Refugee-run organisations as partners in development

Incorporating refugee-run organisations into development programmes, potentially as implementing partners, provides a means to capitalise on refugees’ skills, reach refugees who may not be affiliated with international organisations, and take steps to close the relief-development gap in protracted refugee situations

Subjects of self-reliance: a critical history of refugees and development

In four empirical chapters spanning three regions of the world in the 20th and 21st centuries, I examine continuities and changes in institutional assistance to foster refugee self-reliance. I employ archival and ethnographic methods to document assistance practices and forms of implementation. I draw upon programme and evaluation reports of the League of Nations and UNHCR as key primary texts due to these institutions’ historical influence and prominence in refugee assistance, as well as private collections by individual assistance actors. I find that efforts to foster refugee self-reliance have largely occurred through development projects targeting both refugees and locals, and even entire regions; in so doing, this assistance has largely treated refugees as workers in need of employment. This ‘refugee self-reliance assistance’, as I term it, has been a main feature of refugee assistance yet has been hitherto neglected in academic scholarship in Refugee Studies as well as International Development. Through a Marxian reading of history I link refugee self-reliance assistance to material interests, outcomes, and changes. Drawing on critical welfare studies, I develop a theoretical framework of ‘international welfare’ and employ the theoretical concepts of instrumentalisation and reserve army of labour to explain how refugee self-reliance has become an instrument that alternately serves and exemplifies changes in social, political, and economic structures. The rhetoric surrounding refugee self-reliance belies shifting interests and their underlying values – whether self-reliance is espoused as an economic imperative, a protection instrument, or a human right, for example. The identification of these linkages has implications for understanding the conditions under which refugee self-reliance is ‘fostered’, for analysing the means through which it is intended to be attained, and its explicit and implicit outcomes. Through this examination, my thesis reveals that refugee self-reliance is not an end in itself but instead a malleable instrument to achieve economic gain, political exploits, and social control.</p

Combining computational and archival methods to study international organizations: refugees and the International Labour Organization, 1919–2015

Researchers studying international organizations have access to growing and varied archives due to digitization efforts. While developments in computational methods confer efficiency gains for examining these materials at scale, they raise concerns about their validity when applied to interpretive tasks in historical settings. In response, we present a general and flexible workflow that uses simple computational techniques from linguistics to enhance archival researchers’ interpretive skills and sensitivity to historical contexts. These techniques also identify patterns that can serve as evidence of causal mechanisms when embedded within strong research designs and theoretical expectations. Then, we demonstrate our mixed-method approach by applying it to a dataset of International Labour Organization’s (ILO) annual reports spanning ninety-three years. Examining the ILO's engagement with refugees as described in these documents, we identify key moments during which refugees have been particularly salient for this organization, and the emergence of new issues on its high-level policy agenda

Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees

This article provides a critical examination of the current extensive promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees. The existing scholarship largely ignores the unsuccessful historical record of international assistance to foster refugees’ self-reliance and fails to discuss its problematic linkages to neoliberalism and the notion of ‘dependency’. The article reveals that the current conceptualisation and practice of self-reliance are largely shaped by the priorities of international donors that aim to create cost-effective exit strategies from longterm refugee populations. The authors argue that where uncritically interpreted and applied, the promotion of self-reliance can result in unintended and undesirable consequences for refugees’ well-being and protection

Counting urban refugees during COVID-19

A case-study from Uganda demonstrates that authorities cannot provide the services and assistance that refugees need if they do not have good data on the refugee population. The COVID-19 pandemic highlights this issue while exacerbating the challenges facing urban refugees

In praise of dependencies: dispersed dependencies and displacement

Reconceiving or reframing the humanitarian consequences of displacement in terms of ‘dispersed dependencies’, a term drawn from the field of mental health, sheds light on the disruptive experience of displacement and on affected individuals’ relations with other displaced people, hosts, states and humanitarian actors. Dependency for a person is neither a problem nor abnormal; independence is in effect about having a viable set of dispersed dependencies. This description, when applied in the context of disaster or displacement, challenges some humanitarian attitudes and offers some positive directions for humanitarian actors who seek to engage in assistance that is sustainable, contextual, and focused on human choice and dignity

Refugee-led social protection: reconceiving refugee assistance

The help and assistance that refugees offer each other is central to the lives of many displaced people. Recognising this allows support for displaced people to be reconceived in more sustaining and empowering ways

Panacea for the refugee crisis? Rethinking the promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees

This article provides a critical examination of the current extensive promotion of ‘self-reliance’ for refugees. The existing scholarship largely ignores the unsuccessful historical record of international assistance to foster refugees’ self-reliance and fails to discuss its problematic linkages to neoliberalism and the notion of ‘dependency’. The article reveals that the current conceptualisation and practice of self-reliance are largely shaped by the priorities of international donors that aim to create cost-effective exit strategies from longterm refugee populations. The authors argue that where uncritically interpreted and applied, the promotion of self-reliance can result in unintended and undesirable consequences for refugees’ well-being and protection

Refugee-led responses in the fight against COVID-19: building lasting participatory models

The formal structures of humanitarian aid are struggling to respond to the consequences of COVID-19. The work of refugee-led organisations is now more relevant than ever, and they need to be far better supported – both now and in the longer term

Syrian refugee-led organisations in Berlin

Many of the approximately 50,000 Syrian refugees living in Berlin continue to depend largely on State assistance; some refugees have also created and found additional support in active, vibrant community initiatives