23
Jan
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/Migration, Refugees and Statelessness Interdisciplinary Conference November 2023 University of Melbourne
Organised and hosted by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute, the annual Migration, Refugees and Statelessness Interdisciplinary Conference showcases the work of refugee and migration scholars throughout Australia. This one-day event was held in November 2023 at the University of Melbourne. The day was organised into four sessions: 1) Borders, identity and belonging. 2)Research, reflexivity and... Read More
3
Jan
Post-Coup Human Rights for the Rohingya: Paving A Path Forward
In early 2021, the military in Myanmar – the Tatmadaw – seized power in a coup d’état. Its actions, on the one hand, mean ill for the Rohingya ethnic group, which has long faced persecution in the country. On the other hand, its power grab may have inadvertently united several ethnic groups against itself in... Read More
20
Dec
The Greater Manchester Migrant Destitution Fund: Promoting Dignity amidst the Hostile Environment
The Greater Manchester Migrant Destitution Fund supports people who are forced into destitution by their immigration status with cash grants of £80 per month. The largest group of people applying to the fund are people who have been refused asylum. For such people, who may have been wrongly refused asylum amidst the Home Office’s notorious... Read More
17
Nov
Map of Hope and Sorrow: Stories of Refugees Trapped in Greece, Helen Benedict & Eyad Awwadawnan
Footnote Press, 2022, 328 pages Helen Benedict is a well-known journalist, academic, novelist and non-fiction writer, often writing on themes of war and violence against women. She and her Syrian co-author and translator Eyad Awwadawnan focus here on the stories of five refugees — painfully traversing Syria, Nigeria, Cameroon or Afghanistan — to Europe, which... Read More
7
Nov
Book Review: The World is not Big Enough
Vanessa Russell, Hardie Grant Books, 2021 With some nervousness, this refugee supporter took the plunge in 2001 and did what many others have boldly attempted: to contact a refugee stuck inside the Australian detention system and try to improve their life. The suggestion from the Melbourne-based Refugee Action Collective and Spare Rooms for Refugees (Kate... Read More
24
Oct
Freedom of expression at risk as US agency ends COVID-era interpretation services
Introduction In a move that has caused much anger and confusion, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is no longer providing free interpretation services for asylum seekers. Since September 2020, USCIS provided applicants with its own telephonic interpretation services in 47 critical languages. However, on September 13, 2023, the agency rolled back its... Read More
16
Aug
Book Review: Cruel Care: a history of children at our borders
Jordana Silverstein, Monash University Publishing, 2023, 309 pages NOTE These reviews are not peer-reviewed by credentialled experts, so usually avoid professional criticism. Their purpose is to promote awareness of authors and new books to a non-specialist audience – most academics do not prioritise writing book reviews for lay readers. In this case, the theoretical perspectives... Read More
12
Jul
Book Review: Migrations – a history of where we all come from
Dorling Kindersley, a Penguin Random House Company, London, 2022, 287 pages Dorling Kindersley, the education and lifestyle publisher, has assembled a dozen contributors with relevant backgrounds to compile this attractive and comprehensive, albeit concise, survey of world migration history. It includes forced migration from 1900 onwards, which is about one-third of the book. It’s an... Read More
6
Jul
Researching Tibetan youth in Delhi
By Kanchan Gandhi, Jessica James, Kanchandeep, Katyayni Mishra, Rohit Raj This blog post is collaboratively written by Dr Kanchan Gandhi and her students from the urban studies program at Dr B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi. The voice of each author is identified by their names preceding their writing. Dr. Kanchan Gandhi: In January 2023 I... Read More
30
May
Book Review: “My Fourth Time, We Drowned: seeking refuge on the world’s deadliest migration route” by Sally Hayden
Hayden, S “My Fourth Time, We Drowned: seeking refuge on the world’s deadliest migration route” 4th Estate, an imprint of Harper Collins, 2022, 480 pages Sally Hayden is a young and energetic freelance journalist, who travelled frequently all over Europe and North Africa in the three years from late 2018 to late 2021, when she... Read More