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
NEW RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS
Huynh, J. (2025). Suburban Refugees: Class and Resistance in Little Saigon. University of California Press. America’s suburbs are more diverse and more unequal than ever before. Focusing on Southern California’s Little Saigon, a global suburb and the capital of “Vietnamese America,” Jennifer Huynh shows how refugees and their children are enacting placemaking against forces of displacement such as financialized capital, exclusionary zoning, and the criminalization of migrants. This book raises crucial questions challenging suburban inequality and complicates our understanding of refugee resettlement—and, more broadly, the American dream.
Kaaria, J., & Murithi, I. K. (2025). Determinants of women empowerment: Case of refugee women living in Nairobi Kenya. Economies, 13(2), 35. Open access. This study investigates the determinants of women empowerment among refugee women living in Nairobi, Kenya. First, the study constructs an index to examine empowerment drivers using data from the Refugee and Host Household Survey (RHHS) 2021. A fractional logit regression model was employed in the study. The results obtained show that the incidence of refugee women empowerment among refugees living in Nairobi was six percent. In addition, the study finds evidence that age; the gender of the household head; the education level of the refugee woman; employment status; and the education of the household head play substantial roles in enabling women empowerment. Conversely, marital statuses (divorced/separated/widowed and single/never married) and religious affiliations (Muslim) hinder women empowerment. Efforts geared towards improving wage employment and education are likely to empower refugee women. The study emphasizes the recognition of the role played by women in household income through care work.
Mazzaferro, G. (2025). Migration, subjectivity and identity: navigating power, agency and discourse in interviews with asylum seekers. Multilingua. Open access. Drawing on Judith Butler’s theory of performativity and positioning approaches, this paper examines how asylum seekers actively assert agency in navigating and (re)constructing their subjectivities and identities within research interviews. The analysis explores the power dynamics inherent in the interview setting and broader public discourse, revealing how asylum seekers engage with and respond to these forces. Rather than being passive subjects of discourse, they employ performative-positioning acts to negotiate power structures and assert control over their self-representations. By analyzing interview data, this study highlights the dynamic interplay between power, discourse and agency in the ongoing construction of identity.
Ovacık, G., & Crépeau, F. (2025). Global compacts and the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration: A clash between the talk and the walk. Laws, 14(2), 13. Open access. The current global mobility paradigm suffers from a great paradox. The illegality of human mobility is manufactured through restrictive migration and asylum policies, which claim to address the supposed challenges of human mobility, such as erosion of border security, burden on the labour market, and social disharmony. On the contrary, they reinforce them, resulting in strengthened anti-migrant sentiments at the domestic level. The contradiction is that the more restrictive migration policies are and the more they are directed at containment of human mobility, the more counterproductive they become. The fact that the policies of the destination states are shaped through the votes of their citizens, and migrants are never part of the conversation which would bring the reality check of their lived lives, is a defining factor that enables state policies preventing and deterring access to territory and containing asylum seekers elsewhere. The authors demonstrate that this is the dynamic behind the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, as it thickens the European borders even further through harsher border procedures and expanded externalisation of migration control. Whereas the Global Compacts represent the paradigm of facilitated mobility and are a significant step in the right direction for moving beyond the defined paradox, the EU Pact represents the containment paradigm and showcases that the tension between the commitments and the actions of states is far from being resolved. Through an assessment of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum’s alignment with the Global Compacts, this article scrutinizes the trajectory of the global mobility paradigm since the adoption of the Global Compacts.
Ragi, M.-E., Ghattas, H., Abi Zeid, B., Shamas, H., El Salibi, N. J., Abdulrahim, S., DeJong, J., McCall, S. J., & CAEP study group, T. (2025). Legal residency status and its relationship with health indicators among Syrian refugees in Lebanon: A nested cross-sectional study. BMJ Global Health, 10(2). Open access. Failure to possess or renew legal residency permits increases the burden on a vulnerable refugee population. It risks detention or deportation, and hinders access to basic services including healthcare. This study aimed to examine the association between legal residency status and health of Syrian refugees living in Lebanon. The majority of Syrian refugees from the two samples of over 4000 participants reported lacking a legal residency permit in Lebanon. This was associated with poor mental health and lower uptake of COVID-19 vaccination, potentially originating from fear of detention or deportation. These findings call for urgent action to support access to legal documentation for refugees in Lebanon.
Tsourapas, G. (2025). Migration Diplomacy and greek–Turkish relations: A three‐level game analysis. International Migration, 63(2). Open access. Migration diplomacy has become a critical element of contemporary geopolitics, yet its complex dimensions remain underexplored. This article introduces a novel three-level game framework to examine how foreign policy strategies leverage cross-border mobility across domestic, bilateral and supranational dimensions. The 2020 Greek–Turkish border crisis serves as a case study to investigate how domestic political imperatives, bilateral disputes and engagement with European institutions shaped the two governments’ strategies. The study integrates process tracing with diverse multi-source data – including policy documents, media analysis and stakeholder interviews – to demonstrate how migration crises function as instruments of geopolitical contestation. This framework is also applied to cases, such as Morocco–Spain, Tunisia–EU and Belarus–EU, advancing theoretical and empirical understandings of migration diplomacy. The article provides fresh insights into the interplay between domestic politics, bilateral relations and supranational governance, illustrating how migration diplomacy is both a reflection and a driver of contemporary power dynamics in global geopolitics.
REPORTS AND POLICY BRIEFS
Addressing Statelessness and Displacements in Southeast Asia: Workshop Report. (2025). IDRC Research Chairs Network on Forced Displacement; conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration. The Centre on Gender and Forced Displacement (CGFD), with the support of IDRC, organized a two-session workshop on January 23–24, 2025, in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, focusing on the challenges of statelessness, forced displacement, and migration governance in Southeast Asia. This workshop integrated academic and policy-oriented discussions, bridging theoretical frameworks with actionable policy recommendations. The workshop critically engaged with the historical legacies of colonialism, the securitization of migration, gendered vulnerabilities, and alternative governance imaginaries, with a particular emphasis on the Rohingya crisis and its broader regional implications.
Countering misinformation about refugees and migrants: An evidence-based framework by Saul Wodak, Minjin Erdene-Ochir, Bowen Fung, Daniel Ghezelbash, Lauren Martin and Frances Voon. (2025). UNSW Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law. This report aims to help you understand how misinformation works and what to do about it. Drawing on behavioural science and evidence-based strategies, it sets out an easy-to-follow framework for countering misinformation. While the focus is on addressing misinformation in the Australian debate about refugees and migration, the framework can be adapted for use in other countries and across a variety of issues. This is not a messaging ‘playbook’ that prescribes specific wording for every falsehood that may arise. Instead, it provides a structured framework with key principles and a step-by-step approach to help you engage with misinformation effectively. This framework is designed to equip you to respond across a range of situations—including unforeseen falsehoods that may emerge in the future. It also lays the groundwork for you to develop more tailored messaging and campaigns, aligned with your expertise, scope and voice. Complementing the framework, the report includes how-to guides that offer practical examples demonstrating how it can be applied to both existing and anticipated misinformation narratives.
Displaced Ukrainians: Challenges and outlook for integration in the EU by Maria-Margarita Mentzelopoulous & Anita Orav. (2025). Think Tank European Parliament. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 forced millions of people to flee Ukraine. To date, approximately 6.8°million people have had to seek refuge, mostly in the EU and its neighbourhood. The EU responded rapidly in March 2022, activating the Temporary Protection Directive (TPD) for the first time ever. The TPD’s emergency mechanism offers swift protection and rights to those in need who arrive in large numbers, preventing Member States’ asylum systems from becoming overwhelmed. Rights under the TPD include access to a residence permit, employment, housing, medical and social welfare assistance, and education for children and adolescents. For those fleeing Ukraine, these rights also include travel within the EU, and to and from Ukraine. Currently, the largest number of beneficiaries of temporary protection from Ukraine reside in Germany, Poland and Czechia. Among them are nearly 1.3 million children, with 50 % still awaiting enrolment in their host countries’ education systems.
Internal Displacement Solution Fund (IDSF) – It is time to act together: Durable solutions for internally displaced persons in Colombia. (2025). Internal Displacement Solutions Fund. Overcoming this crisis requires durable solutions that restore the dignity of affected communities, reduce inequalities, and guarantee their rights. Rebuilding territories and livelihoods is not only an institutional challenge but also a collective commitment involving civil society, the private sector, the United Nations, and international cooperation in pursuit of equity, justice, and Colombia’s future.
State of Education for Crisis-Affected Children and Adolescents: Access and Learning Outcomes, Global Estimates 2025 Update. (2025). Reliefweb. The number of school-aged children in crises worldwide who require urgent support to access quality education is rising rapidly, according to a new Global Estimates Report issued today by Education Cannot Wait (ECW), the global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises in the United Nations. The new report reveals that this number has increased by an estimated 35 million over the past three years, reaching 234 million by the end of 2024. The report emphasizes that exposure to armed conflict, forced displacement, climate-induced hazards, epidemics and socio-economic challenges poses long-term threats to children’s health, education and well-being. It further highlights that crises are becoming increasingly intense, widespread and interconnected. Over the past five years, the number of global conflicts has doubled with 50 countries experiencing extreme, high or turbulent levels of conflict in 2024.
USAID Purge Ends With 83 Percent of Programs Canceled by Christina Lu, March 10, 2025. Foreign Policy. After weeks of uncertainty, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced on March 10 that the Trump administration has terminated 83 percent of programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the country’s top humanitarian and development agency. The decision amounts to a purge of an organization that has long served as a tool of U.S. soft power and provided critical aid to millions of people worldwide, with programs focused on addressing humanitarian crises, disease, and malnutrition, among others.
NEWS AND BLOG POSTS
A Dangerous Journey?: The Good Character Requirement, Naturalisation, Trafficking, and Discrimination against Women by Catherine Briddick, March 5, 2025. ILPA. Following the UK Home Office’s change to immigration staff guidance on assessing the good character requirement in nationality applications, Catherine Briddick, human rights and refugee law scholar at the University of Oxford, explains how the new guidance disadvantages women.
Extra 220 children may have been wrongly detained as adult people smugglers in Australia, government admits by Christopher Knaus, February 26, 2025. The Guardian. The Australian government has revealed that a further 220 Indonesian children may have been wrongly detained as adult people smugglers, doubling the number initially thought. Late in 2023, the federal court ordered $27.5m in compensation for an estimated 220 Indonesian children who were wrongly detained as adult people smugglers between 2010 and 2012. The children were wrongly deemed to be adults by federal police, who relied on a wildly inaccurate technique using interpretations of wrist X-rays to determine age. In fact, the children were as young as 12, and should have been sent home to Indonesia in line with Australian government policy. They were instead sent to immigration detention and Australian jails, including, in many cases, maximum-security adult jails, where they languished for years until the error was discovered.
People still being forced to flee as the war in Ukraine continues by Viktoriia Tiutiunnyk and Nikola Ivanovski, February 26, 2025. UNHCR. “In the last six months alone, more than 200,000 people have been evacuated from frontline areas in the east and north,” said UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi on the three-year anniversary of the war recently. He added that since the start of the war, around 10.6 million people have been forced from their homes. While most fled during the early stages of the Russian invasion, the displacement and suffering continues. Many of those being displaced in the east and north of the country are arriving at transit centres before being helped to find temporary shelter at repurposed public buildings known as collective sites.
Sudan: UN food agency pauses aid in famine-hit refugee camp by Emmy Sasipornkarn, February 26, 2025. DW. The World Food Program has halted aid distribution in the Zamzam camp in North Darfur. WFP officials said intensified fighting between the military and RSF paramilitary forced them to stop providing the aid. The United Nations’ food agency said Wednesday it “has been forced” to temporarily stop aid distribution in Sudan’s famine-stricken Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur. “Without immediate assistance, thousands of desperate families in Zamzam could starve in the coming weeks,” said Laurent Bukera, the regional director for the World Food Program (WFP).
Thailand deports Uyghur asylum seekers to China after more than a decade in detention by Jacob Goldberg, February 27, 2025. The New Humanitarian. Thailand has deported some 40 Uyghur asylum seekers to China after detaining them for more than a decade, UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, said on 27 February. The deportation represents a major blow to human rights activists who have been calling for the group’s release. A Thai court had agreed on 18 February to consider a petition to free the men and was planning to call Thai immigration officials to testify.
EVENTS, RESOURCES, DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Conference on Internally Displaced People: Shifting Power and Advancing Protection. Refugees International. Commemorating the anniversary of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, please join Refugees International, Georgetown University, Human Rights of Internally Displaced Persons, ODI Global and IDP leaders for a series of panels and a keynote address on internal displacement, focusing on ongoing protection needs, challenges and opportunities, and the shifting landscape of solutions. Above all, the event will consider how to shift power to IDPs themselves. Panels will feature IDP leaders and consider how IDP-led groups can drive decisions and programs that affect their communities. This is more timely than ever: IDP numbers continue to rise and both protracted and new crises remain woefully underfunded and, in some cases, largely ignored by the wider international community. As the Office of the Special Adviser completes its work in 2024, now is also the time to carry forward a bold agenda to improve responses to internal displacement. This event is on April 14, 2025, 8:45 AM – 2:00 PM ET, online and in-person at Georgetown University, Washington, DC.
Dublin, solidarity and age. How do these factors matter in the EU asylum system? IMSCOE. IMISCOE is the largest European network of scholars in the area of migration and integration and this is the network’s podcast, where migration researchers talk about their latest research and why it matters. This podcast episode is about concepts in migration governance that are often taken for granted – but when you dig a bit deeper, or wider, like the researchers in this episode have done, it’s clear that not everyone has the same idea of what they really mean or their implications in practice. You’ll hear Liberty Chee speaking to Eleonora Milazzo, who has been working on what exactly “solidarity” means between European Union Member States when it comes to the asylum system. We may have a sense that so far, it’s been “failing”, but what does solidarity really mean in practice? Ulrike Bialas also joins the conversation, to talk about her research on how age classification determines the lives of young asylum seekers in Germany. How do they experience this legal focus on age, especially when many do not actually have documents that can prove their dates of birth and may not know them, anyways.
Global Migration Podcast: If Not Gender Mainstreaming, Then What?: Gender Equality and Migrant Integration in the EU. UBC Centre for Migration Studies. Gender equality has been a policy goal of EU and other government institutions for over 30 years. Yet the gains in gender equality and women’s rights have been tenuous at best, with the COVID-19 pandemic only making things worse – particularly for migrant women. In fact, socio-economic outcomes for migrant women in the EU have lagged significantly behind those of men and of native-born populations since long before the pandemic. As Dr. Rachel Minto and Dr. Jasmijn Slootjes explain, the intersections of sex, gender, and migration are critical for understanding why these inequalities persist. How do policies of gender equality and migrant integration interact, and how can the unrealized revolutionary approach of gender mainstreaming be activated within institutional policy approaches? With guest host and CMS affiliate, Thea Bracewell.
Walter Gordon Symposium – Equity in Peril: Immigration, Urban Planning and Energy. Massey College. On March 14, 2025, 8:30 AM – 3:15 PM ET, Massey College will be hosting the annual Walter Gordon Symposium. This year’s theme is “Equity in Peril: Immigration, Urban Planning, and Energy.” Policymakers in Canada are grappling with a unique set of challenges that threaten to create or exacerbate existing inequities, including climate change, the shifting political landscape in the US, and a cost of living crisis. This symposium brings together policymakers, academics, and community leaders to explore how Canada can navigate these complex issues while forging a more equitable and inclusive path forward in housing, energy, and immigration policy. Together, they will examine actionable solutions that promote fairness, sustainability, and social cohesion for all Canadians. The event is co-sponsored by Massey College and the Munk School of Global Affairs with support by Tom Axworthy (Massey’s Chair in Public Policy) and Carolyn Tuohy (Senior Fellow, Massey College). This event is available both in-person and online.
2025 CRS Summer Course on Refugee Issues Climate Migration Futures: Shaping The Research Agenda for 2050. Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS). The nexus of climate change and human mobility is rapidly transforming, demanding new, innovative research that anticipates the challenges and impacts of the coming decades. Climate Migration Futures: Shaping the Research Agenda for 2050 challenges conventional approaches and pushes the boundaries of how research can support our response to climate-induced migration. This cutting-edge summer course focuses on bold, forward-thinking research priorities and methods that can help to address the framing of climate migration, the governance of climate migration, ethical strategies for climate adaptation and relocation, and envisioning climate migration in 2050. It will be from June 2 – 6, 2025, 519 Kaneff Tower, York University, Keele Campus. The early bird deadline to apply is April 15, 2025.