Education Action’s REFUGEES INTO SCHOOLS project supports refugees to visit schools in London and help children and young people understand the impact of conflict and why people are forced to flee their countries.
Through getting involved in schools, refugees will have opportunities to learn about education in England. They will also gain valuable skills and experience. Some refugees may also find this experience useful if they want to pursue a career in education.
For schools and local authorities wishing to be partners with the project, REFUGEES INTO SCHOOLS will make a useful contribution to assisting schools in developing a culturally inclusive curriculum, and support work that contributes to the duty to promote community cohesion.
All refugees who volunteer to participate in the project will be provided with:
Training
Resources and materials
Guidance and support from experienced mentors
Help with travel expenses.
There is an information and training day for refugees taking part in the project:
Date: Friday 27 February 2009
Time: 10.00am – 3.00pm
Venue: Shelter Training, Unit 13, City Forum, 250 City Road, LondonEC1V 2PU
Places must be booked beforehand.
For more information. or to indicate a wish to take part in REFUGEES INTO SCHOOLS, please get in touch with Education Action by phone or email.
Information flyers (for schools and local authorities, and for refugees interested in taking part) can also be obtained by emailing the project coordinator, Angela Taylor: amt1314@btinternet.com
What is freedom of movement?Who has it, who doesn’t?What effect is climate change and global recession having?How can we take action together?
Sunday 15th Feb -2.30pm Open to all - Free/donation
Venue:The Armada, Armada Place, Bristol
Directions: Off Stokes Croft, red brick building, round the corner
from Cafe Kino on the left.
3pm – 4.30 Workshop (Break with T and Cake)
5.00-5.45 Action Planning-Bristol Urban Convergence, September 09′
5.45-6.00 Evaluation and Close
We are involved with Bristol No Borders (working
on issues of migration and asylum) and Bristol Rising Tide (taking action on root causes of climate
change) and are developing a new popular
education project together. Popular education
involves creative ways to learn about issues and
come up with collective plans for action. We hope
to take this to a range of groups but at this first
event we would welcome your input and feedback.
A Trapese Popular Education Collective Project
We will be hosting a number of seminars and workshops during the course of the project, as well as a final conference and exhibition in 2010. More information about these events will be posted on this page, so please visit regularly. In the meantime, if you would like to be involved, please visit our Contact page to be added to our mailing list.
Forthcoming events
Inter-University Postcolonial Seminar Series: Spring 2009
Making Britain: South Asian Resistances, 1870–1950
This series of seminars co-ordinated by Dr Sumita Mukherjee and Dr Rehana Ahmed will be addressing various forms of resistance by South Asians in Britain during this period. It forms part of the regular series organised by the Open University Postcolonial Research Group in association with the Institute of English Studies)
Venue: NG15 (North Block, Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E) Time: 17.30 – 19.00
Tuesday 13 January Alex Tickell ‘“Horrorism” in the Heart of Empire: Theorising Violence and History at India House, 1905–1909’
Alex Tickell is Senior Lecturer in English at the University of Portsmouth. He has published widely on early Indian fiction in English, contemporary authors such as Arundhati Roy, and Indian literature and Hindu nationalism. He has also researched aspects of literature and terror, and is currently working on an AHRC-funded monograph project titled ‘The Massacre at Night: Violence, Terrorism and Insurgency in Indian Writing, 1830–1947’.
Tuesday 27 January Anne Kershen ‘The Alien in the Aliens Act: Defining the Outsider’
Anne Kershen has been Director of the Centre for the Study of Migration at Queen Mary, University of London, since its foundation in 1995. Based in the Department of Politics, she is currently Director of the Masters in Migration and Masters in Migration and Law programmes. She has published widely, her most recent book being Strangers, Aliens and Asians: Huguenots, Jews and Bangladeshis in Spitalfields 1660–2000 (Routledge, 2005). She is currently researching the impact of post-accession migrants on communities with no history of previous immigrant settlement, her spatial focus being Shropshire.
Tuesday 3 February Jacqueline Jenkinson ‘The Role of South Asian Sailors in the 1919 Port Riots’
Jacqueline Jenkinson is Lecturer in History at Stirling University. Her two main research interests are the social history of medicine, on which she has written several books – the most recent being Scotland’s Health: 1919–1948 (Peter Lang, 2002) – and the history of minority ethnic populations in Britain. She has published several articles on the 1919 port riots; the most recent, on the riot in Glasgow, appeared in the journal Twentieth Century British History in January 2008. Her book on the riots, Black 1919: Riots, Racism and Resistance in Post-Colonial Britain, is published by Liverpool University Press in March 2009.
Tuesday 10 February Prabhjot Parmar ‘Strategies of Containment: Censorship and the Indian Soldiers in Britain During the First World War’
Prabhjot Parmar is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) postdoctoral fellow in the Department of English at Royal Holloway, University of London. Recovering the marginalized experiences of Indian soldiers who fought in the First World War, her postdoctoral project examines their letters as cultural artifacts within the context of war testimonies. She is the co-editor of When Your Voice Tastes Like Home: Immigrant Women Write and has published articles on the literary and cinematic representations of Partition. Currently she is teaching at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.
Tuesday 24 February Michèle Barrett ‘“Sending them Missing”: Race, Religion and the Imperial War Graves Commission’
Michèle Barrett is Professor of Modern Literary and Cultural Theory at Queen Mary, University of London. She is a noted social and cultural theorist, with expertise in ideology, aesthetics, gender, and post-structuralist ideas. Her recent work has focused on the literature and art of the First World War period. She has been awarded a Leverhulme Fellowship to study shell shock, and a British Academy grant to research the colonial politics of commemoration. Casualty Figures: Five Survivors of the First World War (Verso, 2008) is her most recent book.
'Detained Lives' Campaign Launch Date: Thursday 29th January 2009
A launch event for London Detainee Support Group's research report, Detained Lives, on the human impact of indefinite detention.
Thursday 29 January 2009, 6.30-9.30pm
Human Rights Action Centre, Amnesty International UK, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA
Speakers include:
Alasdair McKenzie - Doughty Street Chambers
Alison Harvey - Director, Immigration Law Practitioners Association
Clifton Cameron - Published poet and ex-long-term detainee
Jerome Phelps - London Detainee Support Group
London Detainee Support Group will be launching their research report on the human impact of indefinite detention on 29 January 2009, at 6:30pm at the Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre in London.
Many people who cannot be deported are being detained for periods of years, yet there is very little wider awareness of the issue. The event will launch the 'Detained Lives' campaign, calling for the UK to adopt a maximum time limit on detention, in line with the rest of Europe.
Alasdair McKenzie of Doughty Street Chambers and Alison Harvey, Director of the Immigration Law Practitioners Association, will be discussing the civil liberties implications of this policy and how voluntary groups and lawyers can work together to challenge it.
Published poet and ex-long-term detainee Clifton Cameron will be performing some of his most recent poetry about detention.
An exhibition will also mark 15 years of LDSG's work in Harmondsworth and Colnbrook detention centres.
The report is based on 24 in-depth interviews with current detainees who have been held for more than a year. LDSG's research marks the first wide-ranging investigation of detainees' experiences of the UK's policy of indefinite detention of people who cannot be deported.
"When I think about the future, it's just a blank, a dark black page. I just think about it as if I'm doing a life sentence" - Liban from Somalia
"My friend, I feel that I'm locked in a room and the keys are lost. I'm disconnected from life." - Ahmed from Darfur
"When I was a (child) soldier, I see nasty injuries, people died, I see a lot of things but this is the first time I've felt... I think I've got something wrong with my mental". - Daniel from Ethiopia,
*Please RSVP by email to jerome@ldsg.org.uk if you would like to reserve a place.
This event is free and open to all members of the public.
See attached flyer for more information
London Detainee Support Group http://www.ldsg.org.uk Detained Lives http://www.detainedlives.org
A conference on refugees and migrants - 27 January 2009
A half day conference to discuss new developments and opportunities for further work in support of refugees and migrants in the Yorkshire and Humber Region.
Tuesday 27 January 2009, 9.30-2pm
St George's Hall, Great George Street, LeedsLS1 3BR
This event is free, but attendees must register in advance. For registration details and a conference agenda visit: www.leedsmet.ac.uk/refugeesmigrants, or alternatively email: c.mcosh@leedsmet.ac.uk, or phone: Cara McCosh on 0113 812 9295 to ask for a registration form. This event will be of interest to policy makers, education and skills providers, funders, investors, employer organisations and others working with refugees and migrants.
Events listing is provided for information only. Inclusion in this listing should not be taken to imply that the Institute of Race Relations supports an event or is involved in organising it.
A meeting examining issues relating to race, class and education, including empowerment and exclusion, and alternative approaches to teaching Black History.
Saturday 31 January 2009, 2pm
West London Trade Union Centre, 33-35 High Street, ActonW3 6ND
Speakers include activists, teachers, asylum seekers, and anti-deportation campaigners.
Refreshments will be available. Event organised by London Development Education Centre, 293-299 Kentish Town Road, LondonNW5 2TJ. For further information, email: londec@hotmail.com or call: 07944 565 620. Tube: ActonTown, Acton Central BR. Buses: 607, 70, 207, 266, E3. Events listing is provided for information only. Inclusion in this listing should not be taken to imply that the Institute of Race Relations supports an event or is involved in organising it.
Slavery, Migration, and Contemporary Bondage in Africa
23rd-25th of September 2009
This is a revised call for papers and participation for an
interdisciplinary conference on 'Slavery, Migration, and Contemporary
Bondage in Africa', to take place at the Wilberforce Institute for the
study of Slavery and Emancipation, Hull, United Kingdom. This conference
will explore linkages between the history of slavery and migration in
Africa and contemporary forms of bondage, such as child labour,
'classical' slavery, child soldiers, descent based discrimination, and
human trafficking and the exploitation of migrants. Eight travel
bursaries are available for early career scholars based in and/or from
Africa.
nterested researchers are invited to submit paper proposals based on
one or more of the following themes:
Governance
* Similarities and differences in the (ab)use of labour: How have
pre-Colonial, Colonial and Post-Colonial political authorities sought to
organize and regulate labour in Africa?
* Evolving patterns of migration and movement control: How have
various models of political authority sought to regulate, promote and/or
restrict the movement of peoples in Africa?
* Institutional influences and colonial practises: On what terms
can we connect colonial budgets, 'native' policies, middle rank
administration and forced labour practices?
Social and Economic Formations
* Innovation in exploitation: What factors account for the
emergence and/or further expansion of new forms of bondage following the
legal abolition of slavery across continental Africa?
* The persistence of pre-colonial practices: On what terms can
historical practices be connected to current problems, such as child
labour, descent based discrimination, and/or debt-bondage?
The Past in the Present
* Historical parallels with contemporary problems: What can the
history of slavery, migration and colonial rule in Africa tell us about
contemporary developments and future prospects in Africa?
* The legacies of historical slave systems: How has the history of
slavery, migration and colonialism influenced contemporary patterns of
movement and labour exploitation within Africa?
* Repairing historical wrongs in Africa: What avenues are
available to repair past injustices?
Each of these themes invite scholars who specialise in particular issues
and events to reflect upon the broader significance of their field of
expertise to both the broader history and contemporary prospects of
Africa.
Submission Information
To submit a paper proposal, please send abstracts of up to 300 words,
together with a current curriculum vitae to wise@hull.ac.uk, by the
13th of March 2009. The organizers of the conference have also secured
eight bursaries for early career scholars from/based in Africa. These
cover flights, accommodation and conference registration. Applicants for
bursaries should apply through the same procedure outlined above,
indicating that they wish to be considered for a bursary. Final papers
of between 6000 and 8000 words will be expected by the 31st of July
2009. The registration form for the conference will be available in
March 2009. Requests for additional information should be directed to
either Joel Quirk at j.quirk@hull.ac.uk or Darshan Vigneswaran at
darshan.vigneswaran@wits.ac.za. The organizers of the conference plan on
publishing a selection of revised conference papers as a special issue
of the journal Slavery and Abolition.
= = = = = = = =
Call for Papers:
Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism
(CRONEM), University of Surrey, UK
AHRC Diasporas, Migration and Identities Programme / CRONEM Conference
2009
Diasporas, Migration and Identities: Crossing Boundaries, New Directions
University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
11-12 June 2009
'Diasporas, migration and identities <http://www.diasporas.ac.uk/> ' has
been the subject of a major national research programme funded by the
Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) in the UK since 2005. Its
central concerns have also been at the heart of the work of the Centre
for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism (CRONEM).
The aim of this international conference is to examine the past and
present impact of diasporas and migration on nation, community, identity
and subjectivity, culture and the imagination, place and space, emotion,
politics, law and values.
Confirmed speakers:
* Ien Ang, Professor of Cultural Studies, University of West
Sydney, Australia
* Robin Cohen, Professor of Development Sociology, University of
Oxford / Honorary Professor at the University of Warwick, UK
* Peggy Levitt, Associate Professor, Wellesley College, USA
* Ato Quayson, Professor of English and Director of the Centre for
Diaspora and Transnational Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada
We invite abstracts that address the following themes in the UK and
beyond:
* Migration, settlement and diaspora: modes, stages and forms
* Representation, performance, discourse and language
* Subjectivity, emotion and identity
* Objects, practices and places
* Beliefs, values and laws
* The role of youth in relationship to diasporas, migration and
identities
* Diasporic economics and labour markets
* The recognition of multiple origins and mixedness
* The politics of immigration and integration
* Public opinion and public policy
* Ethnic identity politics
For more registration and submission forms, please visit
http://www.surrey.ac.uk/Arts/CRONEM/index.htm The closing date for abstracts is 2 February 2009.
****************************************
Mirela Dumic
Centre for Research on Nationalism, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism
(CRONEM)
Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences
21 AC 05
Post Box I4
University of Surrey Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH
E-mail: m.dumic@surrey.ac.uk Tel: +44 (0) 1483 682365
www.surrey.ac.uk/arts/cronem
= = = = = = = =
Refugee Studies Centre Short Courses
January-March 2009
PSYCHOSOCIAL RESPONSES TO CONFLICT AND FORCED MIGRATION 7-8 February 2009
This two-day course examines mental health and psychosocial support in
emergency and protracted refugee settings. It invites practitioners and
theorists to struggle with complex intercultural issues associated with
psychosocial programming.
Instructors:
Dr Michael Wessells, Senior Advisor on Child Protection for Christian
Children's Fund, Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at
Columbia University, and Professor of Psychology at Randolph-Macon College.
Dr Maryanne Loughry, Associate Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service
Australia, Research Associate of the Refugee Studies Centre, University
of Oxford and Visiting Scholar at Boston College. Both presenters were
members of the Psychosocial Working Group, an international academic and
practitioner group committed to the development of knowledge and best
practice in the field of psychosocial interventions in complex emergencies.
PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 28 February-1 March 2009 This two-day course places the Palestinian refugee case study within the
broader context of the international human rights regime. It examines,
within a human rights framework, the policies and practices of Middle
Eastern states as they impinge upon Palestinian refugees. Through a mix
of lectures, working group exercises and interactive sessions,
participants engage actively and critically with the contemporary
debates in the human rights movement and analyse the specific context of
Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the
West Bank, Gaza and Israel) in light of the debates.
Instructors:
Dr Dawn Chatty, University Reader in Anthropology and Forced Migration
and Deputy Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.
Leila Hilal , independent researcher currently focusing on assessing
national protection frameworks in the Middle East, former Legal Adviser
on Refugees to the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department in Ramallah, West
Bank. Former Visiting Research Fellow at the RSC.
Lena El-Malak , doctoral candidate in Public International Law at the
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and a
member of the Massachusetts State Bar.
For further information, please contact: Katherine Salahi, Outreach
Programme Manager
Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development
University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 270723 Fax: +44 (0) 1865 270297
E-mail: katherine.salahi@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Forced Journeys: Artists in Exile in Britain c1933 – 45
The Ben Uri Gallery, 108a Boundary Road, London, NW8 0RH, England 20 January – 19 April
This exhibition will survey more than 80 works by over 20 artists exiled to this country; those included will range from the more established Adler, Meidner, Schwittersand Uhlman to the less known Eisenmayer, Mayer-Marton and Frankfurther.The exhibition is held in conjunction with, and as part of, the Courtauld Institute’s new MA course led by Dr Shulamith Behr and Visiting Professor Sander Gilman of Emory University, Atlanta USA.
The 6th Annual Forced Migration Student Conference organised by postgraduates and hosted by the Refugee Research Centre at the University of East London on Saturday the 25th and Sunday the 26th of April.
Living a life in the margins or a marginalised life is a recurrent trope in the field of forced migration studies. Throughout the whole refugee experience from persecution and flight to settlement and integration, refugees find themselves pushed to the margins and often excluded. The marginalisation of various categories of forced migrants brings into question the effectiveness of protection regimes. Livelihood strategies of forced migrants are formulated at the very margins of society, some of whom are compelled to do so 'outside' the law. How do refugees negotiate identities that help them to combat social exclusion? Adopting a reflexive gaze, as researchers and aspiring academics we must ask ourselves how considerable and pertinent are the dialogues of practitioners and academics? Is academia to be confined to the sidelines or can it be more engaged with forced migrants? In which ways can the study of forced migration be related to wider global issues?
The conference invites papers that fit within the broad theme of the conference and forced migration more generally. We solicit papers that converge on the following sub-themes of the conference:
1) Conversations and interdisciplinary dialogues (scholarly, policy, practitioners, NGOs)
2) Sites of liminality and change (state; regional; local, trans-national; familial; individual)
3) Conversations in issue-areas (development; human rights; migration; security; post-conflict)
4) Sites of experience (gender; flight; re-settlement; camps; exclusion)
Postgraduate students (Masters/MPhil/PhD) are invited to submit abstracts for papers (no more than 250 words) and a personal profile (no more than 100 words). They should be sent, with full contact details, by 4pm on 26th January 2009 to:fmconference2009@googlemail.com
Beyond camps and forced labour: current international research on
survivors of Nazi persecution.
Third international multidisciplinary conference to be held at the
Imperial War Museum London, 7-9 January 2009
Further information and a registration form are now available at:
http://www.iwm.org.uk/BCFL <http://www.iwm.org.uk/conferenceBCFL> 2009
Around 100 speakers from all over the world will present and discuss the
latest results of their research on all groups of survivors of Nazi
persecution. These include - but are not limited to - Jews, Gypsies,
Slavonic peoples, homosexuals, Soviet prisoners of war, political
dissidents, members of underground movements, the disabled, the
so-called 'racially impure', and forced labourers.
Join us in London!
Suzanne Bardgett, Imperial War Museum, London David Cesarani, Royal
Holloway, University of London Jessica Reinisch, Birkbeck College London
Johannes-Dieter Steinert, University of Wolverhampton
= = = = =
REFUGEE STUDIES CENTRE SHORT COURSES January-March 2009
NEW COURSE: STATELESSNESS 9-11 January 2009
This two and a half day course has been devised by RSC staff member
Jean-Francois Durieux, in close co-operation with the Statelessness Unit
of UNHCR. It is intended for experienced practitioners and graduate
researchers. Parliamentarians and staff, members of the judiciary and
the bar, government officials, personnel of intergovernmental and
non-governmental organisations, advocates and stateless persons are
welcome to apply, personal interest and commitment being the key
criteria for participation.
Resource persons are a mix of experts in particular disciplines; area
specialists; and staff of UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva:
Dr Brad Blitz: Reader in Political Geography, Oxford Brookes University;
Jean-François Durieux: Departmental Lecturer in International Refugee
and Human Rights Law, RSC;
Dr Matthew Gibney: Reader in Politics and Forced Migration and Elizabeth
Colson Lecturer in Forced Migration, RSC;
Stefanie Grant: Harrison Grant Solicitors, Adviser Equal Rights Trust;
Mark Manly: Head Statelessness Unit, UNHCR Geneva;
Abbas Shiblak: Research Associate, RSC; founder & first director of the
Palestinian Refugee and Diaspora Centre.
PSYCHOSOCIAL RESPONSES TO CONFLICT AND FORCED MIGRATION 7-8 February 2009
This two-day course examines mental health and psychosocial support in
emergency and protracted refugee settings. It invites practitioners and
theorists to struggle with complex intercultural issues associated with
psychosocial programming.
Instructors:
Dr Michael Wessells, Senior Advisor on Child Protection for Christian
Children's Fund, Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at
Columbia University, and Professor of Psychology at Randolph-Macon College.
Dr Maryanne Loughry, Associate Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service
Australia, Research Associate of the Refugee Studies Centre, University
of Oxford and Visiting Scholar at Boston College. Both presenters were
members of the Psychosocial Working Group, an international academic and
practitioner group committed to the development of knowledge and best
practice in the field of psychosocial interventions in complex emergencies.
PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND INTERNATIONAL LAW 28 February-1 March 2009 This two-day course places the Palestinian refugee case study within the
broader context of the international human rights regime. It examines,
within a human rights framework, the policies and practices of Middle
Eastern states as they impinge upon Palestinian refugees. Through a mix
of lectures, working group exercises and interactive sessions,
participants engage actively and critically with the contemporary
debates in the human rights movement and analyse the specific context of
Palestinian refugees in the Middle East (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, the
West Bank, Gaza and Israel) in light of the debates.
Instructors:
Dr Dawn Chatty, University Reader in Anthropology and Forced Migration
and Deputy Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.
Leila Hilal , independent researcher currently focusing on assessing
national protection frameworks in the Middle East, former Legal Adviser
on Refugees to the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department in Ramallah, West
Bank. Former Visiting Research Fellow at the RSC.
Lena El-Malak , doctoral candidate in Public International Law at the
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and a
member of the Massachusetts State Bar.
For further information, please contact:
Katherine Salahi, Outreach Programme Manager
Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford Department of International Development
University of Oxford, 3 Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TB, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0) 1865 270723 Fax: +44 (0) 1865 270297
E-mail: katherine.salahi@qeh.ox.ac.uk
A current awareness service highlighting web research and information relating to refugees, IDPs and forced migration; provided on behalf of the Refugee Archives at the UEL by Paul Dudman.The Refugee Archives at UEL are a growing resource for the study of forced migration and the refugee. Further details can be found on our website.
