2007 Handbooks

Forced migration and involuntary resettlement have become major themes in international politics and issues of global importance. This unit examines the ways in which anthropology and other social sciences have sought to understand and explain the complexities of the forced migration and resettlement experience. The emphasis will be on the development of 'refugee studies' considering questions about the causes and consequences of forced migration; the experiences of displacement and resettlement; ethical and legal issues; the impact of displacement upon individuals and refugee communities; types of activities and institutional cultures of humanitarian agencies; asylum seeking and asylum policy and the development of appropriate research methods. Conceptual and theoretical concerns include: gender dimension of forced migration; theories of ethnicity; nationalism, diaspora and exile; refugees and 'history-making'; displacement/resettlement and impoverishment processes; cultural and social disarticulation and rebuilding and livelihood reconstruction. The unit will be global in focus, but with a special focus on countries in the Asia Pacific region. Refugee situations will draw on literature relating to, for example, Vietnam/Hong Kong, Thailand/Burma, Sri Lanka and Australia. Development induced displacement will draw on the literature about dams in India, the Mekong and other non-hydro projects. The international humanitarian response will focus on, among other places, East Timor, Indonesia and the Pacific.