The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies

Abstract

This Handbook critically traces the birth and development of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and vividly illustrates the vibrant and engaging debates that characterize this rapidly expanding field of research and practice. The contributions highlight the key challenges faced by academics and practitioners working with and for forcibly displaced populations around the world, as well as identifying new directions for research in the field. Since emerging as a distinct field of study in the early 1980s, Refugee and Forced Migration Studies has grown from being of concern of a relatively small number of scholars and policy analysts to become a global field with thousands of students worldwide studying displacement, either from traditional disciplinary perspectives or as a core component of newer interdisciplinary programmes across the Humanities and Social and Political Sciences. Today the field encompasses both rigorous academic research as well as action-research focused on advocating in favour of refugees’ needs and rights and more directly concerned with influencing policy and practice. The Handbook’s fifty-two state-of-the-art chapters, written by leading academics, practitioners, and policymakers working in universities, research centres, think tanks, NGOs, and international organizations across every continent, provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the key intellectual, political, social, and institutional challenges arising from mass displacement in the world today. The Handbook is divided into seven parts. Part I discusses diverse disciplinary and methodological approaches to Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, including History, International Law, Political Theory, International Relations, Anthropology, Sociology, Livelihoods and Economics, and Geography. Part II then provides an overview of the shifting spaces and scenarios of displacement, tracing changes in academia, policy, and practice vis-à-vis encampment and self-settlement, urban displacement, protracted refugee situations, internal displacement, refugees, diasporas and transnationalism, and the conceptualization of forced migrants as illegal migrants. Part III in turn presents a comprehensive analysis of legal and institutional responses to forced migration, with chapters exploring the multifaceted connections between forced migration and human rights, UNHCR, UNRWA, state controls, securitization, protection gaps, statelessness, humanitarian reform, and humanitarianism. In Part IV, a critical review of our understanding of the root causes of displacement addresses conflict- and crisis-induced displacement, development-induced displacement, the environment-mobility nexus, and trafficking and smuggling. A detailed focus on the diversity of lived experiences and representations of forced migration in the fifth section of the Handbook include contributions on memories, narratives and representations, children, gender, older displaced persons, disability, health, religion, and the media. The penultimate section, Part VI considers how rethinking durable solutions might offer new means of resolving forced migration crises, as well as analysing existing practices of local integration, repatriation and reintegration, and resettlement and the nature of burden sharing. The final section consists of twelve chapters which address the historical trends, current realities, and future challenges of forced migration on a region-by-region basis.