonetheless, IDPs’ expectations for the GoU seem to be lower than in Georgia: affordable housing for purchase (or rent) would be an acceptable outcome for many.33 The extent and quality of consultation and cooperation between central and local authorities poses a challenge in this regard and requires sufficient funding. However, there is limited international funding for such housing initiatives in both countries. Thus, political will is required at the local level to provide support to IDPs given competing demands on their limited budgets. Supporting IDP housing projects is often viewed as financially costly with little political gain. However, in Ukraine, the capacity of IDPs to exert leverage on local authorities in terms of housing and social services budgets has recently shifted: since May 2020, IDPs in Ukraine have the legal right to vote in local elections in their place of displacement (which was already the case in Georgia), strengthening their ability to demand change from elected officials.

Loughna, S. 2016. Mapping and Profiling of the Housing Needs of IDPs in Georgia. Final Report. Forging Ahead: Process-oriented Technical Assistance to the MRA: EuropeAid/133979/C/SER/GE. Brussels, September 2016. 32 IOM. 2019b. National Monitoring System Report on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons, Round 15. 33 Loughna, S. 2021. Profiling the Situation of IDPs in Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, with Particular Attention to Housing. IOM Housing Project, IOM, Kyiv, June 2021. 31

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OTHER BARRIERS TO LOCAL INTEGRATION In practice, government policy has compelled many citizens of Ukraine still residing in the NGCA to register as IDPs in the GCA. As a result, many incorrectly claim they are displaced in order to be able to enjoy their full rights as citizens, including accessing welfare benefits and pension payments. This approach has contributed to some of the stigmatization and hate speech directed at residents of the occupied Donbas, as well as IDPs broadly in Ukraine.34 For example, in September 2016, Ukraine’s Interior Minister at the time, Arsen Avakov, argued that the inflow of IDPs to Kyiv had been one of the key factors that contributed to the rise in crime.35 IDPs are often depicted in the media as passive recipients of assistance and a cause of price increases, unemployment, and the shortage in the provision of social protection services.36 Such rhetoric damages efforts aimed at facilitating local integration. Indeed, the narrative surrounding the issue of IDPs being “pro-Russian” and being “culpable in the war” is damaging both for the GoU’s attempts to implement durable solutions and for the capacity of IDPs themselves to integrate into host communities. Such messages are circulated on social media platforms in support of propaganda from the Russian Federation that is aimed at undermining social cohesion in Ukraine. But some of these anti-IDPs views are locally-generated. IDPs are thus viewed as both victims and perpetrators.37 As in other contexts of protracted displacement, the inability of IDPs in both Georgia and Ukraine to be able to return readily and freely to their homes exacerbates the traumatic experience of conflict-induced eviction. Multiple experiences of discrimination, identity crisis, war trauma, alienation, and separation may affect the mental health of IDPs. These tend not to be addressed or even considered within the government measures of support that are available to IDPs. Women’s mental health is particularly affected by displacement in Georgia and Ukraine – or at least they are more willing to raise it as a concern.38 There is no compensation for the personal losses of those displaced, and little attention is paid to psychosocial support or addressing mental health needs. There is also little action from the GoU to challenge hate speech and anti-IDP narratives. This all serves to hinder processes of integration and durable solutions advocacy among host populations. Together with housing solutions and access to sustainable livelihoods, psychosocial support is critical for durable IDP solutions.

In an excerpt of the interview made and published by the BBC Ukrainian service’s journalist Olga Malchevska on 26 April 2019, the Ukrainian Minister of Social Policy Andriy Reva said: “Everyone who’s pro-Ukrainian has left, and those who want to claim pensions on both sides have to put up with it” and “Honestly, I don’t feel pity for them, not one of them, at all. I feel pity for those soldiers and officers and their families. They were killed there because of those scums.” (Romanenko. 2019. Kyiv Court to consider criminal proceedings against Ukraine’s Social Minister, 13 May 2019, Hromadske International). 35 NV. 2016. Avakov names three key reasons for the growth of crime in Ukraine. NV Premium, 23 September 2016. 36 Ivashchenko-Stadnik, K. 2017. The social challenge of internal displacement in Ukraine. In Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska and Greta Uehling (eds) Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two-Country Perspective. E-IR Publishing. 37 Ibid. 38 Kuznetsova, I., Mikheieva, O., Catling, J., Round, J. and Babenko, S. 2019. The mental health of Internally Displaced People and the general population in Ukraine. Zenodo. 34

386  Handbook on forced migration Legal rights also factor into this combination of resources needed for integration and durable solutions. Legal assistance to IDPs in Ukraine has improved since 2014, yet flawed legislation, complicated bureaucracies, and limited resources contribute to a continued failure to provide IDPs with adequate legal support. Much of the legal support and social assistance that IDPs do receive is provided by civil society organizations rather than government agencies. In Georgia, on the other hand, IDPs tend to understand their legal rights better and are more willing to exercise these rights. This is partly due to civil society organizations in Georgia, including ones representing the interests of IDPs, being more organized and vocal over a longer timeframe. The GoG and civil society organizations have been engaged in these issues over many years and the political and financial support provided for durable housing solutions for IDPs has been substantial since the war in 2008. Lobbying from the international community and local civil society has led to a gradual improvement in the ability of IDPs to access their legal and civil rights, in both Ukraine and Georgia. For example, in 2001 IDPs in Georgia were allowed for the first time to participate in local elections and vote for single mandate deputies to Parliament; and in 2003, they were granted the right to register property without losing their IDP status. Despite much pressure from international organizations and local civil society, IDPs in Ukraine were only granted the right to vote in local elections in their location of displacement in 2020, following a ruling by the country’s Supreme Court. In addition to housing solutions, legal, civil rights, and psychosocial support are critical (and largely lacking) to achieving durable solutions for IDPs both in Georgia and Ukraine.

CONCLUSION This chapter has shown that the policy and practice of durable solutions for IDPs is not always straightforward in politicized environments of protracted displacement, such as in the cases of Ukraine and Georgia. For IDPs, durable solutions must include access to general rights as citizens in their countries and the ability to move on with their lives. The governments of both Ukraine and more gradually Georgia have come to acknowledge that local integration is necessary, as at least an interim solution, to address the instability and hardship that IDPs endure. As the displacement has become more protracted, both countries have also identified “durable housing solutions” as central to achieving successful integration. In both Georgia and Ukraine, there is an expectation of home ownership among most households, which stems from the effective transfer of property ownership in the early post-Soviet period. However, a disproportionately high number of IDPs do not own the properties in which they currently reside, they lack security of tenure, and are socioeconomically worse off in comparison with the wider population. Home ownership, or at least affordable rent (particularly in Ukraine), is central to achieving a durable solution, according to most IDPs in both countries. Associated needs such as employment and livelihoods are also increasingly recognized as central to the local integration of these IDPs. Exploring mechanisms to enable and facilitate the local integration of IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine is critical, as for the majority of these people this is the only potentially durable solution available for the foreseeable future. This needs to be recognized by governments and appropriately supported – not as a political position or even an ideal solution, but rather as a practical response to the realities of internal displacement in each country, and the hardship

Displacement limbo: Durable solutions for IDPs in Georgia and Ukraine  387 and suffering it causes. Greater transparency and political accountability for legislators, policy makers and institutions in Ukraine, such as through local elections and a stronger civil society, could all play a role in expediting progress towards achieving durable solutions for IDPs. Both the GoG and GoU can lead the charge for local integration through housing and economic support, while challenging and countering the discrimination and stigmatization that IDPs face, through policy reform. While continuing to recognize IDPs’ legal right to return to their own homes, facilitating their local integration would ameliorate some of the worst impacts of internal displacement.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Balinchenko, S. (2021) “A dynamic approach to localness in the context of conflict-affected internal displacement and return in Ukraine”, SN Social Sciences, 1, Article number: 52 (2021) pp. 1–52. Bazaluk, O. and Balinchenko, S. (2020) “Dynamic coordination of internal displacement: Return and integration cases in Ukraine and Georgia”, Sustainability, 12, 4123. Brun, C., Fábos, A.H. and El Abed, O. (2017) “Displaced citizens and abject living. The categorical discomfort with citizens out of place”. Norwegian Journal of Geography 71(4): 220–32. CCL (2018) “Я – не якір. Чому переселенці з Донбасу мають право голосувати” [I am not an Anchor. Why Displaced from Donbass have the Right to Vote], Center for Civil Liberties, 5 March 2018. Chouinard, V. (2009) “Citizenship”. In: International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography, R. Kitchin and N. Thrift (eds), Amsterdam, Elsevier, pp. 107–12. Embassy of Abkhazia (2005) “Law of the Republic of Abkhazia on Citizenship of the Republic of Abkhazia”. IDMC (2009) “Georgia: IDPs in Georgia still need Attention. A Profile of the Internal Displacement Situation”, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre. IDMC: Geneva, p. 47. IDMC (2021) “Country Information: Georgia”. IOM (2018) “National Monitoring System Report on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons”, Round 12. IOM (2019a) “National Monitoring System Report on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons”, Round 14. IOM (2019b) “National Monitoring System Report on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons”, Round 15. IOM (2020) “National Monitoring System Report on the Situation of Internally Displaced Persons”, June 2020. Ivashchenko-Stadnik, Kateryna (2017) “The social challenge of internal displacement in Ukraine”. In Agnieszka Pikulicka-Wilczewska and Greta Uehling (eds) Migration and the Ukraine Crisis: A Two-Country Perspective. E-IR Publishing. IWPR (2002) “Special Abkhazia Issue: Ten Years after the War”, Report, Institute for War and Peace Reporting. IWPR: London. Jaroszewicz, Marta (2019) “Years after Crimea’s Annexation, Integration of Ukraine’s Internally Displaced Population Remains Uneven”, Migration Policy Institute, 19 September 2019. Washington DC: MOI. Kalin, W. (2005) “Report of the Representative of the Secretary-General on the Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, Walter Kälin”, Mission to Georgia (21–24 December 2005). UN Commission on Human Rights, Doc. E/CN.4/2006/71/Add.7. 24 March 2006. Kamian, H. (2019) “U.S. Statement on the Geneva International Discussions on the Conflict in Georgia”. Delivered by Chargé d’Affaires Harry Kamian to the Permanent Council, Vienna on 19 December 2019. Available at: https://​osce​.usmission​.gov/​on​-the​-geneva​-international​-discussions​-3/​ (Accessed on 13 December 2021). Kuznetsova, Irina, Mikheieva, Oksana, Catling, Jon, Round, John and Babenko, Svitlana (2019) “The Mental Health of Internally Displaced People and the general Population in Ukraine”, Zenodo.

388  Handbook on forced migration Loughna, S. (2015) An Assessment of Socio-Economic Integration and Livelihood Needs of IDPs in Georgia, Tbilisi: EU/ACT/Human Dynamics. Loughna, S. (2016) Mapping and Profiling of the Housing needs of IDPs in Georgia, Final Report, Forging Ahead: Process-oriented Technical Assistance to the MRA: EuropeAid/133979/C/SER/GE. Brussels, September 2016. Loughna, S. (2021) Profiling the Situation of IDPs in Kramatorsk and Severodonetsk, with Particular Attention to Housing, IOM Housing Project, IOM, Kyiv, June 2021. Makhashvili, N., Chikovani, I., McKee, M., Bisson, J., Patel, V. and Roberts, B. (2014) “Mental disorders and their association with disability among internally displaced persons and returnees in Georgia”, Journal of Trauma Stress, 27(5): 509–18. NRC (2009) Evaluation of the Projects: Shelter; Information, Counselling and Legal Advice (ICLA); and Education in Georgia. Evaluation Report. Tbilisi: NRC. NRC (2021) Profiling of IDP Situation in Luhansk Region, Ukraine: Data-Driven Approach to Durable Solutions, Norwegian Refugee Council. NV (2016) “Avakov names three key reasons for the growth of crime in Ukraine”, NV Premium, 23 September 2016. Parliament of South Ossetia (2008) “Law of the Republic of South Ossetia on Citizenship of the Republic of South Ossetia”. Parliament of South Ossetia (2018) “Law of the Republic of South Ossetia on Amendment to the Treaty on Alliance and Integration between the Russian Federation and the Republic of South Ossetia”, available at: http://​www​.parliamentrso​.org/​node/​2287. Romanenko, M. (2019) “Kyiv Court to Consider Criminal Proceedings against Ukraine’s Social Minister”, 13 May 2019, Hromadske International. UN (2015) “Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements”, UN Peacemaker. UN (2019) “General Assembly Adopts Text on Status of Georgia’s Refugees, Internally Displaced Persons, calls upon Participants in Geneva Discussions to Intensify Efforts”. General Assembly Plenary Seventy-third Session. In Proceedings of the 88th Meeting (PM) GA/12151, New York, NY, USA, 4 June 2019. New York: UN. UNHCHR (2020) “Report on the Human Rights Situation in Ukraine 16 November 2019 to 15 February 2020”, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. Kyiv: UNHCHR. UNHCR (2019) Ukraine 2019: Participatory Assessment. UNHCR. Available at: https://​bit​.ly/​2MsGv3F (accessed 23 April 2021). UNHCR (2021) Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2020. UNHCR. UN Security Council (2021) “Security Council Report: UN Documents for Georgia: Security Council Resolutions”. USAID (2019) “Toward a Common Future: Voices from Both Sides of the Contact Line”, SCORE eastern Ukraine.

39. The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America Marcia Vera Espinoza

INTRODUCTION How durable are “durable solutions”? While some discussion about durable solutions relates to the type of solutions in place and how effective they are in the context of growing protracted displacement, one relevant question relates to the temporality associated with them. What is “durable” after all? What do durable solutions mean for different actors and how do these notions change over time and context? These questions can be addressed by considering multiple dimensions and levels of analysis, from the individual experience of refugees and displaced populations to the global meaning associated with the concept of “durable solutions”. In this chapter I adopt a regional lens to review how the grammar of durable solutions in Latin America, and their associated temporalities (or the lack thereof), have changed particularly in a context of crisis. I use the term “grammar” as a conceptual approach rather than a linguistic term alone (although the latter is also considered in the analysis). By the “grammar of durable solutions”, I explore how durable solutions have been written in the regional documents in relation to refugee protection, but also how different actors have framed regional responses to displacement through such grammar.1 By focusing on how this grammar has been introduced in both the regional rhetoric and practice, we can examine how durable solutions have changed over time and with what consequences. Latin America has been praised as a region with a long tradition of refugee protection, as well as a progressive refugee framework both internationally, regionally and nationally.2 The Cartagena Declaration of 1984, the main regional document of refugee protection, introduces the relevance of durable solutions, particularly voluntary repatriation, while also calling to implement programmes aimed at refugees’ integration and self-sufficiency.3 As in the rest of the world, the preference for specific durable solutions has changed in Latin America over time depending on regional displacement patterns and the countries’ political will. This chapter explores the temporalities and “shifting” grammar of durable solutions in the region, broadly reviewing its development from the Cartagena Declaration and its focus on voluntary repatriation to the current context of the humanitarian crisis of more than 5.6 million

1 Colleagues and I have discussed somewhere else the idea of a “Latin American grammar in refugee protection” in relation to the framework of protection and its normative structures (see Jubilut, L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. 2019. The Cartagena Declaration at 35 and Refugee Protection in Latin America. E-International Relations, 22 November 2019). 2 Liliana Jubilut, Marcia Vera Espinoza and Gabriela Mezzanotti, Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges (New York: Berghahn Books, 2021), 1–6. 3 “Cartagena Declaration on Refugees, Colloquium on the International Protection of Refugees in Central America, Mexico and Panama”, 22 November 1984.

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390  Handbook on forced migration Venezuelan citizens displaced out of their country (by July 2021).4 Indeed, the grammar of durable solutions in Latin America, installed through the Cartagena Declaration and its associated revision process,5 has shifted in the last five years due to changes in migrant and refugee protection and the governments’ decisions to consider Venezuelan mobility as a migration issue rather than as a displacement challenge in need of international response. This has contributed to governments adopting several ad hoc measures, characterised by complementary entrance pathways (such as humanitarian visas) and other temporary residence permits.6 These alternative responses to Venezuelan mobility have changed the region’s approach to durable solutions. While the region managed to develop a grammar of durable solutions – which stipulates what solutions to implement, where, and by which actors – the temporalities of it have become increasing ambiguous (i.e. the timeframe during which certain solutions are used and discarded). This fosters limited protection, which also limits the scope of solutions in place and thus gives more space for the discretionary use of solutions by Latin American states depending on changing political and social tides. The chapter broadly explores ideas about durable solutions and temporalities. It then examines how the grammar of durable solutions has been developed in some of the main regional instruments of refugee protection across Latin America, including the Cartagena Declaration and its revision process, as well as the Mexico Plan of Action7 and the Brazil Plan of Action.8 I also explore how and the extent to which these documents are in dialogue with other global trends. I then examine how the grammar of durable solutions has changed in the region in relation to two interrelated crises: the Venezuelan displacement and the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, the chapter concludes by discussing what has changed in the region in relation to durable solutions and with what consequences. This analysis is based on my thematic analysis of regional declarations and reports, as well as informed by interviews conducted in two separate projects: research focused on refugee resettlement in Brazil and Chile conducted between 2012 and 2015; and a study conducted as part of the research group CAMINAR, which has explored the impacts of the pandemic in seven Latin American countries.

“Coordination platform for refugees and migrants from Venezuela”, R4V, https://​www​.r4v​.info/​ (accessed 6 July 2021). 5 Despite the soft law nature of the Cartagena Declaration, it set up a revisional process with regional meetings taking place every 10 years. These meeting aim to assess the challenges and needs in terms of refugee protection as shown by Jubilut et al. in 2021 (Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. Oxford: Berghahn Books). 6 Acosta, D., Blouin, C. and Feline Freier, L. 2019. La emigración venezolana: Respuestas latinoamericanas. Working Paper, no. 3. Madrid: Fundación Carolina. 7 Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen International Protection of Refugees in Latin America (MAP) (2004). https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​424bf6914​.html. 8 Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action (2014). https://​www​.acnur​.org/​5b5101644​.pdf. 4

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DURABLE SOLUTIONS: TEMPORAL AND POLITICAL DIMENSIONS UNHCR has described a durable solution for refugees as “one that ends the cycle of displacement by resolving their plight so that they can lead normal lives”.9 UNHCR has highlighted that their primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees and its ultimate goal is to identify durable solutions that allow migrants and refugees to rebuild their lives. UNHCR, and the literature on durable solutions, identify two key dimensions to the concept. The first is related to refugee protection. The second refers to the conditions that allow refugees to re-establish their lives. These criteria have established three internationally-recognised durable solutions: voluntary repatriation, local integration and refugee resettlement. Almost three decades ago, Gallagher10 asserted that durable solutions should be conceptualised to restore or to maintain permanent relationships between individuals and states.11 Stein12 (p. 267) contested that this relationship is unequal in principle considering that achieving a durable solution depends on the political will of individual governments, emphasising that “durable solutions are political solutions”. In this sense, durable solutions have arguably been mainly approached from the point of view of refugee governance and the will of governments and the international community to facilitate the establishment of conditions which will put an “end to the displacement”. The high number of protracted and precarious refugee situations13 has been called the “failure” of current durable solutions and has stimulated debates within the literature about rethinking these solutions.14 For instance, some scholars have proposed the inclusion of education, regularised labour migration and development into the durable solutions framework.15 Additionally, the temporal dimensions associated with forced migration more broadly have received increased attention across the interdisciplinary field of refugee studies.16 These

UNHCR. 2011. UNHCR Resettlement Handbook, p.  28. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​3d464b239​.pdf. Gallagher, D. 1994. Durable Solutions in a New Political Era. Journal of International Affairs 47(2): 429–50. 11 Brun, C. Putting people back into place (Chapter 35, this volume). 12 Stein, Barry N. 1986. Durable solutions for developing country refugees. International Migration Review 20(2): 264–82. 13 Milner, J. and Loescher, G. 2011. Responding to protracted refugee situations: Lessons from a decade of discussion. Forced Migration Policy Briefing 6. Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. 14 Long, K., 2014. Rethinking “durable” solutions. In E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, G. Loescher, K. Long and N. Sigona, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 475–87; Souter, J. 2014. Durable solutions as reparation for the unjust harms of displacement: Who owes what to refugees? Journal of Refugee Studies 27(2): 171–90; Hathaway, J.C. 2006. Refugee solutions, or solutions to refugeehood? Refuge 24(2): 3–10. 15 Dryden-Peterson, S. 2011. The politics of higher education for refugees in a global movement for primary education. Refuge 27(2): 10–18; Harild, N. and Christensen, A. 2011. The development challenge of finding durable solutions for refugees and internally displaced people. World Development Report 2011. Background Note, World Bank. 16 Griffiths, M., Rogers, A. and Anderson, B. 2013. Migration, Time and Temporalities: Review and Prospect. Oxford: COMPAS.

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392  Handbook on forced migration debates span from how people experience time, waiting, and uncertainty17,18,19,20 to the temporal dimensions involved in the discourse and practice that sustain the governance of forced migration.21,22 Such studies are crucial to understanding what durable solutions are in terms of the conditions needed to rebuild refugees’ lives.

THE GRAMMAR OF SOLUTIONS IN LATIN AMERICA How are the notions of the temporality of “durability” included or not included in the grammar of durable solutions in Latin America? Through a thematic analysis of key regional documents, I reflect on the presence and absence of temporalities in relation to durable solutions, presenting ideas about the “ambiguous temporalities” of durable solutions. These ambiguous temporalities do not necessarily reflect refugees’ perceptions about what the end of the displacement means for them, or the time associated with rebuilding their lives. Instead, it shows how the state perceives their own needs in relation to refugee protection depending on changing displacement dynamics. As we explore elsewhere, Latin America is unique in terms of refugee protection due to the co-existence of different protection regimes and systems on the international, regional and national levels.23 This complex architecture of refugee protection involves various regimes and logics. At the international level, this includes the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol, and the 2018 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR). At the regional level it involves the 1984 Cartagena Declaration and the regime derived from its review process as well as the Inter-American Human Rights system. This architecture also includes national legislations – both on asylum and migration.24 The Cartagena Declaration expanded the refugee definition to be applied in Latin America,25 complementing the definition stated in the 1951 Convention. It also allows for a broader temporal and geographical scope to determine refugee protection and emphasises the need to Griffiths, M. 2013. Living with uncertainty. Journal of Legal Anthropology 1(3): 263–86. Brun, C. 2015. Active waiting and changing hopes: Toward a time perspective on protracted displacement. Social Analysis 59(1): 19–37. 19 El-Shaarawi, N., 2015. Living an uncertain future: An ethnography of displacement, health, psychosocial well-being and the search for durable solutions among Iraqi refugees in Egypt. Social Analysis 59(1): 38–56. 20 Gil Everaert, I. 2020. Inhabiting the meanwhile: Rebuilding home and restoring predictability in a space of waiting. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47(19): 4327–43. 21 Biehl, K.S., 2015. Governing through uncertainty: Experiences of being a refugee in Turkey as a country for temporary asylum. Social Analysis 59(1): 57–75. 22 Mountz, A. 2020. The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 23 Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. eds. 2021. Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. Oxford: Berghahn Books. 24 Ibid, p. 2. 25 The Cartagena Declaration adopted in 1984 noted that: “the definition or concept of a refugee to be recommended for use in the region is one which, in addition to containing the elements of the 1951 Convention and the 1967 Protocol, includes among refugees persons who have fled their country because their lives, safety or freedom have been threatened by generalised violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public order.” (emphasis added). 17 18

The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America  393 analyse the situation of the country of origin and not only the reasons behind individual persecution.26 The Cartagena Declaration also established a revisional process through meetings taking place every ten years aimed to address the challenges and needs of refugee protection in the region.27 Importantly, the Cartagena Declaration also gives initial shape to the grammar of “durable solutions” in Latin America as it emphasises the importance of voluntary repatriation (II – (f) (g) (n) (o) and III-12), and local integration, and recommends granting refugees social, economic, and cultural rights (III-11). Resettlement will only be included at the regional level as part of The Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees in Latin America (MPA) in 2004. The International Colloquium in Commemoration of the Tenth Anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration held in San José, Costa Rica, in 1994, was the first meeting of the review process. While the emerging non-binding regional document from this meeting mainly focused on internal displacement,28 the San José Declaration on Refugees and Displaced Persons (1994) also supported the search for solutions, such as voluntary repatriation and local integration. The Cartagena Declaration and the San José Declaration used language related to durable solutions modestly. It was not until 2004 that they would take a central role in regional commitments towards refugee protection. The MPA adopted in 2004 by 20 countries at the 20-year anniversary of the Cartagena Declaration made durable solutions one of its main components. The MPA both introduces and solidifies the grammar of durable solutions in Latin America, by dedicating an entire chapter to “durable solutions” and by framing them under the principles of solidarity and responsibility sharing.29 Chapter 3 of the MPA focuses on the durable solutions needed to respond to the challenges identified at that time, mainly in relation to the large number of Colombians displaced across the borders in neighbouring countries such as Ecuador, Panama and Venezuela,30 and the growing number of refugees living in large urban centres in Latin America. Chapter 3 of the MPA outlines the durable solutions along three pillars: (1) Solidarity Cities, a programme focused on self-sufficiency and local integration, with an added emphasis on host communities31 (pp. 9–10); (2) The Borders of Solidarity programme, aimed to address the “protection, basic assistance, and integration needs” of the displaced population (p. 11); and (3) The Solidarity Resettlement Programme, which proposes the creation of a regional resettlement initiative (p. 11). While these pillars emerged as a roadmap for the implementation of 26 Blouin, C., Berganza, I. and Freier, L.F. 2020. The spirit of Cartagena? Applying the extended refugee definition to Venezuelans in Latin America. Forced Migration Review 63: 64–6. 27 Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. eds. 2021. Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. Oxford: Berghahn Books. 28 Rushing, E. and Lizcano Rodriguez, A. 2021. The invisible majority: Internally displaced people in Latin America and the San José Declaration. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 96–115. 29 Vera Espinoza, M. 2021. The mixed legacy of the Mexico Declaration and plan of action: Solidarity and refugee protection. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 77–95. 30 UNHCR. 2005. An introduction to international protection: Protecting persons of concern to UNHCR. 1 August 2005, Geneva: UNHCR. 31 Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen International Protection of Refugees in Latin America (2004). https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​424bf6914​.html.

394  Handbook on forced migration all durable solutions in Latin America, the MPA acknowledges that “voluntary repatriation is the ideal solution for refugees, as an individual right to be exercised in a voluntary manner in conditions of safety and dignity” (p. 9). However, it did emphasise the “current need” to facilitate self-sufficiency and local integration as it recognises “the challenges that this represents to States” (p. 9). As I have explored elsewhere,32 a thematic analysis of the MPA sheds lights on three elements that are not only distinctive to the document, but also key in establishing a grammar of durable solutions across Latin America. On the one hand, the MPA establishes the rhetoric and strategic branding of regional solidarity which emphasises the relevance of regional cooperation and the support of the international community (see discussion on the use of solidarity in Vera Espinoza 2018).33 On the other hand, the document outlines the importance of other key stakeholders – besides the States – such as the international community, regional organisations and the civil society, while also strongly establishing the UNHCR as a key “consultative and expert organ” in the implementation of the plan of action. Finally, the MPA focuses on supporting refugee and host communities alike, a key element later also included in the GCR (2018). These three elements contribute to the writing of durable solutions, their framing and how they can be actioned in Latin America. However, the MPA does not provide a clear definition of what “durable solutions” are, beyond the three pillars outlined. Instead, a strong emphasis is put on self-sufficiency as a core element while also clearly stating the concerns around State capacity and the pressures on host societies, despite States’ political will to refugee protection and durable solutions (MPA 2004: 9–11). The latter also allows for explaining the focus on solidarity and responsibility-sharing “as a means to achieve effective durable solutions” while ensuring international funding to support these initiatives. These elements emphasise the concerns of the states and host societies, which can raise the question: at whom are the durable solutions aimed, the states or the refugee population? This question can also be considered in relation to the temporalities associated with the solutions proposed, considering that the most preferred solution – as recognised in the document – was voluntary repatriation. While the MPA highlights the need to strengthen processes of refugee status determination and the expedited issuance of documents, among other integration initiatives, there is no mention of long-term processes of inclusion such as naturalisation or permanent residency, which varies according to national legislations. As I have discussed elsewhere, the review of the execution of the plan of action of the MPA shows gaps and uneven implementation across the region, showing some discontinuities due to changing political interest and financial constraints,34,35 meaning that in many cases these solutions were not durable after all. 32 Vera Espinoza, M. 2021. The mixed legacy of the Mexico Declaration and plan of action: Solidarity and refugee protection. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 77–95. 33 Vera Espinoza, M., 2018. The limits and opportunities of regional solidarity: Exploring refugee resettlement in Brazil and Chile. Global Policy 9(1): 85–94. (See p. 4.) 34 Ibid. 35 Vera Espinoza, M. 2021. The mixed legacy of the Mexico Declaration and plan of action: Solidarity and refugee protection. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books,

The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America  395 From “Durable” to “Comprehensive” Solutions The third and most recent review meeting of the Cartagena Declaration took place in 2014, with four thematic consultations as preparatory meetings. The process, known as the Cartagena+30 Initiative, included government representatives as well as key stakeholders such as the UNHCR and civil society organisations. The Brasilia Declaration and Plan of Action36 adopted in December that year by 28 countries and three territories across Latin America and the Caribbean, set up the regional commitments on a ten-year plan across eight chapters.37 Chapter 3 of the BPA, titled “Comprehensive, Complementary and Sustainable Solutions” focuses on durable solutions for refugees. The change from “durable” to the new title is consistent with the changes at the global level. Until 2014, the Annual UNHCR Global Trends Report also used to have an entire chapter dedicated to “durable solutions”. This chapter changed its title in the Global Trends Report 2015 when the chapter was renamed “Comprehensive Solutions”. The change of title is recognised in a footnote without expanding on the reasons for that change38 (p. 23). The document also recognises the three traditional durable solutions, while emphasising “different forms of local integration” and a combination of pathways. The Global Trends Report 2016 changed the title of that chapter to the one that remains until today, calling it just “Solutions”. This chapter emphasises that the three solutions – voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement – have proven “inadequate”,39 shifting attention towards the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) for emergencies and protracted situations of forced displacement, as part of the commitments adopted in the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants of 2016: “This is a recognition that situation-specific comprehensive approaches are required to find durable solutions, together with engaging governments, humanitarian and development actors”.40 The 2017 report, as well as those to come in the next two years, consolidate the incorporation of these development actors, specifying that the CRRF reflect UNHCR’s vision to work with a wide range of partners to build resilience and find solutions, emphasising that partners also include the private sector, international financial institutions, and civil society. The framework’s aims are to build the “self-reliance of refugees”, while also focusing on strengthening resettlement and voluntary return. Some similarities and differences can be seen between the changes at the global level and the BPA of 2014. The BPA chapter on solutions takes the language of the “traditional solutions” – voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement – together with a proposal for a labour mobility programme. The labour mobility initiative builds on regional integration

pp. 77–95; Ruiz, H. 2015. Evaluation of Resettlement Programmes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Geneva: UNHCR. 36 Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action. 2014. https://​www​.acnur​.org/​5b5101644​.pdf. 37 Arnold-Fernández, E., Sarmiento Torres, K. and Kallas, G. 2021. The Brazil Declaration and plan of action: A model for other regions. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 96–115. 38 UNHCR (2016) Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2015. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​uk/​statistics/​ unhcrstats/​576408cd7/​unhcr​-global​-trends​-2015​.html. 39 UNHCR (2017) Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2016. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​5943e8a34​ .pdf. 40 Ibid, p. 24.

396  Handbook on forced migration frameworks – such as MERCOSUR – to facilitate the free movement of refugees to third countries “where they can have access to gainful employment and achieve economic self‐ sufficiency” (p. 13).41 The document states that these solutions “can be implemented in a joint, coordinated and complementary manner in order to achieve the most suitable and sustainable solutions for the entire refugee population through a comprehensive response” (p. 11). The BPA, as the MPA, does not define what is understood by durable solutions or by sustainable and comprehensive solutions. The document, however, does reinforce the idea that voluntary repatriation is “undoubtedly the preferred solution” and proposes to update and strength the “Cities of Solidarity” programme through a new “Local Integration” programme. The focus on integration is relevant, as it includes actions aimed to promote public policies and internal legislation for the integration of refugees, strength coordination of relevant governmental and non-governmental institutions, design programmes to promote intercultural integration, the issuance of identity documents that do not specify refugee status, and the promotion of income-generating or livelihood projects, among others. One of the most relevant actions in this context, and absent from the MPA, is the call to facilitate “the change of the migratory status of refugee from temporary residents to permanent residents and naturalization processes”,42 which sheds some light on the long-term nature that durable solutions could entail. Arnold-Fernández, Torres and Callas43 emphasise the relevance of explicitly focusing on local integration, considering it a “radical departure from the global norm”. The GRC, for instance, does not acknowledge States’ obligation to include integration in line with their commitments under the 1951 Convention.44 However, there are considerable differences between 2014 and 2018 in relation to States’ commitments to refugee protection at the regional and global level. The authors also identify that another pivotal element of the BPA is the acknowledgment of the States’ obligations to make progress on durable solutions, while also outlining the key role of other actors such as local and municipal governments, host societies, civil society, and the private sector. The BPA contributes to reinforce the grammar of durable solutions in Latin America by building up on the language and ideas established through the MPA and by identifying further actions conducive to improving the lives of refugees and reinvigorating the search for durable solutions, while putting further emphasis on the processes and actors involved as part of a comprehensive response. This grammar identifies different levels of action and actors involved, in line with global trends. But while the BPA does reference processes of naturalisation and permanent residency, the temporalities associated with displacement and refugees’ own preferences about the end of their need for international protection seem elusive in this grammar. As some critics have stated, while the introduction of actors such as CSOs is a welcome development, the inclusion of refugee-led organisations in the preparatory

Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action. 2014. https://​www​.acnur​.org/​5b5101644​.pdf. Ibid, p. 12. 43 Arnold-Fernández, E., Sarmiento Torres, K. and Kallas, G. 2021. The Brazil Declaration and plan of action: A model for other regions. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 96–115. 44 The GCR specifies that “Local integration is a sovereign decision and an option to be exercised by States guided by their treaty obligations and human rights principles” (GCR 2018: 19). 41 42

The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America  397 meetings is also needed.45 The emphasis on comprehensive solutions implies the expansion of actors involved and programmes (e.g. including the idea of labour mobility as one of the solutions) but does not necessarily expand on the time refugees may need to rebuild their lives either in the country of asylum, in the country of origin or in a third country. This is because solutions remain a discretionary measure taken by states. The BPA also includes a brief chapter on implementation and follow-up, with the commitment of producing triennial progress reports and four subregional meetings. The first triennial report was published in 2018, covering the period 2015–2017.46 The report assesses that relevant progress is being made in relation to different dimensions involved in the process of local integration. For instance, it is recognised that some positive progress has been made during that period in relation to refugees’ documentation. For example, some countries, such as Bolivia, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay, have provided permanent residency to refugees to facilitate integration. Despite some progress being made, challenges remain. The triennial report sheds light on the high costs of changing migratory status, as well as the long waiting periods to obtain permanent residency in some countries. There are also concerns that in some cases the naturalisation is the only option for effective enjoyment of rights and access to services. The assessment emphasises that structural barriers remain that limit access to formal and safe jobs, housing, and some basic services, as well as lack of information and institutional cooperation in relation to documentation and the status of refugees, both in the public and private sector.47 Some challenges in terms of costs, capacity and information are also identified in relation to resettlement. The Regional Working Group of the Brazil Plan of Action (GARPAB), an initiative that emerged to articulate the position of civil society on the state of international protection and promote the implementation and follow-up of the BPA, also produced a report focusing on the period 2014–2017. In the report they identified a lack of desegregated data about refugees’ access to economic, social, and cultural rights as well as the absence of inter-sectoral programmes that promote interculturality among host societies. The report also states that there is insufficient coordination among governmental institutions and civil society, persistent administrative and financial barriers to access naturalisation, and discrimination in the access to education, health, jobs and housing, both in the public and private sector.48 One of the main challenges identified by practitioners and academics alike is the new regional political and socioeconomic scenario in which the BPA had to be implemented.49,50,51 This not only relates to the change of governments’ rhetoric and policies on migration and

45 Arnold-Fernández, E., Sarmiento Torres, K. and Kallas, G. 2021. The Brazil Declaration and plan of action: A model for other regions. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 96–115. 46 ACNUR. 2018. Plan de Acción de Brasil. Primer Informe Trienal de Progreso. 2015–2017. February 2018. 47 Ibid. 48 GARPAB. 2018. Plan de Acción de Brasil. Evaluación del Grupo articulador regional Del plan de acción de Brasil 2014–2017. Mexico: Comersia Impresiones. 49 ACNUR. 2018. 50 GARPAB. 2018. 51 Arnold-Fernández et al., 2021.

398  Handbook on forced migration refugee issues across the region52 but also relates to the new displacement dynamics taking place across Latin America and the Caribbean. As one of the interviewees stated, “the BPA didn’t have enough vision, as it was elaborated in a very different context”.53 While the BPA does identify an increased attention to the subregions more affected by forced migration at that time – the Caribbean and the North of Central America – it does not consider other dynamics such as the massive displacement of the Venezuelan population.54

SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS UNDER THE CONTEXT OF “CRISIS” Venezuela has been mired in a political, economic, and humanitarian crisis that since 2015 has led to more than 5.6 million Venezuelans leaving their country (by July 202155). More than 81 per cent of them are refugees and migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean, with the top five receiving countries being Colombia (hosting more than 1.7 million), Peru (1 million), Chile (457 300), Ecuador (432 900) and Brazil (261 400).56 The ad hoc measures that the countries of the region have adopted to respond to the Venezuelan displacement have been widely discussed,57,58 many of which were initially praised as “creative” and “welcoming”.59 The massive number of people displaced has been met with increasing xenophobia and growing restrictions to their entry and, in some cases, the administrative detention of undocumented migrants.60 Indeed, the region has mainly responded to the Venezuelan displacement with the use of short-term temporary permits, with countries such as Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru implementing entry visas, special temporary work visas and humanitarian visas.61 While some of these measures were initially

52 See: Brumat, L. and Vera Espinoza, M. 2023. Actors, Ideas, and International Influence: Understanding Migration Policy Change in South America. International Migration Review 0(0): https://​ doi​.org/​10​.1177/​01979183221142776. 53 Interview conducted by the author with a representative of an International Organisation in 2021. 54 See: Gandini, L., Prieto Rosas, V. and Lozano-Ascencio, F. (2019) Nuevas movilidades en América Latina: La migración venezolana en contextos de crisis y las respuestas en la región. Cuadernos Geográficos 59(3): 103–21. 55 R4V 2021. Coordination platform for refugees and migrants from Venezuela. 56 Ibid. 57 Acosta, D., Blouin, C. and Feline Freier, L. 2019. La emigración venezolana: respuestas latinoamericanas. Working paper, no. 3. Madrid: Fundación Carolina; Ager, A. and A. Strang. 2008. Understanding integration: A conceptual framework. Journal of Refugee Studies 21(2): 166–91. 58 Gandini, L., Prieto Rosas, V. and Lozano-Ascencio, F. 2019. Nuevas movilidades en América Latina: La migración venezolana en contextos de crisis y las respuestas en la región. Cuadernos Geográficos 59(3): 103–21. 59 Selee, A., Bolter, J., Muñoz-Pogossian, B. and Hazán, M. 2019. Creativity amid Crisis: Legal Pathways for Venezuelan Migrants in Latin America. Washington DC: Migration Policy Institute and OAS. 60 Jubilut, L.L. and Lopes, R.O. 2018. Forced migration in Latin America: Peculiarities of a peculiar region in refugee protection. Archiv des Völkerrechts (AVR) 56(2): 131–54. 61 Freier, L.F. and Luzes, M. 2021. How humanitarian are humanitarian visas? An analysis of theory and practice in South America. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 276–93.

The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America  399 welcomed as they aimed to provide safe passage and legal entry to what has been referred to as a “mixed-migration” flow, it has been argued that the countries of the region could have used the already existing legal pathways. These include the MERCOSUR Residence Agreement and the extended definition of “refugee” stamped in the Cartagena Declaration, which also allows for the protection of persons fleeing generalised violence and massive violations of human rights (Cartagena Declaration: 3rd Conclusion).62 Despite the fact that the extended Cartagena refugee definition, alongside the definition of the 1951 Convention, has been incorporated in the asylum legal frameworks of most Latin American countries,63 Brazil and Mexico have been the only countries to broadly recognise Venezuelans as refugees under the Cartagena refugee definition.64 Across the region the refugee status recognition has been low,65 as the states have been unable to cope with the large asylum requests or they have been trying to avoid the obligations that the refugee status would entail.66 At the same time, temporary visas have been used to limit the access of vulnerable migrants in the case of Peru, Ecuador and Chile. As Freier and Luzes67 have explained, this type of visa “can offer additional protection but can also be used to impose entry requirements and further jeopardize migrants in need of international protection”. In the case of Colombia, the Temporary Protection Status (TPS) for ten years, announced early in 2021, is aimed to provide regular status to nearly one million Venezuelan citizens.68 While this regularisation is welcomed, the Colombian authorities are suggesting that asylum seekers should withdraw their applications and use the TPS instead, further eroding the asylum system.69 The risks of limited access to international protection have been increased in the context of the COVID-19 health crisis. Most Latin American countries declared states of emergency, closed borders, and imposed quarantines and lockdowns, among other measures aiming

62 Blouin, C., Berganza, I. and Freier, L.F. 2020. The spirit of Cartagena? Applying the extended refugee definition to Venezuelans in Latin America. Forced Migration Review 63: 64–6. 63 See: Freier, L.F. and Luzes, M. 2021. How humanitarian are humanitarian visas? An analysis of theory and practice in South America. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 276–93. 64 Brazil has given international protection to more than 46 700 Venezuelan refugees, and Mexico has recognised refugee status for more than 13 000 Venezuelans (R4V 2021). During the pandemic, however, Brazil has adopted several ordinances that criminalise irregular entry and which also disqualify asylum claims of applicants that arrive in Brazil while border closures were in place. 65 For example, by December 2020, Chile had more than 2800 pending asylum claims, but granted refugee status to 14 Venezuelans in the same period. Peru had more than 523 300 pending claims in December 2020, with more than 2600 refugees by the same date (R4V 2021). 66 Interview with civil society representative in Chile 2020. 67 Freier, L.F. and Luzes, M. 2021. How humanitarian are humanitarian visas? An analysis of theory and practice in South America. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 276–93. (See p. 278.) 68 Freier, L.F. and Castillo Jara, S. 2021. Colombia’s exceptional migratory regularization. Migration Mobilities Bristol. 30 March 2021. 69 Nuni Jorgensen. Incertidumbre entre las personas migrantes venezolanas en Colombia ante el nuevo escenario político. Open Democracy, 21 July 2022. https://​www​.opendemocracy​.net/​es/​ proteccion​-temporal​-refugio​-incertidumbre​-personas​-migrantes​-venezolanas​-colombia​-nuevo​-escenario​ -politico/​.

400  Handbook on forced migration to stop the spread of the virus.70 These measures have translated in further restrictions to people seeking international protection across the region, with some asylum seekers forced to immobility as they were unable to move due to border closures and unable to seek asylum as processes were either stopped or delayed.71,72 Further restrictions to mobility have been validated in the context of the pandemic, with an increasing militarisation of the borders and the consolidation of restrictive migration policies. The vulnerabilities of those already in the countries of asylum have been exacerbated in the context of the pandemic as there are different levels of access to social protection across the region.73,74 This context of multiple crises – the framing of migration as a crisis and the health and economic crisis75,76 and the increasingly reduced space of international protection, has left little room to think about durable solutions. And while the UNHCR and some regional CSOs keep using the language of the BPA, the States of the region have preferred to widely adopt the language of “safe, orderly and regular migration”, consolidated by the Global Compact on Migration (2018), to justify their actions at the state and regional level, as can be seen in the declarations of the Quito Process.77 This scenario sheds light on three characteristics of the current state of refugee protection in Latin America that have impacted the grammar of durable solutions in the region: (1) limited protection with restrictions to the right to seek asylum, due to an emphasis on temporary protection through complementary pathways and/or through the increasing criminalisation of people crossing borders; (2) shifting discourses in context of crisis; and (3) the prevalence of “self-sufficiency” as the goal of integration. As the system of international protection shrinks in the region, with the recent regression in implementation of regional norms, durable solutions are also questioned: how durable can solutions be when the protection is already limited? While there are attempts to keep the grammar of durable solutions that was installed through the Cartagena review process, the

Zapata, G.P., Gandini, L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Prieto Rosas, V. (forthcoming). Weakening Practices amidst Progressive Laws: Refugee Governance in Latin America during COVID-19. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. 71 Vera Espinoza, M., Zapata, G.P. and Gandini, L. 2020. Mobility in immobility: Latin American migrants trapped amid COVID-19. United Kingdom: Open Democracy. https://​www​.opendemocracy​ .net/​en/​democraciaabierta/​mobility​-immobility​-latin​-american​-migrants​-trapped​-amid​-covid​-19/​ (accessed 26 June 2021). 72 Freier, F. and Vera Espinoza, M. 2021. COVID-19 & immigrants’ increased exclusion: The politics of immigrant integration in Chile and Peru. Frontiers in Human Dynamics 3: 606871. 73 Zapata, G.P. and Prieto Rosas, V. 2020. Structural and contingent inequalities: The impact of COVID‐19 on migrant and refugee populations in South America. Bulletin of Latin American Research 39 (S1): 16–22. 74 Vera Espinoza, M., Prieto Rosas, V., Zapata, G.P., Gandini, L., Fernández de la Reguera, A., Herrera, G., López Villamil, S. et al. 2021. Towards a typology of social protection for migrants and refugees in Latin America during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Comparative Migration Studies 9(1): 52. https://​doi​.org/​10​.1186/​s40878‐021‐00265‐x. 75 Ibid. 76 See also: Mazza, J. 2020. Venezuelan migrants under COVID-19: Managing South America’s pandemic amid a migration crisis. Latin American Program Working Paper. Washington: Wilson Center. 77 The Quito Process emerged in 2018 to promote coordination and communication between countries receiving Venezuelan refugees and migrants in Latin America and the Caribbean. 70

The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America  401 approach to refugee protection has changed, with governance actors using the framework of crisis to shape their responses to displacement and migration.78,79 This scenario has shifted, to a certain extent, the approach to durable solutions. While the region has been constant in giving preference to voluntary return, it has also put an emphasis on socio-economic integration that reinforces notions of self-reliance already present in the region. Regional documents already recognised the need to facilitate refugees’ self-reliance, as the governments of the region may have limited capacity to support this population.80,81 That is to say, while the emphasis on two of the durable solutions remains, the increasing dismissal to use refugee protection limits even more the ambiguous temporalities of durable solutions in Latin America. This is because treating displacement as a migration issue, as reflected in the Venezuelan displacement, relies on short-term entry and residence permits that do not necessarily guarantee permanent residency or a pathway to citizenship. At the same time, self-reliance has been encouraged at different levels to enhance migrants’ and refugees’ socio-economic integration, while highlighting their contribution to the economies of the host countries. While this is a pragmatic “win–win” strategy, a durable solution within a framework of international protection should also emphasise effective access to rights and other multiple dimensions related to integration in order to promote social cohesion. Finally, these changes can also be understood in relation to the re-emergence of securitist actors in the region82 and the shifting role of the International Organisations in Latin America, with the OIM taking a more relevant role in the Venezuelan response, competing for influence and funding with the UNHCR.

CONCLUSIONS This chapter has reviewed how the grammar of durable solutions has been taking shape in Latin America as part of the Cartagena Declaration and its review process. This grammar has reinforced the use of the three traditional durable solutions – voluntary repatriation, local integration and resettlement – with different levels of success in their implementation as well as with shifting preferences between them depending on specific time and context. Through the different meetings of the review process, the MPA and the BPA, some key ideas developed at the global level were also introduced at the regional level, particularly in relation to States’ capacity, the emphasis on host communities and the role of a myriad of actors (from the UNHCR to the key support of CSOs and private actors). At the same time, the region has

78 Vera Espinoza, M. 2021. The mixed legacy of the Mexico Declaration and plan of action: Solidarity and refugee protection. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 77–95. 79 Zapata, G., Vera Espinoza, M. and Gandini, L. (eds) 2022. Movilidades y Covid-19 en América Latina: inclusiones y exclusiones en tiempos de “crisis”. Mexico: UNAM. 80 Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to strengthen international protection of refugees in Latin America. 2004. https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​424bf6914​.html. 81 Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action. 2014. https://​www​.acnur​.org/​5b5101644​.pdf. 82 Brumat, L. and Vera Espinoza, M. 2023. Actors, ideas, and international influence: Understanding migration policy change in South America. International Migration Review 0(0): https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1177/​01979183221142776.

402  Handbook on forced migration managed to imprint its own characteristics, such as an emphasis on solidarity (both regional and international) needed to facilitate durable solutions, as well as a strong emphasis on socio-economic integration. The latter is both characteristic of the region in the context of the BPA, but also resonates with global trends in relation to refugees’ self-sufficiency. In this context, the grammar of durable solutions in Latin America has also registered a change towards development responses to refugees’ needs. The response to the Venezuelan displacement and the COVID-19 health and economic crisis raises key questions for the years to come. One relates to the ambiguous temporalities of durable solutions and how “durability” will be considered in the context of multiple “crises” and limited protection. The second question relates to the next review process of the Cartagena Declaration, which should take place in 2024, and how durable solutions will be written in the next regional document, considering the current context. Finally, we have not only discussed what are durable solutions, but also, for whom. As explored in this chapter, from a regional analysis, the ambiguous temporalities of durable solutions may not necessarily lead to the end of displacement for refugees, but it does reinforce the States’ directionality in relation to what solutions to implement, when, for how long and by whom. The grammar of durable solutions in Latin America is changing. While some of the types of solutions remain, the ambiguous temporalities associated with these solutions have increased. As voluntary return and socio-economic integration are increasingly discussed outside the refugee system, some of the provisions and commitments set up through the MPA and BPA may not be considered. Finally, States of the region have taken advantage of the pandemic to justify the militarisation of border control and restrictive policies. Shrinking the refugee system is consistent with this approach. This is because treating displacement as a migration issue gives States more control and space to securitise migration governance, as the international protection system implies certain standards regarding access to the territory, expulsion, and repatriation. This may have direct impacts on how durable solutions are understood and implemented in the region; shrinking protection may translate in temporal solutions, which now are not only discretionary, but also limited.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ACNUR (2018). Plan de Acción de Brasil: Primer Informe Trienal de Progreso 2015–2017. February 2018. https://​www​.refworld​.org​.es/​docid/​5c883c4e4​.html (accessed 18 June 2021). Acosta, D., Blouin, C. and Feline Freier, L. (2019). La emigración venezolana: Respuestas latinoamericanas. Working paper, no. 3. Madrid: Fundación Carolina. Arnold-Fernández, E., Sarmiento Torres, K. and Kallas, G. (2021). The Brazil Declaration and plan of action. A model for other regions. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 96–115. Biehl, K.S. (2015). Governing through uncertainty: Experiences of being a refugee in Turkey as a country for temporary asylum. Social Analysis 59(1): 57–75. Blouin, C., Berganza, I. and Freier, L.F. (2020). The spirit of Cartagena? Applying the extended refugee definition to Venezuelans in Latin America. Forced Migration Review 63: 64–6. Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action (2014). https://​www​.acnur​.org/​5b5101644​.pdf. Brumat, L. and Vera Espinoza, M. (2023). Actors, ideas, and international influence: Understanding migration policy change in South America. International Migration Review 0(0): https://​doi​.org/​10​ .1177/​01979183221142776.

The shifting grammar of durable solutions in Latin America  403 Brun, C. (2015). Active waiting and changing hopes: Toward a time perspective on protracted displacement. Social Analysis 59(1): 19–37. Dryden-Peterson, S. (2011). The politics of higher education for refugees in a global movement for primary education. Refuge 27(2): 10–18. El-Shaarawi, N. (2015). Living an uncertain future: An ethnography of displacement, health, psychosocial well-being and the search for durable solutions among Iraqi refugees in Egypt. Social Analysis 59(1): 38–56. Freier, L.F. (2018). Understanding the Venezuelan displacement crisis. E-International Relations. 28 June. https://​www​.e​-ir​.info/​2018/​06/​28/​understanding​-the​-venezuelan​-displacement​-crises/​ (accessed 7 June 2021). Freier, L.F. and Castillo Jara, S. (2021). Colombia’s exceptional migratory regularization. Migration Mobilities Bristol. 30 March 2021. https://​mmblatinamerica​.blogs​.bristol​.ac​.uk/​2021/​03/​30/​colombias​ -exceptional​-migratory​-regularization/​(accessed 15 July 2021). Freier, L.F. and Luzes, M. (2021). How humanitarian are humanitarian visas? An analysis of theory and practice in South America. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 276–93. Freier, F. and Vera Espinoza, M. (2021). COVID-19 & immigrants’ increased exclusion: The politics of immigrant integration in Chile and Peru. Frontiers in Human Dynamics 3. Gallagher, D. (1994). Durable solutions in a new political era. Journal of International Affairs 47(2): 429–50. Gandini, L., Prieto Rosas, V. and Lozano-Ascencio, F. (2019). Nuevas movilidades en América Latina: La migración venezolana en contextos de crisis y las respuestas en la región. Cuadernos Geográficos 59(3): 103–21. GARPAB (2018). Plan de Acción de Brasil: Evaluación del grupo articulador regional del plan de acción de Brasil 2014–2017. Mexico: Comersia Impresiones. Gil Everaert, I. (2020). Inhabiting the meanwhile: Rebuilding home and restoring predictability in a space of waiting. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47(19): 4327–43. Griffiths, M. (2013). Living with uncertainty. Journal of Legal Anthropology 1(3): 263–86. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.3167/​jla​.2013​.010301. Griffiths, M., Rogers, A. and Anderson, B. (2013). Migration, Time and Temporalities: Review and Prospect. Oxford: COMPAS. Guglielmelli-White, A. (2012). A pillar of protection: Solidarity resettlement for refugees in Latin America. New Issues in Refugee Research 239, pp. 1–26. Guizardi, M., Stefoni, C., Gonzálvez, H. and Mardones, P. (2021). ¿Migraciones transnacionales en crisis? Debates críticos desde el cono sudamericano (1970–2020). Papeles de Población 106: 183–220. Harild, N. and Christensen, A. (2011). The development challenge of finding durable solutions for refugees and internally displaced people. World Development Report 2011. Background Note, World Bank. Hathaway, J.C. (2006). Refugee solutions, or solutions to refugeehood? Refuge 24(2): 3–10. Jorgensen, Nuni (2022). Incertidumbre entre las personas migrantes venezolanas en Colombia ante el nuevo escenario político. Open Democracy, 21 July 2022. https://​ www​ .opendemocracy​ .net/​ es/​proteccion​-temporal​-refugio​-incertidumbre​-personas​-migrantes​-venezolanas​-colombia​-nuevo​ -escenario​-politico/​. Jubilut, L.L. and Lopes, R.O. (2018). Forced migration in Latin America: Peculiarities of a peculiar region in refugee protection. Archiv des Völkerrechts (AVR) 56(2): 131–54. Jubilut, L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (2019). The Cartagena Declaration at 35 and Refugee Protection in Latin America. E-International Relations, 22 November 2019. Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) (2021). Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Long, K. (2014). Rethinking “durable” solutions. In Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., Loescher, G., Long, K. and Sigona, N. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 475–87. Mazza, J. (2020). Venezuelan migrants under COVID-19: Managing South America’s pandemic amid a migration crisis. Latin American Program Working Paper. Washington: Wilson Center.

404  Handbook on forced migration Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen International Protection of Refugees in Latin America (MAP) (2004). https://​www​.refworld​.org/​docid/​424bf6914​.html. Milner, J. and Loescher, G. (2011). Responding to protracted refugee situations: Lessons from a decade of discussion. Forced Migration Policy Briefing 6. Oxford: Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Mountz, A. (2020). The Death of Asylum: Hidden Geographies of the Enforcement Archipelago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. R4V (2021). Coordination platform for refugees and migrants from Venezuela. https://​www​.r4v​.info/​ (accessed 6 July 2021). Ruiz, H. (2015). Evaluation of Resettlement Programmes in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Geneva: UNHCR. Rushing, E. and Lizcano Rodriguez, A. (2021). The invisible majority: Internally displaced people in Latin America and the San José Declaration. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 96–115. Selee, A., Bolter, J., Muñoz-Pogossian, B. and Hazán, M. (2019). Creativity amid Crisis: Legal pathways for Venezuelan Migrants in Latin America. Washington DC: Migration Policy Institute and OAS. Stein, Barry N. (1986). Durable solutions for developing country refugees. International Migration Review 20(2): 264–82. Souter, J. (2014). Durable solutions as reparation for the unjust harms of displacement: Who owes what to refugees? Journal of Refugee Studies 27(2): 171–90. UNHCR (2005). An Introduction to International Protection: Protecting Persons of Concern to UNHCR. 1 August 2005, Geneva: UNHCR. UNHCR (2011). UNHCR Resettlement Handbook, p.  28. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​3d464b239​.pdf. UNHCR (2016). Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2015. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​uk/​statistics/​ unhcrstats/​576408cd7/​unhcr​-global​-trends​-2015​.html. UNHCR (2017). Global Trends. Forced Displacement in 2016. https://​www​.unhcr​.org/​5943e8a34​.pdf. Vera Espinoza, M. (2018). The limits and opportunities of regional solidarity: Exploring refugee resettlement in Brazil and Chile. Global Policy 9(1), pp. 85–94. Vera Espinoza, M. (2018). The politics of resettlement: Expectations and unfulfilled promises in Chile and Brazil. In Garnier, A., Lyra Jubilut, L. and Bergtora Sandvik, K. (eds) Refugee Resettlement: Power, Politics and Humanitarian Governance. New York: Berghahn Books. pp. 223–43. Vera Espinoza, M. (2021). The mixed legacy of the Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action: Solidarity and refugee protection. In Jubilut, L.L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Mezzanotti, G. (eds) Latin America and Refugee Protection: Regimes, Logics and Challenges. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 77–95. Vera Espinoza, M., Zapata, G.P. and Gandini, L. (2020). Mobility in immobility: Latin American migrants trapped amid COVID-19. Open Democracy. Vera Espinoza, M., Prieto Rosas, V., Zapata, G.P., Gandini, L., Fernández de la Reguera, A., Herrera, G., López Villamil, S. et al. (2021). Towards a typology of social protection for migrants and refugees in Latin America during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Comparative Migration Studies 9(1): 52. https://​doi​ .org/​10​.1186/​s40878‐021‐00265‐x. Zapata, G.P. and Prieto Rosas, V. (2020). Structural and contingent inequalities: The impact of COVID‐19 on migrant and refugee populations in South America. Bulletin of Latin American Research 39 (S1): 16–22. Zapata, G., Vera Espinoza, M. and Gandini, L. (eds) (2022). Movilidades y Covid-19 en América Latina: inclusiones y exclusiones en tiempos de “crisis”. Mexico: UNAM. Zapata, G.P., Gandini, L., Vera Espinoza, M. and Prieto Rosas, V. (forthcoming). Weakening practices amidst progressive laws: Refugee governance in Latin America during COVID-19. Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies.

 

Poem: I Now Pronounce You Dead

Martín Espada For Sacco and Vanzetti, executed 23 August 1927 On the night of his execution, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, immigrant from Italia, fishmonger, anarchist, shook the hand of Warden Hendry and thanked him for everything. I wish to forgive some people for what they are now doing to me, said Vanzetti, blindfolded, strapped down to the chair that would shoot two thousand volts through his body. The warden’s eyes were wet. The warden’s mouth was dry. The warden heard his own voice croak: Under the law I now pronounce you dead. No one could hear him. With the same hand that shook the hand of Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Warden Hendry of Charlestown Prison waved at the executioner, who gripped the switch to yank it down. The walls of Charlestown Prison are gone, to ruin, to dust, to mist. Where the prison stood there is a school; in the hallways, tongues speak the Spanish of the Dominican, the Portuguese of Cabo Verde, the Creole of Haiti. No one can hear the last words of Vanzetti, or the howl of thousands on Boston Common when they knew. After midnight, at the hour of the execution, Warden Hendry sits in the cafeteria, his hand shaking as if shocked, rice flying off his fork, so he cannot eat no matter how the hunger feeds on him, muttering the words that only he can hear: I now pronounce you dead.

Narrative: Return after interrupted migration cycles

Maybritt Jill Alpes Contemporary migration policies increasingly focus on returns, rather than on creating safe and legal access paths for asylum seekers in destination or transit countries. For example, proposed reforms of the European Union (EU) Migration and Asylum Pact seek to connect asylum with return procedures at EU borders.1 The Pact foresees a so-called “solidarity mechanism” that allows EU member states to support return efforts as a substitute to sharing protection responsibilities through, for example, the relocation of refugees. At the United Nations level, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) resorts to returns to respond to the humanitarian distress of migrants transiting through Northern and West Africa rather than make migration legal and safe. In the Middle East, debates on durable solutions for Syrian refugees focus almost exclusively on return, rather than on integration and resettlement.2 These agreements and programmes reflect the Global Migration Compact, in which states made commitments in Objective 21 to facilitate safe and dignified return and to ensure that the reintegration of migrants upon return is “sustainable”. Yet, few have defined what “sustainable” means, or sought to understand what we know about people’s lives after return. “Sustainability” here refers to policy tools that can create economic and social opportunities and shared responsibilities. This chapter explores some examples of mobility and displacement dynamics in West Africa and the Middle East, focusing on what happens to people subject to different return modalities. I argue that the “sustainability” of return is linked to return modalities, and that policy makers should be questioning whether returns are the appropriate policy tool to achieve sustainable migration policies, rather than seeking strategies for how to improve the implementation of returns.

DRIVERS OF RETURN FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PEOPLE ON THE MOVE Returns can be driven by subjective motivations, various external factors, and/or state force. They can be desired, obliged and pressured, or forced. These return modalities contribute to whether people’s lives after return can be sustainable, or not.

1 Tunaboylu, S. and Alpes, M.J. (2017) “The EU–Turkey deal: what happens to people who return to Turkey?”, Forced Migration Review [Preprint], (FRW 54). 2 Fakhoury, T. and Stel, N. (2022) “EU engagement with contested refugee returns in Lebanon: The aftermath of resilience”, Geopolitics, DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2022.2025779.

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Narrative: Return after interrupted migration cycles  407 Desirable Returns Migrants can decide for various reasons that it is desirable to return. They may have gathered enough tangible and intangible resources to carry out projects in their countries of origin. Family crisis and personal factors can also drive returns.3 For example, a migrant might decide to return because they want to retire, or to reunite with family in their country of origin.4 Obliged and Pressured Returns A variety of factors can pressure or oblige migrants to return. Migrants who have received a removal order can feel obliged to return so as to avoid sanctions such as detention.5 When migrants no longer have a legal residence permit, for example, or when asylum seekers have seen their claim rejected, they might feel the pressure to accept cash payments and logistical assistance (covering the cost of their travel, for instance) from their current country of residence back to their country of origin. The ramifications of a return differ widely for labour migrants, asylum seekers and others. For example, this option is not secure for people in need of international protection who were unable to access asylum status in countries of arrival. As asylum procedures are being accelerated, the question emerges whether denied asylum seekers should be returned. Forced Returns Finally, states can also forcibly readmit individuals to countries of origin and thus interrupt migration cycles.6 States’ sovereign right to return migrants is, however, limited by international norms and legal frameworks.7 For example, the principle of non-refoulement, enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention, forbids states to return people to inhumane and degrading circumstances. Hence states are not allowed to push back individuals at borders without allowing them access to an individualized assessment of their international protection needs. 3 Cassarino, J.-P. (2020) “Are Current ‘Return Policies’ Return Policies? A Reflection and Critique”, in Bastia, T. and Skeldon, R. (eds) Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development. Routledge, pp. 343–52. 4 Van Walsum, S. and Alpes, M.J. (2014) “Transnational Households: Migrants and Care, at Home and Abroad”, in Anderson, B. and Shutes, I. (eds) Migration and Care Labour. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 151–69. 5 Newland, K. and Salant, B. (2018) Balancing Acts: Policy Frameworks for Migrant Return and Reintegration. Policy Brief. Migration Policy Institute. Available at: https://​re​turnandrei​ntegration​.iom​ .int/​en/​resources/​study/​balancing​-acts​-policy​-frameworks​-migrant​-return​-and​-reintegration (Accessed: 16 February 2022). 6 Cassarino, J.-P. (2020) “Are Current ‘Return Policies’ Return Policies? A Reflection and Critique”, in Bastia, T. and Skeldon, R. (eds) Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development. Routledge, pp. 343–52. Available at: https://​hal​.archives​-ouvertes​.fr/​hal​-02861599 (Accessed: 16 February 2022); Sinatti, G. (2015) “Return migration as a win-win-win scenario? Visions of return among Senegalese migrants, the state of origin and receiving countries”, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 38(2), pp. 275–91; Kleist, N. (2020) “Trajectories of involuntary return migration to Ghana: Forced relocation processes and post-return life”, Geoforum, 116, pp. 272–81. 7 Khosravi, S. (ed.) (2018) After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives. Reprint of the original 1st 2018 edn. Palgrave Macmillan; Alpes, J. and Sørensen, N. (2016) Post-Deportation Risks: People Face Insecurity and Threats after Forced Returns. Policy Brief. Danish Institute for International Studies.

408  Handbook on forced migration As a result, prior to forced readmissions, states have to examine whether a forced return would expose individuals to inhumane or degrading treatment upon return.8 Under international human rights law, states also have to assess whether readmission would violate a person’s right to family life9 or the right to access a fair trial and legal remedy.10

EFFECTS OF RETURN MODALITIES FOR SUSTAINABLE REINTEGRATION Since the early 2000s, the return of migrants and asylum seekers has shifted from “being a voluntary decision made by individuals to a policy option which is exercised by governments”.11 This shift goes hand in hand with a state-centric perspective on mobility, whereby return becomes a policy of deterrence and exclusion to combat irregular migration.12 From the perspective of returned migrants, many return policies do not enable a return to normalcy – let alone many states’ declared policy goal of “sustainable reintegration”.13 The following sections highlight the limits of sustainable lives after return by illustrating the socioeconomic and psychological effects of respectively deportation, interrupted migration, and police-organized returns for migrants. Deportation as Forced Migration Deportations are a form of forced migration.14 Deportation exposes migrants to economic hardship, social stigma, and sometimes bodily harm in their home countries.15 Although policy makers consider deportations a type of return, forced relocation does not mean migrants will be returned to a place where they have meaningful social or civic ties.16 In some cases, deported individuals are forcibly returned to countries where they do not even speak the local languages.17 Michael, whom I interviewed in Nigeria, offers one example of this phenomenon. Even though he had only lived in Nigeria until the age of two, he was deported at the age of

Art. 3 European Convention on Human Rights, Art. 7 International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights. 9 Art. 8 European Convention on Human Rights, Art. 17 International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights. 10 Art. 6 and 13 European Convention on Human Rights, Art. 2(3) International Covenant on Civic and Political Rights. 11 Blitz, B.K., Sales, R. and Marzano, L. (2005) “Non-Voluntary Return? The Politics of Return to Afghanistan”, Political Studies, 53(1), pp. 182–200. 12 De Genova, N.P. (2002) “Migrant ‘Illegality’ and Deportability in Everyday Life”, Annual Review of Anthropology, 31(1), pp. 419–47; Alpes, M.J. (2016) Brokering High-Risk Migration and Illegality in West Africa: Abroad at any Cost. Routledge. 13 Alpes, M.J. (2014) “Imagining a future in ‘bush’: Migration aspirations at times of crisis in Anglophone Cameroon”, Identities, 21(3), pp. 259–74. 14 Gibney, M.J. (2013) “Is Deportation a Form of Forced Migration?”, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 32(2), pp. 116–29. 15 Khosravi, Shahram, ed. (2018) After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives. Palgrave. 16 Alpes, M.J. and Nyborg Sorensen, N. (2016) “Post-deportation risks”, DIIS Policy Brief. 17 Alpes, M.J. (2019) “After Deportation, Some Congolese Returnees Face Detention and Extortion”, Migration Policy Institute. 8

Narrative: Return after interrupted migration cycles  409 26 from the UK to Nigeria. For Michael, deportation was not a return, but rather a complete removal from anything he had known in his former life. Michael described his deportation in the following way: “I had no Nigeria experience. I didn’t even know whom to call. All the people I knew were from Birmingham.” At the time of the interview, Michael was sleeping rough in the facilities of Lagos’ football stadium.18 Transit Returns as Interrupted Migration Transit returns interrupt people’s journey and force them to return to countries of origin prematurely. States and migrants have different perceptions of the drivers of these returns. For example, Nigerian and Malian migrants refer to their return from Libyan detention centres as an act of “deportation”, while the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and members of the EU talk about “assisting migrants in need to return to their countries of origin upon their request”.19 In doing so, state and UN actors frame return operations as an exclusively supportive action. They neglect to acknowledge the connection to broader migration management policies aimed at keeping transit migrants away from European borders. Since 2019, the EU has greatly increased its funding for the IOM to carry out “Humanitarian Voluntary Returns” (HRVs) from Libya and other countries. Such return operations respond to migrants’ short-term needs (removing them, for example, from protracted waiting at European borders or unsafe prison conditions and trafficking in countries such as Libya), but do not address the underlying drivers of migration.20 Thus, even returnees who are able to access reintegration assistance provided by IOM continue to face the same protection needs and barriers to their social aspirations that prompted them to migrate in the first place.21 Return does not equate to protection, just as it does not guarantee sustainable reintegration. Organized and Pressured Returns: Creating New Cycles of Displacement Since 2018, Lebanon’s General Security Organization (GSO) has been organizing group returns of Syrians in close coordination with the Syrian regime. Lebanese authorities present these as “voluntary” returns, yet broader Lebanese policies and practices (e.g., legal and employment restrictions) create serious constraints to integration in Lebanon and generate pressures to return. For example, 80 per cent of all Syrians in Lebanon do not have a residence permit, and even those with a residence permit do not always have a permit to work.22

PICUM (2020) “Removed: Stories of hardship and resilience in facing Deportation and its Aftermath”. 19 Alpes, M.J. (2020) Emergency Returns by IOM from Libya and Niger: A Protection Response or a Source of Protection Concerns? Bread for the World/Medico. 20 Alpes, M.J. (2020) Emergency Returns by IOM from Libya and Niger: A Protection Response or a Source of Protection Concerns? Bread for the World/Medico. 21 Alpes, M.J. (2020) Emergency Returns by IOM from Libya and Niger: A Protection Response or a Source of Protection Concerns? Bread for the World/Medico; Lietaert, Ine. (2019) “The usefulness of reintegration support: The dual perspectives of returnees and caseworkers”, British Journal of Social Work, 49(5): 1216–23. 22 VASyr (2021) Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon. 18

410  Handbook on forced migration Moreover, racism and xenophobia have been mounting in Lebanon over the last few years.23 This calls into question the extent to which Syrian migrants are able to make free and informed decisions about return. While technically voluntary, these returns are anything but. Pressures can result in premature returns that violate people’s human rights and exacerbate migrant vulnerabilities. Take 39-year-old Tasnem, for example. Tasnem told me in an interview that she could no longer take living in an informal tent settlement in Lebanon after she learned that her husband had died in detention in Syria. In 2016, she decided to return to the family property in Syria with her three children and her sister-in-law. Upon arrival at the Syrian border, Tasnem was arrested and detained. When Tasnem was finally able to join her children, former neighbours and community members refused to talk to her and consciously kept a distance. They did not want to be associated with someone whose husband had died in prison and who had been imprisoned herself, knowing that the Syrian Intelligence Services and their community focal points are all-pervasive. After less than a year, Tasnem gave up on living in her place of origin and instead went with her children to join displaced family members in Idlib, Syria. From there, she is hoping to be able to move on to Turkey.24 Tasnem’s experience speaks to the dangers of policy responses to war-induced displacement that do not convincingly create safe and legal access paths to meaningful international protection through, for example integration, resettlement or humanitarian visas. Tasnem’s return was not the end, but the beginning of a new cycle of displacement.

IMPLICATIONS FOR RESEARCH, POLICY AND PRACTICE What contributes to sustainable return, then? Seydou’s experience offers one hint. Seydou was successfully working with his IOM reintegration funds in a small business in Bamako after his IOM-assisted return to Mali. Yet, IOM funds alone were insufficient to allow him to fulfil his responsibilities as an adult and caretaker for family members in the village. He pleaded with his brother in France to help him migrate again. His brother refused but agreed to send money to Seydou so that he could respond to family problems in the village. These funds enabled him to maintain his honour and social function as a responsible male adult in both his place of residence and his village of origin, which would have been impossible with IOM support alone.25 Geographic mobility remained key to his social-economic empowerment, as in fact to the social protection of his entire family. Sustainable migration policies involve fully recognizing the legal, socio-economic and social realities of people on the move. Various forms of obliged, pressured, and forced return fail to consider the implications of interrupted migration journeys or failed attempts to gain asylum and other forms of international protection. Often, return policies contribute to unsus23 Obeid, S., Haddad, C., Salame, W. and Hallit, S. (2019), “Xenophobic attitudes, behaviors and coping strategies among Lebanese people toward immigrants and refugees”, Perspectives in Psychiatric Care, 55(4): 710–717; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) “Anti-Syrian banners and graffiti in context: Racism, counter-racism and solidarity for refugees in Lebanon”, Refugee Hosts, 27 April. 24 Alpes, M.J. (2021) “Pushbacks and expulsions from Cyprus and Lebanon: The risks of (chain) refoulement to Syria”, EuroMed Rights. 25 Alpes, M.J. (2020) Emergency Returns by IOM from Libya and Niger: A Protection Response or a Source of Protection Concerns? Bread for the World/Medico.

Narrative: Return after interrupted migration cycles  411 tainable lives, prompting new displacement, hardship, or precarious livelihoods or exposure to additional persecution in a person’s country of nationality. State policies aimed at return can hide actual dynamics of displacement and migration control and thereby deflect from states’ protection responsibilities. Sustainable migration policies should be based on a range of policy tools that include resettlement, relocation, humanitarian visas, regularization, family reunification, and labour migration schemes – tools that speak to the diversity and complexity of mixed migration flows. When readmissions to countries of origin appear to be the most desirable policy option, states, IOM, and other regional border regimes should examine ahead of time whether these relocations can result in sustainable integration. It is time to consider whether, and not just how, to implement return policies in different contexts.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Alpes, Maybritt Jill, “Imagining a future in bush: Migration aspirations at times of crisis in Anglophone Cameroon”, Identities 21, no. 3 (2014): 259–74. Alpes, Maybritt Jill, Brokering High-Risk Migration in West Africa: Abroad at all Cost (London: Ashgate, 2016). Alpes, Maybritt Jill, “After Deportation, Some Congolese Returnees Face Detention and Extortion” (Migration Policy Institute, 2019). Alpes, Maybritt Jill, Emergency Returns by IOM from Libya and Niger: A Protection Response or a Source of Protection Concerns? (Bread for the World/Medico, 2020). Alpes, Maybritt Jill, “Pushbacks and expulsions from Cyprus and Lebanon: The risks of (chain) refoulement”, in Return Mania: Mapping Policies and Practices in the EuroMed Region (Brussels: EuroMed Rights, 2021). Alpes, Maybritt Jill and Majcher, Izabella, “Who can and cannot be sustainably reintegrated after return? Using post-return monitoring for protection and human right guarantees”, UNU-CRIS Policy Brief (2020). Alpes, Maybritt Jill and Nyborg Sorensen, Ninna, “Post-deportation risks”, DIIS Policy Brief (2016). Alpes, Maybritt Jill, Tuaboylu, Sevda, Ulusoy, Orcun and Hassan, Saima (2017), “Post-deportation risks under the EU–Turkey Statement: What happens after readmission to Turkey?”, EUI Policy Brief (30). Blitz, Brad K., Sales, Rosemary and Marzano, Lisa, “Non-voluntary return? The politics of returns to Afghanistan”, Political Studies 53, no. 1 (2005): 182–200. Cassarino, Jean-Pierre, “Are current ‘return policies’ return policies? A reflection and critique”, in Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development, eds. Tanja Bastia and Ronald Skeldon (London: Routledge, 2020). De Genova, Nicola, “Migrant ‘illegality’ and deportability in everyday life”, Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002): 419–47. Fakhoury, T. and Stel, N., “EU engagement with contested refugee returns in Lebanon: The aftermath of resilience”, Geopolitics (2022), DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2022.2025779. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E., “Anti-Syrian banners and graffiti in context: Racism, counter-racism and solidarity for refugees in Lebanon”, Refugee Hosts 27 April (2018). Gibney, Matthew J., “Is Deportation a Form of Forced Migration?” Refugee Survey Quarterly 32, no. 2 (2013): 116–29. Khosravi, Shahram, ed., After Deportation: Ethnographic Perspectives (London: Palgrave, 2018). Kleist, Nauja, “Trajectories of involuntary return migration to Ghana: Forced relocation processes and post-return life”, Geoforum 116 (2020), 272–81. Lietaert, Ine, “The usefulness of reintegration support: The dual perspectives of returnees and caseworkers”, British Journal of Social Work 49, no.5 (2019): 1216–23. Newland, Kathleen and Salant, Brian, Balancing Acts: Frameworks for Migrant Return and Reintegration (Washington DC: Migration Policy Institute, 2018).

412  Handbook on forced migration Obeid, S., Haddad, C., Salame, W. and Hallit, S., “Xenophobic attitudes, behaviors and coping strategies among Lebanese people toward immigrants and refugees”, Perspectives in Psychiatric Care 55, no. 4 (2019): 710–717. PICUM, Removed: Stories of Hardship and Resilience in facing Deportation and its Aftermath (Brussels: PICUM, 2020). Sinatti, Giulia, “Return migration as a win–win–win scenario? Visions of return amongst Senegalese migrants, the state of origin and receiving countries”, Ethnic and Racial Studies 38, no. 2 (2014): 275–91. Tunaboylu, S. and Alpes, M.J., “The EU–Turkey deal: what happens to people who return to Turkey?”, Forced Migration Review [Preprint], (FRW 54) (2017). Van Walsum, Sarah and Alpes, Maybritt Jill, “Transnational households: Migrants and care, at home and abroad”, in Migration and Care Labour: Theory, Policy and Politics, Bridget Anderson and Isabel Shutes, (eds) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). VASyr , Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon (2021).

PART VII LIVED EXPERIENCES: THE VIEWS OF REFUGEES AND PRACTITIONERS

Refugees

40. Narrative: Life in South Africa: Irresistible soft power meets the hard reality Barnabas Ticha Muvhuti

While growing up and attending school in Zimbabwe during the 1990s, the magazines I encountered were either Bona or Drum from South Africa. Our sport-loving family followed the South African teams – Bafana Bafana, the Proteas and the Springboks – as if they were our own national teams. Fed up with the Zimbabwe ruling regime’s propaganda in the state-controlled media, my peers and I read the South African Sunday Times and the Mail & Guardian every weekend, and those who liked ‘soapies’ stayed glued to the television watching Generations and Muvhango. We would even listen to Metro FM and Radio 2000 via DSTV audio. That is how we were sold on South Africa. Its soft power was irresistible. When the situation in Zimbabwe deteriorated, especially with the worsening economic conditions coupled with brutal political violence in 2008, I moved to South Africa, which I saw as a country of opportunities. Indeed, since settling in South Africa, I have been able to enroll in three world-class institutions of higher learning, namely Stellenbosch University, the University of Cape Town, and Rhodes University where I am reading for a doctoral degree. I never dreamt that one day I would study for an art degree and work in top art institutions. South Africa accorded me that shift in my career. The nation’s art community has become my family, the core of people I interact with and follow on social media. In the universities, I have also made friends from different African countries and beyond. At workplaces and at Newlands Cricket Stadium, I met people of diverse cultural backgrounds and made friends in this multicultural society. In different parts of Cape Town and Makhanda, I’ve shared accommodation with Congolese and Rwandese refugees and immigrants, and been welcomed into the homes of Xhosas and Zulus. Some of the wonderful people in my network of friends are XiTsonga and Sotho people. I have sampled tasty dishes from all these peoples’ cultures. In the town of Stellenbosch was the first time I became conscious of the fact that I am Black. I saw people of my skin color being treated differently. Back home in Zimbabwe I had occasionally been taught by white expatriate teachers. Even when the farm invasions under the chaotic Fast-Track Land Reform scheme occurred in the early 2000s, they were not framed in racist rhetoric. In Stellenbosch I was exposed to a conservative, predominantly white community and its overt racism. Although I quickly adapted and learned ways to navigate around, demarcating spaces to avoid, I lost the confidence I had when I left Zimbabwe. When the South African government granted 250 000 Zimbabweans a special permit known as the Zimbabwe Dispensation Permit in 2010, I was relieved. It meant I would not have to join long queues at the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) office to renew an asylum paper every 3–6 months. However, over the years I learned that the conditions on the permit were so restrictive that I was not able to migrate to another permit or to apply for permanent residence, despite having stayed in this country for over a decade. As I write this, the government has 415

416  Handbook on forced migration announced that it will not be renewing the permits. I am in the middle of the one-year ‘grace period’1 during which I must apply for a mainstream permit to prolong my stay. Otherwise I would be arrested and deported. In South Africa I am always reminded that I am an outsider. It can be in the university where the International Office repeatedly asks you for a permit the DHA is taking forever to process, or the colleague who makes a bad joke about the need to deport me. At times it is the radio station where you hear someone complaining about African foreigners committing crime, taking jobs, selling drugs, and burdening the country’s healthcare system. It can be on the public taxi or train where I keep quiet, fearing that if I speak someone will notice that I am not from here since I do not speak their language. On the streets I am called by derogatory names like kwerekwere or gweja. In Makhanda where Rhodes University is, the property agencies require international students to pay double the rental deposit. Banks can freeze your account first before they ask you to update your documents. Then there are the xenophobic attacks targeting African nationals that recur after every 2–3 years. Politicians and public figures either refuse to denounce the perpetrators or they openly show support. Two terms I would like to see challenged when speaking of migration are illegal and undocumented. These two terms strike fear in any migrant. They give the impression that one is always seen as suspicious or being hunted to be arrested. They are even more dangerous when used by local communities and on the streets where it is not the duty of ordinary people to ask anyone to produce documents. I associate the two words with vigilante violence. An assumption I would like to see challenged when speaking about migration is that migrants steal jobs. On the contrary, I have seen migrants operating businesses that employ local people. The education I have received in South Africa has transformed my life in many ways. I have made career inroads into the art world as a writer and an art historian. I have a strong network of colleagues and loving friends whom I consider to be family. I have also learned to appreciate the plight of other migrants from different countries. Our struggles are not the same, but friendships built on empathy tie us together. In my culture we value strong family bonds. As such, what I find disturbing about living as a migrant is the erosion of strong family ties. My brothers and cousins are scattered in distant places like the United Kingdom and Australia. I have not seen them in ages, and have no strong ties with their kids, since I have only met them via WhatsApp and Zoom.



1

The ‘grace period’ has since been extended by another six months to the end of June 2023.

41. Narrative: We escaped in seconds … it then takes four years to become a refugee Hassan Hersi

In 2008, when I fled Somalia, there was a serious war going on between the government, which was supported by the AMISOM forces (mostly Ethiopians), and groups such as al-Shabaab that claim to be Islamists and want to rule Somalia under Islamic law. I lived a long life and was always in danger of dying. Landmines were everywhere and armed conflicts were ongoing. When I left home in the morning, I was not sure that I would come back safely. Then I became one of the people who got the chance to leave the country. It was a long and difficult journey. While we were going to the border of Somalia and Kenya, we were in danger of being eaten by wild animals because sometimes we had to walk. Once it happened that we ran into a group of thieves. We escaped in seconds and if the driver had not stopped the car, they would have shot us. After a long journey of hunger and thirst, we entered Kenya. My life there was not pretty because in Kenya it is difficult to walk freely on the streets and the Kenyan police arrest and imprison immigrants. The people who were imprisoned used bribes to be released. I was not well paid then, and I could not afford to pay a bribe if I was caught walking on the street, so my movement was very limited. The police did not differentiate between refugees and others. And if you are a foreigner and do not know the language, you are a target. Upon my arrival in Egypt and subsequent registration as a refugee, I encountered a few challenges in my daily life. As a foreigner, I experienced instances of discrimination from some individuals. Language barriers also proved to be a significant obstacle, putting me, along with other refugees, at risk of encountering fraudulent situations. Moreover, I noticed that goods and services were sometimes overpriced for refugees, including myself, especially those who were not familiar with Egyptian Arabic. Foreigners in Egypt, such as Americans and Europeans, may face the same problem, but the process is different. When a person is a refugee, the money he receives is very little, and when he finds out that he has been cheated, it may leave a psychological impact. These kinds of things happened to me when I was new in Egypt before I learned Egyptian Arabic. After I learned their language, I was able to avoid being cheated. The refugee agency (UNHCR) does not provide education for refugees to improve their lives. People only obtain documents to legally stay in Egypt. Obtaining a residence permit is hard. I remember one day I was in the Egyptian immigration office to get a residence permit and one lady from South Sudan approached me and asked me if I would speak to the officer. I asked her why she cannot do that herself and she said, ‘I fear him because he yells at people.’ From my professional experience of working closely with refugee organizations for almost nine years, I have observed some concerns regarding the level of service provided to refugees. One common issue raised by many is the perceived lack of budgetary support for crucial aspects such as health and education. Requests for assistance in these areas have often been met with responses indicating limited resources, leading to a sense of frustration among the refugee community. Additionally, there have been instances where the approach of UNHCR 417

418  Handbook on forced migration staff in addressing these concerns has been perceived as less than accommodating, with some refugees being informed that UNHCR primarily focuses on providing documentation, such as the yellow card or the blue card. Because of lack of services, many refugees have returned to their home country, and some have crossed the sea by boats to emigrate to Europe. As an interpreter at UNHCR, I had the unique opportunity to witness firsthand the power dynamics and imbalances that occasionally hindered our ability to contribute valuable insights from the refugee community. Despite living among and working closely with the larger refugee population, we often found our capacity to effectively voice their concerns and ideas limited by certain organizational policies and office structures. These challenges prevented us from fully leveraging our position to advocate for the needs of refugees and asylum seekers, which could have led to more inclusive decision-making and better-tailored support for their well-being. Addressing these power dynamics and imbalances is crucial for fostering a more participatory and empowering environment, ensuring that the voices of the refugee community are genuinely heard and taken into account in shaping policies and interventions. Throughout my significant involvement as an interpreter at UNHCR Egypt, for nearly five years, with most of my time devoted to the RSD (refugee status determination) department, I frequently encountered situations where individuals with similar asylum applications received differing decisions. This inconsistency left me puzzled as the evaluation criteria remained unclear. The prevailing view among refugees, which I concur with, is that refugee recognition in Egypt is closely tied to the country’s immigration policy, aimed at regulating, and managing immigrant inflows. This perspective was widely shared by many of my colleagues at the office. One more thing worth mentioning: it takes roughly four years for a person to become a refugee. This issue creates a lot of anxiety for people. Because I interacted directly with the refugees, they used to ask me about the reason for their rejection and why their cases were taking such a long time. I didn’t have answers to these questions, and I just used to tell them what I heard from the office staff – that the office is not able to process all cases quickly. There were many double standards in UNHCR that caused a lot of frustration to me and my colleagues. In UNHCR Egypt the staff are mostly local and regional, and this caused corruption and inefficiency. They always complain about running out of budget. The situation was better when more international staff were in the office. Another problem with UNHCR and other international NGOs is their narrow relationship with community-based organizations (CBOs). UNHCR alone decides how to work with CBOs, but they should work out their relationship together. CBOs have a lot to offer in understanding refugees and communicating with them. I thought UNHCR advocacy in Egypt was weak. UNHCR couldn’t release people from jails easily, couldn’t help people when they face issues about obtaining residency permits. If the US rejected someone’s resettlement application, they could not change the decision but this rejection could impact the person’s application to other countries because they couldn’t submit the same case rejected by the DHS to another country. There was this kind of unbalanced power relations between UNHCR and resettlement countries which made UNHCR beg resettlement countries. Since these countries all signed the 1951 mandate, they should deal with UNHCR nicer than they are doing now.

42. Narrative: A Malawian in South Africa – the good and the bad Mwaona Nyirongo

Being a forced migrant from Malawi, in Johannesburg, was challenging. Most people find it difficult to comprehend that someone from Malawi could be forced to migrate because Malawi is a peaceful nation and has never been directly involved in a war. As a result, Malawians are typically rejected if they apply for refugee status in South Africa. It is common in Johannesburg to categorize Malawians as economic migrants. But to be a forced migrant, one does not necessarily need to come from a region that is in conflict; people are forced to migrate for a variety of reasons, such as hunger and witchcraft accusations. The South African government’s refusal to recognize migrants as refugees and allow them to remain there legally poses difficulties. For instance, illegal residents cannot present the study permit required to attend school. They are compelled to get fraudulent study and residence permits. These permits are pricey, turning some migrants into crooks and victims of fraud. They must keep paying for these fake documents each time the document expires. Sometimes people do not have the money to purchase fraudulent documents, so they are forced to spend their lives hiding from the law. Because of their fragile circumstances, they are often forced to leave their kids at home, where they spend months before obtaining a fake study permit and being able to enroll in school. The migrants also engage in informal employment where no documentation is required. This enables the migrants to put food on the table and send money home. Migrants live in substandard dwellings, like shacks, which are a fire risk and too cold in winter. These shacks are shared, so there is no privacy. Sometimes to get accommodation that is better than the shacks, people must share. There may be ten individuals living in the same space. These residences often lack formal addresses, making it difficult for residents to deal with banks or other legitimate financial institutions because they require proof of residence to provide services. Many people in Malawi receive assistance (remittances) from their relatives who migrated to Johannesburg. Migrants send money to buy fertilizer, pay school fees, or even to build homes. The migrants help their family members back home have better lives even while they are suffering, living in substandard surroundings, and working low-paying jobs.

COMMON TERMS, LANGUAGE AND ASSUMPTIONS Black immigrants to South Africa are often addressed as Makwerekwere, which is a derogatory term (white migrants are typically referred to as expatriates). This phrase is not innocent because it functions as a way to rank Black bodies below South Africans. Black bodies have always been at the bottom of the human hierarchy. This has been going on for a long time in South Africa and the rest of Africa. Black people today continue to uphold the same repressive, racist structures that our forefathers struggled to abolish, including the ranking of bodies. 419

420  Handbook on forced migration This kind of behavior is a form of Black-on-Black cannibalism where Francis Nyamnjoh (2018) argues that there are many ways of consuming bodies, such that xenophobia towards African migrants is a form of cannibalism.

REFERENCE Nyamnjoh, F. (2018) ‘Introduction: Cannibalism as Food for Thought’, in Eating and Being Eaten. African Books Collective.

43. Narrative: I have always felt like I am not a forced migrant … enough Yuliia Kabanets

I have always felt like I am not a forced migrant … enough. There are so many people who have lost everything, have lost their loved ones, who did not have a place to live, who stayed under the constant shelling. I got lucky, I repeat, saying to myself. It was my school graduation party (2014), and it was quite a success that we even had one. I remember staring in the night sky and thinking, ‘Why us?’ I could hear the explosions somewhere far from where I was standing. At that point, my home city Donetsk was already not controlled by the Ukrainian government, and unidentified Russian military groups had checkpoints all over the city. I left Donetsk with my parents at the end of June to take the national independent testing to apply to the university – and then could not return home due to constant shelling of the roads. So there I was starting my student life in Kyiv with summer clothes. If the war had not started, would I still have left Donetsk to study in Kyiv? When I say that I am an internally displaced person, I often add that I started studying at the university, as if this means that the displacement part is not that important. My house was not ruined, my family is alive, I had housing and amazing friends whose parents invited me over for the holidays. My experience and forced displacement made me hate family holidays because I could not be with my family, it made me hate summers because heat and sun is forever associated with the time when everything fell apart, it made me hate loud noises. It made me much more angry with the world and the way it works. Being a forced migrant is an important part of my identity. It does not define me but influences my life in many ways. I have noticed that I like to bring up where I am from. At first, I felt that it was my mission to tell people about my homeland and everything that had happened to me. Sometimes it was exhausting to talk about this over and over again, to see discomfort and confusion on people’s faces whilst I was talking about the check-points, the gun pointed at us, sleeping while the Russian artillery worked its way in our direction. People wanted to ask questions but were also afraid to do so. Now I myself feel that discomfort, because I do not really know how to ask those questions of people who, for example, escaped Mariupol this year (2022). There is always more required from a person who has been displaced. For me, apart from being stressed, as are any students at the start of their studies, the feeling of uncertainty and the realization that I could not go home, was overwhelming. This experience very much contributed to who I am now: I definitely became stronger, learned to adjust to circumstances fast and became quite effective despite my emotional state. However, I question the narrative about successful displaced persons. Even though it is important to celebrate one’s success, I feel like the discourse is too much concentrated on those success stories. What about those who lost everything and never managed to get it back? What about those who were teachers, doctors and managers, and have to take low-qualified jobs, in order to feed their families in the 421

422  Handbook on forced migration new place? Such stories are not seen often in the media, or discussed widely. Even the UN and other aid organizations helping displaced persons prefer the upbeat stories with the happy end. I hear such stories all the time: for example, a couple from temporarily occupied Kherson open a new place in Lviv. I read the stories, I admire those people, and I visit the café to support the IDPs. But this story is exceptional and it does not apply to other IDPs from temporary occupied territories. Their story does not mean that every person can do this, that all IDPs will be able to find work straight away, that everyone is in a good physical and emotional state after all they have been through. The most vulnerable people cannot raise their voices loud enough for everyone to hear. I believe we must change this. We need more diverse discourse around forced migration, and we need the stories, both successful and unsuccessful ones. I do consider myself lucky with my displacement story. My experience helped me develop my values and become interested in defending and helping other people who had to leave their homes. I doubt that I would be looking for jobs and studies in the migration field, that I would be interested in telling these stories, if I was not an internally displaced person myself. It also made me feel injustice very sharply, not only regarding the forced migrants but in society in general. I am glad my experience led me to this recognition, but I do not want to forget that it might not have. I might have lost the willingness to be at all connected to such topics and just have wanted to forget all of what has happened. This is a valid choice too. We are all different; forced migrants are not a homogenous group. They deserve a decent life because they are human beings, no matter what they achieved or did not manage to achieve.

44. Narrative: When a new chapter in my life began as a ‘forced migrant’ Saida Azimi

I grew up in a family of seven, as an orphan girl. I was privileged that I had the backing of my family in getting an education; however, the financial situation of our family was not that good to afford educational expenses for six children especially given that the breadwinner to be a widow woman (my mother). Despite tons of difficulties, I received a bachelor’s degree in Public Health from the Kabul University of Medical Sciences in Afghanistan. After graduation I got a short-term job as a Project Coordinator for one of the Chemonics International’s subcontractors to travel to four provinces of the country and facilitate recruitment of nearly 3000 interns of the Women in Government (WIG) project in government organisations. Following this assignment, I worked for the Integrity Watch Afghanistan in 2018. In 2019, when I was only 22, I joined Samuel Hall as a National Researcher and continued to work in the field of research. Being confident about what I was doing convinced my family to allow me to travel all alone by myself from Afghanistan to the United Kingdom to acquire a master’s degree. This is where a new chapter in my life began as a ‘Forced Migrant’. In September 2020, I won a Chevening Scholarship to do a fully funded master’s degree in Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Wednesday 30 September 2020 was the last time when I stepped out of my home and left Afghanistan. I started my masters with the purpose of strengthening my health, research, and technical skills to return back to Afghanistan next year and initiate the Health Pillar within Samuel Hall, my previous employer, and contribute to the health system strengthening of the country. Being a young girl in a new country, without any means of social support amid the COVID19 pandemic, I started studying in Edinburgh. The issues I experienced as an international student were very obvious, but the biggest concern that always made me overthink was: Should I stay here or return back? [Due to security problems in Afghanistan.] I completed my courses in April 2021 and started working on my dissertation project ‘Migration Health in Afghanistan’. In July 2021 things changed and so my decision towards my future, career, and life. Millions of people were displaced in matters of weeks from northern and eastern provinces to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, as war was intensifying between the previous Afghan government and the Taliban. The nightmare month of August arrived when all I was thinking about was to evacuate my family from Afghanistan. On 15 August 2021 Taliban overtook the power in Kabul, and the previous Afghan government collapsed. It had been exactly ten months and a half since I had left Afghanistan. At that time, I had feelings of helplessness, hopelessness, loss and ‌devastation. I neither had the hope of returning back to Afghanistan, nor wanted my family to stay there anymore. Until August I was supposed to be provided with a stipend by the Chevening. When my stipend was about to finish, I started working part-time at an Italian shop where I barely was able to socialise with people or talk. The money that I was earning was spent on my living expenses in London and some of that to my family back in Afghanistan. I gave up working on my dissertation because 423

424  Handbook on forced migration my dissertation project was no longer realistic. Whatever I have included in this project, the achievements, programmes, and findings were expired as in just a few days around 100 000 people were displaced to Kabul from different regions. Late September 2021 Chevening Scholarship resumed my monthly stipend and I decided to stay in the UK. The University of Edinburgh extended the deadline for my dissertation for a few more months. Since I was not able to return to Afghanistan, I lodged an asylum application and waited for my screening interview. During this time, I was working to evacuate my family, but my efforts got me nowhere and left me with more frustration. In December 2021 I decided to run English and Soft Skill classes to coach around 25 Afghan girls on how to get a job, find scholarships and apply for universities abroad, voluntarily. Working at an Italian shop part time and teaching girls the other half of the day was my schedule. This transition period was the most difficult time in my life. When I was teaching my students, I found myself so privileged; I was living in the UK with access to education opportunities and work. So, I decided to return back to a normal life and started settling in the UK as a ‘refugee’. After navigating for an office-based job for months, in March 2022 I was offered a part-time position at the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) as a Programmes Executive. This job was all I wanted. At this time, the UK government announced that Afghanistan Chevening Scholars (I was one of them) will be provided with the Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the UK (a permanent residency permit). My life was changing dramatically and so was myself. Working for the RSPH and learning everyday a bit about the National Health Service (NHS) of the UK, working on my dissertation half a week, and waiting for my ILR to be approved were segments of my reintegration with the UK culture as a person who had never dreamed to live this life. I lost my homeland and so all my childhood dreams in that country, but at this corner of the world I was provided with loads of motivation every day, and I was encouraged to continue living a better life. I started working on my dissertation again and completed my research project on “Health System Strengthening Efforts between 2001–2021 in Afghanistan and their Success Level: A Systematic Literature Review”. The most important thing, the UK government approved my ILR, and I was given a permanent residency permit. This made me feel more reintegrated to the job market and so to this new community. Since I was able to work full time after completing my masters, I applied for a couple of jobs. One thing that I really appreciate about living in the UK is that opportunities are given to those who deserve it and strive for it. I have recently been offered a full-time position at the Chemonics UK Division. This is the organisation that I was working for their subcontractor in 2018 in Afghanistan to support recruitment of the female interns in the previous Afghan government entities. I have never imagined that one day I will be part of this team, working for international development projects from London. I am now based in London and am assuming to get married soon to someone that I met and got engaged with here in May 2022. I would say, if someone leaves their ‘home country’, it means there is no longer a good place for them to live. A migrant never wants to be labelled as a FORCED MIGRANT unless she cannot live a better life in her own country. Therefore, people flee from third world countries to developed corners of the earth for the hope of seeking better living opportunities. There are hundreds of thousands of issues for a migrant to settle in a new country e.g., language, culture, religion, currency, lifestyle, building career, acquiring education, acquiring working

Narrative: When a new chapter in my life began as a ‘forced migrant’  425 experience, making friends, establishing home, etc. If migrants are provided with enough time to find themselves and are guided to the right path, the world would be a better place for them to strive and contribute. If I compare myself to two years ago, I completely changed, and every aspect of this change is positive although I suffered a lot. The support that Chevening provided me with, my ILR approval, the opportunity that was provided for me to work for the RSPH and my current job offer from the Chemonics UK Division are some of the best aspects about my life as a forced migrant in the UK. If every refugee is given a shelter with such chances and support, then they will make that country a better place for living.

45. Narrative: The second time I became a refugee Zabihullah Barakzai

I am a 32-year-old man, married, and I have two small children. I have been living as a refugee in France since the Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021. I had to leave my country like many others who left Afghanistan. It was not the first, but the second time for me that I became a refugee in my life. The first time, it was my parents who left Afghanistan during the 1990s due to civil war and I had to spend my life as a refugee child in Iran. In 2004, we returned to Afghanistan because my siblings and I lost our rights to pursue an education in Iran, and for my parents who lost the only hope they had of a better future for their children. We returned to Afghanistan. The return was sudden, my father was in a bad financial situation and the decision was made rapidly. Upon return, I started my education in the 8th grade of a high school in Nimroz after an evaluation by the Education Directorate. After school, I started selling fruits, vegetables, and nuts on a cart on the streets of Nimroz Bazar to support my family financially, working five to seven hours per day alongside my schooling. My efforts paved the way to having my own grocery shop in Nimroz, but I had to keep my shop open sometimes up to midnight. After graduation from school in 2009, I joined the Legal Aid Organization of Afghanistan, a NGO that helps women and children with legal services. After a few months, in 2010, I moved to Kabul to pursue my education in the field of Business Administration. To finance my education and support my family, I started working again, alongside my education. I knew I had to juggle, that this too was the impact of war, of forced migration and of living in an economically and politically destabilized state where the means of social services to citizens were zero despite inflows of the billions of dollars in the country by the international community. Displaced youth at my age share similar or worse stories and pathways in Afghanistan. After graduation from university in 2014, I was privileged to study for a summer in the Netherlands in the field of migration and to return to my country. I returned, because I did not want again to taste the bitter experience of migration as a foreigner in a foreign country. I returned to my country and worked hard with one of the best research organizations in Afghanistan and contributed to many impactful research projects with regard to education, women’s rights, migration issues, children, and economic issues. Nothing was stopping me from pursuing my dreams, not even everyday war, everyday suicide attacks and while everyday leaving my home by kissing my children and looking at the faces of my family that I may not return home today and see them again. Unfortunately, 15 August 2021 and America’s deal with the Taliban destroyed all our efforts and forced me and many others of my generation to leave my country once again. Yes, we were impacted badly for our dreams, but it does not mean we have lost our hope for a change. Yet, what happened between the United States of America and the Taliban made my generation’s mission a lot harder. I arrived in France in August 2021, starting again from zero – which is precisely what I had hoped never to experience again. Language and cultural problems are a big challenge for me and many others who sit in the same boat as me. But, in a country such as France there are 426

Narrative: The second time I became a refugee  427 many hopes for me, and it is a place where I can keep my dreams alive. Upon my arrival, I was welcomed by the university of Sciences Po-Lille and enrolled in a one-year political study program. The warm welcome of the university and the local community played a key role in my integration process in France. In my life, I have always been inspired by the famous advice of Nelson Mandela who said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. We can see its impact in many countries that have overcome many decades of issues through an educated and informed population. Unfortunately, today my sisters in Afghanistan are deprived of this right. Inspired by the power of education, I have enrolled into a master’s program (Management Responsable des Entreprises) to continue my studies at Sciences Po-Lille and to succeed in my dreams and accelerate my integration into the French community. I am very grateful for the many opportunities and support that I have received, but it should not be forgotten that my life has had to restart in France as I have to take time to learn the language, learn the culture, learn the laws, and learn the professional environment which are not easy steps for any refugees. Living as an Afghan meant to bear many pains, but we learned one important thing which is to be resilient and never give up! I am sure one day we will succeed together, and we will bring back our country to its glorious days.

Practitioners

46. Narrative: A few thoughts about UNHCR and the UN Joel Boutroue

UNHCR’s staff used to think of the organization as a special entity, different from other UN outfits – somewhere between a non-governmental organization (NGO) and a UN agency, with a specific and honorable mandate based on international law. This is something of the past. Today UNHCR’s mode of operation is fundamentally that of a “normal” administration, because of its dehumanizing drive towards ever more automation. This drive is alienating staff from the organization, which is supposed to be multi-cultured, field-based and field-oriented, with a practical and hands-on approach to problem-solving and to addressing refugee situations, many of them on an emergency basis. Instead, UNHCR’s risk management approach represents what the agency has become: acutely risk adverse and focused on avoiding risks, at the expense of common sense, let alone of taking calculated risks. Risk management has become an end in itself together with its other obsession with audit reports. UNHCR is now governed by a conservative approach that tries to position the organization’s country operations on the safe side. Being on “the safe side” translates into UNHCR abdicating its risk responsibility and downloading it onto the country operations which are left to manage with ever decreasing resources. By extension its partners’ operations are severely impacted. Increased bureaucratization has created a distance between UNHCR staff and the reality on the ground. The multiplication of legalistic considerations (open the UNHCR page and it is full of warnings, as opposed to a “welcome to UNHCR” type of opening) and regulations made to avoid any legal issues; the multitude of reports that generate silo thinking and tunnel vision, all of this alienates the staff and widens the gap between what UNHCR is supposed to do on the ground and what it actually does. It is increasingly difficult for UNHCR staff to “think out of the box” and display analytical skills, as they are caught in a spiral of reporting requirements with little bearing on reality. No wonder recent staff surveys have indicated that, while they tend to like their job, their level of satisfaction or of ownership is low. The silo approach is made worse by the multiplication of divisions at Headquarters level. This is compounded by a regional approach (“Regional Directors”) that micromanages country operations based on unsophisticated computer-generated data with little substance. These instruments are so unreadable and impractical that it is difficult even for experienced colleagues to master them. Now, the job is about filling out these matrices, using base lines and alleged measurable progress that border on the absurd. This partakes of neoliberal thinking that everything can be measured and quantified, leaving little space for a narrative to explain the specifics of an operation, let alone the fact that UNHCR operates in a highly volatile environment where predictions are at best hazardous. Despite the mantra, dear to the UN, that no “one size fits all”, the bureaucratization does exactly that. As a result there is little thinking of UNHCR as a cohesive team. Instead, units at headquarters or at regional level have their own, separate dynamic. At the field level, effective operations that prioritize refugees are only 429

430  Handbook on forced migration possible with a clear overview of the situation and a culture that favors synthesis, as opposed to ahistorical data gathering and an overflow of reports of limited usefulness. UNHCR’s continuous segmentation is often based on the fad of the day, or political correctness. To give one example: during the peak of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, each UN agency had to have at least one focal point for that pandemic. While it makes sense to pay attention to such topical issues, the need to report separately on them has a deleterious effect on the overall functioning of the organization. Simplification is an ever more distant goal. UNHCR constantly reminds staff of the danger of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) and the need to use existing channels to report misbehavior. But this is creating an atmosphere of denunciation. Anyone can (and do) write anonymous letters to the Inspector General, without a minimum of due diligence, at times with the sole purpose of harming a colleague. UNHCR seems to have lost a common sense approach whereby if a staff member makes a mistake, direct communication should be in order, as has been the case for decades. This style of management has disappeared in favor of a litigation approach, made worse by the fact that investigations on alleged misbehavior/corruption etc. – often by external investigators who are outsourced – are carried out while the staff members are kept in the dark until the last minute when a case has already been built against them. The staff member is then faced with a long report to which they need to respond within a month. This creates an atmosphere of fear and mistrust. This management style compounds the increased alienation of staff and fosters an attitude of “let me take advantage of UNHCR”, which is alien to the dedication one expects of staff dealing with humanitarian issues and the most vulnerable populations on this planet. Regionalization is a botched affair with little thinking about the value for money or the impact on country operations. Lots of energy and resources were put into the creation of regional bureaux without a clear idea about the goal other than to send the regional bureau out of headquarters. UNHCR management seemed unwilling to confront the constraints, such as the crucial need to simplify processes and to reduce the number of divisions at headquarters. UNHCR rushed into moving the bureaux out of Geneva, and ended up creating regional bureaux with a much larger number of staff than the previous ones, in Africa in particular. The reason for this remains unclear. Structures were created from scratch with little idea as to what country operations required. When presented with a draft organigram for the regional bureau in Nairobi, this very remark was made to the colleague in charge of it. This regionalization comes at a heavy price when one considers the number of staff deployed to the regional bureaux with questionable added value relative to when the bureaux were in Geneva, in particular for the large, country operations. It should be fully revisited. It does not matter whether regional bureaux are in Geneva or the regions concerned, and there is no inherent advantage when it comes to understanding the reality on the ground, whether one sits in Nairobi, Dakar or Geneva. What matters is the follow-up which is better done from Geneva than from the regions, in particular when it comes to fund raising, but also when it comes to norms and policies. The political weight of the regional bureau is questionable too. Visitors from bureaux staff to the country operations are considered only as visitors by the senior country officials, just like anyone coming from outside the country operation. Regional bureaux are very expensive and take scarce resources from the country operations. They also undermine the normative work that UNHCR used to carry out at Geneva level. Most of this work is gradually disappearing from headquarters under the false assumption that this work can be carried out at regional level. This is not the case and it defeats the purpose of organizational norms.

Narrative: A few thoughts about UNHCR and the UN  431 The number of climate-displaced people is far exceeding the number of political refugees. There is no inherent difference between the type of support climate refugees would require versus that of political refugees, including from a protection angle. Similarly the difference between political and economic refugees/migrants is increasingly blurred. Either UNHCR continues to become a marginal outfit dealing with a minority of the refugee caseload or it merges with IOM (or some other migration-related agency) to create an organization for forced displacement. This was tried in the last days of High Commissioner Ogata’s tour of duty, but in a rushed and weak manner that never took off. Overall, I believe that UNHCR has lost its soul and has become an organization where political correctness, silo thinking and risk management prevail, at the expense of creativity, problem-solving and cohesion. This does not augur well for the future of UNHCR. Much of this boils down to leadership but this age of social media is taking its toll on meaningful/principled leadership as opposed to the “management” through immediacy and social media-type of messaging. Fundamentally, UNHCR needs to reinvent itself, or it will be reinvented by external actors when it is too late.

AND – A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT THE WHOLE UN Many, if not most, Member States are more or less satisfied with the UN as it serves their lowest common denominator, at a cost that even if hefty, is minimal relative to their gross domestic product (GDP). There is little appetite for reform as history has shown that going down that road creates tension among Member States and delivers little, including in terms of savings. The latest bout of reform by the Secretary General has delivered a mouse, despite the fanfare around it, with a supposedly reinforced resident coordinator system (really?), without any operational responsibility and only a tiny budget to trigger strategic action. Despite the slogans of the “new way of working” and the “new UN country team”, there is nothing new about it, only more processes and more politicization of the resident coordinator system. In the name of “delivering as one”, the UN Country Team prompted by the resident coordinator spends an inordinate amount of energy and time to identify ever more synergies, the benefit of which is minimal. Delivering as one is a mantra for the UN as it supposedly demonstrates that it can work together, and close to a magic word for the donor community. This used and abused slogan of “delivering as one” is an admission of failure, in that there is so much overlap among UN agencies/funds/programs that one has to constantly fight the potential for duplication. Still, this is not being addressed, hence the need for a multitude of meetings which rarely go beyond information sharing. The exacerbated competition between agencies whenever funds need to be shared or identified is a vivid proof of the failure of the UN Country Team in its present form. In fact, donors encourage competition between UN agencies and, worse, between UN agencies and NGOs. As if competition was inherently healthy; it is not: it is wasteful and generates posturing/occupying space as opposed to filling it and tension, not creativity. As if UN entities and NGOs were supposed to do the same type of work. Obviously, they should not. Another magic word is “coordination” – as if coordination was an end in itself. It seems that when one has nothing much to say, a focus on coordination is the recipe to solve financial constraints, efficiency issues etc. What is ironic is that the so-called joint projects come with an added 2 percent markup that is supposed to be covered by the donors. Theoretically, joint

432  Handbook on forced migration projects should identify savings, not the other way around, considering that overheads remain extremely high for such projects. As for the new – supposedly reinforced – resident coordinator system, most if not all recipient countries would be hard pressed to say anything meaningful about it. It’s unlikely that recipient countries are even aware that an alleged improvement was recently introduced into the UN development system. Despite its lack of appetite for reform, the UN system needs to revisit its role, particularly in the development sphere, the starting point recognizing that the UN is a small player in a field dominated by bilateralism, with the notable and expanding exception of the World Bank and development banks. One wonders about the rationale behind the resident coordinator system that attempts to coordinate (“identify synergies between”) UN development activities, which are themselves quite marginal. Still, a few areas deserve to be built upon: 1. The convening power of the UN is unparalleled, even though the World Bank certainly attracts more real power (typically ministries of finance) whereas the UN tends to attract more soft power with technical ministries. It should build on this, not to multiply events of dubious value but to engage in serious dialogue, far beyond the present, predictable and politically correct approach to development. The latter just reflects the dominant thinking; a variation on the theme of neoliberalism with an obsolete focus on economic activity as the entry point to development. Relatedly, the UN needs to take a hard look at the quality of its reports: UNisms prevail to the point of becoming unreadable. They are so predictable that the reader rapidly loses interest with recurring déjà vu. The World Bank, even the OECD, regional banks, and the African Union itself tend to be more creative and intellectually challenging than whatever the UN generally produces. 2. Another area worth leveraging is the field presence of the UN both in remote areas and at the level of local and central ministries. This gives the UN a unique perspective – especially if it were to engage local authorities. Much more needs to be done to decentralize activities as an accelerator of development, and the UN could be a leader, should it pull itself together, to accompany local authorities and help them face challenges. For this to happen, a more culturally-sensitive and sociological approach should be adopted rather than a purely “mechanical” and economic approach. 3. As part of leveraging its field presence and focus on decentralization, the UN should be the “guardian” of local CSOs/NGOs as these entities are central to building local capacities, and own local development. This role is too often left in the hands of international NGOs, with mixed results. Otherwise, local NGOs remain the (very) poor cousin receiving the crumbs of the overall development envelope.

A CALL FOR REVOLT: FOR REFUGEES AND AGAINST NEOLIBERAL ELITES The increasing inequalities, the outrageous wealth of a few, the “old boys’ club” mentality of the world elites – regardless of their color, gender and age – are insufferable. The right to resist and revolt has never been more important, and the UN is unfortunately not the messenger of a better world order; it is the carrier of the dominant ideology with a smattering of reform on the margins. Its incremental approach to progress – meaning improvement in the quality of life of the most vulnerable – does not tally with the urgency to change the status quo. One could

Narrative: A few thoughts about UNHCR and the UN  433 call it realism. I see it as part of the same ideology of the world elites. The UN leaders are fully embedded in these elites; they are part of them. As longstanding UN senior staff members, we should feel proud to be in positions of power to make a real difference in the lives of thousands of refugees, displaced persons, host populations and other vulnerable people. But one cannot help feeling ashamed to be so well paid and to have achieved so little, in the name of adhering to ever increasing regulations … in short behaving like a glorified bureaucrat. What is frustrating and upsetting is the constant fight one has to go through to make things happen. Trying to change this mentality is a marathon – after years of sitting behind a computer to produce reports of dubious usefulness, whether one sits in the deep field, in the capital or in headquarters. What prevails is mediocrity, cowardice and hypocrisy. Not that the staff are worse than in other outfits, whether private or public. The system is sterilizing: many creative and intelligent people lose their skills, even their soul, in the name of a good salary and an assured, good pension. In fact, many colleagues become obsessed with one thing: making money. Being deployed as often as possible to hardship duty stations is a lucrative game that many are happy to play. It is difficult to have an optimistic view of the world: too much suffering, too much ganging together of the elites. The multiplication of confrontational, even conspiratorial, social media makes it difficult to be heard, as a voice that follows neither the mainstream media which, for generations, have depicted a world at their own neoliberal image, nor the majority of social media and their focus on extreme comments, immediacy, at the expanse of thoughtful analysis. When one is not heard and one feels increasingly excluded, what are the options, if not to revolt. Beyond this, what else to feel but ever more compassion and solidarity for the downtrodden, and deep contempt for the powerful? Kampala, 1 September 2022

47. Narrative: A discredited model of refugee response Jeff Crisp

When I started to work with refugees in the early 1980s, there was a common assumption that refugees were content to be confined to camps, their basic daily needs being met by long-term and internationally-funded ‘care and maintenance’ programmes. The amount of assistance provided to them was minimal, in part because of funding constraints, but also because host states and aid agencies feared that if refugees became too comfortable in the countries where they had taken refuge, they would be reluctant to go home once conditions had improved in their countries of origin. Paradoxically, while UNHCR, donor and host states all espoused the notion that the primary wish of most refugees was to go back to their homes, there was also an agreement that repatriation had to be actively promoted, and that it was legitimate to encourage or induce returns by measures that made life increasingly uncomfortable in the camps where they lived. Over the past 40 years, I have learned that almost every aspect of this refugee response model was not only misconceived, but was also abusive. First, it exaggerated the extent to which refugees and other displaced people were dependent on international aid agencies, disregarding the many efforts that they and their local hosts made to support themselves. Second, the traditional approach to displacement neglected the enormous physical and psychological harm done to people who were expected to live at minimal levels of subsistence and who were deprived of basic rights such as freedom of movement, access to land, the labour market, a fair judicial system and any kind of democratic process. Third, the international refugee regime only belatedly recognized that rather than endure such intolerable conditions, refugees and displaced people would vote with their feet by moving to other locations, often urban areas, where they could live a more normal and productive life than was possible in a camp. And they would take such action even if they were formally prohibited from doing so, and even if they had to take long and dangerous journeys to reach a community, country or continent where the opportunities were better. Finally, the evidence of the past four decades has taught us that repatriation does not have to be promoted or induced. Refugees and displaced people themselves are the best judges of if and when the time is right to return, and that ‘going home’ does not necessarily mean a resumption of the life and livelihoods that they had prior to their displacement. At the same time, it has become clear that while some refugees do indeed wish to return to their homeland, a significant proportion do not, either because of the traumatic experiences they have endured there, or because they know that conditions in their country of origin will not enable them to live peaceful and productive lives.

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Narrative: A discredited model of refugee response  435

CONSULTATION AND PARTICIPATION While the international refugee regime has to some extent taken these lessons on board, much more needs to be done to recognize and facilitate the mobility of displaced people, and to incorporate them directly in decisions about the forms of support they receive and the solutions available to them. And in that respect, there is a need for some serious thinking about the notions of refugee consultation and participation. In the mid-1990s, I drafted UNHCR’s first Mission Statement, which included the sentence: “UNHCR is committed to the principle of participation by consulting refugees on decisions that affect their lives.” While that Mission Statement has not been changed or updated since it was first established, very little effort has been made to operationalize this principle. And my efforts to initiate an evaluation of the different forms of consultative process established by UNHCR, whether at the international, national or local level, were never approved by the organization’s senior management. That situation is now changing, largely as a result of the spontaneous growth of what have become known as ‘Refugee-Led Organizations’ (RLOs), established and administered by members of the displaced populations whose interests they seek to promote. This is a very recent development, linked to the 2016–2018 discussions that led to the formulation of the Global Compact on Refugees – a process that was dominated by UNHCR and states, and which left very little room for the voices of displaced people themselves. The sudden emergence and rapid expansion of the RLO movement is one of the most striking developments I have witnessed in recent years, with the potential to prompt a serious rethink in the way that programmes in support of displaced populations are initiated, designed, implemented and evaluated. At the same time, there is a need to anticipate and address those issues that seem likely to arise as a result of the new demand for refugee consultation and participation. What, for example, do these two concepts actually mean, what forms might they take and to what extent should they be centred on the role of RLOs? Should all RLOs have a legal status and a written constitution so as to ensure their effective governance? Is it legitimate for an RLO to represent the interests of a particular segment of a displaced population, especially when that community consists of different nationalities and ethnicities? Are complications likely to arise in situations where more than one RLO claims to represent the interests of the same population? And is there a risk that UNHCR and other aid agencies will give preferential treatment and funding to those RLOs that are the least demanding and most willing to become part of the complex inter-agency coordinating processes that characterize relief operations in the field?

REFUGEE PRIORITIES AND ASPIRATIONS In the humanitarian world, there is a great temptation to portray refugees as exceptional people. Not only are they, in UNHCR’s words, ‘the most vulnerable people on earth’, but they are also the bravest, the boldest, the hardest working and the most entrepreneurial. While such stereotypical portrayals might be well-meaning, I consider them to be misleading. In my encounters with refugees around the world, I have always found that rather than being

436  Handbook on forced migration exceptional people, they share the hopes of those of us who are fortunate enough not to have been displaced. Refugees and displaced people want to be able to meet their everyday needs by means of decent and reasonably paid work. They want their children to have a good education and give them a better start in life than they had themselves. They want their families to enjoy a peaceful and secure environment. And, like my refugee acquaintance in Sierra Leone, they want to dance. When analysing or evaluating programmes that are intended to support displaced populations, our primary objective must be to ask whether we are enabling refugees to realize those entirely legitimate aspirations.

48. Narrative: A more realistic conversation on solutions Ninette Kelley

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTEXT AND CONFLICT ANALYSIS IN RESPONDING TO FORCED DISPLACEMENT Among the main lessons for me is the importance of context in responding to forced displacements. Approaches must be tailored to the specific circumstances. Good practice and technical experience are invaluable provided they are applied in a manner that is appropriate to the circumstances at hand. ● Effective approaches require sound appreciation of the political climate as well as a deep understanding of where the locus of local, regional, and national decision-making lie. It is well understood that nothing in a country can be done without the consent of the authorities. But frequently humanitarian actors do not have a firm sense of the division of powers and so may not be engaging authorities effectively in seeking agreement for the policy or operational initiatives proposed. They also tend to set up parallel structures to respond to an emergency, without taking the trouble to invest time with development actors in strengthening the capacities of local institutions. ● Sometimes governments set up parallel structures specifically for forcible displaced persons with the support of humanitarian partners. This may also not be ideal or sustainable in the longer term as it depends on specific funding sources for services that are not inclusive of nationals. It can become an obstacle to widening institutional engagement of the government with development partners for inclusive programmes. ● To avoid this outcome, parallel systems, which may be needed in an emergency, should be temporary. There must be an understanding between international agencies, donors and government counterparts for the necessity of a transition to medium- to longer-term inclusive national/local arrangements as soon as politically possible. ● Contextual understanding also requires meaningful dialogue and input with all those who are impacted/affected by forced displacement. This includes forcibly displaced persons, hosting communities, national and international NGOs and local, regional and national authorities. This takes investment and there are no short cuts to the process. ● Contextual understanding involves an appreciation of the socio-economic opportunities and constraints that must be considered before policy or operational programmes can be effectively advanced. For example, asserting respect for the socio-economic rights of forcibly displaced (free movement, right to work, access to schools and health care) will not resonate unless the impact of such inclusion is well understood and accompanied by firm commitments of funding/programmes to minimize the negative impact and maximize the community benefit. This is an area where partnership between humanitarian and development actors is essential. 437

438  Handbook on forced migration ● Firmer partnerships between humanitarian and development agencies have significant potential to move from short-term humanitarian approaches to longer-term sustainable ones. This is being done at various levels including in deepening contextual understanding through enhanced data, evidence and analysis. Programmes that aim to strengthen State institutions and provide for inclusive education, health and economic support to forcibly displaced and host communities are a promising start. They are also being accompanied by more rigorous assessments of impact, which hopefully will point to what has worked and what needs to be adjusted for sustainable change.

CHALLENGING THE LANGUAGE OF FEAR AROUND FORCED MIGRATION There is a common tendency to speak of current levels of forced displacement as ‘unprecedented’ with a risk of it becoming overwhelming, especially because of climate change. This may help to raise sympathy and funds for humanitarian programmes, yet it does little to foster an accurate understanding of the current and prospective dimensions of forced displacement and how best to respond. It also can have the often-unintended consequence of justifying higher barriers to entry and more restrictive recognition policies in well resourced States. Recent policies in Hungary. Great Britain, and Denmark are current examples. ● As a point of fact, the world has experienced comparably (and even larger) numbers of forcibly displaced persons, WWII being an example. Today’s numbers are indeed high, but often erroneously portrayed as a significant threat to the world order. Forcibly displaced persons comprise less than 1 per cent of the population in most hosting States. Their displacement is relatively close to their place of origin, with over two-thirds of the world’s forcibly displaced within their own countries. And while the adverse effects of climate change are also predicted to lead many millions of people to move suddenly and as an adaptation strategy, these movements will also be mostly internal. ● Related to this are overblown security concerns that also are used to justify exclusionary policies also evident in low- and middle-income States. This includes setting up camps for forcibly displaced persons and restricting their movement. International organizations advocate against camps yet they also unintentionally legitimize the arrangements through financial and operational support to them. While camps may help to respond to mass influx, there must be more up-front planning for a transition strategy with the government, donors, and development partners. ● The global dimensions of forced displacement are of concern. The circumstances and communities in which most of the world’s forcibly displaced population live, need significant assistance. However, the numbers remain manageable if accompanied by sound policies and adequate development and humanitarian support. This message is often lost in the alarmist rhetoric that dominates discussions on what to do.

Narrative: A more realistic conversation on solutions  439

CHALLENGING THE NARRATIVE AROUND DURABLE SOLUTIONS, AND RETURNS SPECIFICALLY We need to frame our discussions on durable solutions much more realistically. For decades solutions to refugee displacement have been presented in hierarchical order: voluntary repatriation, resettlement, local integration. The assumptions underlying this ordering are often not questioned. However, over the past decades, relatively few refugees and internally displaced persons have been able to return voluntarily and sustainably (fewer than 10 per cent of refugees in the past 60 years and fewer than 20 per cent of internally displaced persons in the past 20 years). Resettlement has only been a solution for, on average, less than 1 per cent of refugees. Most host States resist formal local integration of refugees, although a de facto level of integration has often taken place. ● Detailed socio-economic studies are starting to broaden our understanding of the potential for sustainable return in specific contexts. In situations where peace has been restored, other barriers to return (lack of infrastructure, livelihoods, health, and education services) must be overcome. This falls well beyond what humanitarian agencies can do, and modest return packages cannot compensate for the conditions necessary to make return sustainable. ● It can take significant time. There must be realistic assumptions about the capacity of the country to create the conditions conducive to return. For many low-income States that have endured years of protracted conflict, State institutions and infrastructure has been devastated. It can take many decades to recover. In some States that are the source of significant forced displacement, conflict has been endemic for generations and stability remains elusive. This must be factored into any policies or pronouncements regarding voluntary return. ● At the same time, there are opportunities, and investing in human capital is one. Voluntary return, as well as other solutions, has more chance of success when forcibly displaced persons have skills, capital, and social networks necessary for self-reliance. ● Our understanding of what this entails is being enriched by a significant expansion in economic studies on the impact of forced displacement on host communities. This research is broadening our understanding of both the negative and positive effects and is helping to shape policy outcomes. Regarding the labour market impacts, the research suggests that there are both positive and negative effects. The negative impact is experienced mostly by young and informal workers. However, over time the positive effects remain relatively constant, and the negative impacts wane. The policy implications of this research point to the potential benefits of formal integration of forcibly displaced persons, accompanied by skills training or social protection programmes to ameliorate the negative effects. ● As for third country resettlement, the mechanisms for this must be broader than the traditional resettlement pathway. The tendency to speak of ‘complementary pathways’ needs to be accompanied by more in-depth analysis of the specific avenues that could be pursued and their potential impact. For example: what is the potential for the forcibly displaced to be considered under general employment and education immigration streams? Could temporary mobility arrangements work for forcibly displaced persons, and what would their drawbacks be? An examination of these issues must be very context-specific, considering the immigration streams (temporary and permanent) that exist in potential destination countries.

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GIVING MORE SPACE TO THE FORCIBLY DISPLACED Forcibly displaced persons need to have much more agency in the circumstances that define their present and future lives. There have been periods in history where refugees had much greater agency than they do today. From as far back as Ancient Greece through the thirteenth century, various refugee groups were able to negotiate the terms of their settlement and were accorded autonomy to provide for themselves. This is not to suggest that all refugees in the past had more opportunities than they do now. However, today forcibly displaced persons rarely have the space or opportunity to shape the international and national policies that govern their lives, or the means to implement programmes on their own behalf. Over time, the dominance of international action should give way to local actors, including forcibly displaced persons. Much more work is needed in this area. Governments may be reluctant to step in at the national or local level if they think they will be left with costs. Donors need to reassure them of their commitment for medium- and long-term development support for strengthening local and national institutional capacities. But this should also be conditional on State policies that permit human capital development of forcibly displaced and host communities. Toronto, 31 August 2002

49. Narrative: Moving beyond emergency assistance Renata Dubini

For sure the main lesson is learning from the resilience of forcibly displaced people: the strength the survivor imparts. You would think that forcibly displaced persons would have lots of fear, but I have found that they have so much energy and courage not to give up. I find their strength and capacity to withstand humiliation yet keep their heads above water with dignity is truly inspiring. Women in particular have stood out for me. Iraqi and Syrian women refugees were extremely impressive. Central American ladies were amazing – of all ages. Their strength, resilience, and ability to overcome their hardship – helped me put my life in perspective. On the professional side – forced migration taught me to be patient in looking for solutions. There is the first emergency response – to help people who have gone through a difficult journey. We need to give them emergency assistance but we need to move beyond that. This means working at all levels. We need to work with forcibly displaced persons to help them to try and overcome their anger and frustration and channel their energies in productive ways. We can help them see the importance of seeking to be accepted by the communities they are in – since their displacement can be a lengthy one. This is a process – moving beyond anger to foresee a means to forge a better future in displacement. We must also work to overcome the reluctance of authorities and host communities as well – since they can resist the integration of those who have been displaced. Refugees and migrants are hot political issues and often there is an absence of empathy with their situation. This can keep politicians from taking bold humanitarian actions. We must be a bridge between forcibly displaced persons and local authorities and communities. Donors too have a short attention span. They have unrealistic expectations as to how long it takes for a displacement situation to resolve. In my experience in Liberia, Syria, and Latin America, all suffered because of an absence of understanding that the displacement situations would remain longstanding and not be resolved in reasonable time. We need a different pace in our approach. We need to maintain humanitarian responses but we need to strengthen human capital more forcefully. We need to invest in understanding local economies, profiling forcibly displaced persons, assessing their skills to see what they can bring to their new communities. We need more negotiation with local authorities to see what is needed for positive integration. This also needs to be accompanied by improved communications strategies – to help people understand what drives these movements. Along with all this we must work to help restore people’s self-confidence which can be worn down by the reasons they were forced to flee and the poverty of their new realties.

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50. Narrative: Forced migration – a personal view Richard Danziger

My work with IOM spanned 28 years, a good part of which was devoted to forced migration at both operational and policy levels. As reflects my breadth of experience, for the purposes of this short chapter I use a very broad definition of forced migration: any movement, individual or mass, induced by insecurity or natural disaster. My humanitarian initiation was in DRC in the génocidaire-ridden refugee camps and their subsequent forced (or “guided”) return. During three different postings to Afghanistan between 1998 and 2016 I was confronted with every sort of forced migration, both internal and cross-border. In Indonesia my work covered large-scale conflict-induced internal displacement, mass deportations of labour migrants from Malaysia, and interception of hundreds of migrants and refugees en route to Australia. A few years in Geneva overseeing IOM’s work on human trafficking were critical to the evolution of my thinking around forced migration. After returning to the field I ended my UN career closely involved with mixed migration, first in West Africa and then in the Horn of Africa. What – other than the physical, mental and emotional suffering of each of the many hundreds of thousands of individuals I refer to above – do these very different forced migration situations have in common? I mention two below: one as an example of our improved response, the other as the major obstacle inhibiting us from addressing forced migration and its drivers. First, the situations I have witnessed all existed within a broader context of massive human insecurity in which the basic needs of the migrants were not necessarily very different from those of their surrounding communities. Happily, this is an issue that is now widely acknowledged if not always properly addressed, and represents a marked change from 28 years ago when the entire focus was on the displaced themselves. This new paradigm has gone hand in hand with the development of policies that look at durable and development-oriented solutions at a much earlier stage of a mass forced movement. Though much still remains to be done in the area of policy as well as making resources available, I see this as an important, positive change. Secondly, and on the negative side, the over-arching problem shared by all the forced migration situations I have experienced is that of categorisation of the movement and of the concerned individuals. And as migratory movements have become more complex, so have the disagreements over how to classify them. The disputes over how to classify a certain movement pit governments against aid actors, frequently both of them against advocacy groups and – sadly – aid actors amongst themselves. The impulse and the results of these disputes lie in the domain of the legal, the ethical and the financial and the determination of category is too often made out of self-interest. Below are three examples of the above that I can draw from personal experience. Space constraints dictate that these are just snapshots – each situation described warrants a far more

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Narrative: Forced migration – a personal view  443 nuanced picture – but I am using these to illustrate a generalised problem and not to point an accusatory finger at any particular institutions. 1. In 2015, Afghans in Pakistan who had registered as refugees before a government deadline were considered as such. Those Afghans who for whatever reason had missed the registration deadline were considered undocumented aliens and thus vulnerable to deportation. When deported or even when returning to Afghanistan voluntarily, they did not receive the same degree of protection by the UN as those lucky enough to have been registered. The real tragedy though is that this acquiescence to arbitrary status determination actually suited the UN as there were insufficient resources available to provide all returnees with protection and assistance. 2. A second example also covers a legal category: that of human trafficking. As with the term refugee, victim of trafficking is used and misused, whether out of lack of knowledge of the relevant legal instruments or in order to satisfy government policy or economic interest. For example, some governments and media are quick to describe migrants arriving in Europe by boat as victims of trafficking or of unscrupulous smugglers. By doing so they can sidestep issues of protection and legal and moral responsibility by focusing on the need to clamp down on criminal smuggling networks. 3. My third example of terminology and its negative consequences doesn’t involve the misuse of a legal term but rather the unhelpful use of an invented one: economic migrant. Generally, a migrant described as such is considered to be in need of neither legal protection nor humanitarian assistance, which can often suit a number of concerned parties including governments of countries of origin, transit and destination as well as aid agencies. Justifications for using the term economic migrant range from an anti-immigration policy position to donor and aid agencies’ lack of sufficient resources to cover the needs of all forced migrants. Think of a West African fleeing desperate poverty for a (probably illusory) better life in Europe. The drivers behind that poverty are in almost all instances related to insecurity (that is, State oppression and/or institutionalised social injustice) or natural disaster (environmental degradation) or a combination of both. In short, he or she is a forced migrant. The positive development I mentioned earlier in this chapter is beginning to show impact in addressing the overall socio-economic situation in areas of origin or settlement, although in carefully targeted locations. We need to use such a comprehensive approach if we are to address the broader drivers of forced migration. Breaking down forced migration into categories is part of an overall reactive approach. Forced migration in the twenty-first century is destined to grow exponentially as the effects of climate change start to really kick in. Are we going to spend our time on defining what environmental migration is and which displaced are in need of protection and assistance, rather than living up to our SDG and COP commitments? Are we going to continue twisting ourselves into knots over the concept of mixed migration, and who of the vulnerable individuals and families are “deserving” of support, or are we ready to be bolder in calling out States’ responsibility for protection or for tackling social injustices? The Global Compacts on Migration and for Refugees are the appropriate fora in which to try to build a critical mass toward changing our fundamental approach to forced migration. It will require courage for States to stand up for the growing numbers of humanity forced to leave their homes, and to take meaningful shared responsibility. The UN and its agencies

444  Handbook on forced migration will also need to step up their game and be prepared to move on from disputes over migrant categorisations and mandates. More often than not over my 28 years working in the field of migration, promised change by the UN has often meant little more than shuffling deckchairs on the Titanic. Now is the time for the UN to take real leadership in partnership with like-minded States to reform the global migration architecture.

PART VIII THE FUTURE

51. Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration Evan Easton-Calabria1

INTRODUCTION Since the large-scale arrival of Syrian refugees in Europe in 2015–2016, digital initiatives have sought to facilitate everything from the transit to the integration of refugees. Efforts to address needs for refugees both in camps and in cities have ranged from digital education programmes to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) training to digital banking. Smartphones and connectivity help refugees connect to family and friends, find and undertake work, navigate and find safe places, and access information about smugglers, housing and health care. On one hand, digital technology is emancipatory, freeing up resources through efficiency increases, enabling new forms of accountability and transparency, and able to address complex requirements beyond non-digital “manual” approaches. On the other hand, digital technology is a disturbing enabler of restriction and control. A growing body of research examines the risks and the pitfalls of the “tech turn” in humanitarianism, and practitioner literature maps out ethical and practical frameworks for guiding data science methods in the field.2 Technology production is neither a neutral nor objective process but is shaped by geographies, ideologies, and multiple interests. The use and promotion of digital technologies is similarly complex. Generally defined as electronic tools, systems, or devices that generate, store, and/or process data, digital technologies range from WhatsApp to Blockchain to apps on Smartphones. Smartphones and computers, and the many apps and functions that go with them, are tools to communicate and conduct and improve daily life tasks. At the same time, The author gratefully acknowledges the research support of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) for the project ‘People Powered Algorithms for Desirable Social Outcomes’ based at Royal Holloway, University of London, through which this research was undertaken. The author also thanks the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) for hosting the author while writing this chapter through a FFVT Fellowship in 2022. 2 Mark Duffield. “The resilience of the ruins: Towards a critique of digital humanitarianism”. Resilience 4, no. 3 (2016), 147–65; Btihaj Ajana. “Digital biopolitics, humanitarianism and the datafication of refugees”. In Refugee Imaginaries: Research Across the Humanities (2019): 463; DH Network (Digital Humanitarian Network) “History and Today” (2020); Kristin Sandvik and Lohne Kjersti. “The rise of the humanitarian drone: giving content to an emerging concept”. Millennium 43, no. 1 (2014): 145–64; Bram Frouws, Melissa Phillips, Ashraf Hassan, and Mirjam Twigt. “Getting to Europe the WhatsApp way: The use of ICT in contemporary mixed migration flows to Europe”. Regional mixed migration secretariat briefing paper (2016); Hannah Gough and Katherine V. Gough. “Disrupted becomings: The role of smartphones in Syrian refugees’ physical and existential journeys.” Geoforum 105 (2019): 89–98; Marie Godin and Giorgia Donà. “Rethinking transit zones: Migrant trajectories and transnational networks in Techno-Borderscapes”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47, no. 14 (2021): 3276–92; Giorgia Donà and Marie Godin. “Mobile technologies and forced migration”. In Forced Migration, pp. 126–44. Routledge, 2018; UNDP, “Digital Livelihoods for People on the Move”. The Migrant Union, UNDP (2019). 1

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Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  447 as is well known, states and private sector actors use technology to increase surveillance. This can include humanitarians’ control over refugees through biometric identification, so-called “humanitarian drones”, and a broader focus on “humanitarian innovation”. Despite this, refugees’ digital inclusion is primarily presented by governments and humanitarian and development agencies as an emancipatory tool with the potential to increase access to skills and income. This emancipatory view doesn’t always acknowledge the limitations or risks involved.3 This chapter examines the risks and opportunities of digital technologies relating to forced migration – particularly so-called “durable solutions” of local integration and resettlement – through the lens of trust and responsibility. Digital technologies bring up old problems in new ways. The limitations of refugee agency are revealed in the persistent digital exclusion that many refugees face, and the lack of understanding by both refugees and refugee-serving agencies regarding these technologies. There are serious limitations to the argument that technology is a “solution” for refugees or those that seek to assist them, and these limitations reflect some of the challenges identified with durable solutions in previous chapters. At the same time, digital technologies have great potential for addressing those challenges – especially by widening channels for advocacy, agency, and solidarity. I explore this potential by focusing on grassroots efforts by refugees both to offer mutual assistance and to organise themselves transnationally. The chapter also explores notions of “digital citizenship” and how refugees create their own sense of social and political belonging in different places. Digital technologies raise the under-acknowledged question of responsibility and the role of trust. The question of responsibility is not new in the international refugee regime but “digital frontiers” open up new questions relating to host state data regulations, refugees’ ability to access rights and integrate in host countries in the face of the digitalisation of services, and humanitarian agencies’ connection to private sector actors involved in digital security. The presence or absence of trust is important to all these discussions. This chapter begins by exploring the framework of responsibility and trust in relation to forced migration and digital technologies. I then examine these technologies at different phases of migration, notably in transit and in situations of “local integration” and resettlement. The penultimate section explores humanitarians’ own responsibility and level of understanding regarding the technologies they employ, followed by a conclusion outlining future considerations for forced migration research and practice.

3 Kevin Donovan. “Infrastructuring aid: Materializing humanitarianism in northern Kenya”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33, no. 4 (2015): 732–48; John Emery. “The possibilities and pitfalls of humanitarian drones”. Ethics & International Affairs 30, no. 2 (2016): 153–65; ALNAP, “Innovations in international humanitarian action: ALNAP’s 8th Review of Humanitarian Action”, ALNAP (2009); Kristin Sandvik. “Now is the time to deliver: Looking for humanitarian innovation’s theory of change”. Journal of International Humanitarian Action 2, no. 1 (2017): 1–11; Michel Wahome and Mark Graham. “Spatially shaped imaginaries of the digital economy”. Information, Communication & Society 23, no. 8 (2020): 1123–38; UNHCR. “Connectivity for everyone”. Geneva: UNHCR (2016); Marie McAuliffe. “International migration and digital technology: An overview”. Research Handbook on International Migration and Digital Technology (2021).

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RESPONSIBILITY, TRUST, AND “THE DIGITAL” The term “responsibility” is rarely explored or defined in the international refugee regime. Many texts simply assume, based on the 1951 Refugee Convention, that States, either alone or collectively, are legally responsible for taking care of refugees and other displaced people. The literature on responsibility and refugees is largely policy-oriented rather than critical, focusing on how to increase responsibility-sharing by States rather than interrogating the idea of what responsibility means. A World Bank working paper on “International responsibility-sharing for refugees”, for example, examines underlying causes of displacement, efforts to find solutions, initiatives to enhance protection, and technical assistance and training for host countries and organisations. Legal perspectives explore sharing responsibilities through the provision of financial and other assistance to host countries and the admission of refugees, and how these methods apply in international refugee law.4 A separate body of literature focuses on responsibility within ICTs, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and other digital technologies. “Corporate digital responsibility” is a growing theme, commonly defined as the shared norms and values guiding business’ operations related to digital technology and data. But “actionable guidelines” are separate from corporate social responsibility. Efforts to develop normative frameworks for responsible practice in digital innovation highlight responsibility within both the innovation process and outcome.5 There is little scholarship on the concept of digital responsibility related to refugees and other displaced people. The literature on digital ethics places the onus on humanitarian actors to ensure the safe collection of data, noting that the irresponsibly used data can mean life or death for migrants and refugees. The EU Ethics Advisory Group warns that data collected to protect victims can be used against them. For example, organisations that use GIS-based maps and data to plan refugee evacuations risk making them available for use by belligerent actors for aggressive purposes. After the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, for instance, there were credible fears of humanitarian biometric data being used by the Taliban to identify members of persecuted groups within the country, particularly as some of this data had been collected by the former Afghan government for humanitarian agencies. Humanitarian actors such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and the Inter-Agency Standing Committee

Agnès G. Hurwitz. The Collective Responsibility of States to Protect Refugees. Oxford University Press, (2009); B. Ahmed (2017). Who takes responsibility for the climate refugees?. International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management; S.F. Martin, R. Davis, G. Benton and Z. Waliany (2018) “International responsibility-sharing for refugees”. KNOMAD Working Paper 32; R. Dowd and J. McAdam (2017). “International cooperation and responsibility-sharing to protect refugees: What, why and how?”. International & Comparative Law Quarterly 66, no. 4: 863–92. 5 M.L. Markus and K. Mentzer (2014). “Foresight for a responsible future with ICT”. Information Systems Frontiers 16, no. 3: 353–68; Herden, Christina J., Ervin Alliu, André Cakici, Thibaut Cormier, Catherine Deguelle, Sahil Gambhir, Caleb Griffiths et al. “Corporate digital responsibility”. Sustainability Management Forum| Nachhaltigkeits Management Forum 29, no. 1: 13–29 (2021); Gabriel Lima and Meeyoung Cha. “Responsible AI and its stakeholders”. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.11434 (2020); Ibo Van de Poel and Martin Sand. “Varieties of responsibility: Two problems of responsible innovation”. Synthese 198, no. 19 (2021): 4769–87. 4

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  449 (IASC) have developed data protection and responsibility guidelines to mitigate outcomes such as this. However, guidelines only mitigate risks if they are understood and followed.6 When considering both the use and outcomes of digital technology in humanitarian action, responsibility can best be understood as both accountability and as liability. Humanitarian actors should be held accountable and liable for actions that harm others and go against the humanitarian imperative to do no harm. When it comes to humanitarians, accountability is often “upward” – to donors. This is reinforced in the digital realm, where the creators of technologies are often shielded from repercussions when problems arise. While examples such as biased algorithms exist, other more seemingly mundane challenges arise through the tech hype in refugee assistance. In one account the majority of the 169 civic tech initiatives for refugees in 2015–2016 were inactive by July 2018, leaving “digital litter” behind. Such litter could negatively impact refugees and asylum seekers in a variety of ways, from applying to out-of-date jobs ads to even travelling irregularly due to incorrect information regarding visa or other legal regulations. These issues highlight the importance of accurate information for forcibly displaced people, and raise the issue of whose responsibility it is to ensure accurate information online, and who should be accountable for keeping previously collected data safe once initiatives cease to operate.7 Technology can both enable and obscure practices related to accountability and protection. UNHCR’s efforts to use “accountability technologies” – results-based management, biometrics, and cash-based interventions – can lead to understanding international protection as “a task best accomplished through improved techno-bureaucratic legibility and quantification practices.”8 Such practices are contingent on trust, as we now explore. Trust is commonly defined as the belief in the reliability and truth of an actor, or “one’s willingness to be vulnerable to others, based on the expectation that one will not be harmed or exploited”,9 all important elements in the provision and receipt of refugee assistance. Some work has addressed the role of trust in refugee journeys and in integration and resettlement, including analytical frameworks of trust. However, there is limited work on the role that trust plays for refugees and refugee-serving organisations in relation to digital technologies. Existing work tends to focus on how organisations gain refugees’ trust and the mistrust that refugees hold for authority figures, including government-provided information. Missing are

6 EDPS Ethics Advisory Group. “Towards a digital ethics. European Union”. European Data Protection Supervisor (2018). Kerrie Holloway, Reem Al Masri and A. Abu Yahi. “Digital identity, biometrics and inclusion in humanitarian responses to refugee crises”. London: ODI-HPG (2021); Irwin Loy. “Biometric data and the Taliban: What are the risks?” 2 September, The New Humanitarian (2021). 7 S.F. Martin, R. Davis, G. Benton and Z. Waliany (2018) “International responsibility-sharing for refugees”. KNOMAD Working Paper 32; Joakim Daun. “Humanitarian accountability: A conceptual analysis”. RLI Working Paper, Refugee Law Initiative, University of London (2020); Meghan Benton (2019). “Digital litter: The downside of using technology to help refugees”. 20 June. Migration Policy Institute (MPI). 8 K.L. Jacobsen and K.B. Sandvik. “UNHCR and the pursuit of international protection: Accountability through technology?”. Third World Quarterly 39, no. 8, 2018: 1508–24. 9 Essex, Ryan, Erika Kalocsányiová, Nataliya Rumyantseva, and Jill Jameson. “Trust amongst refugees in resettlement settings: A systematic scoping review and thematic analysis of the literature”. Journal of International Migration and Integration (2021): 1–26.

450  Handbook on forced migration such aspects as whether refugees are aware of, trust, and understand technologies that are imposed on them, or where responsibility lies in overcoming refugees’ digital exclusion.10

IN TRANSIT: DIGITAL SURVEILLANCE AND THE RISE OF DIGITAL BORDERS Literature exploring the role that ICTs and other technologies play for refugees and other forcibly displaced people in transit or after arrival centres on either enhanced securitisation or agency. Enhanced securitisation involves how surveillance technologies restrict asylum seekers’ and refugees’ rights through border and migration management, data privacy and usage, biometrics, and the concept of digital identities. For example, the data-driven technologies of European border management such as EUROSUR, the European Border Surveillance Systems, and European databases such as the Schengen Information System represent “digital borders” and the creation of the “European digital fortress”. These technologies have had serious impacts on refugees and their rights. Some positive steps are being taken to create or amend regulatory policies on technology, such as the EU AI Act. However, instead of positive types of investments, such as helping address refugees’ digital exclusion (expanded on below), many governments invest in technology that limits refugees’ rights and agency. Surveillance technology is on the rise, as is the militarisation of borders.11 As one employee of the Refugee Law Lab, which undertakes research and advocacy related to new legal technologies and forcibly displaced people, explained, “They [European Governments] rely on the private sector to create these toys for them. But there’s very little regulation. Some sort of tech bro is having a field day with this … For me, what’s really sad is that … all this money is being spent on camps, enclosures, surveillance, drones.”12 Technology can of course also enable the enactment of greater agency by displaced people. GoogleMaps, online social media for connection, and other sources of information online guide their journeys, and asylum seekers and other migrants use mobile technologies to evade borders and protect each other. There are both opportunities for increased information around

Essex et al., “Trust amongst refugees”; Lyytinen, Eveliina. “Refugees’ ‘journeys of trust’: Creating an analytical framework to examine refugees’ exilic journeys with a focus on trust”. Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 4 (2017): 489–510; Alastair Ager and Alison Strang. “Understanding integration: A conceptual framework”. Journal of Refugee Studies 21, no. 2 (2008): 166–91; Marie Gillespie, Lawrence Ampofo, Margaret Cheesman, Becky Faith, Evgenia Illiou, Ali Issa, Souad Osseiran et al. “Mapping refugee media journeys: Smartphones and social media networks” (2016). 11 Latonero, M. and Kift, P. “On digital passages and borders: Refugees and the new infrastructure for movement and control”. Social Media+ Society 4, no. 1, (2018); Btihaj Ajana. ”Digital biopolitics, humanitarianism and the datafication of refugees”. Refugee Imaginaries: Research Across the Humanities (2019): 463; Margie Cheesman. “Self-sovereignty for refugees? The contested horizons of digital identity.” Geopolitics 27, no. 1 (2022): 134–59; Katja Jacobsen. “Experimentation in humanitarian locations: UNHCR and biometric registration of Afghan refugees”. Security Dialogue 46, no. 2 (2015): 144–64; Center for AI and Digital Policy, “EU Artificial Intelligence Act” (2020). 12 Quoted in: The Guardian. “Fortress Europe: The millions spent on military-grade tech to deter refugees”. 6 December (2021). 10

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  451 decision-making through Smartphones and social media, and there are the challenges of lack of accurate information in refugees’ decision-making processes.13

INTEGRATION, DIGITAL EXCLUSION, RESPONSIBILITY Refugee integration is a contested concept, with the full set of legal rights envisioned in the 1951 Refugee Convention rarely provided. Instead “integration” usually refers to social inclusion or labour market integration in a host country. Digital technologies can facilitate both aspects of refugee integration by fostering work and business. For example, refugees conduct e-commerce in Kenya through WhatsApp groups, or Venezuelans displaced in Colombia find work through digitally-mediated ride-hailing platforms like Uber. ICTs can bridge gaps and enhance economic and social inclusion, but ICTs also have the potential for digital misinformation and discrimination to hinder the process.14 ICTs have the potential to increase refugees’ engagement with major stakeholders in the asylum and resettlement process, which constitutes social connection, one domain of refugee integration. ICTs can strengthen connections between local government and public authorities, the local population, and businesses, and thereby promote the integration process. One study of ICTs and refugee integration in the Netherlands points to the need for more inclusive online content for refugees, both through the media and public and private actors.15 There have been positive strides in addressing refugees’ digital divide through digital education efforts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, UNHCR provided tablets to refugee children in Uganda, and UNICEF-Akelius held digital language learning courses for refugees and

Rianne Dekker, Godfried Engbersen, Jeanine Klaver, and Hanna Vonk. “Smart refugees: How Syrian asylum migrants use social media information in migration decision-making”. Social Media+ Society 4, no. 1 (2018); Amanda Alencar, “Mobile communication and refugees: An analytical review of academic literature”. Sociology Compass 14, no. 8 (2020); Marie Gillespie et al. “Mapping refugee media journeys: Smartphones and social media networks” (2016); Marie Godin and Giorgia Donà. “Rethinking transit zones: migrant trajectories and transnational networks in Techno-Borderscapes”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47, no. 14 (2021): 3276–92. 14 Eileen Trauth, and Debra Howcroft. “Social inclusion and the information systems field: why now?”. In Social Inclusion: Societal and Organizational Implications for Information Systems (Boston, MA: Springer, 2006): 3–12; Melissa Wall, Madeline Otis Campbell, and Dana Janbek. “Refugees, information precarity, and social inclusion: The precarious communication practices of Syrians fleeing war”. The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture (2019): 503–14; Matt Voigts and Audrey Watne. “Seeking ‘common information’ among refugees, program workers, and academic researchers”. for (e) dialogue 2, no. 1 (2018): 29–49. 15 Alastair Ager and Alison Strang. “Understanding integration: A conceptual framework”. Journal of refugee studies 21, no. 2 (2008): 166–91; Safa’A AbuJarour, Hanna Krasnova, Antonio Diaz Andrade, Sebastian Olbrich, Chee-Wee Tan, Cathy Urquhart and Manuel Wiesche. “Empowering refugees with technology: Best practices and research agenda”. In Proceedings of the European Conference on Information Systems, Association for Information Systems. AIS Electronic Library (AISeL) (2017): 3263–73; Amanda Paz Alencar and Vasiliki Tsagkroni. “Prospects of refugee integration in the Netherlands: Social capital, information practices and digital media”. Media and Communication 7, no. 2 (2019): 184–94; UNDP, “Digital Livelihoods for People on the Move”. The Migrant Union, UNDP (2019). UNHCR, “Connected education for refugees: Addressing the digital divide”. UNHCR, Geneva (2021); UNICEF, “Unlocking Learning: The co-creation and effectiveness of a digital language learning course for refugees and migrants in Greece”, UNICEF-Innocenti Office of Research (2020). 13

452  Handbook on forced migration migrants in Greece. At the same time, UNHCR estimates that 78 per cent of refugee children had limited or no access to learning opportunities during pandemic-related school closures, illustrating the magnitude of need and the importance of scaling up effective digital learning initiatives to support integration as well as refugees’ right to education in camps. My own research examines refugees’ and asylum seekers’ digital inclusion and integration in London, UK, particularly regarding the impact of COVID-19. The shift to remote service provision posed challenges for refugees, illustrating that ICTs do not always enhance integration. These challenges included language barriers that impeded the use of government websites, mistrust of providing information online or remotely, and even a lack of access to internet or phones. Without access to the internet or an understanding of how to complete bureaucratic processes online, refugees were unable to apply for or receive welfare credits, pay bills (or advocate against unfair charges), or even apply for jobs. One informant who volunteers with refugees and asylum seekers and homeless populations in London explained in 2020: Parts of London look like camp site cities, areas completely covered with tents. In all these situations of homelessness you find a lot of immigrants and refugee populations. With the pandemic, homeless people are really struggling with access to services. For example, what happens when you don’t have credit on your phone? People assume everyone has technology, but that’s not the case. It has shocked me in terms of the discrimination people are facing.

The increasing digitalisation of services, which accelerated during the pandemic, had huge ramifications for refugee agencies in London. These agencies expressed a strong sense of responsibility in promoting the digital inclusion of refugees, even if this is not explicitly within their mandate. Instead, this work towards digital inclusion comes in part through their efforts to provide other services, such as language classes or helping refugees secure jobs. Employees of one organisation explained that several refugees they worked with were trying to gain job qualifications or get jobs but were impeded from doing so because they lacked access to technology: Some clients wanted to attend CECS, which is a qualification to work on a construction site, or SAI training (security warden training), but … they were unable to attend as they needed a laptop with access to wifi because of the nature of the training. Others have been asked to attend a job interview with a laptop – but they didn’t have one so they couldn’t attend the interview at all!

Many organisations find ways to help refugees overcome these barriers, sometimes even loaning out work or personal computers. Importantly, the responsibility to help refugees access digital services comes not only from organisations but due to a lack of responsibility taken by others. How differently might the work of some of these organisations have been if the UK government provided Smartphones in addition to SIM cards to asylum seekers that needed them – as some UK-based charities have done16 – or provided more direct support to civil society organisations working to address these barriers for refugees and asylum seekers themselves? Gaps in governments’ efforts to address digital inclusion reflect lack of

16 AESSEAL, “‘Smartphone’ initiative for Rotherham’s asylum-seekers”, 6 June, webpage, available at: https://​www​.aesseal​.com/​en/​article/​smartphone​-initiative​-rotherham​-asylum​-seekers (2022).

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  453 responsibility-taking and delegating responsibility to others who have fewer resources to take it on.17 Inherent to the responsibility these organisations felt to address refugees’ digital exclusion was the necessity of providing digital or remote services that refugees trusted – and gaining their trust remotely. Several organisations I interviewed mentioned a drop in client numbers during the pandemic, attributable both to a lack of information and to a fear by many refugees and asylum seekers of providing personal data online or over the phone (e.g. through intake forms) to unknown and thus personally un-vetted organisations. An employee of an organisation seeking to increase refugee employment explained, When a potential client used to come to our office, they saw people working there and others getting help. It looks like a charity, it’s an actual physical environment – people can talk to someone with face-to-face contact … When a potential client used to come to the office, they would figure out who they were dealing with, which increased their trust. So face-to-face is very important.

The shift to remote working meant that organisations could only communicate with refugees and asylum seekers over phones and text messages, thus denying people the opportunity to have natural human contact that fosters trust. While crucial for everyone, this is particularly important for forcibly displaced people who may have a deep mistrust of institutions due to past experiences of violence and persecution, and often have language barriers that make remote communication all the more daunting. These findings on trust echo other research on how resettled refugees use technology to access information.18 A study of newly resettled refugees in Brisbane, Australia, found that: [T]rust is central to how information is sought and considered … knowing whether to trust web-based information sources and find the right information can lead people to seek advice elsewhere … community leaders, many of whom are voluntary, provide a valuable service acting as the interface between the new migrant and government and other agencies with whom people need to liaise with to become re-settled.19

This element of trust in information-seeking and provision – both online and off – brings us back to the responsibility both to connect refugees to digital sources of information, assistance, or digitalised forms of bureaucracy, and to help them understand digital processes. As one key informant summarised, We need more participatory research and to show pathways where digital responsibility can really be implemented. This has to do with granting rights to refugees, such as partnering with actors to redesign pathways of asylum applications or digital asylum hearings. Refugees also need to understand that the digital identity they construct can affect the kind of opportunities and even the kinds of rights

Charles P. Martin‐Shields, Sonia Camacho, Rodrigo Taborda and Constantin Ruhe. “Digitalization and e‐government in the lives of urban migrants: Evidence from Bogotá”. Policy & Internet 14, no. 2 (2022): 450–67; Morgan Harvey, David P. Hastings and Gobinda Chowdhury. “Understanding the costs and challenges of the digital divide through UK council services”. Journal of Information Science (2021). 18 Mark Latonero, Keith Hiatt, Antonella Napolitano, Giulia Clericetti, and Melanie Penagos. “Digital identity in the migration & refugee context: Italy case study.” (2019). 19 Emma Felton. “Migrants, refugees, and mobility: How useful are information communication technologies in the first phase of resettlement.” Journal of Technologies in Society 11, no. 1 (2015): 9. 17

454  Handbook on forced migration that are granted to them. Refugees need to understand how their data is being used. Humanitarian organisations – big and small – are responsible for organising data literacy and digital literacy practices towards refugees.

Host governments should support refugees and refugee agencies to bridge the digital divide that separates the vision and reality of ICTs improving refugee integration. Many digital challenges that refugees and asylum seekers face could be addressed by governments. They should fulfil and expand promises to provide devices and internet access to those that need them – in essence: take more responsibility. In this context, responsibility means taking concrete steps to enabling digital inclusion for refugees and asylum seekers. At the same time, governments should support in-person services, out of a recognition that for some people digital services will never be a good option.

RESETTLEMENT, ALGORITHMS, AGENCY Digital technology plays a role in influencing outcomes for refugee resettlement. Algorithmic Decision Making (ADM) uses algorithms that either “decide” without needing a human to approve or authenticate, or offer recommendations or indicative outcomes that are ultimately approved or implemented by a human. Some “decisions” have been automatically made through digital processes for (at least) decades, but the scope and scale of algorithmic decision-making has seen a step-change in recent years. For example, algorithms curate the content of Facebook, and make recommendations on Netflix and beyond. Algorithms also decide whether migrants held by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are released or remain detained. One study found that a so-called “matching algorithm” that sought to match refugees to sites of resettlement “to improve integration outcomes” led to approximately 40 per cent improved employment prospects for refugees in the US and 75 per cent in Switzerland. The premise was simple: “there are synergies between places and people; certain characteristics will make a refugee a better match for a particular location”.20 The justification was similarly simple: an algorithm will be able to sift through different options and variables far more efficiently than a person. But what is lost through such automated decision-making? There are critical voices on algorithms and other digital technology, including in the humanitarian realm, that focus on bias and fairness. Some argue against “algorithmic fetishism”, seeing it as digital positivism: “fetishizing algorithms, even from a critical position, risks sidelining the harder empirical, theoretical, and political work of tracing those links and creating a space for the emergence of more just alternatives”. Increasing “just alternatives” depends on end-users such as refugees and human-

Taina Bucher. “The algorithmic imaginary: Exploring the ordinary affects of Facebook algorithms”. Information, Communication & Society 20, no. 1 (2017): 30–44; Blake Hallinan and Ted Striphas. “Recommended for you: The Netflix Prize and the production of algorithmic culture”. New Media & Society 18, no. 1 (2016): 117–37; Fatima Gaw. “Algorithmic logics and the construction of cultural taste of the Netflix Recommender System”. Media, Culture & Society 44, no. 4 (2022): 706–25; K. Evans and R. Koulish. “Manipulating risk: Immigration detention through automation”. Lewis & Clark Law Review, 24 (2020): 789; Kirk Bansak, Jeremy Ferwerda, Jens Hainmueller, Andrea Dillon, Dominik Hangartner, Duncan Lawrence and Jeremy Weinstein. “Improving refugee integration through data-driven algorithmic assignment”. Science 359, no. 6373 (2018): 325–9. 20

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  455 itarians being able to understand the digital processes they are using – and which are increasingly being foisted on them. This understanding should include the workings of algorithms, machine learning, and data mining, all of which employ complex, automated decision-making formulas that use far more information than a single human could compute in a similar amount of a time. As one example, UNHCR’s Project Jetson seeks to forecast forced displacement in Somalia through training its machine learning algorithm based on a variety of data points such as climate data and market prices. In other areas of humanitarian work, WFP forecasts food insecurity, and a growing cohort of researchers seek to forecast conflict, although current outcomes are not accurate enough to base early warning systems on. Forecasting approaches such as these often rely on data mining, computerised trawling of large amounts of computerised data to identify relevant patterns, trends, or correlations. There are growing calls to understand automated learning and decision-making in humanitarian action, out of an awareness that not doing so leads to limited agency.21 In 2017, the Chief Data Scientist of UN Global Pulse wrote: In humanitarian contexts, we could consider an extension of the “society-in-the-loop” algorithm concept – embedding the general will into an algorithmic social contract – where both humanitarian responders and affected populations understand and oversee algorithmic decision-making that affect them.22

While not always explicit (or sometimes fully comprehensible), these calls for further understanding of digital technologies are linked to the notion of responsibility. Lack of understanding of how algorithmic decision-making takes place can lead to a loss of ownership and thus of accountability for it. My research on digital technologies in refugee resettlement came across this challenge directly. One agency employing algorithms for its work with refugees conceded the challenge of understanding this technology: “We’re very focused on tech applications, but we don’t have skills in-house to support their adoption. We do that through totally trusted partners with whom we have a good relationship.” In this case, these partners include data scientists who tweak the algorithm as an outcome of regular meetings with the humanitarian agency, during which they provide feedback and recommendations to direct the changes. While this situation appears to work well for this agency, it depends on trust, which is not always present in such contexts. One example of how algorithms are directly involved in refugee resettlement is Annie Moore (Matching and Outcome Optimization for Refugee Empowerment), a matching algorithm designed to place resettled refugees in locations where they are most likely to find employment. Designed by academics and computer scientists at the University of Oxford, University of Lund, and Worcester Polytechnic, Annie Moore matches refugees to locations “… It is important to connect fairness and bias in algorithms to the broader context of fairness and bias in society, which has long been the concern of civil rights and feminist scholars and activists”. Foulds, James R., Rashidul Islam, Kamrun Naher Keya and Shimei Pan. “An intersectional definition of fairness”. In 2020 IEEE 36th International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE), pp. 1918–21. IEEE (2020): 1; Torin Monahan, “Algorithmic fetishism”. Surveillance & Society 16, no. 1 (2018): 1–5, 2; See the Project Jetson website; See the World Food Programme HungerMap; Samuel Bazzi, Robert A. Blair, Christopher Blattman, Oeindrila Dube, Matthew Gudgeon, and Richard Peck. “The promise and pitfalls of conflict prediction: Evidence from Colombia and Indonesia”. Review of Economics and Statistics 104, no. 4 (2022): 764–79. 22 Miguel Luengo-Oroz, “From big data to humanitarian-in-the-loop algorithms”, UNHCR Innovation Service (2017). 21

456  Handbook on forced migration through a set of indicators drawn from past employment, nationality, and language data. The algorithm is named after the first immigrant registered at Ellis Island in New York and is operated by HIAS, one of the main voluntary agencies tasked with refugee resettlement in the US. Increasing the chances of helping refugees find employment quickly after resettlement matters because, as one HIAS employee explained, Many people think that once a family is resettled, they continue to be supported by the government, but in the United States … refugees are expected to obtain employment very quickly and start supporting themselves. This technology has helped our regional offices connect relatively straightforward resettlement cases with new homes and communities where they are more likely to thrive in their jobs.23

Despite its potential to improve matching and its intention to increase “refugee empowerment”, Annie Moore is complicated by a lack of data. The US is notorious for a lack of long-term resettlement data. Fairly comprehensive data exists for the first 90 days of a refugee’s arrival, but there is no national (or in cases even regional or municipal) data collection after that. This means that Annie Moore is built on outcome data at the 90-day mark – when it is unlikely that any refugee or refugee family has experienced “success”. While there are other data based on ongoing case management programmes, these data are not comprehensive and are not currently used by the algorithm. Data collected by the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM) are difficult to obtain. The Annie Moore algorithm utilises a variety of inputs to make recommendations, but no preferences from refugees themselves are included in its calculations. This means there is no option to include information such as whether refugees would prefer to live in rural or urban environments. Allowing refugees’ preferences to be built into the algorithm would not necessarily mean offering refugees the option to pick specific resettlement locations but could mean adding variables that, if matched, might increase the likelihood that refugees thrive – or stay – in their site of resettlement. Some refugee agency employees argue that including refugee preference variables would be “too complicated”, but one computer scientist who helped develop the algorithm explained that practically it could be easy to factor in these preferences. The decision not to give refugees a say in their new home location seems more rooted in the immigration politics of “deservingness” and veiled paternalism than of practical options. The lack of inclusion of refugees’ preferences also suggests how wider political considerations are masked by the perceived “objectivity” of algorithms. Nor do refugees’ preferences or views play any role in determining “success”. Despite claims by the creators of Annie Moore to “optimise” refugee empowerment, not including refugees’ preferences lets slide an opportunity to collect the most important data to contribute to refugees’ success: information on their own individual priorities, intentions and interests. There are myriad ways in which refugees use technology to gain knowledge and connections, assist each other, and organise and receive assistance transnationally. One study of Syrians in Vienna, Austria, finds that “Digital infrastructure is crucial for refugees’ placemaking and care practices that in turn shape political subjectivities and hold the creative potential to enact citizenship from below.” The potential exists for ICTs to support refugees “to exercise their agency and achieve improvements in their well-being that enhance their participation in

HIAS, “New software does the hard work in placing refugees”, 18 October (2018).

23

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  457 society and control over their circumstances”. A study of the “digital resilience” of Syrians in the Netherlands explores digital social support, digital health, and digital identities, noting that media and digital networks are overlooked for their role in fostering resilience. Another study exploring refugees’ advocacy for digital justice and rights finds that “civic activity and agency are increasingly shaped digitally”.24 The ways that refugees make use of digital technology counteract narratives of refugees as victims of restrictive, technocratic state policies or as digitally illiterate subjects in need of digital literacy by humanitarians and other actors. At the same time, the persistent digital divide that many refugees face is very real and intersects with characteristics such as gender in ways that compound challenges. Refugee-serving agencies are increasing their digital acumen, but are often far behind where they want and need to be to assist and protect their clients, as the following section explores.

HUMANITARIANS AND THE DIGITAL RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT The growing use of digital and mobile technologies in the humanitarian sector poses a variety of risks for refugees, including unauthorised third-party access that can lead to data exploitation, and actual harm to people who have been identified. The risks of “digital by default” have led to calls for a people-centred security practice that helps users become active participants in security learning. Concerns about data collection by humanitarian agencies include “organisational data responsibility”, defined as the ways different organisations understand (or don’t) privacy rights and data security practices.25 While digital responsibility in theory lies with organisations collecting data, digital literacy and understandings of security management are lacking in many NGOs, particularly smaller and grassroots ones. A study in Italy found that organisations lack the knowledge to protect the information they collect or, if that knowledge exists at headquarters level, lack the ability to implement policy at the local level. The researchers give the example of visiting a refugee-serving agency that claimed beneficiary data was secure but had an unsecured

Negin Dahya and Sarah Dryden-Peterson. “Tracing pathways to higher education for refugees: The role of virtual support networks and mobile phones for women in refugee camps”. Comparative Education 53, no. 2 (2017): 284–301; Evan Easton-Calabria and Yahya Alaous, “Belonging in Berlin: An exploration of Syrian refugee-led organisations and volunteerism during COVID-19”. Berkeley Othering and Belonging Working Paper Series, 2 February (2021); Simon Noori. “Navigating the Aegean Sea: Smartphones, transnational activism and viapolitical in(ter)ventions in contested maritime borderzones”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 48, no. 8 (2022): 1856–72; Monika Palmberger. “Refugees enacting (digital) citizenship through placemaking and care practices near and far”. Citizenship Studies (2022): 13; Antonio Andrade and Bill Doolin. “Information and communication technology and the social inclusion of refugees”. MIS Quarterly 40, no. 2 (2016): 412; G. Udwan, K. Leurs and A. Alencar. “Digital resilience tactics of Syrian refugees in the Netherlands: Social media for social support, health, and identity”. Social Media + Society 6, no. 2) (2020): 8; Myria Georgiou. “City of refuge or digital order? Refugee recognition and the digital governmentality of migration in the city”. Television & New Media 20, no. 6 (2019): 600–16. 25 Latonero et al., “Digital Identity”; Lizzie Coles-Kemp, Rikke Bjerg Jensen and Claude P.R. Heath. “Too much information: Questioning security in a post-digital society”. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2020): 1–14. 24

458  Handbook on forced migration Wi-Fi network and transmitted data via a website lacking basic security/encryption protocols.26 Similar problems were echoed elsewhere in Europe: There is also the question of NGOs and how they use data. I definitely see migrant- or refugee-led groups being attentive about the data that they collect but I can’t always say these actors are responsible – data is shared a lot amongst each other. I am not at all saying that these actors have the intention to harm but inevitably there are risks. Some organisations have started really questioning what data they should gather, and now recognise that not all data is actually necessary to collect.27

Combined with existing concerns about how large humanitarian agencies like UNHCR are using or protecting refugees’ data, it is clear that a stronger focus on digital responsibility in refugee assistance is needed. Poor data management practices regarding refugees can be addressed through institutional capacity-building, for example, host governments can include funding for data management systems and trainings. But UNHCR also has a major responsibility to collect refugee data, and is chairing a “multi-stakeholder working group on interoperability … that supports a longer-term standards body focused on identity data”.28 At a minimum, humanitarian agencies should issue guidance for staff to follow data protection and privacy standards, such as that outlined by the ICRC Handbook on Digital Data Protection, which provides detailed information on digital technologies including mobile messaging apps, blockchain, and artificial intelligence to clarify risks and good practices.29 However, issuing guidance is not the same as receiving it, or more crucially, understanding it. As digital technology advances along with the concomitant risks, humanitarian agencies must gain the knowledge – or form trusted partnerships with those that do – to ensure they fulfil the humanitarian imperative to do no harm.

CONCLUSION All of us experience growing technologies of surveillance and opportunities for digital social connection. Digital technologies can be seen as both constrictive and expansive: digital securitisation, including the use of digital military technology such as drones or thermal cameras, restricts movement across borders while social media apps seek to forge and maintain connections across them, sometimes in ways that constitute activism and advocacy. In the face of powerful digital forces, opportunities for refugees to act as agents of their own lives appear nearly insurmountable. But we should not underestimate the power of social connection. Digital infrastructure for social networking based on affinity groups, such as refugee status or nationality, could become a way for refugees and migrants to achieve political rights in their host countries.30 Such rights-claiming is the converse of rights-giving, which brings us back to the responsibility of states both to receive refugees and give them access to their rights.

Latonero et al., “Digital Identity”, 37. Interview, Research expert on digital technologies and refugees, 2022. 28 Caribou Digital, “Identity at the margins: Refugee identity and data management”, Farnham: Caribou Digital Publishing (2018): 28. 29 ICRC, “Handbook on data protection in humanitarian action”. Geneva: ICRC (2020). 30 Interview, Charles Martin-Shields, Senior Researcher, IDOS. September 2022. 26 27

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  459 Global responsibility-sharing for refugees is the sharing of both funding for refugee assistance and intake, and the numbers of resettled refugees. This global norm of responsibility-sharing remains more idealised than real. When it comes to digital responsibility, there is little interest by donors and host governments for nuanced discussions of what this entails. Resettlement countries do not prioritise refugees’ digital inclusion; “matching algorithms” used for US resettlement de-emphasise refugee agency by not taking refugees’ own preferences into account. The majority of those affected by border surveillance will never be granted refugee status – and are probably never even considered as asylum seekers by the states seeking to deter them before they arrive. Instead: “The addition of technology has often deepened, rather than solved, long-standing structural issues, such as the unequal power dynamics between aid giver and aid receiver, and questions of inclusion and exclusion, such as who gets to decide who is included and how these decisions are made.”31 At the extreme end of the spectrum are violations of responsibility-sharing and the right to seek asylum: satellites to track asylum seekers, heat cameras to find them in hiding. In other words, digital technology is used by states to avoid any sort of legal responsibility at all.32 Given such realities, it can be difficult to identify technologies and uses of it that can be seen as trustworthy or positive for refugees. Yet, ultimately, trust is a building block for refugees and refugee-serving agencies. It can erode or never be formed through the digitalisation or remote nature of services, but it can also be promoted. For example, refugee-serving agencies working with refugees in London help them create or strengthen social connections online, while social media often act as a “lifeline” for refugees separated from family and friends. Digital trust and responsibility are not grand concepts; they constitute basic practices: helping refugees access stable, affordable internet and smart devices; communicating information through trusted channels online or maintaining in-person avenues to access services; developing algorithms that build refugees into formulas as active agents in decision-making rather than relegating them to life-changing outcomes such as resettlement locations over which they have no say.33 Technological innovation is one of the megatrends, or long-term driving forces affecting forced displacement, as are others examined in this Handbook: urbanisation and the consequences of climate change. The intersection of these trends will become an increasingly important nexus. For example, digital technologies are or could be used to understand and support or mitigate urban mobility arising from climate-driven displacement. The disrupting impact of extreme weather events, be they flooding or heat, on digital technology infrastructure and the outcomes for forcibly displaced people, is another important area of future research. More broadly, we need to keep exploring how digital technologies affect refugees’ lives, work, integration, creativity and mobility and generating evidence on this with them and not just on their behalf. We also need to research and understand what increasingly complex digital technologies cannot do in order to guide practices connected to it. And, as previous chapters of this

Holloway, Kerrie, Reem Al Masri, and A. Abu Yahi. “Digital identity, biometrics and inclusion in humanitarian responses to refugee crises”. London. ODI-HPG, HPG Working Paper (2021): 7. 32 InfoMigrants. “Digital borders: EU increases use of technology to monitor migration”. 18 February (2022). 33 Amanda Alencar, Katerina Kondova, and Wannes Ribbens. “The smartphone as a lifeline: An exploration of refugees’ use of mobile communication technologies during their flight”. Media, Culture & Society 41, no. 6 (2019): 828–44; Udwan et al., “Digital Resilience”, 9. 31

460  Handbook on forced migration Handbook discuss, it is important to remember that notions of refugee protection and agency have much more to do with decision-making, responsibility-taking, and leadership on both small and large scales than they do with algorithms or AI. Whether it is through a smartphone, a computer, an algorithm, or a code, the future is being written. Let us take responsibility for it.

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Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  461 Daun, Joakim. “Humanitarian accountability: A conceptual analysis”. RLI Working Paper, Refugee Law Initiative, University of London (2020). Dekker, Rianne, Godfried Engbersen, Jeanine Klaver and Hanna Vonk. “Smart refugees: How Syrian asylum migrants use social media information in migration decision-making”. Social Media+ Society 4, no. 1 (2018). DH Network (Digital Humanitarian Network). “History and Today” (2020). Donà, Giorgia and Marie Godin. “Mobile technologies and forced migration”. In A. Bloch and G. Doa (eds), Forced Migration (Routledge, 2018): 126–44. Donovan, Kevin P. “Infrastructuring aid: Materializing humanitarianism in northern Kenya”. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 33, no. 4 (2015): 732–48. Dowd, R. and J. McAdam (2017). “International cooperation and responsibility-sharing to protect refugees: What, why and how?”. International & Comparative Law Quarterly 66, no. 4: 863–92. Duffield, M. “The resilience of the ruins: Towards a critique of digital humanitarianism”. Resilience 4, no. 3 (2016), 147–65. Easton-Calabria, Evan and Yahya Alaous. “Belonging in Berlin: An exploration of Syrian refugee-led organisations and volunteerism during COVID-19”. Berkeley Othering and Belonging Working Paper Series, 2 February (2021). EDPS Ethics Advisory Group, “Towards a digital ethics. European Union”. European Data Protection Supervisor (2018). Emery, John R. “The possibilities and pitfalls of humanitarian drones”. Ethics & International Affairs 30, no. 2 (2016): 153–65. Essex, Ryan, Erika Kalocsányiová, Nataliya Rumyantseva and Jill Jameson. “Trust amongst refugees in resettlement settings: A systematic scoping review and thematic analysis of the literature”. Journal of International Migration and Integration (2021): 1–26. Evans, K. and R. Koulish. “Manipulating risk: Immigration detention through automation”. Lewis & Clark Law Review 24, no. 3 (2020): 789–855. Felton, Emma. “Migrants, refugees, and mobility: How useful are information communication technologies in the first phase of resettlement?” Journal of Technologies in Society 11, no. 1 (2015): 1–13. Foulds, James R., Rashidul Islam, Kamrun Naher Keya and Shimei Pan. “An intersectional definition of fairness”. In: 2020 IEEE 36th International Conference on Data Engineering (ICDE) (IEEE, 2020): 1918–21. Frouws, Bram, Melissa Phillips, Ashraf Hassan and Mirjam Twigt. “Getting to Europe the WhatsApp way: The use of ICT in contemporary mixed migration flows to Europe”. Regional Mixed Migration Secretariat Briefing Paper (2016). Gaw, Fatima. “Algorithmic logics and the construction of cultural taste of the Netflix Recommender System”. Media, Culture & Society 44, no. 4 (2022): 706–25. Georgiou, Myria. “City of refuge or digital order? Refugee recognition and the digital governmentality of migration in the city”. Television & New Media 20, no. 6 (2019): 600–16. Gillespie, Marie, Lawrence Ampofo, Margaret Cheesman, Becky Faith, Evgenia Illiou, Ali Issa, Souad Osseiran and Dimitris Skleparis. “Mapping refugee media journeys: Smartphones and social media networks” (2016) The Open University/France Médias Monde. Available at: https://​eprints​.ncl​.ac​.uk/​ file_store/production/259734/B10ABC43-B969-41E5-A53B-AB553958E6F8.pdf. Godin, Marie and Giorgia Donà. “Rethinking transit zones: Migrant trajectories and transnational networks in Techno-Borderscapes”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47, no. 14 (2021): 3276–92. Gough, Hannah A. and Katherine V. Gough. “Disrupted becomings: The role of smartphones in Syrian refugees’ physical and existential journeys”. Geoforum 105 (2019): 89–98. Hallinan, Blake and Ted Striphas. “Recommended for you: The Netflix Prize and the production of algorithmic culture”. New Media & Society 18, no. 1 (2016): 117–37. Harvey, Morgan, David P. Hastings and Gobinda Chowdhury. “Understanding the costs and challenges of the digital divide through UK council services”. Journal of Information Science (2021): 01655515211040664. Herden, Christina J., Ervin Alliu, André Cakici, Thibaut Cormier, Catherine Deguelle, Sahil Gambhir, Caleb Griffiths et al. “Corporate digital responsibility”. In Sustainability Management Forum| Nachhaltigkeits Management Forum 29, no. 1, pp. 13–29. (Berlin and Heidelberg: Springer, 2021). HIAS. “New software does the hard work in placing refugees”, 18 October (2018).

462  Handbook on forced migration Holloway, Kerrie, Reem Al Masri and A. Abu Yahi. “Digital identity, biometrics and inclusion in humanitarian responses to refugee crises”. London. ODI-HPG, HPG Working Paper, 2021). Hurwitz, Agnès G. The Collective Responsibility of States to Protect Refugees (Oxford University Press, 2009). ICRC. “Handbook on data protection in humanitarian action”. Geneva: ICRC (2020). InfoMigrants, “Digital borders: EU increases use of technology to monitor migration”. 18 February (2022). Jacobsen, Katja. “Experimentation in humanitarian locations: UNHCR and biometric registration of Afghan refugees”. Security Dialogue 46, no. 2 (2015): 144–64. Jacobsen, K.L. and K.B. Sandvik. “UNHCR and the pursuit of international protection: Accountability through technology?”. Third World Quarterly 39, no. 8, 2018: 1508–24. Latonero, M. and P. Kift. “On digital passages and borders: Refugees and the new infrastructure for movement and control”. Social Media+ Society, 4, no. 1: (2018). Latonero, Mark, Keith Hiatt, Antonella Napolitano, Giulia Clericetti and Melanie Penagos. “Digital identity in the migration & refugee context: Italy case study” (2019). Coalizione Italiana Libertà e Diritti Civili (CILD). Available at: https://​www​.datasociety​.net/​wp​-content/​uploads/​2019/​04/​DataSociety​ _DigitalIdentity​.pdf. Lima, Gabriel and Meeyoung Cha. “Responsible AI and its stakeholders”. arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.11434 (2020). Loy, Irwin. “Biometric data and the Taliban: What are the risks?” 2 September, The New Humanitarian (2021). Luengo-Oroz, Miguel. “From big data to humanitarian-in-the-loop algorithms”, UNHCR Innovation Service (2017). Lyytinen, Eveliina. “Refugees’ ‘journeys of trust’: Creating an analytical framework to examine refugees’ exilic journeys with a focus on trust”. Journal of Refugee Studies 30, no. 4 (2017): 489–510. Markus, M.L. and K. Mentzer (2014). “Foresight for a responsible future with ICT”. Information Systems Frontiers 16, no. 3: 353–68. Martin, S.F., R. Davis, G. Benton and Z. Waliany. “International responsibility-sharing for refugees”. KNOMAD Working Paper 32 (2018). Martin‐Shields, Charles P., Sonia Camacho, Rodrigo Taborda and Constantin Ruhe. “Digitalization and e‐government in the lives of urban migrants: Evidence from Bogotá”. Policy & Internet 14, no. 2 (2022): 450–67. McAuliffe, Marie. “International migration and digital technology: An overview”. In Research Handbook on International Migration and Digital Technology (Cheltenham, UK and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021). Monahan, Torin. “Algorithmic fetishism”. Surveillance & Society 16, no. 1 (2018): 1–5. Noori, Simon. “Navigating the Aegean Sea: Smartphones, transnational activism and viapolitical in(ter) ventions in contested maritime borderzones”. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 48, no. 8 (2022): 1856–72. Palmberger, Monika. “Refugees enacting (digital) citizenship through placemaking and care practices near and far”. Citizenship Studies (2022): 1–18. Sandvik, Kristin. “Now is the time to deliver: Looking for humanitarian innovation’s theory of change”. Journal of International Humanitarian Action 2, no. 1 (2017): 1–11. Sandvik, Kristin and Kjersti Lohne. “The rise of the humanitarian drone: Giving content to an emerging concept”. Millennium 43, no. 1 (2014): 145–64. The Guardian. “Fortress Europe: The millions spent on military-grade tech to deter refugees”. 6 December (2021). Trauth, Eileen and Debra Howcroft. “Social inclusion and the information systems field: Why now?”. In Social Inclusion: Societal and Organizational Implications for Information Systems (Boston, MA: Springer, 2006): 3–12. Udwan, G., K. Leurs and A. Alencar. “Digital resilience tactics of Syrian refugees in the Netherlands: Social media for social support, health, and identity”. Social Media+ Society 6, no. 2 (2020). UNDP. “Digital livelihoods for people on the move”. The Migrant Union, UNDP (2019). UNHCR. “Connected education for refugees: Addressing the digital divide”. UNHCR, Geneva (2021). UNHCR. “Connectivity for everyone” (Geneva: UNHCR, 2016).

Responsibility and trust: Using digital technologies in forced migration  463 UNICEF. “Unlocking learning: The co-creation and effectiveness of a digital language learning course for refugees and migrants in Greece”. UNICEF-Innocenti Office of Research (2020). Van de Poel, Ibo and Martin Sand. “Varieties of responsibility: Two problems of responsible innovation”. Synthese 198, no. 19 (2021): 4769–87. Voigts, Matt and Audrey Watne. “Seeking ‘common information’ among refugees, program workers, and academic researchers”. for (e) dialogue 2, no. 1 (2018): 29–49. Wahome, Michel and Mark Graham. “Spatially shaped imaginaries of the digital economy”. Information, Communication & Society 23, no. 8 (2020): 1123–38. Wall, Melissa, Madeline Otis Campbell and Dana Janbek. “Refugees, information precarity, and social inclusion: The precarious communication practices of Syrians fleeing war”. In: J. Retis and R. Tsagarousianou (eds), The Handbook of Diasporas, Media, and Culture (Hoboken: Wiley, 2019): 503–14.

52. Conclusion: A call for ethical standards in forced migration research Nassim Majidi and Karen Jacobsen

Our Handbook started with history and ends with the future, and the ongoing need to be conscious of so-called “solutions” and their intended and unintended results. Forced migration is “a device to read social change”1 and this Handbook sought to disrupt and interrogate dominant narratives by including a diversity of voices and perspectives. Our contributors included both seasoned writers and people just starting their careers, and the voices of policy makers, practitioners and forced migrants, and academics. We editors do not necessarily agree wholeheartedly with all the ideas and perspectives presented here. We deliberately chose to withhold our own views (with their attendant biases), and to let authors speak their minds. Our biggest editorial challenge was to identify authors who live and work in the countries most affected by forced migration. We wanted to change the predominant European and US-centric lens by bringing in the knowledge, experience and voices of people from other countries. This Handbook includes authors from a range of countries and backgrounds, but the state of collaboration has historically been limited and still is today. Knowledge production around forced migration is still restricted to relatively few players. Funding – and therefore time to think and write – is limited for colleagues who do not have well-salaried university or research positions. Finding a wide range of researchers and writers who are available to put in the writing time is difficult. These difficulties with making research and writing more inclusive have been present for a long time – and exist beyond forced migration research. Our critical take on forced migration is that forced migration is the responsibility of the entire system of nation-states – even if specific solutions are often best carried at the local level. Forced migration is a global phenomenon, in which everyone – migrants and non-migrants, citizens and governments of source, transit and destination countries – has responsibility for what happens at borders, during deportation, and for ongoing protracted situations. We contest the often heard idea that “African governments need to take ownership”; we believe we must all take collective responsibility. We end our Handbook with a call for establishing ethical standards on migration research and knowledge creation. We recognize that multiple narratives and approaches are necessary for debate, disagreement, and new ideas. But for research and the evidence it produces to be the foundation of sound policy making and programming, or worthy of academic exchange, it needs to be underpinned by ethical criteria based on how the research affects forced migrants. As a positive example, in 2021, the International Labour Organization (ILO) commissioned the development of ethical guidelines for the study of forced labour and research on child labour. The ILO recognized that such research needed “serious ethical considerations to protect interviewees and interviewers”. Conducting research on forced migration likewise 1 Mbembe, A. and S. Nuttall (2004). “Writing the World from an African Metropolis”. Public Culture 16(3): 347–72.

464

Conclusion  465 calls for serious ethical considerations, given the power dynamics, tensions around inclusion and exclusion, and the stakes in terms of international protection. National statistics offices, international organizations or individual researchers doing forced migration research all need to abide by ethical guidelines, from the design through the validation and dissemination phases. Some research consortia already have such guidelines in place. The International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM), and universities in the UK and Canada have developed ethical guides. We believe these research guidelines can go further, to address issues of funding transparency, control of data, and research independence. We think the following considerations could be added to existing ethical guidelines.

1.

WHO OWNS THE DATA? SHARING DATA OWNERSHIP AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

What does it mean when a funder such as the World Bank, which is funded by taxpayers, says that the data is “theirs”? The UN too has been known to embargo reports, shield data (even adequately anonymized data) from public use and examination. Given how much research has been done and is being commissioned, and the ways in which forced migration narratives are being simplified or controlled, it is time to make research a more transparent process. There are three facets to this transparency. First, acknowledging openly where funds come from: any research on forced migration should stipulate the funding sources and the context for the research – the objectives, and end goals. Just as research participants need to have this background, so do the readers. Contextualizing research and clarifying data ownership are critical. Second, we contest that data is owned by those who fund it. We should not agree to this any longer. Money does not determine where knowledge goes. All contracts on migration research need to be revamped to include joint intellectual property; this is the only way to ensure a balanced narrative on forced migration, and ensure a system of checks and balances to avoid misappropriation and misuse of data. In a world of commissioned research, commercial aspects cannot supersede knowledge creation. Many large research universities already have intellectual property considerations and issues around ownership of data written into their contracts. But smaller research organizations or individual researchers are often told that they will not benefit from any intellectual property and control of data. This includes those who are closest to the data – refugees helping with the research conducted in their own communities – or researchers who have been embedded in the research context for decades. They are often reduced to “data collectors” when they are often those who have most knowledge about the data collected. Third, practically speaking, one approach to sharing data is to establish study advisory groups that include the study population. These groups should engage from the start in discussions and plans for the research study. The pre-design phase will need to include a critical discussion on data ownership and confidentiality. Such decisions should be made in a fair and responsible manner, and should not depend on who paid for the data or who “owns” the data. There should be clarity and commitments on how the data will be used, and who will be involved in such decisions – again not in terms of who pays, but in terms of ensuring expert voices are considered. These discussions should occur before the data collection begins, and

466  Handbook on forced migration should not be driven only by financial or contractual considerations, but also by principles of equity and inclusion.

2.

WHO COLLECTS THE DATA? ENSURING RESEARCHER INDEPENDENCE IN THE COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS OF DATA

The worlds of policy, practice and research often collide, and at times converge. To ensure that they do not converge for reasons that cause further bias in the research, there must be systems of checks and balances. When collaborating, the ultimate stakeholders must be defined as the forced migrants themselves, not those commissioning the work. Therefore, in situations where critical voices are required, they should be independent from – and not embedded in – government, humanitarian or development institutions. Yet there are increasing numbers of humanitarian agencies developing research arms that conduct large-scale data collection, research and analysis, and evaluations. Others define themselves as social enterprises that “work with vulnerable people to improve their future” while also doing research on forced migrants. Many do so without always ensuring appropriate levels of methodological transparency, peer review processes, or publicity of funding sources. We must ensure the independence of research and knowledge, to avoid conflicts of interest with policymakers and practitioners. While collaboration, dialogue and reflectivity should always be respected, a critical and safe distance between stakeholders is also necessary. This brings us to the participation of forced migrants themselves in forced migration research and knowledge creation. Our call for ethical standards also is a call to include forced migrants themselves as primary stakeholders. This means going beyond a focus on “refugees” in order to integrate “forced migrant-led research” into the funding, scholarship and other support streams that can help forced migrants become more visible and audible, should they wish to. As we clarified in the introduction, not all forced migrants are refugees. There are others who will not have refugee status or be part of an asylum process, but who have been forced to migrate. Expanding the focus of migrant-led research is critical to broaden the spectrum of voices that need to be heard on forced migration. A focus on refugees alone means promoting one group over another; we seek instead to move towards more inclusive participation of all forced migrants and the communities they reside in. A participatory research process has to start with forced migrants, and expand to all those who agree to critically engage, and respect ethical standards of research and knowledge creation.

3.

WHO VALIDATES AND DISSEMINATES THE DATA? OPPORTUNITIES FOR SHARED LEARNING

As with ethical research in other fields, forced migration data should be subject to a validation exercise that gives research participants and members of different communities that interact with forced migrants an opportunity to respond or contribute to the analysis. This kind of participation can provide important nuance and perspective. Although it will add to the cost and time of a study, a peer review or validation process should be budgeted for and embedded in

Conclusion  467 the research plan, and in donors’ plans. Too much of the existing migration data skips critical steps of peer review. Such validation processes can be opportunities to discuss the dissemination plan with the advisory group to ensure accountability of the research dissemination. Linking data collection, analysis, validation and dissemination allows the loop to be closed, and ensures that the original intentions of the research are safeguarded from politicization or manipulation into the dominant narratives. Currently, only academic institutions require peer review processes. Given the expansion of the migration research field to other institutions – private or public – we call for the peer review process to become a requirement for any institution publishing migration-related data and knowledge. This requires advance planning – so that any research workplan includes an element of review: whether by experts internally, within an institution, or externally. Creating these spaces for collaborative research and spaces for feedback is part of the responsibility of any entity producing knowledge on migration. There are many ways these can be done.

4.

WHO USES THE DATA? EXPANDING THE LANGUAGES USED IN THE PRODUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE AND OPENING ACCESS TO THE DATA

The predominance of English in knowledge production should be addressed through dedicated funding and efforts. Many studies conduct data collection in study participants’ own language, but the research outputs are usually written up and published in English. This means that analysis and dissemination are rarely collaborative and multi-lingual. Funding to cover the translation of research findings, or at least an executive summary of such findings, into local languages should be part of the study budget. Because of the way the data is owned, use of the data is often restricted to the funder. Research uptake is an issue because intellectual property is an issue. Open access research is still limited, partly because it requires some level of monitoring to ensure that confidentiality clauses and other safety elements are respected and protected. Yet, we all know that migrants are being over-researched, and that there is a growing fatigue related to research. This fatigue is caused by a lack of transparency and coordination around data collection, and the sense of a proprietary approach to research. Yet, all research entities – especially those that are publicly funded – should share their reports and make their data openly accessible. All funders should give their authors a chance – and contractually require – that they publish their articles open access: immediately freely available to read, by all. We call for an open “migration wiki” – an online resource that would collect all knowledge and data on migration, with anonymized sources and locations, but with databases that can be mined and analysed by researchers globally. This would require a signed agreement by anyone wishing to use the data, to do so with the involvement – as peer reviewers and contributors – of those who collected the data in the first place. To ensure that data is not misused, or decorrelated from the context. Critically questioning and changing the way data is owned, collected, validated and used, will ensure that we open up the space for evidence-based discussions and debates on migration – not based on assumptions but on facts. It will also ensure that we can include in the conversation all those who can help us understand “solutions” better, from urban planners,

468  Handbook on forced migration to private sector actors, social workers, and many more. The more we broaden the space for exchanges, the better. For this, we need to speak the same language and abide by common and ethical standards. This means that our conclusion’s call for ethical standards of research calls specifically for: 1. Joint data ownership between those funding and those collecting the data; 2. Open access data and a migration wiki accessible by all researchers worldwide; 3. Participation of all forced migrants to the data collection, use and validation of the research; 4. Peer review processes for all – not just academic – research on migration; 5. Translation and opening of knowledge production to more than the English language. It is our belief – building on our decades of experience and very different positions in the knowledge production spectrum – that it is only if the standards above are met, that can we speak of ethical standards in forced migration research.

Index

9/11 24, 67 Abboud, Samen 291 Abdenur, Adriana 199 ‘abolitionist climate justice’ 232 absolute capitalism 87–8 accountability 245–51 accountability technologies 449 Acheson, Dean 164–5 Action Dignity organization 73 action research 12 activists 30, 94, 138 Adams, Ruth 116 adaptation, climate change 201–2, 219–20, 223, 248–9 adaptive capacity 202, 222 Adhar card 190 Afghan refugees 67–8, 423–5 in Canada 69–70 in Pakistan 186, 443 return solutions 339 in United States 80 welcoming attitudes 8 Afghanistan education restrictions 427 evacuation of 3, 31 research funding 12 as ‘state of exception’ 99 Taliban takeover 5, 10, 423, 426, 448 Africa climate change effects 197 EUTF creation 8 IDP protections 39 population growth 234–5, 240 protracted displacement 23 research funding 12 UNHCR bureau 430 African slave trade 119, 121, 168–70 African Union Convention 39–40, 128 Agamben, Giorgio 97 ‘Age of Migrations’ 54 ‘Age of Revolutions’ 157 agency 94–5, 191, 440, 450 Ager, A. 337, 340 aging populations 235–7 agrarian livelihood crisis 208–9 agricultural livelihood strategies 367–70 agriculture 117, 178–9, 197, 260, 365 Ahaibwe, G. 368

AI see Artificial Intelligence aid-induced informal settlement 279–84 Aleinikoff, T.A. 342, 352 algorithmic decision making 454–7 Ali, Hakim 190 ambient racism 83 Amerindians 168, 169–70 Aminzade, Ronald 163 Amman, Jordan 320–323 Angus, Ian 204 Anthropocene motilities 227–30 ‘anti-immigration political actors’ 204 anti-reconstruction 289–90 ‘anti-warehousing’ campaign 261 archival records 135–6 Arendt, Hannah 16, 48, 53–4, 90, 95, 97, 99–100, 146, 355 Between Past and Future 51, 99 The Origins of Totalitarianism 47, 79 Aristotelian thought 101–2 armed conflict 200, 377, 379, 381, 417 Armenian refugees 123–4 Arnold-Fernández, E. 396 Artificial Intelligence (AI) 448 Ashkenazi Jews 168 Asian research 12 Assad regime 287, 289, 291 asset liquidation 327–8 asylees 38–40 asylum definition problems 38–9 ethics of 149–54 historical roots 130, 155–61 middle ages–early modern era 156–7 pre- and ancient history 155–6 asylum–migration nexus 24–5 asylum seekers 4, 27, 66, 151, 308, 415 externalization effects 110 international protection 399–400 legal status 38–40 non-refoulement protection 41 protracted situations 255 resettlement solutions 336–7 voluntary departure scheme 64–5 Atlantic forced migrations 168–75 Atlantic slave trade 119, 121, 168–71 Aubenque, Pierre 101 Aubrey, Dyfed 262, 268 austerity measures 310

469

470  Handbook on forced migration Australia 69, 111, 254 Austro-Hungarian empire 122–3, 176 authoritarianism 98–100 Babylonian empire 117 Bachelet, Michelle 286 Bakewell, Oliver 54, 59–66 Balibar, Etienne 75 Balkan Wars 123 Ballinger, Pamela 143 Bangladesh 183, 187, 190–191, 198 Bansal, Juhi 199 Bauman, Zygmunt 100 Begelman, Jen 70 benefits claims 310–311 Bengali refugees 182–4 Bengaluru 199, 210–211 Benhabib, Seyla 53, 55, 93–100 Bennett, Andrew 163 Berlin,, Syrian refugees in 309–12 Berne Initiative 25 Berry, J.W. 337 Betts, Alexander 264, 342, 351 bias 12, 332, 454–5 Biden administration 28–9, 204, 230, 242 biopolitical borders 109, 112–13 Bismarck, Otto 179 Black Atlantic 168–71 Black Lives Matter movement 83, 152 Black-on-Black racism 419–20 Bloch, Alice 152 bodies gendered 71–3, 105–6 lifeboat discourse 239–42 ranking of 419–20 Boni, Tanella 54, 55, 101–5 Boochani, Behrouz 70 border control 8, 22–3 border crossings 109–14, 303 border enforcement 8, 22, 26–30, 242 border externalization 109–11 border interiorization 109, 111–12 borders digital technologies 450–451 EU redefinitions 98 fortification of 22 navigating 191 BPA see Brazil Plan of Action Brachet, Julien 240 Bradley, Megan 47–8 Bragg, Bronwyn 72 Bratman, Eve 232 Braverman, Suella 153 Brazil 27, 218–20 Brazil Plan of Action (BPA) 390, 395–8, 400

‘British values’ 150–152 Brock, Gillian 54 Brown, Alison 269 Brun, Cathrine 17, 351, 352–3, 359, 373 burden sharing 7, 60 bureaucratization 429, 433 Burgess, Katrina 14, 16 Buscher, Dale 268 Bush, George 67 Butler, Judith 16, 53, 62–3, 67 Butler, Simon 204 Buxton, R. 345 Caesar Act 289 camp settlements 260–262, 267, 272–8 Haiti 280–281 Jordan 321 security concerns 438 Uganda 364–5 see also refugee camps Campbell, Elizabeth 260 Canaan slum, Port-au-Prince, Haiti 279–84 Canada 69–70, 74–5, 80, 81–2 Cancun Adaptation Framework 200, 245 capitalism 87, 88, 228 Carens, Joseph 16, 48, 50–51 Caribbean BPA programs 398 climate-related migration 199, 216–26 Carling, Jørgen 13 Cartagena Declaration 40, 389–90, 392–3, 395, 399–400, 402 Catholic refugees 156, 169 causal effects 163–4 causal mechanisms 163–4 CBOs see community-based organizations CBP see Customs and Border Enforcement Central America 29, 198, 218, 230 Cerone, John 7, 16, 254 Chambers, Robert 341 change theories 163 charitable aid 178–9 Chatty, Dawn 131 Chechnyan migrations 177, 180 Chetail, Vincent 25 children education 356–8, 360, 451–2 ethical approach 150–151 mental health problems 82 refugee camps 76 structural injustice 83 Chile 398–9 China 119, 122, 146 Cincotta, Richard 240 Circassian migrations 177, 178–80

Index  471 ‘citadins’ 265–6 cities conviviality 312 displacement and 258, 260–265, 267–9, 272–8, 294–5, 299–300 economic opportunities 370 informal settlements 279 migration to 117 reconstruction 287–8 right to 265–6 ‘citizen-refugee’ tag 184 citizenship 47–8, 63, 65, 75 effective exercise of 355 legal rights 90 metropolitan areas 266 partition-induced migration 185–6 Russian Federation 380 sovereign position 50 the stranger and 46–7 city extensions 272, 274–5 city government partnerships 320–323 city-states 117–18, 156 civic obligations 117–18 civil society organizations (CSOs) 386, 432 climate change 193–207 agricultural adaptation 367–8 causality 195–6 inequality and 208–15 slow-onset events 193–5, 198, 220–221, 246 sudden-onset events 193, 194, 198, 220 urban areas 212 climate debt 230, 231–2 climate motilities 227–33, 245–51 climate-related migration 15, 17, 78, 82–3, 193–207, 216–26 accountability and 245–51 definitions/projections 193–9, 443 framing 203–4 inequality and 208–15 international organizations and 200–201 narratives 229–30 policy responses 199–202, 209–10, 222–3 trends/dynamics 219–20 UNHCR support 431 youth bulge theory 241 climate reparations 231–2 climate security 241 co-production, research 11–12 Cohen, Michael 15, 17 Cohen, Robin 351, 354 Cold War 24, 68–9, 86, 128, 308, 335–6 collaborative research 11 collective solutions 351, 361 Collier, P. 342, 351

Colombia 220–222, 315–19, 393, 398, 399 coloniality of climate 228–30 colonization 120–122, 142 commoditization challenges 300 communitarian approach 48, 50 community-based organizations (CBOs) 418 ‘community of belonging’ 52 community resettlement programmes 80 Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) 363, 366–8, 395 ‘comprehensive solutions’ 395–8 conceptual vagueness 60 Conference of the Parties (COP) agreements 245–6, 247–9 conflict analysis 437–40 conflict as migration driver 155, 200 conflict-related displacement 268, 286, 345, 379, 417 consensus, logic of 88 ‘constellation of home’ 353–4 constructivism 162 context analysis 437–40 continuity theories 163 contraception provision strategies 238 control, illusion of 59–66 conviviality 312–13 coordination, UN agencies 431–2 COP agreements see Conference of the Parties agreements ‘corporate digital responsibility’ 448 ‘corrective justice’ 231 cosmopolitan approach 48, 50, 95 cost of living issues 382 counter-narratives 77–85 country-level climate adaptation 201–2, 250 COVID pandemic 16, 138, 217 agrarian livelihood crisis 208 asylum seekers’ protection 399–400 city conditions 294–5 digital technologies 451–2 marginality and 79 self-reliance impact 372–3 US–Mexico migration 27–9 working conditions 72–3 xenophobic attitudes 297 Crawford, Nicholas 263 criminal law 35, 41–2 criminal organizations 23–4, 42–3 criminalization 99, 105 ‘crimmigration’ 99 crisis contexts 279–84, 286, 389, 398–401 crisis narratives 236–9 ‘crisis-cities’ 279 Crisp, Jeff 258–9, 266, 294 cross-border trade 303

472  Handbook on forced migration CRRF see Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework CSOs see civil society organizations Cuba 222 customary law 35, 159 Customs and Border Enforcement (CBP) 26–7 Cyrus Cylinder 117 Dagestani migrations 177, 180 Dajani, Deena 269 Daoust, Gabrielle 241 Darling, Jonathan 70, 267 data access 467–8 data analysis 466 data collection 11, 465–6 data management 458 data mining 455 data ownership 465–7 de Haas, Hein 240 de jure integration 339–40, 343–4, 364, 372 debt cycles 327–8 decisionist concept 98 decolonization 11–12, 143 decriminalization 93–100 DEF see Displacement Economies Framework deficit theories 203, 236, 241–2 ‘degradation narratives’ 240 Deleuze, Gilles 104 ‘delivering as one’ slogan 431 ‘demand side’ support 273 democracy 79, 86–7, 88, 149 demographic deficit theory 236 demographic dividend theory 237–8 denial concept 52 Denmark 63–4 dependency 74, 236–7 deportation 23, 111, 123, 230, 408–9 Derrida, Jacques 95, 99–100 desertification 197 detention facilities 69, 99, 112, 230, 254 deterrence strategies 110, 129 development agencies 9–10, 129, 295, 323, 432, 437–8 development narratives 7, 442 Di Cesare, Donatella 46, 50 diaspora 59–60, 170–171 ‘differential racism’ 75 digital borders 450–451 ‘digital citizenship’ 447 digital exclusion 451–4 ‘digital litter’ 449 digital technologies 19, 446–63 dignity 105 diplomatic asylum 38

disaster-related displacement 193, 217–18, 279–84 disaster risk reduction (DRR) 201–2 disasters, range of types 220 displaced people ‘durable solutions’ 17–18 economic impact 299–301 enterprises 301–4 integration approach 272–7 labeling 13 livelihoods approach 299–301, 304–5 marginality 79 new cities for 275–7 number fluctuations 15 poverty and 78 refugee distinction 158 self-reliance 293–8, 367–70 displacement alternative solutions 350–362 camp settlements 272–8 definition 4 durable solutions 344–5, 377–88 experience of 7, 353 markets of 326–30 mayors’ role in 264, 269, 320–323 multi-causal nature 129 organized/pressured returns 409–10 protection strategies 159 reality of 360 scale of 286 urbanization 258–71 displacement economies 268–9, 299–307 Displacement Economies Framework (DEF) 304–5 displacement enterprise 301–4 dissensus 86–92 diurnal logic 89 dividend theories 236–8, 241–2 Dixon, Deborah 71 ‘documented immigrants’ 37 Doná, G 337 donor agencies Uganda 371 United Nations 431 donor funding, soliciting 9 donors’ expectations 441 Dowler, Lorraine 71 drought-related migration 219–20, 241 DRR see disaster risk reduction Dryden-Peterson, S. 373 Dube, Engida Esayas 269 Dubs, Alf 150 durable housing solutions 379–81, 383–4 durable solutions 17–18, 59, 332–49 alternatives to 350–362

Index  473 conceptual vagueness 60 digital technologies 447 ethical constraints 81–2 internally displaced persons 128, 377–88 language of 389–404 meaning/experience of 336–41 narratives surrounding 439, 442 political dimensions 343–5, 391–2 temporal dimensions 390–404 urban refugees 263, 267 E-Verify technology 111–12 Earle, Lucy 17 Easton-Calabria, Evan 16, 18–19, 259, 263 ‘ecobordering’ 242 economic exploitation 83 economic growth 237–8 economic migrants 36, 81, 94, 180–181, 431, 443 see also labor migration; migrant workers economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) 317, 318 economic theory 303 economy of displacement 268–9, 299–307 refugee economics 363–76 Ecuador 296, 398–9 education digital technologies 451–2, 455 economic growth driver 237–8 integration policy 311 mobility and 360 protracted displacement 356–8 refugee narratives 416, 421–2, 423–5, 426–7 return for 426 effective citizenship 355 Egypt 417–18 election participation 384, 386 Elie, Jerome 130 elitism 432–3 emancipation 86–92 emergencies education 356–7 emergency relief 321 emergency relocation camps 280–281 enclave dwellers 190–191 encomienda-system 170 enforced disappearance 41–2 ‘enforcement archipelago’ 254 enterprises 301–4 entrepreneurship 84, 269, 294, 320, 326 environmental hazards, cities 300 environmental-related migration 193–207 environmental security 241 epistemology 54 equality 52, 91 Ernakulam, India 211–12

Escazú agreement 223 ESCR see economic, social and cultural rights Espada, Martín 16 Asking Questions of the Moon 189 Floaters 107–8 I Now Pronounce You Dead 405 I Would Steal a Car for You 252 Mazen Sleeps With His Foot on the Floor 1 Not for Him the Fiery Lake of the False Prophet 324–5 Espinoza, Vera 335, 337 ethical standards 12, 18–19, 464–8 ethics of asylum 149–54 responsibility and 54 structural injustice 77–85 technology use 448 Ethiopia 274 ethnicity early migrations and 172 gender and 73 linguistic communities 96 ethno-religious identities 177 European colonial empires 176 European forced migrations 168–75 European ‘migration crisis’ 3, 8 European states asylum 149–50, 406 border redefinitions 98 citizenship 47 mixed migration 25 normative standards 63–4 reconstruction as weapon 289 European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) 8 European Union (EU) 63–4, 98, 289, 406 EUTF see European Union Emergency Trust Fund for Africa exceptionalism 98–9, 346 ‘excision’ of territory 93 exclusionary border policies 229–30, 359 exclusionary education systems 358 exclusionary language 203–4, 438 exclusionary processes 164, 451–4 exclusionary regimes 142 exclusivity–inclusivity discourse 13 ‘exemptionalism’ 98 exile 99–100, 101–5, 117–18, 177 exteriority 100 externalization 109–11 extreme climate events 193–5, 220 Fábos, Anita 351, 352–3, 373 fairness 454–5 famille d’accueil 6

474  Handbook on forced migration family bonds 416 famine 121–2 farmers/farming areas 117, 178–9, 197, 260, 367 Fawaz, Mona 266–7 fearism 75, 85, 438 Feldman, Ilana 143 feminist geography 54, 67–76 feminist political geography 67–76 fertility rates 235–8, 240 fiction 91–2, 351, 354–6 financial resources climate change and 6, 249 debt cycles and 328 for education 426 host countries 249 internally displaced persons 381 migrants’ struggles 326–30 mixed migration 329 refugee industry and 371 for smuggling services 8–9, 42, 326–7 see also funding flood-related disasters 194–5, 198–9, 212 Folly, Maiara 199 food distribution problems 365, 368–9 food insecurity 198, 368, 373 forced displacement, context analysis 437–40 forced migrants economic migrant distinction 180–181 narratives 421–2, 423–5 as refugees 14 screening/selecting 8 forced migration definitions 4–5, 131, 442 drivers of 6 early modern period 116–22, 168–75 historical perspectives 168–75 legal definitions 4 practitioner narratives 442–4 pre-historic period 116–19 voluntary migration distinction 21–2, 64–5 Forced Migration Review 15 forced returns 407–8 fossil fuel consumption 227–8, 231 Foucault, Michel 78, 97–8 France 87–8, 90, 165, 234, 426–7 Fransen, Sonja 240 Fraser, Nancy 55, 357 fraudulent documentation 255, 419 free association, rights of 49 free market 86 free will 51 freedom equality link 52, 91 experience of 51–2 plurality approach 53

freedom of movement 50, 87, 277, 366, 434 Freier, L.F. 399 Fukuyama, Francis 86 funding housing solutions 384 migrants’ struggles 326–30 for research 12, 464–5 urban displacement 259 see also financial resources Gallagher, D. 391 García Amado, Patricia 269 Gatrell, Peter 130, 136 GCM see Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration GCR see Global Compact on Refugees Gebre-Egziabher, Tegegne 269 gender climate migration 221–2 dividend theory 238 mental health and 385 mobility costs 327 research obstacles 12 space and 73 gender geopolitics 71 gender norms 84 gender relations 105–6 Geneva Convention 25, 407, 430 genocide 125, 128, 130 geopolitics 67–76, 254, 332–3, 344 George, Alexander L. 163 Georgia 377–88 Germany 125–6, 146, 239, 309–12 Ghezelbash, D. 352 GHG emissions see greenhouse gas emissions Ghosal, Anindita 131 Glissant, Edouard 55, 102 Global Compact on Migration 7, 34, 406, 443 Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) 7, 25–6, 60, 69–71, 94, 259 durable solutions 342–4, 392, 396 practitioner narratives 443 self-reliance goals 294, 297 Global Compact on Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM) 25–6, 94, 200, 245–8 global governance 24–6 ‘Global North’, use of term 14 global solutions 351, 356–8 ‘Global South’, use of term 14 globalization 77–85 Good Samaritan principle 49, 83 Goodwin-Gill, Guy S. 138, 162 great replacement conspiracy 241–2 Greek city-states 117–18, 156 Greek refugees, World War I 124

Index  475 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions 194, 196, 202, 227–9 Gregory, Derek 67, 68 Grotius, Hugo 96 Gryn, Rabbi Hugo 151–3 Guatemala 48, 198 Guattari, Felix 104 Habermas, Jürgen 95 Hacking, Ian 146 Hage, Ghassan 254 Haiti 279–84 Haitian migrants 27–9, 80, 230 Hamlin, Rebecca 82 Hannah-Jones, Nikole 83 Haraway, Donna 72, 75 Hardin, Garret 203, 234–5, 241 Harley, Tristan 139 harm 39–40, 42, 78 Harper, Stephen 74 Harrell-Bond, Barbara 12–13, 340 hate speech 385 Hathaway, James C. 162, 352 Haysom, Simone 260 health criteria 28 healthcare access 318 Heather, Peter J. 118 Heidegger, Martin 97 Hendrixson, Anne 14, 195, 203 Heydemann, Steven 290 Hilbig, Michael 237 Hindu refugees 182 historians’ ‘dual imperative’ 137–9 historical perspectives 17, 116–33, 134–41, 142–8, 149–54, 155–61 historical process tracing 162–7 historiography 116–33, 168–75 HIV/AIDS pandemic 430 ‘home’ 352–4, 359, 424 hospitality 95, 177, 179 hospitality services 299 host populations 60, 273, 275, 368 camp settlements 261 conviviality 312 educational systems 358 mobility 360 needs of 129 partnerships 320 political economy 344 refugee response model 434 use of term 15 housing solutions 379–81, 382, 383–4 Hovil, L. 339, 366–7, 370, 373 HRVs see Humanitarian Voluntary Returns Huguenots 120, 156, 168–72

human capital 82, 237, 439 human rights 34, 38, 42, 47, 78, 90, 94, 149 Human Rights Law 35 human trafficking 42–3, 443 humanitarian agencies digital responsibility 448–9, 457–8 partnerships 320–323, 437–8 research commissions 9–11, 466 self-reliance concept 295, 363 urban crisis responses 283 urban integration approaches 273 ‘humanitarian circuit’ 143 humanitarian narratives 7, 9–13 humanitarian obligations 117–18, 293 humanitarian practitioner narratives 9–13 humanitarian principles 259, 264 ‘humanitarian urbanism’ 262 Humanitarian Voluntary Returns (HRVs) 409 humanitarianism 156, 176 Hungarian refugees 336 Hungary 14 Huntington, Samuel 67 Hyndman, Jennifer 54, 67–76 hydraulic metaphors 14 IAMM see International Agenda for Migration Management ICT see Information and Communication Technology identity documentation 105, 190, 396 identity, labeling and 146 IDPs see internally displaced persons Ilcan, S. 372 illegal migrants 37, 42, 88–9, 110–111, 230, 416 ILO see International Labor Organization ILR see Indefinite Leave to Remain imaginative geography 68 immigration restrictions, history of 122–5 Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees (Harrell-Bond) 13 inclusivity 13, 452 Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) 424–5 India 126, 143, 146, 182–8, 190–191, 199, 208–15 individuality, logic of 83 inequality climate change and 196, 208–15 elitist mentality 432–3 inflexion points 18 informal economy 300–302 informal employment 300–301, 419 informal pathways 341–3 informal protection strategies 30 informal sector 300 informal settlements 210–211, 262, 272, 279–84

476  Handbook on forced migration see also unplanned settlements Information and Communication Technology (ICT) 446, 448, 450–452, 456–7 INGOs see international non-governmental organizations ‘inhospitable or uninhabitable’ living conditions 5–6 insecurity and poverty 443 integration definition 340 digital technologies 451–4 displaced persons 272–7 historical perspectives 178–80 as solution 332, 334, 339–41, 343–4, 351–2, 355–6, 359–60 urban settlements 310–311, 313 see also local integration ‘integration life’ 263 intellectual property 465–6 intelligence, forms of 101 interiorization 109, 111–12 internal migration 208–11, 217, 219, 221, 364–7 internally displaced persons (IDPs) 4, 128, 421–2 camp settlements 260 crises contexts 286 durable solutions 128, 377–88 integration solutions 340 legal definitions 39 process tracing 162, 164–6 protection strategies 159 return policies 263 self-reliance 363–6, 369 statistical data 15 urban settings 258 International Agenda for Migration Management (IAMM) 25 International Labor Organization (ILO) 24, 37, 247, 464 international law, migrant categories 34–44 International Migration Review Forum (IMRF) 248 international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) 9, 10–11, 418, 432 International Organization for Migration (IOM) 164, 200–201, 247, 406, 409–10 asylum–migration nexus 25 mixed migration 24 practitioners 18 statistics 15 US–Mexico migration 29 international protection asylum seekers 399–400 digital responsibility 449 historical perspectives 157–60 vulnerability criteria 8

International Refugee Organization (IRO) 126 international relations (IR) 162–3 interrupted migration cycles 406–11 intersectional analysis 16 ‘invisibilization’ of refugees 263 IOM see International Organization for Migration IR see international relations Iraq war 99 Iraqi refugees 262, 275 Irish potato famine 121–2 IRMF see International Migration Review Forum IRO see International Refugee Organization irregular migration 24, 37, 255 Islamism 99 Israel 64 Jacobsen, Karen 129, 300 Jadotte, Louis 268 Jaggar, Alison 54, 84 Jansen, Bram 262 Jewish expulsions 120, 122, 126–7, 157–8, 169 Jewish migrations 168–9, 171 Jewish persecution 125, 150–151 Jordan 269, 320–323 Juppé plan 88–9 ‘just alternatives’, digital technology 454–5 justice definitions 357 mobility and 196, 227–33 reparative approach 231–2 Kafka, Franz 99 Kaiser, T. 370 Kampala Convention 39 Kampalan refugees 66, 266 Kant, Immanuel 95–7 Karanja, Paul 268 Kelley, Ninette 130 Kenya 262–3, 275–6, 296–7, 367 Kerala 199, 211–12 Khadr, Omar 67–8 Khosravi, Shahram 53 ‘kinopolitics’ 228, 231 Klein, Melanie 53 knowledge production 11, 101–2, 464, 467–8 Kochi, India 211–12 Korean refugees 127 Kosovan refugees 149 Kushner, Tony 130 Kyte, Rachel 249 labeling 13–15, 34, 53, 59–66, 104–5, 146 labor force strategies 94 labor market, return effects 439 labor migration 122, 126, 208–12

Index  477 see also economic migrants; migrant workers labor mobility 352, 395–6 LAC see Latin America and the Caribbean Lachenicht, Susanne 131 land concerns 268, 273, 275, 279–80, 367 Landau, Loren 264–5 Landis, Joshua 290 language discrimination 183 durable solutions 389–404 of fear 438 framing discourse 13–15 knowledge production 467–8 as obstacle 96–7 poetry 101–5 research 12 language barriers 137, 417, 452 large-scale migration see mass migration Latin America 12, 121, 296, 336–7, 389–404 Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) 199, 216–26, 398 law as politics 68 rights distinction 95 League of Nations 124–6 Lebanon 264–5, 267, 273, 409–10 Lee, Everett S. 96 Leeson, Kellie 258, 268 Lefebvre, Henri 265–6 legal categorization, migrants 34–44 legal frameworks climate migration 222, 231 for reconstruction 288–9 legal naturalisation 343 legal protections 34, 35, 36, 40–41 legal rights of citizenship 90 internally displaced persons 386 legal statuses 21, 254–6, 296 leisure activities 299 LGBTQ+ people 15 liberal democracy 86–7, 149 liberal policies 178 liberal theory 53 ‘lifeboat’ discourse 17, 203, 234–44 limbo concept 353, 377–88 te Lintelo, Dolf 264 lived experiences 18, 415–27, 429–44 livelihood mobility 352 livelihood programs 295 livelihoods approach 299–301, 304–5 local authorities 264–5, 302–3, 432, 441 local integration 332, 339–41, 343–4, 350, 355–6, 364 home-making practices 354

self-reliance 372 solidarity programs 396 sustainability problems 439 temporal/political dimensions 391 local scale climate change adaptation 201–2 climate-related migration 223 national scale tension 79 reconstruction assistance 290–291 responsibility 74 solutions 351 urban migration 315–19 ‘localization’ 11 London, UK 309–10, 312, 452 Long, K. 339, 352 loss and damages approach 227, 248–9 Loughna, S. 339 Lutz, Wolfgang 237 Luzes, M. 399 Lyytinen, Eveliina 266 machine learning 455 Mackie, Peter 269 Macron, President 234 Madokoro, Laura 146 Majidi, N. 339 Malawian refugees 419–20 Malchevska, Olga 385 management style, UNHCR 430–431 Mandela, Nelson 427 Marfleet, Philip 138 marginality/marginalization 78–9, 94, 359 market economy 86–7 markets of displacement 326–30 Marois, Guillaume 236 Marota City project, Syria 287, 289 Martin, Susan 17 Marxism 91 masculinist approach 73 mass migration forced migration as 47 great replacement conspiracy 241–2 historical perspectives 116–19, 121–3, 126, 128, 176 mayors’ role 264, 269, 320–323, 360 Mbaye, Aly 202 McAdam, Jane 162 McNeill, William 117 McPhearson, Timon 248 Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) 9 media coverage 217 media role 130 Mediterranean crossings 105, 308 memory 138 mental health issues 15, 82, 254, 311, 385

478  Handbook on forced migration mental state requirement 36 metaphors 14, 80 metaphysical concepts 51 metering system, US 27–8 methodological nationalism 332 ‘metrozenship’ 265–6 Mexico 26–30 Mexico Plan of Action (MPA) 390, 393–4, 396 Michael, Kavya 199 Middle East 12, 23, 176–81, 406 ‘migrant for employment’ category 37 migrant workers 37–8, 72–3, 210, 211–12 see also economic migrants; labor migration Migrant Workers Convention (MWC) 37–8 migrants definition 5 legal categorization 34–44 refugee distinction 26 migrant’s rights, resources for 317–18 migration drivers of 61, 116–17, 208–9 enablers 6, 277 historical perspectives 117 inhibitors 6 prevention 8 ‘migration crisis’ narrative 3, 8, 308 migration governance 63 migration management 60, 61, 316–17, 357 Migration Protection Protocols (MPP) 27–9 migration resources 6 ‘migration wiki’ 467 Miller, David 77 millet communities 176–7 mixed migration 14, 21–33, 43, 399 ambiguous status 21–33 conceptual changes 61 definitions 24 enclave dwellers similarities 190 global governance 24–6 legal statuses 21, 34 mobility costs 326, 329 practitioner narratives 442–3 protracted refugee situations 255 research/policy 59 spatial dimension 22–3 temporal dimension 22–3 mobile technologies 446, 452, 457 mobilities-based durable solutions 352, 359 mobility 6, 50, 326, 439 agricultural activities 365 categorization of 442 climate-related 223, 245–51 costs of 326–9 COVID pandemic restrictions 400 education and 360

‘home’ and 359 informal pathways 342 integrative solutions 352 of money 326 nation-states and 354 political geography 72 regional approach 390 spatial/temporal dimensions 22 mobility justice 196, 227–33 modeling uncertainty, climate change 195 ‘modernity’ 172 Moller, Herbert 239 monitoring climate motilities 247–8 Moser, Caroline 300 Mountz, Alison 254 MPA see Mexico Plan of Action MPP see Migration Protection Protocols MSF see Médecins sans Frontières multi-level regulation, legal rules 35 municipalities 264–5, 269, 303, 315–19, 360 ‘Muselman’ 97 Muslim refugees 87–8, 123, 177, 182–4 MWC see Migrant Workers Convention Nairobi case study 296–7 Nansen passport 124–5, 180 narratives 7–9 fictional 66 of resettlement 337 Nasseri, Mehran Karimi 254 nation-making processes 182 nation-states 47, 50, 98, 122, 177, 354–5, 358–61 national law migrant categories 35 refugee definitions 40 ‘national refugees’ 143 national scale climate migration 223, 250 education 356–8 local scale tension 79 refugee responses 129 urban migration 315–19 national self-determination 124 national solutions 351 nationalism 122–3, 128, 332 ‘natural disasters’ 196, 200, 210 naturalization of refugees 343, 364 see also de jure integration Nehru, Jawaharlal 183–4 neoliberal elites 432–3 neoliberalism 54, 75, 84, 94, 99 networks 300–301, 304–5, 458 Neuberger, Julia 151 Neve, R.A. 352 new cities 264, 275–7, 288

Index  479 New York Declaration 25, 259, 395 NGOs see non-governmental organizations Nicolle, Hervé 16 Nietzche, Friedrich 146 nomadic pastoralism 365 ‘non-displaced IDPs’ 378 ‘non-durable solutions’ 382–4 ‘non-entrée’ techniques 93 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) archival records 136 development approach 9, 432 digital literacy 457–8 displacement response 320 IRO collaboration 126 protection strategies 30, 158 reconstruction terminology 291 UN agencies and 431 non-refoulement 41–2, 93–4, 127–8, 158–9, 407 normative gaps, legal protections 35 normative integration frameworks 311, 313 norms, control and 59–66 Ntale, A. 368 Nyambura, Catherine 238 Nyamnjoh, Francis 420 oases concept 90–91 Obaidi, Milan 242 Obama administration 27, 230 offshore detention 254 Ogata, Sadako 68–9 Okyere-Manu, Beatrice 234–5 old-age dependency 236–7 Omata, Naohiko 259, 263 O’Neill, William H. 116 Ong, Aihwa 145 open access data 467–8 open border policies 371 oral history 152 Orchard, Phil 130–131 organizational data responsibility 457 otherness, language of 101–5 Ottoman Empire 122–3, 156, 176–80 outsourcing 64, 82, 93 overpopulation problem 203–4, 234–5, 239 PAC see Poverty Alleviation Coalition Pakistan 182–8, 443 Palestine 126–7 ‘paper borders’ 111 parallel approaches durable solutions 351, 355, 358, 360 government–humanitarian partnerships 437 Parekh, Serena 49–50, 54, 77–85 Parkes, James 150, 153 participatory frameworks 356–8, 435

participatory research 466–7 partition-induced migration 126, 131, 134, 146, 182–8 ‘passive refugee’ stereotype 266–7 ‘passive victims’ 48 passports 124–5, 180, 380 Patel, Priti 150, 153 pathways concept 304 peer reviews 466–8 pension payments 381–2 ‘People of Concern’ statistics 15 permanent residency permits 70, 397, 401, 424 ‘permanent’ solutions 333–6 persecution sources of 6, 15 victims of 129 persecution requirement 39–40, 42, 65, 129 Peru 398–9 philosophy 16–17, 46–58, 77–85, 101–5 Pierson, Paul 162–3 ‘place’ 304 ‘place attachment’ 6 planned city extensions 274–5 plantation slavery 230–231 Plato 46–7 plurality, freedom as 52–5 Pobjoy, Jason 262 poetry, language of 101–5 policy narrative 7–9 policy-oriented solutions 341–3, 351 policy–research relevance 59 policymaking, current thinking 282 political asylum 38, 155–6 political communities 49 political correctness 431, 432 political economy 343–5 political geography 67–76 political movements 177 political narrative 7–9, 13 political philosophy 48–9, 51–2, 54 political refugees 94, 121, 157, 177, 431 political representation 357 ‘political scene’ 88 political solutions 332–3, 343–5, 391–2 politicization of marginality 79 Polynesian migrants 119 population aging 235–7 population-based arguments 14, 193–207 population growth 203–4, 229, 234–6, 238, 272 populationism 203–4, 235, 240 populist discourse 14 Poroshenko, Petro 382 Port-au-Prince, Haiti 279–84 post-colonialism 75 poverty 62–3, 78, 301, 443

480  Handbook on forced migration Poverty Alleviation Coalition (PAC) 297 ‘power relations’ 144 practitioner perspectives 18, 429–44 precarious work 73–4 private sponsorship programmes 70–72, 74–5, 80 process tracing 162–7 progress ideology 432 property concerns 268, 383 protection strategies asylum seekers 399–400 IDPs 39, 159 mixed migration 30 NGOs 158 responsibility 457–8 see also international protection Protestant refugees 120, 156, 169 Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air (2000) 42 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons 42–3 protracted displacement 3–4, 23, 254–5, 353, 385 climate-related 221 education frameworks 356–8 humanitarian assistance 293 regional contexts 378 solutions 272, 350 proxy citizens 190–191 psycho-social experiences 15, 23 public funding, soliciting 9 Puerto Rican migrants 248 pull factors 96, 326 Punjabi refugees 182–3 Purcell, Mark 265 push factors 96, 326 qualitative data 10 Quito, Ecuador 296 Quito Process 400 racial binaries 203–4 racialization 72–3, 74, 230 racism 87–8, 150–151, 410, 415–16, 419–20 economic exploitation 83 neoliberalism and 75 replacement theory 229, 242 Rancière, Jacques 54–5, 86–92 Ranganathan, Malini 232 Rawls, John 50 realist geopolitics 71 recognitive justice 357 reconstruction 281–3, 285–92 refoulement 158–9 see also non-refoulement Refstie, Hilde 343–4 Refugee Act, 1980, US 166

Refugee Act, 2206, Uganda 366 refugee agency 94–5, 191, 440 refugee camps 4, 97, 144–5, 334, 434 children in 76 displacement and 259, 261, 275–6 humanitarian assistance 293 investment costs 321 practitioner narratives 442 vulnerability 62 see also camp settlements refugee-centered solutions 351, 359 Refugee Convention 1951 8, 21–2, 63–4, 68–70, 93–4, 98, 127–8, 142, 155, 158–9, 165, 333–4, 392 1967 Protocol 4, 39, 68–9, 127, 159, 392 IDP definitions 165–6 non-refoulement principle 41, 159 ‘refugee crisis’ 113, 142, 184, 261, 321 refugee economics 363–76 Refugee History studies 134–6, 142–8 ‘refugee industry’ 370–371 Refugee-Led Organizations (RLOs) 435 refugee protection 93, 369, 391–2, 400 ‘refugee regimes’ 125–9, 143–4 refugee response comprehensive framework 259, 297, 343, 363, 366, 395 contemporary 129–30 discredited model of 434–6 refugee status 65, 70, 129, 296 refugee status determination (RSD) 418 ‘refugee voices’ 139, 145 refugeedom 130, 136, 142–8 refugees citizenship 47–8, 63, 65, 75 colonial context 142 definitions 7, 162–7 displaced persons distinction 158 ethical approach 77 historical terminology 120 labeling 13–14 legal definitions 4, 35, 38, 39–41, 129 lived experiences 415–27 migrant distinction 26 non-refugee encounters 144–5 philosophical questions 49 priorities/aspirations 435–6 rights, resources for 317–18 voluntary migrant distinction 22 Refugia experiment 351–2, 354–6, 359–60 regional context climate migration 197–9, 223, 250 displacement 378–82 durable solutions 389–90 urban migration 316

Index  481 regional laws 35, 39–40, 42 regionalization 429, 430 ‘regular’ migrants 37 rehabilitation support 182, 184–5 (the) relation 101–5 relationality 52–5 relief support 182, 184 religion 73, 85, 101 religious persecution 120, 122, 156–7, 169 relocation 199, 201, 280–281, 383, 408 remittances 419 remote working 453 reparative justice approach 231–2 repatriation 48, 128, 434 see also voluntary repatriation replacement theory 229, 241–2 republican states 80, 87, 96 research ethical standards 464–8 funding 12, 464–5 policy relevance 59 researcher narrative 11–13 resettlement 179–80, 332, 334–8, 350, 355–6, 454–7 informal pathways 341, 343 partition-induced migration 185 sponsorship 72, 74–5, 80–82 sustainability problems 439 temporal/political dimensions 391 residence permits 336, 390, 401, 409, 417, 419, 424 resilience 322, 441 ‘resiliency humanitarianism’ 372, 374 Resilient Communities, Resilient Cities? research project 309 resistance 93–100 resource allocation 317–18 resource scarcity 204 respatialization concept 69 responsibility 7, 74, 78, 446–63 responsibility sharing 60–61, 94, 342, 393–4, 448, 459 Responsibility to Protect (R2P) intervention 128 return 263, 332, 334, 338–50, 408–10, 434, 439 barriers to 439 desirable returns 407 drivers 406–8 educational factors 426 informal pathways 341, 343 interrupted migration cycles 406–11 as ‘non-durable solution’ 382–3, 384 obliged return 407 pressured return 407, 409–10 right of 378, 380 ‘return-turn’ 336

Ricoeur, Paul 89 ‘right to the city’ 265–6 right-of-return 378, 380 rights claiming 458 individuals/states 49 law distinction 95 rights-based framework 8, 35 Rio Declaration 245 risk management approach 429 RLOs see Refugee-Led Organizations Rocard, Michel 88 Roman Empire 118–19, 156 Roosevelt, Eleanor 165 Roosevelt, Franklin 125 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 51 RSD see refugee status determination ‘rule by law’ 99 rural areas, displacement 259–60 rural–urban migration 199, 208–9, 299 Russian invasions 123, 290, 377–8, 380 Russian refugees 124 Rwanda 63–4, 153 Rygiel, K. 372 safety, ideal of 158–9 ‘safety valve’ migration 239–42 Saha, P.S. 238 Sahel region, West Africa 5–6, 197, 240 Sahin, Fatma 320 Saliba, Samer 264 San José Declaration 393 sanctuary 177 Sanyal, Romola 267 saranarthis 184 Schmitt, Carl 98 scholarships 423–4 Schultz, Susanne 239 seasonal migration 208, 212, 219 Second World War see World War II secularism 87 securitization 93–100, 450, 457 security concerns 128–9, 241, 438 sedentary bias 332 Selby, Jan 241 self-protection research 10–11 self-reliance 158–9, 259, 262–3, 268, 276, 350, 363–76, 394–5 definition 294 host communities 360 local integration and 343 temporalities 401 urban refugees 293–8 separatism 378–80, 383 Sephardi Jews 168–9, 171

482  Handbook on forced migration services provision 299 Serwajja, Eria 343–4 sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) 430 sexual identity 6, 15 SEZs see special economic zones SGBV see sexual and gender-based violence shame 53 shared learning 466–7 Sharp, Deen 268 Sharp, Jo 71 Shawarbeh, Yousef Al 264 Sheller, Mimi 196, 203–4 Shuayb, Maha 351, 359 Simon, Steven 290 Singer, Peter 81 situated knowledge 73, 75 Slaughter, Amy G. 263 slave trade 119, 121, 168–71 slavery 230–231 SLF see Sustainable Livelihoods Framework slum households 273 slums 217, 262, 273, 279–84 see also informal settlements smartphones 446, 452 Smith, Stephen 240 smuggled migrants 42, 443 smuggling services 23, 110, 326–9 social capital 6 social fragmentation 300 social integration 311–12 social justice 356–8 social networks 300–301, 304–5, 458 social science fiction 351, 354–6 socioeconomic status 359, 437 soft power 415–16, 432 solidarity 158–9, 320–321, 360–361, 393–4, 396, 406 ‘solutions lite’ 341–3, 350–351, 354, 370–373 Somalia 273, 417–18 South Africa 415–16, 419–20 South Asian refugees 182–8, 198 sovereign position 50 sovereignty 120, 122, 165 Soviet Union 126, 377, 379 Sovietism, collapse of 86 space, gender and 73 Spain 111, 120 spatial contexts 22–3 spatial injustices 228 special economic zones (SEZs) 276–7, 342 speculative fiction 354 sponsorship programmes 70–72, 74–5, 80–82 spontaneous resettlement 336–7 Sri Lanka 73 state-formation processes 182

stateless persons 39, 47, 79, 184, 255 states biopolitical borders 112 climate-change strategies 246–7, 250 global system of 47 ‘national refugees’ 143 non-refoulement strategies 93 principal obligations 127–8 rights of 49, 407 ‘states of exception’ 99 Stein, Barry N. 332, 391 stereotypes 239, 242, 267, 435 stigmatization 385 Straehle, Christine 77 Strang, A. 337, 340 the stranger 46–9 structural injustice 77–85 ‘stuckedness’ 254 student refugees 70–71 Sukarieh, Mayssoun 239 ‘superfluity’ problem 47, 97 ‘supply side’ support 273–4 surveillance technologies 110, 111–12, 447, 450–451 ‘survival’ migration 24 sustainability 406, 438, 439 Sustainable Livelihoods Framework (SLF) 301 sustainable reintegration 408–10 Syria 176–80, 285–92 Syrian refugees 80, 138, 258–9, 262, 264, 269, 274, 321 Berlin settlement 309–12 London settlement 309–10 return modalities 409–10 technological support 456–7 Syrian war 3, 241, 286, 294 Taliban takeover, Afghanistan 5, 10, 423, 426, 448 Tannock, Stuart 239 technology 18–19, 117, 446–63 Teitota, Ioane 201 temporalities 22–3, 89, 253–4, 390–404 temporariness, logic of 335, 340 temporary foreign worker status 73 temporary integration solutions 334 temporary internal migration 208, 219 temporary mobility 439 temporary protected status (TPS) 27, 335, 399 temporary residence 336, 398–9 tenure security 273–4, 383 territorial asylum 38 territorial sovereignty 7–8 terrorism 67–8 Thirty Years’ War 120

Index  483 Thompson, E.P. 146 threat multipliers 193, 195 threats, perception of 241–2 throwaway economy 204 ‘time’ 304 Title 42 27–9 tort litigation 231 torture victims 41–2 totalitarianism 86 towns 258, 260–264, 267, 272, 276, 317 TPS see temporary protected status trade, cross-border 303 ‘trafficking in persons’ 43 trafficking victims 42–3, 443 transit 253–5, 450 ‘transit place’ 255 transit returns 409 transnational criminal organizations 23, 42–3 ‘transnational good society’ 356, 358, 360 transnational polities 355, 360 transnational solutions 351–2, 355, 360 Treaty of Lausanne 124 treaty regimes 35, 37–9, 41 Trump administration 27–8, 204, 230, 242 trust 446–63 Turkey 39, 124, 264 Turton, David 48 Uganda 343, 363–76 UK see United Kingdom Ukrainian IDPs 377–9, 381–8 Ukrainian refugees 8, 14, 31, 129, 421–2 Ukrainian war 3, 86, 381, 421 UN Framework Convention of Climate Change (UNFCCC) 200–201, 245–7, 249 see also Conference of the Parties agreements undocumented migrants 37, 89, 255, 416 UNDP see United Nations Development Programme UNFCCC see UN Framework Convention of Climate Change UNHCR see United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNICEF see United Nations Children’s Fund United Kingdom (UK) COVID pandemic 452 Rwanda understanding 63–4, 153 Syrian refugees 308–14 United Nations (UN), as a whole 431–2 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 9, 29 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) 291 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 4, 9, 74–5, 127–8, 145

10 Point Plan of Action 24–5 Agenda for Protection 24–5 climate mobility responses 247 climate refugees 82, 200–201 IDP definitions 165–6 India–Pakistan partition 185–6 mixed migration 24 participation frameworks 435 practitioner perspectives 18, 429–33 refugee narratives 417–18 state demands/population needs 93 statistical data 15 urban policy 258, 293–4 US–Mexico migration 29 see also Refugee Convention United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) 126, 183–4, 185 United States (US) asylum definition 39 climate migration 198–9, 204 exceptionalism 98–9 exclusion policies 164–5 Mexican border 26–30 reconstruction as weapon 289 Refugee Act, 1980 166 refugee definition 40 unplanned settlements 273 UNRRA see United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration urban areas 17, 273–7 climate change effects 212 climate migration 201, 209, 219–20 crisis contexts 279–84 local/national contexts 315–19 rural–urban migration 199, 208–9, 299 self-reliance in 369–70 urban crises 279–84 urban displacement 272–8, 320–323 urban displacement economies 299–307 urban economy 299–307, 310–311, 313 urban infills 274–5 urban livelihoods concept 301 urban refugees, self-reliance 293–8 urbanism–urbanization distinction 262 urbanization 258–71, 285–92 Urdal, Henrik 239 US–Mexico border 26–30 validation process, data 466–7 Valls, Manuel 88 Van Hear, Nick 59, 61, 351, 354 Vann, Richard T. 151 Venezuela 3, 219, 221, 315–19, 390, 398, 401 Vennesson, Pascal 164 Ventrella, Jennifer 15, 17

484  Handbook on forced migration Verdirame, Guglielmo 262 victim status 41–3, 129, 443 vigilante violence 416 violence 67–8, 75, 285–92, 416 visa systems 4, 6, 70, 105, 220, 222, 352, 398–9 visibility, camp settlements 261 ‘voice’ 139, 145 voluntary migration 21–2, 64–5 voluntary repatriation 63, 389–90, 391, 394, 396, 439 vulnerability 53, 62–3, 65–6, 196–7, 201 vulnerability criteria 8, 21, 62 ‘waiting in transit’ 253–5 Walzer, Michael 16, 48–52 War on Drugs 24 war refugees 126, 410 ‘War on Terror’ 67–8 Ward, Christopher 268 warfare, urbanization of 285–92 waste pickers 210–211 Wellman, Christopher Heath 16, 48–51 West Africa 5–6, 197, 240, 406 Wieland, Carsten 286, 290 WIG project see Women in Government project Wilcox, Shelley 84 women climate-related migration 221–2

demographic dividend theory 238 mental health concerns 385 research obstacles 12 retrograde conceptions 105–6 see also gender Women in Government (WIG) project 423 work permits 73, 94, 246, 255, 296, 409 work policies 255, 455–6 work visas 398 worker–dependent concept 236 World Bank 10, 12, 195, 200, 247, 249, 432 World War I 123–4, 180–181 World War II 39, 125–6, 144, 157, 438 Wright, Gordon 151 xenophobia 130, 150, 242, 297, 410, 416, 420 Yiftachel, Oren 265–6 Young, Iris 54, 83 youth bulge theory 203, 238–42 Zambia 62 Zambrano, Galo Quizanga 268 Zamore, L. 342, 352 Zapater, Josep 264 Zetter, Roger 13, 61, 152 Zimbabwe 415