Refugee Neighbours & Hostipitality

Accounting for the roles of local communities is a key aim of our project, and of the 'Localisation of Aid' agenda more broadly. However, as a result of the mainstream narratives that pervade the literature on conflict-induced displacement, efforts to properly engage with the local have been held back by a failure to fully recognise…

When Local Faith Actors Meet Localisation

Efforts to bring local faith actors (LFAs) into the wider humanitarian apparatus have been a key aim of the localisation of aid agenda. In this piece, Olivia Wilkinson (Director of Research of Refugee Hosts' research partner, the Joint Learning Initiative on Local Faith Communities) argues that there is a need to ensure that such engagements provide space…

Volunteers and Solidarity in Europe’s Refugee Response

Kavita Ramakrishnan and Ludek Stavinoha offer a critical insight into the politics of refugee-volunteer solidarity. These arguments are of interest to the Refugee Hosts project for they illuminate the diverse and complex ways in which often spontaneous, voluntary and local-level initiatives (whether they are in Europe or the Middle East) have been instrumental in challenging the perceived…

Gender, Religion and Humanitarian Responses to Refugees

Major international agencies including the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) have moved towards partnering with faith-based actors to support displaced persons. Despite this, concerns – and suspicions – remain about the nature and impact of faith-based responses to displacement, often stemming from negative assumptions about the relationship between religion and gender. These assumptions…

Advance Notice: Research Fellow Opening for Work on Local Faith Community Engagement

This is an advance notice that early in 2017 Queen Margaret University-Edinburgh's IGHD is likely to be recruiting a Research Fellow for work on the topic of engagement of local faith communities with protection and psychosocial programming. The researcher will work with our growing group of staff working on support of community-based humanitarian and development…