APRIL – JUNE NEWSLETTER: VOLUME 3, ISSUE 2, 2021
CRN11_Newsletter_Vol3Iss2_May-Jun 2021_Final
WELCOME
Dear Colleagues:
Welcome to the CRN 11 April-June 2021 Newsletter: Volume 3, Issue 2, the second quarterly issue of 2021, prepared by CRN 11 member and volunteer Dr. Azin Emami. We really hope you and your family are fully vaccinated as the number of cases seems to be declining where vaccines are available, although many countries are still struggling. According to the Director General of the World Health Organisation, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “[m]ore than 75% of all vaccines have been administered in just 10 countries”.
Sadly, Liberia, still recovering from 14-years of civil war, is not one of the ten countries where the COVID-19 cases are declining. Having survived the Ebola Virus Disease, Liberia is faced with yet another challenge as the COVID-19 cases rise quickly. According to the Chief Medical Officer Dr. Francis Ketteh, the active confirmed cases in the country include 226 healthcare workers.
As you may know, there is an added vulnerability to being infected by the COVID-19 for displaced peoples including homeless peoples, Indigenous peoples, refugees, and internally displaced peoples (to name a few), hence the need to prioritise access to vaccines. Three of such populations include the children in the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia; Fulani settlers in Nigeria’s pastoralist-Farmers conflict; and students caught up in ongoing attacks by several Boko Haram’s factions in northeastern Nigeria.
In closing, we would like to express our support for survivors, families, loved ones, and friends of Aboriginal people (mostly children) buried in unmarked graves across Canada. Canada’s Residential School system forcibly displaced over 150,000 children in 150 institutions between 1870 and 1996.
In spite of the continuous challenge globally, CRN 11 is committed to advocating for the rights and protection of displaced peoples through this medium. Consider joining us today!
Veronica Fynn Bruey and Steven Bender
DISPLACED PEOPLES’ RIGHTS AND PROTECTION
The ongoing repression of protests in Myanmar could spark a “full-blown conflict” on a par with Syria, the United Nations’ top human rights official warned on 13 April, urging States with influence to take immediate and impactful action to halt the “slaughter” of civilians. More information is available here.
On 28th May, UN humanitarians expressed deep concern on Friday about serious and ongoing abuses carried out against displaced civilians who are also facing dire food insecurity in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, after months of conflict. More information is available here.
On 18 June 2021, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is today urging world leaders to step up their efforts to foster peace, stability and cooperation in order to halt and begin reversing nearly a decade-long trend of surging displacement driven by violence and persecution. More information is available here.
On 20 June, to mark World Refugee Day, General António Guterres announced that everyone has a duty to help refugees rebuild their lives after a particularly difficult year for so many. More information is available here.
GENERAL CALLS: CRN 11 EVENTS
Call For Members: Research and Development Committee
CRN 11 is currently recruiting members to join Magdalena Krystyna Butrymowicz who leads the Research and Development Committee. Those interested, please email Magdalena: magdalena.butrymowicz@upjp2.edu.pl. Deadline: Open
Call For Volunteers: Advertisement and Promotion Committee
CRN 11 is currently recruiting volunteers to lead the Advertisement and Promotion Committee. Those interested, please send a cover letter and CV to veronica.fynnbruey@tuki-tumarankeh.org.
Deadline: Open
Call For Volunteers: Newsletter Editor
Interested in making the best use of your time during COVID-19 lockdown? Apply for the CRN11 newsletter editor position. Submit a cover letter and CV to veronica.fynnbruey@tuki-tumarankeh.org and benders@seattleu.edu. Deadline: Open
Become a CRN 11 Research Collaborator
Interested in being a bona fide research collaborator with CRN 11? Email veronica.fynnbruey@tuki-tumarankeh.org for details on how to apply. Deadline: Open
Invitation to be a Guest Blogger for CRN 11
Do you have an interesting story to tell about internal and international migration and displacement? CRN 11 is eager to share your piece as a guest blogger for our quarterly newsletter. Please submit your stories to veronica.fynnbruey@tuki-tumarankeh.org and benders@seattleu.edu. Deadline:Open
RESEARCH, AWARDS, AND SCHOLARSHIPS
The Comparative Network on Refugee Externalisation (CONREP). Publication Support Prize for Refugees. Deadline: 2 July 2021.
The Comparative Network on Refugee Externalisation (CONREP). The Best Journal Article or Book Chapter Prize. Deadline: 2 July 2021.
The Urban Citizen Fellowship is established by the Municipality of Amsterdam and NIAS-KNAW to stimulate the use of advanced research in political deliberation and public policymaking for the city of Amsterdam. This unique co-sponsored fellowship offers researchers the opportunity to carry out research projects around the concepts of Inclusivity (2020), Democratization and Representation (2021) and Citizenship and Education (2022). Read More.
As part of its Mobility, Temporality and Africa’s Future Politics project, the African Centre for Migration & Society has just completed data collection on 1500+ domestic and international migrants and long term residents in Accra, Johannesburg, and Nairobi. The data explore the trans-local moral and material economies shaping place and politics in these cities’ rapidly transforming neighborhoods. It has generated some of the first data on how COVID has reshaped lives and livelihoods across African cities. Conducted in collaboration with Samuel Hall (Nairobi) and University of Ghana (Accra), the first phase analysis will also involve Columbia University’s Center for Spatial Research. From mid-2022, the data will be widely available for researchers and students.
Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship at the Copenhagen Centre for Social Data Science (SODAS) at the University of Copenhagen as part of the ERC-funded project “DISTRACT: The Political Economy of Attention in Digitized Denmark.” Employment is scheduled to begin November 2021 or as soon as possible thereafter. Read More.
UPCOMING CONFERENCES/CALL FOR PAPERS
Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS) Call for Proposals
The Journal of Refugee Studies (JRS) is accepting proposals for special issues. JRS is a peer-reviewed journal featuring original, high-quality research related to diverse aspects of forced migration. We welcome proposals that engage with and significantly advance scholarly debates in the field of refugee and forced migration studies. For more information on the Journal and its aims, please see here.
Date: 31 August 2021.
Research Consultancy: Refugee-Led Organizations in Asia Pacific
Recruit up to four research consultants, including researchers with ongoing or former experience of forced displacement, to produce pioneering research that helps to better understand the work and contributions of refugee-led organisations in Asia and the Pacific. This research project is funded by Act for Peace and is supported by several key stakeholders in the region, including the Asia Pacific Network of Refugees, the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network, and the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney. For more details on the roles, see here.
Date: 31 July 2021.
Law and Society Annual Meeting 2021 Radboud Summer school: The Science Behind Migrant Inclusion Policies: Evidence-Based Policies and Policy-Based Evidence
Many migrants in receiving countries are facing disadvantaged living circumstances when compared to natives. In most Western countries, we observe economic inequality, inequality in access to information, healthcare, and housing. Moreover, there are increasing concerns that migrants and the ‘native’ population live separated lives and rarely meet and mingle. When migrant inclusion is hampered, this limits migrants to reach their own full potential. Moreover, the resulting inequalities and the lack of social cohesion can pose a threat to the wellbeing and prosperity of the receiving country as a whole. It is therefore no surprise that to curb the cons of migration and to capitalize on the pros, migrant policy makers and scientists alike strive for a better inclusion of migrants into host societies.
Date: 12 – 16 July 2021 Mode of study: On campus Fee: € 550 Scholarship available!
18th IMISCOE Annual Conference
Crossing Borders, Connecting Cultures will be held 7-9 July 2021 in Luxembourg.
IASFM 18 (Updated)
The International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM18) Bi-annual conference:
Disrupting Theory, Unsettling Practice: Towards Transformative Forced Migration Scholarship and Policy, will be held 26-28 July 2021 at the University of Ghana, Accra, Ghana.
JOB POSTS
Postdoctoral Associate in Law at the University of Florida, Levin College of Law
The UF Law Race and Crime Center for Justice (RCCJ) is excited to announce its inaugural Postdoctoral Associate position. The Center will focus on pressing national issues involving the impact of race on crime and justice. Policing, courts and corrections form the broad expanse of focal points for the Center’s work. As well, laws, criminal-legal policies, theories, and applications offer frameworks for the Center’s focus. The RCCJ will conduct research and produce scholarship with an eye towards policy application. The Postdoctoral Associate will work in collaboration with the Director, UF race scholars, and students, to establish and carry out a robust scholarly agenda. This position provides a keen opportunity for a junior scholar to focus on critical race and crime issues and identify interdisciplinary and novel policy responses. More information is available here.
Lecturer in Politics and International Studies
Do you have a clear commitment to creating and delivering an excellent student experience in a research-intensive Russell Group university? Are you interested in teaching and scholarship with opportunities for progression and promotion? Do you have a background in Politics, International Studies or a related discipline?
The School of Politics and International Studies (POLIS) is a leading international department for creative and high-quality teaching. As such we intend to make a number of new lectureship appointments of scholars who are committed to pursuing a career specialising in teaching and scholarship. These posts provide the opportunity to teach in an ambitious school focused on challenge-led research and education. They provide in particular the opportunity to teach in a school which is developing curricula to deliver, in alignment with its strategic vision to study and teach the politics of global challenges, a diverse, inclusive, decolonial and digitally informed student experience.
The lectureships will afford successful candidates the opportunity to conduct ongoing scholarship work in areas that may include innovations in blended learning, construction of student placement opportunities and/or the pursuit of pedagogic projects. We are looking to recruit scholars who wish to develop an extended career focused on teaching and scholarship, supported through opportunities for progression and promotion. Crucially we seek candidates who are flexible, pro-active, and capable of providing both students and fellow staff with strong support. Further information is available here.
PUBLICATIONS
New paper: ‘Sustaining the Private Sponsorship of Resettled Refugees in Canada’
Based on an original qualitative study, this paper probes how voluntary sponsorship has been sustained over decades, despite the high personal and financial costs it entails, by analyzing the insights of those who have experienced sponsorship: former refugees who came through the program, long-term sponsors, key informants, and other community leaders. Access the piece here.
New paper: ‘Migrant Smuggling in Africa: Challenges Yet to Be Overcome’
This paper focuses on the plight of the smuggling of migrants in Africa. Migrant smuggling has been documented along at least five major and several more minor routes in Africa. This study investigates whether current legislation and policies are effective in curbing the practice of smuggling in Africa. To evaluate the success rate of these measures, the author compares figures over recent years to establish whether there has been a decrease in the number of migrants smuggled throughout the various regions of the continent. Access the piece here.
New dynamic webpage: IOM
The International Organization for Migration’s (IOM) flagship publication has launched a dynamic new webpage that connects fact-based narratives on migration with interactive data visualizations on some of the latest global migration data and information. It is the first microsite of its kind since the World Migration Report (WMR) series began more than two decades ago. Read more here.
IN THE NEWS
BBC, Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict: Street Celebrations as Rebels Seize Capital ( 29 June 2021)
UN News, Hospitals Barely Functioning, Famine Still Looming in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region ( 29 June 2021)
The New York Times, Unmarked Graves at Residential Schools in Canada: What We Know (25 June 2021)
The Guardian, Canada Discovers 751 Unmarked Graves at Former Residential Schools (24 June 2021)
Reuters, Northeast Nigeria Insurgency Has Killed Almost 350,000, UN ( 24 June 2021)
Reuters, Boko Haram Militants Kill 8 in Southeastern Niger, Says Defense Ministry ( 30 June 2021)
The Guardian, Migrants Forced to Wait Four Years for Benefits in Australian Budget’s Biggest Cost-Cutting Measure (11 May 2021))
CBS News, Biden’s First 100 Days: How US Immigration Policy Has and Hasn’t Changed (28 April 2021)
AP, Rights Groups Slam Denmark’s ‘Dangerous’ Decision to Return Syrian Refugees (9 April 2021)
Infomigrants, Mediterranean Sea: Charity Says Migrants Stranded in ‘Critical’ State, (3 April 2021)
Arab News, From Ethiopia to Yemen, a Perilous Migrant Route to Endless Misery (3 April 2021)
The New Humanitarian, What’s Behind the UK’s Harsh Post-Brexit Asylum Overhaul? (11 May 2021)
Reuters, Kenya Orders Closure of Two Refugee Camps, Gives Ultimatum to UN Agency (24 March 2021)
Infomigrants, Syrian Refugees Tortured by Lebanese Security Forces: Amnesty (24 March 2021)
Scientific American, Biden Pushes U.S. and the World to Help Climate Migrants ( 8 February 2021)
SEND US YOUR NEWS AND EVENTS
Displaced Peoples (CRN11) newsletter is published quarterly. The newsletter is a venue for sharing information regarding displaced peoples, broadly defined. Your contribution to the newsletter is crucial to its sustenance, success and quality. To contribute to the newsletter, please contact Veronica Fynn Bruey, Steven Bender and Azin Emami: veronica.fynnbruey@tuki-tumarankeh.org benders@seattleu.edu, aziemami@gmail.com To subscribe or unsubscribe visit CRN 11 Displaced Peoples.