Call for Papers: Gender, the Refugee and Displacement Conference

Gender, the Refugee and Displacement (1900-1950)

Newcastle University, Friday 5^th July 2013

KEYNOTE SPEAKER:

Professor Peter Gatrell (Manchester University)

Call For Papers: This interdisciplinary one-day symposium will interrogate the links between gender and displacement from the turn of the twentieth century, through both World Wars and into the post-war period. Addressing a crucial gap in scholarship surrounding displacement and gender within the critical canon of war studies, it asks how gender influences or impacts displacement during the two world wars and how, in particular, men and women experience and represent displacement differently?  It interrogates the historic association of the refugee with the female, existing outside the symbolic order and beyond the nation, particularly at times of war (Plain, 1994). It addresses the embodied experience of displacement, such as the tendency for refugees and Internally Displaced People to experience rape, torture and physical violence as well as other forms of emotional or physical hardship, as well as the representation of displacement in literary, biographical and historical works with relation to ideas around gender and empowerment during this period. In particular, this conference brings together academics working across the disciplines, looking at the intersections between gender and displacement in a range of discourses legal and historical, literary and political, artistic and geographical in and around the two world wars. It welcomes abstracts from across the humanities and social sciences.

Papers are invited on any aspect of gender and displacement during this period, including but not exclusive to:

• Male/female experiences of displacement;
• Male/female descriptions or representations of displacement;
• Childhood and displacement;
• The politics of displacement/ power and displacement;
• The experiences of IDPs and refugees;
• Race and displacement;
• Histories/geographies of displacement;
• Theories of displacement;
• The UN Convention on Refugees and the legal aspects of displacement.

Please send 300 word abstracts to Katherine Cooper (Katherine.cooper@ncl.ac.uk) before 1^st May 2013.

This conference is supported by a generous grant from Newcastle University’s Gender Research Group.

Organised by: Katherine Cooper

Katherine Cooper
PhD Candidate

School of English Language, Literature and Linguistics,
Newcastle University
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/elll/study/postgraduate/students/KatherineCooper.htm

Gender, The Refugee and Displacement, 1900-1950 Conference
5th July 2013, Newcastle University
http://genderanddisplacementconf.wordpress.com/

Out now: The Female Figure in Contemporary Historical Fiction:
http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=514500

 

New Report from the MRG: Challenges at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnic Identity in Kenya

Challenges at the intersection of gender and ethnic identity in Kenya

Minority Rights Group International (MRG) has just published a new report entitled, “Challenges at the Intersection of Gender and Ethnic Identity in Kenya.”

Taken from the MRG website, this report is described as follows;

Minority and indigenous women in Kenya are discriminated against on multiple levels; they are targeted because of their identification with a minority or indigenous group, and as women – both by cultural practices within their own community and because of gender discrimination more
widely.

This report examines the challenges and the new opportunities that have emerged with the passing of the new Constitution in 2010. The goal of the report is to reflect the voices and experiences of women from diverse minority and indigenous communities in Kenya.

For hunter-gatherer women, many of whom have been displaced and forced to become squatters, community land rights are a primary concern. They view their lack of opportunities, basic services and education for girls as a direct result of their displacement.

For pastoralist women, insecurity and conflict in areas where they live has a disproportionate impact on them. Cultural practices that are harmful to girls, such as female genital mutilation and early marriage, reduce girls’ access to education and entrench women’s poverty.

For fisher peoples, environmental degradation and collapsing fish stocks are major fears. Women from these communities expressed their frustration at traditional gender roles that place much of the responsibility for meeting the family’s basic needs on women.

While there is strong leadership from individual women in many of the minority and indigenous communities described in this report, the majority of women face ongoing violations of their human rights. Trapped in a cycle of poverty that they attribute directly to decades of marginalization, they fear that they and their children will not be able to take advantage of gains in the new Constitution.

This report highlights actions identified by minority and indigenous women that should be taken by the government and other actors to support women’s empowerment and participation in the decision-making processes that directly affect them.

[Download the Full Report]

For further information, you may also read the MRG press release, entitled: `Marginalization multiplied: Minority and Indigenous women in Kenya facing discrimination on many fronts – new MRG Report.’

 

Publications on Housing; Gender & LGBT Matters; Protection; and Middle East/North Africa

Climate Displacement in Bangladesh: The Need for Urgent Housing, Land and Property Rights Solutions (Displacement Solutions, May 2012) [text]

From Shelter to Housing: Security of Tenure and Integration in Protracted Displacement Settings (Norwegian Refugee Council, Dec. 2011; posted May 2012) [text via ReliefWeb]
– See also related comment on TerraNullius.

“‘Home Tonight? What? Where?’ An Exploratory Study of the Meanings of House, Home and Family among the Former Vietnamese Refugees in a Canadian City,”Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung = Forum: Qualitative Social Research, vol. 13, no. 2 (2012) [open access text]

IDPs in Host Families and Host Communities: Assistance for Hosting Arrangements (UNHCR, April 2012) [text]

Frozen Words: Memory and Sexual Violence amongst Sudanese Refugee Women in Cairo, New Issues in Refugee Research, no. 240 (UNHCR, June 2012) [text]

Opening Doors: A Global Survey of NGO Attitudes towards LGBTI Refugees & Asylum Seekers (ORAM, June 2012) [text]

“A Question of Discretion: A Critical Analysis of New Legal and Evidentiary Hurdles for Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) Asylum Seekers in the United Kingdom,” Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, vol. 2, no. 1 (June 2012) [full-text]

Asylum under Threat: Assessing the Protection of Somali Refugees in Dadaab Refugee Camps and along the Migration Corridor (Danish Refugee Council, June 2012) [text]

Interim Eligibility Guidelines for Assessing the International Protection Needs of Asylum-Seekers from Côte d’Ivoire (UNHCR, June 2012) [text]

Is India a ‘Safe Third Country’ for a Bhutanese Citizen Seeking Asylum in the United States? (SSRN, Feb. 2012) [text]

Roundtable on Due Process Considerations relating to the Use of Country of Origin Information in Refugee Status Determination Procedures, London, 22 May 2012 [text]

Serbia as a Safe Country: Revisited (Hungarian Helsinki Committee, June 2012) [textvia Refworld]

Smuggling of Asylum-seekers and Criminal Justice, RLI Working Paper, no. 5 (Refugee Law Initiative, June 2012) [text]

The Arab Spring and Beyond: Summary of Recent Workshop (RSC, June 2012) [access]

“The Education of Adult Refugees in Cairo: Influences and Impacts,” Oxford Monitor of Forced Migration, vol. 2, no. 1 (June 2012) [full-text]

Frozen Words: Memory and Sexual Violence amongst Sudanese Refugee Women in Cairo, New Issues in Refugee Research, no. 240 (UNHCR, June 2012) [text]

Joint Needs Assessment of Sahrawi Refugees in Algeria, 4 to 14 October 2011 (WFP & UNHCR, 2011; posted 2012) [text via ReliefWeb]

Life of a Refugee (American University in Cairo, May 2012) [access]
– Documentary of refugees seeking protection in Egypt.

North Africa and Displacement 2011-2012 [access]
– Focus of new issue of Forced Migration Review.

Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon (ANERA, June 2012) [text via ReliefWeb]

The source for all of these publications was the Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog at: http://fm-cab.blogspot.co.uk/

Event: Gender, Migration and Religion Symposium

GENDER, MIGRATION AND RELIGION
Friday 4 November 2011
Social Policy Research Centre,
Middlesex University
Hendon Campus, London

This symposium brings together leading scholars in the field who will share
their experiences of researching different faith groups and communities.
Through the lens of gender and migration, this event provides the opportunity to analyse comparisons and contrasts across these diverse communities – including Jewish, Muslim, Jainist, Hindu and Christian.
This comparative approach is particularly innovative given that most research tends to focus on a single religious group.

The symposium is free to attend but places must be booked by 14th October.

Please click here for further information about the conference and booking details:

http://gendermigrationreligion.blogspot.com/

The symposium is organised by Dr. Louise Ryan, Dr. Elena Vacchelli and
Clare Choak, Social Policy Research Centre, Middlesex University, London.