The RRN Research Digest provides a synopsis of recent research on refugee and forced migration issues from entities associated with the RRN and others.
You can download the digest in PDF format here: RRN Research Digest No. 130
NEW RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS
[Open Access] International Migration Review, Vol. 56.4. This edition of the journal is thematically sorted into three sections. The first section examines incorporation, assimilation, and migration policy. The second discusses migrant families in the contexts of gender, marriage, and parenthood. The third section has articles about geopolitics, humanitarian aid, and bureaucracy in migration. This edition also includes three book reviews, all of which are open-access.
[New Book] Pacifico, A. (2022). Environmentally Internally Displaced Persons in the Northeastern Backlands of Brazil: A Case Study, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book addresses the relationship between internally displaced persons (IDPs) by natural disasters to search for legal and policy responses not yet applied in the region. Its focus is categorizing those environmentally displaced persons as IDPs, so they receive international legal protection, even without binding norms and institutions to protect them. The book makes some suggestions to categorize and protect such people from disasters, including, for instance, a network society communicative model based on collaboration among local people, the government, international organizations, and NGOs. A free 30-page sample is available here.
Drolia, M., Papadakis, S., Sifaki, E., & Kalogiannakis, M. (2022). Mobile learning applications for refugees: a systematic literature review. Education Sciences, 12(2), 96. This research article focuses on mobile learning for refugee education. It presents the results of a systematic literature review from 2015 to 2020, which revealed two new emerging characteristics: interwoven psychological and educational features and refugees’ cultural features in the apps. The summarization and categorization of the app’s characteristics aim to contribute to mobile learning research and impact game developers, educators, and NGOs according to refugee needs.
Phillimore, J., Pertek, S., Akyuz, S., Darkal, H., Hourani, J., McKnight, P., … & Taal, S. (2022). “We are forgotten”: forced migration, sexual and gender-based violence, and coronavirus disease-2019. Violence against women, 28(9), 2204-2230. Adopting a structural violence approach, this article explores, with survivors and practitioners, how early coronavirus disease-2019 pandemic conditions affected forced migrant sexual and gender-based violence survivors’ lives. Introducing a new analytical framework combining violent abandonment, slow violence, and violent uncertainty, the authors show how interacting forms of structural violence exacerbated by pandemic conditions intensified existing inequalities. Abandonment of survivors by the state increased precarity, making everyday survival more difficult, and intensified pre-pandemic slow violence, while increased uncertainty heightened survivors’ psychological distress. Structural violence experienced during the pandemic can be conceptualized as part of the continuum of violence against forced migrants, which generates gendered harm.
[Open Access] CIHS Bulletin, Issue #102, Canadian Immigration Historical Society September 2022. This expanded issue commemorates the exile of Ugandan Asians by Idi Amin Dada in 1972, and more particularly, Canada’s humanitarian resettlement of over 6,000 individuals affected by this decree in 90 days. Contributors in this issue are mostly Canadian immigration officials who went to Uganda. On this 50th anniversary of the expulsion, the authors delved into their memories and photographic archives to tell readers about their involvement in the Canadian program during those tense, disorienting, and dangerous times.
REPORTS AND BRIEFS
World Migration Report 2022, IOM. Since 2000, IOM has been producing world migration reports. The World Migration Report 2022, the eleventh in the world migration report series, shows that the estimated number of international migrants has increased over the past five decades. The total estimated 281 million people living in a country other than their countries of birth in 2020 was 128 million more than in 1990 and over three times the estimated number in 1970. It also confirmed that COVID-19-related immobility had become the “great disrupter” of migration.
Global Report on Internal Displacement 2022, Internal Displacement Monitoring Center. IDMC’s Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) is the world’s leading source of data and analysis on internal displacement. This year’s edition includes a special focus on internally displaced children and youth. Part 1 presents updated data and analysis of internal displacement at the global level. Data and contextual updates are included in the regional overviews and country spotlights. Part 2 explores the impacts of displacement on children and youth, so often invisible in displacement data, while highlighting promising initiatives that address some of their challenges.
NEWS AND BLOG POSTS
Nadeera Ranabahu, Huibert Peter de Vries and Zhivan Basharati, ‘Refugees who set up businesses enrich NZ financially, culturally and socially – they deserve more support‘, The Conversation, 25 November 2022. This article includes interviews highlighting the need for greater small business assistance within the mix of support services provided to refugees resettling in New Zealand.
Ali M Latifi, ‘In Afghanistan’s shadowy new conflict, new displacement and new civilian abuses’, The New Humanitarian, 23 November 2022. The UN has accused the Taliban of ‘collective punishment’ as it tries to quell a brewing rebellion.
Max Walden, ‘Refugees may become victims of Malaysia’s electoral politics’, The Interpreter, 15 November 2022. The plight of Myanmar Rohingyas exposes Southeast Asia’s disjointed policies and fragile human rights protections.
Geoffrey Cameron and Shauna Labman, ‘How Canada plans to break records with its new refugee targets‘, The Conversation, 16 November 2022. While most news reports focused on the significant rise in economic immigrants, the refugee targets are record-breaking.
If Canada sticks to its plan, it will resettle more refugees in 2023 than in any year since before 1979.
Sikanyiso Masuku, ‘Why it’s important to understand the unique plight of internally displaced people in Africa‘, The Conversation, 16 November 2022. The longer displacement lasts, the more difficult it becomes to resolve. More than 15 countries in Africa have protracted displacement situations lasting over five years.
Lawrence Huang, Ravenna Sohst and Camille Le Coz, ‘Financing Responses to Climate Migration: The Unique Role of Multilateral Development Banks’, Migration Policy Institute, November 2022. As climate change increasingly contributes to migration and displacement in many parts of the world, there is a pressing need for measures that build resilience and prevent displacement, as well as those that help climate-affected people move to safety and support receiving communities.
Camila Bustos and Jeffrey Chase, ‘Tackling Climate Change Displacement at COP27’, Just Security, 14 November 2022. The World Bank estimates that more than 143 million people could be internally displaced by slow-onset disasters in Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia by 2050.