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Refuge in a Moving World: Projects

The ‘Refuge in a Moving World’ network brings together experts from across the UCL who work on displacement, forced migration, exile and conflict.

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Analysing South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement from Syria (2017-2022)

Through fieldwork in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, this ERC-funded project examines how, why and with what effect Southern actors - states, civil society networks, and refugees themselves - have responded to displacement from Syria. The project purposefully centralises refugees’ own experiences and perspectives on these Southern-led initiatives.

Indeed, by bringing refugees’ voices to the forefront, the project aims to shed a unique light on refugees’ understandings of humanitarianism, and the extent to which they consider that diverse Southern-led responses to conflict-induced displacement can or should be conceptualised as ‘humanitarian’ programmes. In so doing, the project makes a particularly significant contribution to debates regarding the desirability and/or tensions of ‘alternative’ forms of humanitarianism which have, until now, been monopolised by Northern academic and policy perspectives.

The project was led by Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh in collaboration with Dr Estella Carpi (UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction).

Affiliation: UCL Department of Geography

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BUDDcamp and Buddlab

The aim of the BUDDcamp is to investigate the multiple housing pathways of migrants. Through the use of different methodological instruments, this research tries to gather the complexity concerning the dimension of home in migrants’ experiences. The fieldwork, neighbourhoods in Brescia, Italy, are chosen for two main reasons: on the one hand they are characterised by a considerable presence of migrants at different stages of their migration experience, on the other hand, they are interested in urban renovation programmes and social interventions promoted by private and public actors.

Individual experiences are thus investigated alongside spatial phenomena, policies and interventions. Achieving these different fields of interest implied the utilisation of life story interviews, ethnographic observation, key informants interviews and participatory maps. This last technique constitutes a methodological innovation. In addition, the research aims to reflect on the efficacy and limits of housing and immigration policies drawing on evidence-based data.

This is an annual design exercise which is part of the MSc Building and Urban Design in Development.

Affiliation: UCL Development Planning Unit

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Children Caring on the Move (CCoM)

Children Caring on the Move (CCoM) is an ESRC-funded research project that investigates separated child migrants’ experiences of care and caring for others, as they navigate the complexities of the immigration-welfare nexus in England. The project sits against the backdrop of rising numbers of children who have been separated from primary carers during migration and conflicting state rhetoric: protecting children on the one hand and immigration control on the other.

‘Care’ is ambiguous in this context because children may receive care because of their ‘child’ status or be excluded from provision because of their ‘migrant’ status. CCoM fills a gap in existing research, law, policy and practice which, to date, has emphasised parental or state care to the neglect of children’s care for each other.

Our pilot studies indicate this neglect has led to a theoretical lacuna in conceptualisations of care, and meant that policies and practices designed to support separated child migrants can end up harming, excluding or discriminating against them. CCoM uses participatory methodologies, in combination with an analysis of the cultural political economy of separated children’s care, to provide new evidence about the implications of separated migrant children’s caring practices for the ways relevant stakeholders respond to the immigration control-protection tension at the heart of the UK state, and the consequences for separated migrant children.

The project is led by Sarah Crafter (Open University) and Rachel Rosen (UCL Social Research Institute), alongside academic colleagues from UCL (Elaine Chase, Veena Meetoo), University of Bedfordshire (Ravi Kohli), University of Liverpool (Helen Stalford), University of Northampton (Evangelia Prokopiou), and University of Oxford (Ellie Ott). Kamena Dorling, Head of Policy and Law at Coram Children’s Legal Centre, joins the team as an expert consultant.

Affiliation: UCL Social Research Institute

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Co-Developing a Method for Assessing the Psychosocial Impact of Cultural Interventions with Displaced People: Towards an Integrated Care Framework

Stories of displaced people, migration and immigration continue to occupy headline news. Huge efforts are being made by displaced people and associated relief agencies to help deal with the many challenges of displacement and migration and many of these efforts involve the use of arts, heritage and cultural activities.

The impact of these programmes on participants' health and wellbeing has often been overlooked in relation to their overall health and how such cultural programmes contribute to recovery, adjustment and other challenges associated with displacement, such as employability. This project, funded by the ESRC-AHRC under the Global Challenges Research Fund, aims to better understand the role of creative arts and cultural activities in improving health and wellbeing.

The project will also explore the potential for the arts to play a central role in improving issues associated with resettlement, employability and learning new skills, and consider how this could feed into relevant policies such as those related to immigration. The project team is led by Professor Helen Chatterjee (UCL Department of Genetics, Environment and Evolution) with co-investigators Dr Fatima Al-Nammari (Department of Architecture, University of Petra), Dr Beverley Butler (UCL Institute of Archaeology) and Dr Linda Thomson (UCL Culture).

Affiliations: UCL Department of Genetics, Environment and Evolution ; UCL Institute of Archeology ; UCL Culture ; Univeristy of Petra ; The Helen Bamber Foundation in London ; The Women’s Programme Centre at Talbieh Refugee Camp in Jordan

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Dislocated Identities and ‘Non-places’ – Heritage, Place-making and Wellbeing in Refugee Camps (2011- ongoing)

This project examines the use of heritage as a resource by which to engage with dislocated identities and strategies of transformation / empowerment. This project is based on ground-breaking ethnographic research undertaken in five Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and Zaatari Syrian refugee camps, also in Jordan. Key outcomes include a collection of oral histories and the creation of Community Archives in these locations.

The project team is led by Dr Beverley Butler (UCL Institute of Archaeology) with co-investigator Dr Fatima Al-Nammari (Department of Architecture, University of Petra, Jordan)

Affiliation: UCL Institute of Archeology ; University of Petra.

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Engaging Refugee Narratives: Perspectives from Academia and the Arts

This series of international conferences and art workshops, first run in 2016, brings together arts practitioners and academics engaged in work with refugees through talks, demonstrations and interactive workshops. The project is led by Dr Ruth Mandel and Dr Susan Pattie of the UCL Department of Anthropology).

Affiliation: Funded by the UCL Global Engagement Office ; organised in partnership with UCL Institute of Human Rights, UCL Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences, UCL Grand Challenges, UCL Knowledge Exchange, the UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, UCL Department of Anthropology, Graduate Institute Geneva, UCL Refuge in a Moving World, Organisation for Identity and Cultural Development, Armenian Institute, and ArtEZ Institute of the Arts (Netherlands). Visit the Refugee Narratives website for more information.

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Human Rights Beyond Borders

States have an impact on human rights not only in their own territories but, often, also on people in the rest of the world.  From drone strikes to economic sanctions, states affect human rights beyond their borders. For civil and political rights, the relevant extraterritorial activity includes war, occupation, anti-migration and anti-piracy initiatives at sea, sanctions, extraordinary rendition, and the operation of extraterritorial detention and interrogation sites housing combatants and migrants, including refugees.

This ERC-funded interdisciplinary project aims to provide a critical evaluation of the law and policy of whether and to what extent international human rights law is and should be applicable extraterritorial.  It covers both civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development.

This project team is led by Dr Ralph Wilde (UCL Laws) with Dr Karen Da Costa

Affiliation: UCL Faculty of Laws

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Local Community Experiences Of Displacement From Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (Refugee Hosts: 2016-2020)

This AHRC-ESRC-funded project aims to improve our understanding of the challenges and opportunities that arise in local responses to displacement, both for refugees from Syria and for the members of the communities that are hosting them in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Through interdisciplinary and participatory research in and with nine local communities in the Middle East, this project fills a major evidence gap about the roles played by local communities, including those that explicitly or implicitly identify with and are motivated by faith, in supporting, and / or undermining, people affected by conflict and displacement, refugees and hosts alike.

The project is led by Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh in collaboration with Professor Alastair Ager (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh and Columbia University), Dr Anna Rowlands (Durham University) and Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge (University of East Anglia).

Affiliation: UCL Geography ; Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh ; Durham University ; University of East Anglia ; in partnership with PEN International; the Joint Learning Initiative on Local Faith Communities, Refugees and Forced Migration Hub ; and in collaboration with Stories in Transit and the Humanitarian Affairs Team of Save the Children UK (HAT). Visit the Refugee Hosts website and follow them on X at @RefugeeHosts

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Many Strong Voices

This project brings together Arctic peoples with peoples from the small island developing states to tackle climate change within wider sustainability and development challenges. One topic is the possibilities for migration linked to climate change within the context of other reasons causing mobility and non-mobility. Island and migration publications are on page two of the Islanders, Climate Change, and Sustainability Report (.pdf), while an Arctic migration output can be found on the Brookings website.

The project is coordinated jointly by John Crump (GRID-Arendal), Dr Ilan Kelman (UCL Institute for Disaster Risk and Reduction) and the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs. Visit the Many Strong Voices website to find out more.

Affiliation: UCL Geography ; Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh ; Durham University ; University of East Anglia ; in partnership with PEN International; the Joint Learning Initiative on Local Faith Communities, Refugees and Forced Migration Hub ; and in collaboration with Stories in Transit and the Humanitarian Affairs Team of Save the Children UK).

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Pathways to Education for Women Refugees and Migrants in London

This 2017-2019 project is part of the ongoing cross-departmental initiative of the Refuge in a Moving World (RIMW) Network. Since 2015, RiMW has been coordinating UCL-wide staff and student activities in support of refugees and developing ways the UCL community can support refugees and migrants to access and participate in higher education.

Members of the RiMW education sub-committee are leading this project. Funded by the UCL Grand Challenges Programme, this project will develop a model for collaboration between the UCL community and London-based charities working with women refugees and migrants, synthesising these groups’ expertise to design a short course aimed at strengthening pathways to education for women who are refugees or forced migrants in London.

The project will facilitate a series of ‘information exchange’ meetings to map the challenges that refugees and migrants face when seeking to access education, as well as their existing skills and knowledge. Based on these findings, we will design a short course that will engage migrants and refugees directly, providing them with further skills, understanding and confidence.

The project is made up of: Dr Claudia Lapping (Faculty of Education and Society (IOE) ; Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh ; Dr Rachel Rosen (IOE) ; Dr Amy North (IOE) ; Raphaela Armbruster (UCL Centre for Languages and International Education) ; Dr Shaista Aziz ; Iman Azzi (IOE) ; Sara Joiko (IOE). This project is led by Dr Miriam Orcutt (UCL Institute for Global Health) and funded by UCL Grand Challenges.

Affiliation: UCL Institute of Global Health

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Refugee Cities: the Actual Spaces of Migration

This research project consists of a multi-scale analysis of the spatial, social and economic impacts of migration in the urban context, trying to merge transdisciplinary approaches including data-driven mapping and ethnographical research. This will help to create an original composite of spatial visualisations through different media channels, shared and disseminated through an interactive, digital platform.

By identifying the overlooked issues surrounding the refugee crisis in European cities and challenging the dominant narratives, the platform will provide a reliable overlap of data, curated to better interpret and cope with the intensifying impact of migration on cities.

The project's working team is led by Dr Camillo Boano (UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit (DPU)) and is made up of Dr Kayvan Karimi (UCL Space Syntax Laboratory (SSL)), Dr Ed Manley (UCL Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis), Dr Falli Palaiologou (SSL), Dr Giovanna Astolfo (DPU) and Ricardo Marten (DPU). Follow them on X: @BrmgRefugee

Affiliation: UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit ; UCL Space Syntax Laboratory; UCL Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis

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Refugee Health: Syrian narratives of flight and health encounters

This project has involved research in informal refugee camps in Northern Greece in 2015-2016, where Syrian refugees’ narratives of flight and health encounters were gathered through focus groups and interviews. Individual narratives of flight from within Syria, across the Turkish border, by boat across the Mediterranean to Greece and subsequently to the border of Greece/Macedonia were often similar.

However, the lived experiences and trauma exposure varied widely, as did cultural perceptions of trauma and individual resilience. By collecting these narratives, the project has aimed to gain insight into the physical and psychological health needs within this transient, vulnerable population, as well as a deeper appreciation of the impact of culture, health and illness perceptions on dealing with both acute and chronic trauma.

During the research period, the findings were used immediately to improve Non-Governmental Organisation health responses through integration into health needs assessments, demonstrating the importance of individual health narratives in improving humanitarian health response and health provision.

This project is led by Dr Miriam Orcutt (UCL Institute for Global Health)

Affiliation: UCL Institute for Global Health

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Refugee Self-Reliance and Humanitarian Action in Urban Markets

As the protraction of crises increasingly becomes a long-term drive for urban change and a challenge for city governance and infrastructures, this research project focuses on “urban-itarian” settings: that is the interactional moment between the urban and the humanitarian when cities have become home to humanitarian actors and de facto refugees, and urban and humanitarian infrastructures provide and negotiate basic services and livelihoods.

The project investigates how human, social, and economic relations, exchange and consumption experiences can better inform humanitarian policies and practices, both of which regulate access and relations to services, labour, and resources.

The project team is composed of Dr Estella Carpi (UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction (DPU)), Dr Andrea Rigon (DPU), Dr Camillo Boano (DPU), and Dr Cassidy Johnson (DPU), and Fernando Espada (Save the Children UK (STC)), Sophie Dicker (STC), Dr Jessica Field (STC). Read more.

Affiliation: UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit ; Humanitarian Affairs Team of Save the Children UK

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Religion and the Promotion of Social Justice for Refugees (2018-2020)

Funded by the British Council-USA and the Henry Luce Foundation, this interdisciplinary project brings together leading experts from the UK and the US to examine the roles that religion plays in promoting social justice for refugees.

Through comparative research with and about refugees from and in Central America, Central Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia and Western borderlands, the project aims to analyse the roles that local faith communities and faith-based organisations (FBOs) play: in supporting refugees’ access to protection; lobbying for rights; and challenging xenophobia and discrimination against different groups of refugees.

This project is led by Professor Elena Fiddian-QasmiyehDr Zareena Grewal (Yale University) and Dr Unni Krishnan Karunakara (Yale University), in collaboration with UK-based co-investigators Professor Alastair Ager (Queen Margaret University), Dr Anna Rowlands (Durham University) and Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge (University of East Anglia) and US-based Professor Catherine Panter-Brick (Yale University) and Dr Louisa Lombard (Yale University).

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Resilient Futures for the Rohingya Refugees

The principal aim of this research project is to help build resilient futures for the Rohingya refugee and local host populations in Cox’s Bazar district, Bangladesh, through research and practical solutions to reduce hydro-meteorological disaster risks, particularly landslide risks, through a co-produced approach between natural and social scientists. The project is funded by the Royal Society under its Challenge-led Grants scheme which is supported by the UK Government’s Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF).

The project is led by Professor Peter Sammonds (UCL Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction) with Project Manager Dr Bayes Ahmed. The project's co-applicants are Professor A.S.M. Maksud Kamal, Department of Disaster Science and Management, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and Professor Imtiaz Ahmed, Director, Centre for Genocide Studies, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Find out more.

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SELMA: Identifying and Implementing Appropriate and Effective Public Policy Responses for Improving the Sexual Health of Migrants and Refugees

Pursuing an interdisciplinary approach, the SELMA Project examines how to improve the sexual health of migrants and refugees with particular attention to the roles policy responses play in addressing broader determinants of health. The focus on the sexual health of refugees and migrants arises from an understanding that a range of inequalities both drives people to become refugees and migrants in the first place and then increases their risk of sexual ill-health once they are refugees or migrants.

Upon arrival in a new country, migrants’ health is found to be comparatively better than the general population. Still, differences in socio-economic risks, rules and regulations, and practical access to services in the new country may cause migrants to have poor health.

The SELMA Project focuses on West Asia/Middle East North Africa (WA/MENA) and the European region, with countries particularly affected by large influxes of migrants. The WA/MENA region is home to the world’s largest populations of refugees, internally displaced persons and work migrants.

Sexual health represents an area of health that is:

  1. Global in nature
  2. Driven by structural determinants
  3. Incites widely differing “solutions” from stakeholders
  4. Evidence encounters cultural values in policy processes.

The Project is led by Professor Sarah Hawkes, with Dr Kristine Husøy Onarheim at UCL Institute for Global Health

Affiliation: UCL Bartlett Development Planning Unit ; and the Humanitarian Affairs Team of Save the Children UK

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Temporary Migrants or New European citizens? Geographies of Integration and Response Between ‘Camps’ and the City

Funded by the British Academy UK International Challenges Award, this project aims to provide an alternative account of the European ‘refugee crisis’, where the arrival of over 1.5 million refugees since 2015 has stretched EU and individual state capacities, tested formal registration and arrival procedures, and (reignited) debates around continental ‘margins’ and geopolitical power differentials between east and west Europe.

In this project, we provincialise and challenge narratives of ‘the crisis’ through an engagement with the evolving duties of care, needs and agencies of refugees and providers on the arrival ‘frontlines’. Our multi-sited research engages with the myriad forms of arrival settlement, from the makeshift and temporary camps along the Hungarian-Serbian border to the sprawling tent communities in Lesbos, and the disintegration of the ‘Jungle’ in Calais.

By ‘thinking from the south’ and vantage of post-colonial cities, we will capture and explore the improvisation, precarity, makeshift practices and alternative scripts of citizenship that refugees and local agencies utilise alongside how state rules and norms are negotiated.

The project is led by Dr Tatiana Thieme in collaboration with Dr Eszter Kovacs and Dr Kavita Ramakrishnan (University of East Anglia).

Affiliation: UCL Department of Geography

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The Work of Teatro di Nascosto/Hidden Theatre

This interdisciplinary research examines the work ethics adopted by Teatro di Nascosto/Hidden Theatre, an international theatre company based in Italy that creates events in territories of war and occupied territories primarily in the Middle East and in European cities.

The project analyses how Annet Henneman, the company's director and founder, applies theatre reportage and theatre anthropology to explore human rights and refugees' rights with the intent to create a deeper understanding between the people living in the Middle East and those living in Europe.

The project explores the notion of 'hospitality' in relation to Henneman's travelling to meet the people whose stories are told in the theatrical events and in relation to the actor's training for international acting groups. Ultimately, the research examines the effect of these intersected methodologies through the actor's body and voice in the act of performance. The project is led by Dr Marta Niccolai (UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society)

Affiliation: UCL School of European Languages, Culture and Society

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Trafficking, Smuggling and Illicit Migration in Gendered and Historical Perspective

Human trafficking, 'people smuggling' and clandestine migration are some of the most politically volatile and socially pressing issues in the present day, but they also have a long history. This project contributes significantly to the emerging study of the history of illicit and clandestine migration by examining the history of trafficking in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from a comparative and global perspective.

The Project Lead, Julia Laite, a specialist on trafficking and migration in the British World, in collaboration with Philippa Hetherington, a specialist on trafficking in the Russian empire, will collaborate to produce a comparative study of trafficking and clandestine migration in these two nations and empires in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries while organising a series of workshops and a major digital collaboration project that will bring together historians who are studying trafficking, smuggling and illicit migration in other areas of the world in the modern period.

This digital collaboration will also produce a web application, centred around an interactive mapping project, which will be collaboratively built by project participants based on their own research and expertise and shared widely with both academic and non-academic stakeholders.

This project is led by Dr Julia Laite (Birkbeck, University of London) with Dr Philippa Hetherington (UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)).

Affiliation: UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies

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Zugunruhe

'Zugunruhe' is a theatre project that explores migration patterns in both humans and the natural world, and examines the cultural/ political construction of a 'refugee'. The project builds on artist Tom Bailey's earlier work with refugees at the Good Chance theatre in the Calais Jungle refugee camp in 2016.

During Tom's residency with the UCL Migration Research Unit as Leverhulme Artist in Residence, Tom researched and developed work that explores migration through live performance. Throughout his residence, Tom ran a series of workshops around his research and presented a developmental performance of 'Zugunruhe' in 2017.

The project was led by Tom Bailey, Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the UCL Migration Research Unit

Affiliation: UCL Migration Research Unit ; UCL Department of Geography

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