'One the foremost writers and participants in the Kurdish women's movement' - Harsha Walia The Kurdish women's movement is at the heart of one of the most exciting revolutionary experiments in the world today: Rojava. Forged over decades of struggle, most recently in the fight against ISIS, Rojava embodies a radical commitment to ecology, democracy and women's liberation. But while striking images of Kurdish women in military fatigues proliferate, a true understanding of the women's movement remains elusive. Taking apart the superficial and Orientalist frameworks that dominate, Dilar Dirik offers instead an empirically rich account of the women's movement in Kurdistan. Drawing on original research and ethnographic fieldwork, she surveys the movement's historical origins, ideological evolution, and political practice over the past forty years. Going beyond abstract ideas, Dirik locates the movement's culture and ideology in its concrete work for women's revolution in the here and now. Taking the reader from the guerrilla camps in the mountains to radical women's academies and self-organised refugee camps, readers around the world can engage with the revolution in Kurdistan, both theoretically and practically, as a vital touchstone in the wider struggle for a militant anti-fascist, anti-capitalist feminist internationalism.

In recent years, scholars in the fields of refugee studies and forced migration have extended their areas of interest and research into the phenomenon of displacement, human response to it, and ways to intervene to assist those affected, increasingly focusing on the emotional and social impact of displacement on refugees and their adjustment to the traumatic experiences. In the process, the positive concept of "psychosocial wellness" was developed as discussed in this volume. In it noted scholars address the strengths and limitations of their investigations, citing examples from their work with refugees from Afghanistan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Palestine, Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti, Eastern Europe, Bosnia, and Chile. The authors discuss how they define "psychosocial wellness," as well as the issues of sample selection, measurement, reliability and validity, refugee narratives and "voices," and the ability to generalize findings and apply these to other populations. The key question that has guided many of these investigations and underlies the premise of this book is "what happens to an ordinary person who has experienced an extraordinary event?" This volume also highlights the fact that those involved in such research must also deal with their own emotional responses as they hear victims tell of killing, torture, humiliation, and dispossesion. The volume will therefore appeal to practitioners of psychology, psychiatry, social work, nursing, and anthropology. However, its breadth and the evaluation of the strengths and disadvantages of both qualitative and quantitative methods also make it an excellent text for students.

Between 1933 and the outbreak of war in 1939, over 60,000 Jewish refugees fled to Britain from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. Some 50,000 settled there. No previous historical study of this group of immigrants exists, though they form one of the most high-profile groups of refugees to have come to Britain in the 20th century, both as survivors of the Nazi terror and as high-achieving contributors to British society. This book - now available in paperback - focuses on the first quarter-century of these Jewish refugees' settlement in Britain. It covers new ground by drawing on a rich source of contemporary material: the previously untapped monthly journal of the Association of Jewish Refugees - AJR Information. The journal is the only contemporary source that provides material for a full-scale history of these refugees when they established themselves permanently in Britain, as well as how they adapted to British society and developed their distinctive 'Continental' identity and culture that characterized them in their adopted homeland.

This powerful document of the spiritual and physical state of exile now contains 10 new images by master of photography Josef Koudelka. The sense of mystery that fills these photographs - mostly taken during Koudelka's years of wandering through Europe and the United States since leaving his native Czechoslovakia - speaks of passion and reserve, of his 'rage to see'. The brilliant accompanying essay by Robert Delpire invokes the soul of man in search of a spiritual homeland; it speaks with a remarkable and unforgettable dignity.

Chosen by The Humanitarian Times as one of the Top Ten Titles on Humanitarian Issues of 1998 "Up-to-date material. Fills a fundamental gap in the literature which has tended to be based on pedagogical reasoning rather than actual field research." . Population Index At the start of the 1990s, there was great optimism that the end of the Cold War might also mean the end of the "refugee cycle" - both a breaking of the cycle of violence, persecution and flight, and the completion of the cycle for those able to return to their homes. The 1990s, it was hoped, would become the "decade of repatriation." However, although over nine million refugees were repatriated worldwide between 1991 and 1995, there are reasons to believe that it will not necessarily be a durable solution for refugees. It certainly has become clear that "the end of the refugee cycle" has been much more complex, and ultimately more elusive, than expected. The changing constructions and realities of refugee repatriation provide the backdrop for this book which presents new empirical research on examples of refugee repatriation and reconstruction. Apart from providing up-to-date material, it also fills a more fundamental gap in the literature which has tended to be based on pedagogical reasoning rather than actual field research. Adopting a global perspective, this volume draws together conclusions from highly varied experiences of refugee repatriation and defines repatriation and reconstruction as part of a wider and interrelated refugee cycle of displacement, exile and return. The contributions come from authors with a wealth of relevant practical and academic experience, spanning the continents of Africa, Asia, Central America, and Europe. Richard Black is Lecturer in Human Geography at the School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex, where he moved in 1995 from King's College, London. Khalid Koser is Research Fellow in the School of African and Asian Studies, University of Sussex and was previously Research Fellow in the Migration Research Unit at University College, London.

At the start of the 1990s, there was great optimism that the end of the Cold War might also mean the end of the "refugee cycle" - both a breaking of the cycle of violence, persecution and flight, and the completion of the cycle for those able to return to their homes. The 1990s, it was hoped, would become the "decade of repatriation." However, although over nine million refugees were repatriated worldwide between 1991 and 1995, there are reasons to believe that it will not necessarily be a durable solution for refugees. It certainly has become clear that "the end of the refugee cycle" has been much more complex, and ultimately more elusive, than expected. The changing constructions and realities of refugee repatriation provide the backdrop for this book which presents new empirical research on examples of refugee repatriation and reconstruction. Apart from providing up-to-date material, it also fills a more fundamental gap in the literature which has tended to be based on pedagogical reasoning rather than actual field research. Adopting a global perspective, this volume draws together conclusions from highly varied experiences of refugee repatriation and defines repatriation and reconstruction as part of a wider and interrelated refugee cycle of displacement, exile and return. The contributions come from authors with a wealth of relevant practical and academic experience, spanning the continents of Africa, Asia, Central America, and Europe.

Foreign policies have always played an important role in the movements of migrants. A number of essays in this volume show how the foreign policies of the United States and Germany have directly or inadvertently contributed to the influx from the former Yugoslavia, Mexico, the Caribbean, and the former Soviet Union. Now being faced with growing resistance to admit foreigners into their countries, both governments have once again been using foreign-policy instruments in an effort to change the conditions in the refugees' countries of origin which forced people to leave. This volume addresses questions such as which policies can influence governments to improve their human rights, protect minorities, end internal strife, reduce the level of violence, or improve economic conditions so that large numbers of people need not leave their homes.

Infrastructure development projects are set to continue into the next century as developing country governments seek to manage population growth, urbanization and industrialization. The contributions in this volume raise many questions about 'development' and 'progress' in the late twentieth century. What is revealed are the enormous problems and disastrous affects which continue to accompany displacement operations in many countries, which raise the ever more urgent question of whether the benefits of infrastructure development justify or outweigh the pain of the radical disruption of peoples lives, exacerbated by the fact that, with some notable exceptions, there has been a lack of official recognition on the part of governments and international agencies that development-induced displacement is a problem at all. This important volume addresses the issues and shows just how serious the situation is.

What are the barriers to education for internally displaced persons? How can these be overcome? Drawing on research from a diverse set of countries, including the the USA, Somalia, Colombia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the contributors consider the relationship between education and internally displaced persons. These case studies raise fundamental questions regarding the barriers to education and some unexpected benefits for displaced children. The dynamics that impact access and quality of education for internally displaced people are examined and the role education can play in rebuilding societies and strengthening peace building processes is considered.Each case study brings to light a different aspect of displacement including various causes: current legal protection and its implications for government action and practical responses; challenges arising from country contexts related to the scale and duration of displacement; and the role of education in meeting the needs of returnees.

Protracted refugee populations not only constitute over 70 per cent of the world's refugees but are also a principal source of many of the irregular movements of people around the world today. The long-term presence of refugee populations in much of the developing world has come to be seen by many host states in these regions as a source of insecurity. In response, host governments have enacted policies of containing refugees in isolated and insecure camps, have prevented the arrival of additional refugees and, in extreme cases, have engaged in forcible repatriation. Not surprisingly, these refugee populations are also increasingly perceived as possible sources of insecurity for Western states. Refugee camps are sometimes breeding grounds for international terrorism and rebel movements. These groups often exploit the presence of refugees to engage in activities that destabilise not only host states but also entire regions.The paper focuses on long-term refugee populations in Sub-Saharan Africa - including Somalis in the Horn and East Africa, Liberians in West Africa, Burundians in the Great Lakes Region of Central Africa - and in South and Southeast Asia - including the Bhutanese in Nepal and the Burmese refugees in Thailand. These and other cases demonstrate that protracted refugee situations can result in both 'direct' security consequences (resulting from the spill-over of conflicts and the militarisation of refugee camps) and 'indirect' security consequences (resulting from ethnic and inter-communal tensions within the host countries) for host states and countries of origin in conflict-prone regions. The project will highlight both these security concerns relating to chronic refugee populations and propose a framework of possible remedies for resolving and mitigating at least some aspects of the phenomenon.

This book critically examines the policy frameworks and categories that determine the status and lives of displaced people, evaluating how rights-based approaches might work to achieve social justice.This is the first book to tackle the issue of forced displacement - internally displaced populations and oustees. It provides a unique rights-based approach to displacement, which allows an examination of the human rights implication of current policies. It includes case studies on a range of countries covering the Middle East, Africa and Asia.Uprootedness, exile and forced displacement, be they due to conflict, persecution or so-called 'development', are conditions which characterize the lives of millions across the globe. This book problematizes both policies and rights frameworks in processes of displacement, while bridging the divide that exists between refugee and oustee studies.

The early part of the 21st century has been marked by widespread social upheaval and geographical displacement of people. This book examines how refugees, asylum-seekers, locals and professional refugee workers make sense of asylum and refuge in the context of current UK asylum policies.

Why do decision-makers in similar liberal democracies interpret the same legal definition in very different ways? International law provides states with a common definition of a 'refugee' as well as guidelines outlining how asylum claims should be decided. Yet, the processes by which countries determine who should be granted refugee status look strikingly different, even across nations with many political, cultural, geographical, and institutional commonalities. This book compares the refugee status determination (RSD) regimes of three popular asylum seeker destinations - the United States, Canada, and Australia. Despite similarly high levels of political resistance to accepting asylum seekers across these three states, once asylum seekers cross their borders, they access three very different systems. These differences are significant both in terms of asylum seekers' experience of the process and in terms of their likelihood of being found to be a refugee.
The book moves beyond the claim by some scholars that asylum seeker destinations are uniformly becoming more exclusionary, and the contrary assertions of other scholars that the same destinations are converging on a new inclusive internationalism leading to the decline of state sovereignty. Instead, Hamlin finds these states to be running on three distinct trajectories, none of which are totally restrictive or expansive. Based on a multi-method analysis of all three countries, including a year of fieldwork with in-depth interviews of policy-makers and asylum-seeker advocates, observations of refugee status determination hearings, and a large-scale case analysis, Hamlin finds that cross-national differences have less to do with political debates over admission and border control policy than with the level of insulation the administrative decision-making agency enjoys from either political interference or judicial review. Administrative justice is conceptualized and organized differently in every state, and so states vary in how they draw the line between refugee and non-refugee.

"Alien WindS" presents the first critical analysis of U.S. refugee processing centers in Southeast Asia. Based on twenty months of work in refugee camps from 1983-1986 and an analysis of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, this book challenges the widely held view that the refugee education program results in successful resettlement. The author contends that in its zeal to Americanize Southeast Asians, this program seeks to replace ties to their traditional community with a commitment to the myths of American success ideology and the moral principle of self-sufficiency. He concludes that the program actually disempowers the refugees by robbing them of their sense of community, and often their dignity. Without regard to skills or education, it prepares refugees for long term employment in dead end minimum wage jobs. Of particular interest to teachers of English as a second language and scholars in the fields of education, sociology, anthropology, and Southeast Asian studies, Alien Winds concludes with recommendations for overseas centers and domestic resettlement programs.

From its inception the U.S. refugee resettlement program faced difficult questions: What are the main difficulties facing Southeast Asians in the United States? What do refugees need to know in order to resettle successfully? How should successful resettlement be defined? Should there be different notions of success for different groups of people? What values do Americans share? Must newcomers adopt these values? Alien Winds examines the American answers to these questions as they are formulated and conveyed to the refugees. It also explores the sources of these answers. To this end it examines important assumptions about immigrants that originated in educational programs during the early part of this century. It further explores the aims and structures of the organizations which created and operate the processing centers. Finally, "Alien WindS" analyzes the role of the refugee program in America's shared memory of Vietnam.

Kirsty Carpenter puts a human face on the victims of revolutionary legislation. London had the largest community of emigres. It had the most evolved social structure and was the most politically-active community. It was in London that two cultures came face-to-face with their prejudices and were forced to confront them.

The idea that a claim for international protection can be rejected on the basis that the claimant behave 'discreetly' in their country of origin has remained resilient in asylum claims based on sexual orientation, but also other grounds of claim. This is significant because requiring an asylum-seeker to forgo the reason for which they are persecuted questions the very rationale of refugee protection. This book represents the first principled examination of concealment in refugee law. Janna Wessels connects the different strands of the long-standing debate in both common and civil law jurisdictions and scholarship concerning the question of whether and under which circumstances a claimant must conceal to avoid persecution. In so doing, Wessels uncovers a fundamental tension at the core of the refugee concept. By using sexuality as a lens, this study breaks new ground regarding sexual orientation claims and wider issues surrounding the refugee definition.

This powerful book explicates the many ways in which colonial encounters continue to shape forced migration, ever evolving with times and various geographical contexts. Bringing historians, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists and criminologists together, the book presents examples of forced migration events and politics ranging from the 18th century to the practices and geopolitics of the present day. These case studies, covering Europe, Africa, North America, Asia and South America, are then put in dialogue with each other to propose new theoretical and real-world agendas for the field. As the pervasive legacies of colonialism continue to shape global politics, this unprecedented book moves beyond critique, ahistoricity and Eurocentrism in refugee and forced migration studies and establishes postcoloniality and forced migration as an important field of migration research.

In 1996, powerful anti-immigrant forces in New Gingrich's 104th Congress worked hard to pass the most restrictive immigration law in decades. This law changed virtually every aspect of immigration policy, including the rules for political and religious refugees. It is not, however, as harsh a law as the chairmen of the committees wanted. A fascinating case study of the legislative process and the author's experience as a public lobbyist, A Well-Founded Fear tells how a coalition of human rights and refugee organisations fought to preserve the rights of refugees and asylum seekers.

Countries throughout the world are grappling with the practical and moral issues raised by increasing numbers of refugees. Matthew Gibney's book asks how Western countries should respond to the claims of refugees who arrive on their territory, and relates the question to wider issues surrounding immigration, citizenship and the responsibilities of democracies. Examining policy in the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia, this book offers an important contribution to a highly topical subject.

This is a study of the history of global refugee movements over the 20th century, ranging from east European Jews fleeing Tsarist oppression at the turn of the century to asylum seekers from the former Zaire and Yugoslavia. Recognizing that the problem of refugees is a universal one, the authors emphasize the human element which should be at the forefront of both the study of refugees and responses to them.

This is a study of the history of global refugee movements over the 20th century, ranging from east European Jews fleeing Tsarist oppression at the turn of the century to asylum seekers from the former Zaire and Yugoslavia. Recognizing that the problem of refugees is a universal one, the authors emphasize the human element which should be at the forefront of both the study of refugees and responses to them.

The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the survivors of the Holocaust contended with life after the darkest night in Jewish history. They include the Earl Harrison mission and significant report, the effort to keep Europe's borders open to refugee infiltration, the murder of the first Jew in Germany after V-E Day and its aftermath, and the iconic sculptures of Nathan Rapoport and Poland's landscape of Holocaust memory up to the present day. Joining extensive archival research and a limpid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.

The book analyses the management of the internal displacement caused by activities of Boko Haram's terrorist insurgence in Nigeria. With over 3.1m persons displaced, the humanitarian crisis is at teeter ends with acute malnourishment, inadequate wash and non-relief materials, improper hygiene facilities, and lack of access to basic relief aid for displaced persons. The array of humanitarian organisations belies the concrete living conditions of displaced persons and calls to question the huge resources assumed to be expended on managing the humanitarian crisis in the northeast of Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin in general. Based on ethnographic research in IDP camps, the book chronicles the concrete living conditions of displaced persons and argues that IDPs in Northeastern Nigeria have been victimised first by Boko Haram's terrorism, and then victimised again by inefficient, un-coordinated, and unsuitable displacement management programs. This book also explicate the roles played by the Nigerian government and international aid agencies in managing this displacement, vis-a-vis a comparative analysis of similar, but better managed displacement situations in Kenya, Lebanon, and Turkey.

The chapters in this volume examine a few facets in the drama of how the survivors of the Holocaust contended with life after the darkest night in Jewish history. They include the Earl Harrison mission and significant report, the effort to keep Europe's borders open to refugee infiltration, the murder of the first Jew in Germany after V-E Day and its aftermath, and the iconic sculptures of Nathan Rapoport and Poland's landscape of Holocaust memory up to the present day. Joining extensive archival research and a limpid prose, Professor Monty Noam Penkower again displays a definitive mastery of his craft.

This volume brings together research on the forms, genres, media and histories of refugee migration. Chapters come from a range of disciplines and interdisciplinary approaches, including literature, film studies, performance studies and postcolonial studies. The goal is to bring together chapters that use the perspectives of the arts and humanities to study representations of refugee migration. The chapters of the anthology are organized around specific forms and genres: life-writing and memoir, the graphic novel, theater and music, film and documentary, coming-of-age stories, street literature, and the literary novel.