A new IMISCOE Standing Committee on Forced Migration and Refugees was created in July 2024!
From the early days of IMISCOE, forced migration and refugee studies have been a key part of the network. Some matters were covered by various other IMISCOE Standing Committees. And yet, strangely, there was no current structure, no dedicated Standing Committee to reflect the field of forced migration and refugee studies. Almost in parallel, a number of IMISCOE members and the IMISCOE Network Office developed plans for addressing this gap. As a result, during the meeting of the IMISCOE Board of Directors that took place in July 2024, a new IMISCOE Standing Committee devoted to forced migration and refugees was officially created. We are proud to note that within three months the SC FMR already attracted almost 100 members! We quickly realised that setting up a new SC requires quite a bit of work so that it will take a while to arrange the first activities and see the first results- so, please, bear with us and meanwhile follow us on the IMISCOE communication channels.
This new Standing Committee seeks to consolidate forced migration studies within IMISCOE. It shall aim to critically reflect on the conventional dichotomy of voluntary / forced migration, avoid silo-isation of forced migration studies and instead seek debates across various fields and themes. The Standing Committee shall serve as an interdisciplinary forum for debates, research and dissemination on matters to do with or relevant for forced migration. Forced migration and refugee shall be understood in an inclusive menner and therefore in a broad sense covering a wide range of theoretical, normative and methodological approaches, a wide range of types of forced migration as well as immobility, where deemed relevant, and a wide range of fields, actors and the individuals involved. We strive for global coverage and considers affairs in the Global South, Global East and Global North. The SC shall in particular value and support approaches, geographies and methods that have been under-represented so far; indeed, we aim to analyse our membership and the research conducted and on that basis develop a dedicated outreach strategy to identify and address knowledge and network gaps. The Standing Committee shall also be inclusive with regards to its membership. Notably, it supports the pledge made by various actors at the 2023 Global Refugee Forum to promote and realise equitable partnerships with colleagues in the Global South and Global East.
Our objectives are to promote generating knowledge and thorough understanding of all dimensions of forced migration; to delineate the distinctiveness of forced migration studies while simultaneously mainstreaming them within migration/mobility studies and highlighting the overlap; to link forced migration studies with studies of other fields (conflict, climate change, governance, human rights, genders, racism, border studies, health etc.); to liaise with other IMISCOE SCs; to encourage taking stock of knowledge and promote addressing knowledge gaps and possible underlying biases; to promote the ethically sound study of forced migration; to create visibility to the topic and study of forced migration and refugees within other already existing national and international associations, networks and social media groups (e.g. IASFM, GAIN, NWFF, GER-RAB, GAR, CARFMS etc.) and to take measures to ensure we have active participation from (a) the Global South and Global East, (b) of colleagues of different disciplines, (c) colleagues at different stages of their careers (d) and researchers with experiences of forced migration.
The current governance body consists of a chair (Franck Duvell, IMIS), a co-chair (Marta Jaroszewicz, CMR) and coordinators for membership (Heidrun Bohnet, Danube University), communication (Ceri Oeppen, SCMR, Daniela de Bono, UM), events (Eveliina Lyytinen, MIF), embedding SC FMR within IMISCOE (Zeynep Yanasmayan, DeZIM), refugee led organisations (Gustavo de la Orden Bosch, DEUSTO and Claire Dorrity, UCC).
Our current activities concentrate on getting the SC off the ground, fill vacant roles and prepare for the next IMISCOE Spring and Annual Conferences.
For the moment, we are specifically calling for expressions of interest for a second co-chair from the Global South, for various co-coordinators and, most urgently for a PhD representative.