Deportation
A lot of work in Forced Migration Studies focuses on questions of entrance and admission: Who should states allow into their territories? How long can these arrivals stay and under what conditions? Yet equally important is the topic of removal. What happens when we switch our focus to the plight of those individuals who are…
Kelly Greenhill
Kelly Greenhill is an International Relations and Security Studies scholar whose research focuses on state foreign and defence policy. In particular she looks at ‘new security challenges’, including the use of migration as a political weapon. Greenhill argues that the forced movement of displaced persons is often turned into a foreign policy instrument by states…
Emergency/Crisis
The word ‘refugee’ is very often placed next to words like ‘crisis’ or ‘emergency’. Through these words, our attention is called to dramatic events that have forced people to flee their homes and search for shelter elsewhere – perhaps the fall of an old regime, the rise of a new regime, the outbreak of war…
Arash Abizadeh
Arash Abizadeh is a political philosopher who looks at democratic theory (examining the definition and meaning of the concept of democracy). Some of his most interesting work asks whether democratic states can justify their use of immigration controls that exclude potential immigrants. Democratic states often argue that they should be able to control who can…
Mobility
Today we understand the international system to be made up of separate, sovereign nation-states. If this system functions correctly, each individual is recognised internationally through their status as a citizen of one particular state. This way of structuring the international order does not always work – there are millions of people in the world who,…
Gurminder Bhambra
Gurminder Bhambra is a sociologist who works in the field of postcolonial and decolonial theory, taking the perspective that colonialism did not end with formal decolonisation but continues to shape the world today. Bhambra argues that hiding the history of colonialism leads to xenophobic perceptions of migrants and then to immigration policies which exclude these…
Borders
Borders are central to the topic of forced migration. A refugee is defined legally as an individual who has crossed a border to seek protection – if an individual has fled their home but has not crossed a border then they are categorised differently, as an ‘internally displaced person’. Refugees are therefore created by borders…
Chandran Kukathas
Chandran Kukathas is an Australian political theorist whose work explores the topics of liberalism, multiculturalism, and diversity. He examines how states draw up moral distinctions between who can and cannot enter their territories and he asks whether we should see these distinctions as legitimate. Most states, Kukathas claims, create what they see as a ‘moral’…
Asylum
‘Asylum’, at its most basic, refers to a place of safety where a person can find protection and shelter. The term emerged from the Greek word asulos which can broken down into two parts: ‘-a’ meaning ‘without’ and ‘-sulon’ meaning roughly ‘the right to arrest or seize someone’. Asylum can therefore be understood as protection…
Discussing Displacement 