6th Annual Forced Migration Student Conference Call for Papers Call for Papers. “Refugees: Lives Pushed to the Margins?”

The 6th Annual Forced Migration Student Conference organised by postgraduates and hosted by the Refugee Research Centre at the University of East London on Saturday the 25^th and Sunday the 26^th of April.

Living a life in the margins or a marginalised life is a recurrent trope in the field of forced migration studies. Throughout the whole refugee experience from persecution and flight to settlement and integration, refugees find themselves pushed to the margins and often excluded. The marginalisation of various categories of forced migrants brings into question the effectiveness of protection regimes. Livelihood strategies of forced migrants are formulated at the very margins of society, some of whom are compelled to do so ‘outside’ the law. How do refugees negotiate identities that help them to combat social exclusion? Adopting a reflexive gaze, as researchers and aspiring academics we must ask ourselves how considerable and pertinent are the dialogues of practitioners and academics? Is academia to be confined to the sidelines or can it be more engaged with forced migrants? In which ways can the study of forced migration be related to wider global issues?

The conference invites papers that fit within the broad theme of the conference and forced migration more generally. We solicit papers that converge on the following sub-themes of the conference:

1)    Conversations and interdisciplinary dialogues (scholarly, policy, practitioners, NGOs)

2)    Sites of liminality and change (state; regional; local, trans-national; familial; individual)

3)    Conversations in issue-areas (development; human rights; migration; security; post-conflict)

4)    Sites of experience (gender; flight; re-settlement; camps; exclusion)

Postgraduate students (Masters/MPhil/PhD) are invited to submit abstracts for papers (no more than 250 words) and a personal profile (no more than 100 words). They should be sent, with full contact details, by 4pm on 26th January 2009 to: fmconference2009@googlemail.com

Posted in:  Refugee Studies and Conferences & Events.

InFluxEvent@UniversityofEastLondon

In Flux Event @

University of East London

The Refugee Research Centre/UEL invite you to IN FLUX, the culmination of artist Marie Ange Bordas’ Leverhulme Residency at UEL.

During her time at UEL, the artist has developed work around displacement and belonging through informal encounters with students and use of the Refugee Archive resources. She has also collaborated with Anita Fábos on her MA and undergraduate refugee modules, with the aim of stimulating students to challenge their assumptions about the research process and to encourage them to find new approaches to interact with people and explore concepts.

The event will open on December 10th at 17:00 in Matrix East when Marie Ange will show part of the artwork she produced, along with students’ creative projects, and Anita Fábos will address the learning and teaching possibilities of this kind of collaboration for university programmes.

Throughout the week - 11th to the 17th of December- the creative projects produced by Anthropology of Refugees and Cultures of Exile students will be on display in the Library Foyer and the Refugee Archive, (from the 15th).

And on December 15th, Anita Fábos will give the lecture “Refugees as Actors” and, together with John Nassari, host a roundtable discussion on approaches to refugee-centred representation in the Main Lecture Theatre at Business School.

For more information see flyer – [JPEG format] or [PDF format].  These details are also on the Refugee Council Archive web site at:  http://www.uel.ac.uk/rca/news.htm#influx

Contact: influx.uel@gmail.com

Marie Ange Bordas – http://www.displacements.info/

Posted in: Refugee Studies and Conferences & Events.

Anita Fabos Book Launch

Anita Fabos, who is part of the Refugee Studies academic team here at UEL, will be launching her new book by giving a lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, (London Middle East Institute). This will take place on Tuesday 21st October 2008 and will start at 5.30pm in the Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS. This lecture and book launch will be free to attend and there is no need to book. A reception will follow.

Further information can be found here and additional information can be provided on request by emailing us at: library-archives@uel.ac.uk.

Posted in: Refugee Studies and News.

UEL Refugee Research Centre Seminar

Resiliance and social capital in asylum seeking families in Sweden

Professor Ulla Björnberg,

Department of Sociology, University of Gotehnburg, Sweden

October 8 2008, 6.00 – 7.30pm, Room EB.G08, East Building, UEL Docklands Campus

Abstract Research has suggested that social networks are important resources for children as well as for adults to resist health problems. For asylum seeking children social networking might be hard to accomplish due to constraints linked to social and legal contexts in the host country. Constraints can also be linked to the family situation and the circumstances they have to cope with in every day life. The situation of parents, in particular mothers, are important for the coping of children. In the paper I draw on results from an ongoing study on the experiences of asylum seeking children and their families in Sweden. The over arching research objective is to identify factors that are important for well being of children seeking asylum and to study how they cope with their experiences as asylum seekers. The tension between excluding experiences and expectations regarding how the situation of the child and it’s family should improve or deteriorate after the flight is for a child a constitutive reference for how coping strategies are developed. In the analysis I draw on theoretical concepts of resilience, empowerment and social capital. The main focus is on families who have waited for decisions regarding permanent residence for several months and sometimes more than a year. The empirical data are based on qualitative interviews with children from 9 years and with one parent for each child. Bio Dr. Ulla Björnberg is full professor of Sociology at the university of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is currently directing a research program on the health and wellbeing of asylum-seeking children and their families in Sweden. She has been engaged in several international projects on family policy and family life in Europe. She lectures on a variety of topics involving gender relations and gender structures, the welfare state and family policy. Dr. Björnberg has a long record of research on families, gender equality, lone mothers,  reconciliation of employment and family life. Recently she has finalised a research programme on Family ties between generations. Public and private transfers between generations in different family forms. Ulla.Bjornberg@sociology.gu.se

ALL WELCOME!

Posted in:  Refugee Studies.

Welcome to the Refugee Archives Blog

Hello and welcome to the Refugee Archives blog.  This blog has been designed to support the Refugee Archives collection at the University of East London.   This blog has been created by the Archivist, Paul Dudman.  It is designed primarily to support students on the MA in Refugee Studies which is taught here at the University of East London, but it will also be useful for students and researchers in the fields of refugee studies and forced migration.

Please feel free to read this blog and to contribute comments where possible as all feedback and ideas will be very much appreciated.

Paul Dudman
Archivist