Social Science Research Council

The purpose of this project is to explore how an international human rights framework can be used in collaborations between scholars and practitioners in international humanitarian and human rights organizations to design research that can contribute to policies and programs that will enhance the protection of  forced migrants in Africa.

The project responds to the challenges felt by humanitarian, refugee, and human rights organizations who have found the definitions, laws, institutions, and strategies of the refugee and humanitarian regimes that were developed in post-World War II Europe correspond awkwardly, at best, to the contemporary diversity of forced migrants—including the internally displaced—who have been forcibly moved by ethnic conflicts, civil war, collapsed states, economic development, environmental disasters, and other "complex emergencies."

Current research is focusing on Citizenship and Displacement in the Great Lakes Region of Eastern Africa. The project, which is being undertaken in collaboration with the International Refugee Rights Initiative and with civil society and academic partners in the region, focuses on linkages between conflicts over citizenship and belonging and forced displacement. In a series of case studies in countries throughout the region, we are using a human rights framework to illuminate how social and legal identities affect the experiences of forced migrants before, during, and after their displacement. Findings from the research are intended to facilitate the development of regional policies to promote social and political re-integration by reconciling differences between socio-cultural identities and national citizenship rights that perpetuate conflict and social exclusion. Initial funding for research on the resolution of citizenship status for Burundian Refugees in Tanzania was provided by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.

Earlier research examined Forced Migration and Human Rights in West Africa, focusing on the case of internally and internationally displaced Sierra Leoneans. Research was undertaken in collaboration with staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, CARE, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First), International Rescue Committee, and the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. Funding was provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

The Forced Migration project is staffed by Josh DeWind.