30
Apr
Liberation bibliography: Towards open access to powerful knowledges to enhance forced migration advocacy
The new Australian Research on Refugee Integration Database (ARRID) clearly demonstrates that there has been a proliferation of research on issues relating to forced migration over the last 10 years. This research translates into a large and rich body of scholarship, mostly published by academics in academic journals that are hidden behind paywalls. According to... Read More
28
Apr
Collateral diplomacy: Kenya’s diplomatic failure with Somalia
In March 2020 President Kenyatta warned Somalia to ‘stop and desist from unwarranted provocations’ from what he termed as ‘provoking Kenya by violating her territorial integrity’. Fast forward to March 2021, Kenya pulls out of the Kenya-Somali maritime dispute hearing at the International Court of Justice and then gives a 14 day ultimatum for the... Read More
14
Apr
Reflections on Refugee Backlash and Gendered Harms
Within a window of 15 hours, I virtually travelled in time zones from GMT -5 to GMT +5. These journeys reminded me yet again about some of the most haunting downfalls of humanity. First, I participated in the Bold New Voices in Migration Research Conference organised by the Immigration Initiative at Harvard and Perry House. Sarah Mardini and Salaam... Read More
10
Feb
Can Uganda’s global refugee-assisting image subsist in a possible shift in political regimes?
Uganda’s legacy of accommodating forcibly displaced people dates back to pre-independence when our British colonial masters offered refuge to 7,000 prisoners of war in 1942 during World War II. Standing with over 1.4 million forcibly displaced people, Uganda holds the highest refugee population on the African continent, and ranks fourth globally following Turkey, Colombia and... Read More
21
Jan
Essay: How should we define refugees?
“A Proper Conception of refugeehood is an important matter” – Shacknove (1985, 276). In this piece, I offer a critical look at the scholarly discussion on how to define refugees, prompted by a Deutsche Welle (2020) report on the Moria refugee camp in Greece, which was set on fire in September 2020. Thousands fled... Read More
6
Jan
Afghan Diaspora in Pakistan: Healthcare and Education Policy Recommendations
Politically charged philosophical debates concentrate more frequently than ever on the rights of displaced persons. They are ‘moving people’ in both senses of that term: on the move or migrating as well as stirring various emotions in host countries. My study presents evidence about the reception of one group of moving people, Afghan refugees in... Read More
18
Dec
StepUp.One: Connecting refugees with opportunities that pay
“We need access to education whilst at the camp, we need access to opportunity. In a time when goods and capital move freely, humans are locked up in camps for years” – Mohammed Hassan Mohamud, Co-Chair World Economic Forum (2019). Somali-born Mohammed Hassan Mohamud (pictured) was confined to Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp for more than... Read More
8
Dec
How diasporic Kurdish intellectuals promote internal dialogue to prevent a Kurdish civil war
The major Kurdish groups of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), alongside their followers, are in an overt conflict via their media outlets. This tension has currently reached such a level that the outbreak of an intra-Kurdish war is looming. This might be a serious threat to collective Kurdish claims... Read More
18
Nov
Coronavirus Reaches the World’s Most Persecuted People: The Threat of COVID-19 in the Rohingya Refugee Camps
On May 14 2020 the first case of the novel coronavirus was confirmed in the biggest refugee camp in the world—Kutupalong, Cox’s Bazar. The refugees in the camps are at a greater risk of getting infected by the disease than other people. Within these camps, refugees live in cramped spaces, do not have viable access... Read More
4
Nov
Fickle nationalism or international co-operation?
On the 23rd of September, two weeks after a fire leveled parts of the Lesvos refugee camp Moria, the EU commission proposed a new pact on migration and asylum. The pact offers, according to the commission, a more European, fairer approach to those seeking asylum. That evening, the European commissioner of home affairs Ylva Johansson... Read More