More Heat than Light: The Challenges of Measuring Forced Migration

2017 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 38-64
Author(s):  
Vickie Frater ◽  
Phil Orchard
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displacement Monitoring ◽  
International Organisations ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Monitoring Centre ◽  
Forced Migrants ◽  
Institutional Challenges

Counting forced migrants runs into a number of hurdles related to their classification, to their experience of flight, and to the need to use myriad sources of data from governments, international organisations, and non-governmental organisations. To complicate matters, three organisations have mandates to count different groups – the un Relief Works Agency (unrwa) for Palestine refugees, the un High Commission for Refugees (unhcr) for refugees more generally, and the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (idmc) for internally displaced persons (idps). All three face a range of common challenges in carrying out this vital aspect of their respective mandates. These include conceptual challenges, political concerns, competing interests and access. They also face their own political and institutional challenges, leading to individualised approaches and variance across and even within the organisations. In spite of these complexities, there have been significant improvements in the reliability of data and new technologies and registration methods are providing a way forward to a better understanding of forced migrant movements.

A Spatial Model of Internal Displacement and Forced Migration

2020 ◽  
pp. 002200272095847
Author(s):  
Jon Echevarria-Coco ◽  
Javier Gardeazabal
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Model ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Geographical Proximity ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Country Size ◽  
The World ◽  
Displaced People

This article develops a spatial model of internal and external forced migration. We propose a model reminiscent of Hotelling’s spatial model in economics and Schelling’s model of segregation. Conflict is modeled as a shock that hits a country at certain location and generates displacement of people located near the shock’s location. Some displaced people cross a border, thus becoming refugees, while others remain as Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). The model delivers predictions about how the fractions of a country’s population that become refugees and IDPs ought to be related with the intensity of the shock, country size, terrain ruggedness and the degree of geographical proximity of the country with respect to the rest of the world. The predictions of the model are then tested against real data using a panel of 161 countries covering the period 1995-2016. The empirical evidence is mostly in line with the predictions of the model.

Outsiders in their own nation: Electoral violence and politics of ‘internal’ displacement in Kenya

2017 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-240
Author(s):  
Roseanne Njiru
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
Human Security ◽  
Land Rights ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Nation State ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Electoral Violence ◽  
National Boundaries

This article foregrounds the overlapping continuum of local to global fault lines that structure the human security experiences of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kenya. Drawing on data from the 2007–2008 electoral violence-induced displacement of ethnic minorities in the Rift Valley region, the article discusses how the intersections of ethnicity, national politics, land rights, and global humanitarian politics on displacement positioned IDPs as outsiders in their own nation and how this shapes their ability to live secure lives. By so doing, the study transcends nation-state border focused forced migration to question the relevance of dichotomizing IDPs and refugees, which shapes their protection. The author argues for the need to critically examine the less visible and fluid borders which displace people from their homelands in order to address the human security of all who are forced to flee from their homes regardless of whether they have crossed national boundaries.

A Belated Awakening: National and International Responses to the Internal Displacement of Kurds in Turkey

2005 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 5-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bilgin Ayata ◽  
Deniz Yükseker
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Border Crossing ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
The Past ◽  
Donor States

Internal displacement has replaced the flows of border-crossing refugees as the major form of forced migration across the world in the past two decades. International organizations seek to have a central role in providing assistance to internally displaced persons (IDPs) although this phenomenon comes under the traditional realm of state sovereignty, in contrast to the refugee regime, which is part of international law. The evolving international IDP regime has triggered policy and scholarly debates about various aspects of state responsibility and international assistance. On one hand, when states fail to provide protection to the displaced, the decision to take international action is often selective and depends to a large extent on the balance of geopolitical interests of powerful donor states. On the other hand, extant international humanitarian assistance practices also face criticism for having created new modes of power over displaced groups.

scholarly journals The impact of internal displacement on the refugee migration crisis

KPGT_dlutz_1 ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 245-274
Author(s):  
Eveline Vieira Brigido ◽  
Fabiola Wust Zibetti ◽  
Liton Lanes Pilau Sobrinho
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Migration ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Migration Crisis ◽  
The Impact

This article aims to analyze the potential impact of forced internal displacement on international refugee migration, considering the relation between internal and international migration: Are today’s IDPs tomorrow’s refugees? It is likely that many refugees were forcibly displaced in their own countries before applying for asylum. Therefore, to develop this investigation, this article is divided into three sections. In the first section, it presents a general approach about internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, including definitions and the bases of its protection under international law. Afterwards, it analyzes data on international migration and on internal displacement. At the end, these data are compared and possible link between internal and international forced migration is analyzed.

Three rationalities for making sense of internal displacement in Ukraine

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Greta Lynn Uehling
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Forced Migration ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Territorial Disputes ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Ethnographic Fieldwork ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Internally Displaced Person ◽  
Forced Migrants

Abstract The territorial disputes between Russian Federation and Ukraine over Crimea and Donbas have led to the forcible internal displacement of at least 1.6 million people. While Although the literature on forced migration and internal displacement have been framed predominantly in terms of trauma and disenfranchisement (IOM 2018; Dunn 2018), this article argues that a fuller range of Internally Displaced Person (IDP) subjectivities can be made intelligible by considering the rationalities organizing IDP survival. Based on a comparative analysis of 155 interviews with IDPs from Crimea and Donbas, the article demonstrates that forced displacement is more heterogenous than has previously been allowed. I theorize this diversity by using analytics of governmentality to examine the logics or ‘rationalities’ used to make sense of forced migration. The conceptual tools offered by studies of governmentality are ideal for this case because they overlap with themes that predominated in data collected during ethnographic fieldwork in Ukraine between 2015 and 2017: agency, responsibility, and freedom. The article contributes a framework for comparing IDP subjectivities that encompasses diversity and provides a new vocabulary for describing the strategic efforts forced migrants exert to mend their lives.

scholarly journals Justice and Internal Displacement

2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172110076
Author(s):  
Jamie Draper
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
The Status ◽  
Internally Displaced Person ◽  
Normative Status

This article develops a normative theory of the status of ‘internally displaced persons’. Political theorists working on forced migration have paid little attention to internally displaced persons, but internally displaced persons bear a distinctive normative status that implies a set of rights that its bearer can claim and correlate duties that others owe. This article develops a practice-based account of justice in internal displacement, which aims to answer the questions of who counts as an internally displaced person and what is owed to internally displaced persons (and by whom). The first section addresses the question of who counts as an internally displaced person by offering an interpretation of the conditions of non-alienage and involuntariness. The second section articulates an account of what is owed to internally displaced persons that draws on and refines the idea of ‘occupancy rights’. The third section sets out an account of the role of the international community in supplementing the protection of internally displaced persons by their own states.

scholarly journals Forced migration and internally displaced persons: Latin America and Europe

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Leila Bijos
Keyword(s):  
Forced Migration ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Environment Change ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Political Conflicts ◽  
Durable Solutions ◽  
Forced Movement

The aim of this research is to analyze immigration and internal displacement focusing on human rights. The analysis will concentrate on conflict induced internal displacement, causes of internal displacement due to environment change, natural disasters, which are in mostof the cases interlinked with political conflicts, causing the forced movement of families .This is an empirical research which critically will examine the changing dynamics of forced displacement and the challenges faced by affected states and the international community.More specifically, it analyzes key developments in immigration policy and practice; it re-examines the contemporary scenario around durable solutions in a context of policy issues related to internally displaced persons and stateless population.

scholarly journals The Normative Influence of the UN Guiding Principles on the Kampala Convention in the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Francis M Deng ◽  
Romola Adeola
Keyword(s):  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
African Union ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Political Commitment ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
General Terms ◽  
African Context ◽  
Guiding Principles ◽  
Made In

Abstract Over the last several decades, states have demonstrated significant political commitment towards advancing protection and assistance for internally displaced persons. A notable form in which this commitment has been reflected is in the emergence of normative standards, with the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (UNGP) as the guiding text. The fact that the UNGP framework has found expression in the landscape on internal displacement is evidenced at various levels of governance. Within the African context, the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention) draws on pertinent normative frameworks, with the UNGP as the leading framework. While this point is often made in general terms, this article focuses on the extent to which the norm on internal displacement has diffused and expanded within the African context.

Bridging the Accountability Gap in the Protection of Internally Displaced Persons: Non-State Actors Under the Kampala Convention

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Romola Adeola
Keyword(s):  
The State ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
African Union ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Regional Landscape ◽  
State Actors ◽  
Accountability Gap ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Contemporary forms of internal displacement in Africa significantly reflect the emerging footprints of non-state actors on the regional landscape of internal displacement. In recognition of the impact of these actors in the internal displacement context, the African Union Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa (Kampala Convention) specifically obligate states to regulate them in the prevention of arbitrary displacement. This is the central thrust of this article. This article examines the Kampala Convention from the perspective of non-state actors, considering the obligation of the state and the extent to which these actors may be held accountable, in the furtherance of protection and assistance of internally displaced persons (IDP s).

scholarly journals The challenges of internally displaced persons and the way forward: the Nigerian experience

2021 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-36
Author(s):  
Agbo Friday Ojonugwa
Keyword(s):  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Internally Displaced Persons ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Lasting Peace ◽  
History Of ◽  
Displaced People ◽  
The Government ◽  
Peace And Development

Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are usually forced to flee or leave their homes, particularly in situations of armed conflict. They are displaced within their national territories and are generally subject to heightened suffering and vulnerability in many cases. It is also essential to state that the issue of internal displacement has become prominent because of the realisation that peace and reconstruction in conflict-ridden societies depend on the effective settlement and reintegration of displaced persons. Nigeria is a country that has a history of conflicts and displaced people. There has been a challenge in finding lasting peace through the employment of conflict resolution techniques and also the challenge of catering for the welfare of internally displaced persons in the country. However, peace and development without taking into account the settlement, return, and reintegration of IDPs. These desirous objectives are proving quite difficult in Nigeria as many challenges confront the government, policymakers, and humanitarian NGOs in providing the IDPs with their rights and needs. Some of the challenges can easily be overcome while some are more tasking requiring concerted efforts and massive resources to overcome. The aim of this article is to highlights the significant challenges confronting IDPs and provides some solutions to these challenges. In adopting the doctrinal method in discussions, the article finds that enormous challenges abound that confront IDPs in Nigeria, and it finds that there is the need for the government to find urgent solutions to the challenges of IDPs for the wellbeing of IDPs  

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