Critical Reflections on ‘Decolonising’ Humanitarianism and Refugee-Related Research.’
On the 4th of July 2022 the Southern Responses to Displacement project hosted a roundtable discussion on ‘Critical reflections on ‘Decolonising’ Humanitarianism and Refugee-Related Research.’ Speakers at the event drew on a range of historical, geographical and epistemological perspectives to collectively explore the future of humanitarian practice and research, including how to go beyond the fetishization of ‘decolonising’ humanitarianism and refugee-related research. Together, the speakers explored the opportunities and challenges of developing and actively supporting non-hegemonic ways of producing knowledge in relation to displacement, and the extent to which, and with what effects, the ‘decolonisation’ of humanitarianism and refugee-related research is meaningful or tokenistic in nature.
Watch a recording of the event below.
Listen to the event podcast below.
For further information about the event, including a full transcript, click here.
Watch Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Juilano Fiori, Head of Humanitarian Studies at Save the Children and Patricia Daley from Oxford University, discuss ‘Decolonisation in Forced Migration and Humanitarian Response.’
Speakers reflected on Eurocentrism, anti-colonial thinking, and the importance of de-colonising aid, examining how humanitarianism takes a ‘Western’ approach and what that means for the kind of aid offered in the ‘Global South’?
You can watch a recording of the discussion below:
In this seminar, which is part the Yale PRFDHR Spring 2021 Virtual Seminar Series, Prof. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh traces the different ways that residents of Baddawi refugee camp in North Lebanon have been affected by COVID-19 since March 2020, and how they have been responding to protect themselves and other conflict-affected people in the midst of the pandemic.
Watch the presentation below:
Prof. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh presents on ‘The Ethics and Politics of Representation’: On 16 March 2021, Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh spoke about ‘The Ethics and Politics of Representation’ at the Power and the Politics in/of Ethnographic Research Seminar Series, hosted by University College London.
You can watch the presentation here.
Listen to Dr. Estella Carpi interviews Asst. Prof. Portia Owusu, author of ‘Spectres from the Past. Slavery and the Politics of ‘History’ in West African and African-American Literature.’
In their interview, Dr. Carpi and Asst. Prof. Owusu discuss how indigenous narratives and histories of slavery have been erased from the ‘grand narratives’ of traditional teaching of forced migration history and how, although erased, these histories and lived experiences of slavery are still evident in the inequalities and discrimination experienced in Black communities today.
You can listen to the podcast below:
Read the transcript here
Webpages
To learn more about local community experiences of and responses to displacement from Syria, also with views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, please visit the Refugee Hosts website.
Southern Responses to Displacement 