Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh discusses COVID-19 and poverty on Channel 4 News

Refugee Hosts PI Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, on Channel 4 News, discusses how Covid-19 is impacting people living in poverty around the world. Prof. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh highlights the diversity of national and international responses, including by Low and Middle Income Countries. She argues for global solutions based on principles of solidarity to address the global pandemic in…

Sounding Stories, Telling Sounds: Listening with Displacement and Emplacement

This presentation was given by Tom Western at  the Refugee Hosts International Conference as part of Panel 1:  Disrupting Humanitarian Narratives. The presentation puts sound and listening at the centre of forced migration, asking how they inform experiences of displacement and practices of emplacement. Sound is an access point to the agency of people who have crossed borders:…

تضامن اللاجئين مع اللاجئين في الموت والممات

تضامن اللاجئين مع اللاجئين في الموت والموتى من قبل إيلينا فيديان-قاسمية، جامعة كلية لندن (UCL) ، يوسف م. قاسمية، جامعة أكسفورد (University of Oxford) البدّاوي مخيمٌ للاجئين الفلسطينيين في منطقة حضرية على ضواحي طرابلس شمال لبنان. منذ نشوء المخیم في الخمسینات من القرن الماضي، كان مسكناً للفلسطينيين المقيمين وأحفادهم منذ ذلك الحین، وللاجئين الآخرین النازحین…

How to Overcome Religious Prejudice among Refugees

Religious tensions between diverse refugee communities in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon present challenges to those affected by displacement, exposing some to faith-based discrimination. In other instances, (perceived) markers of religious identity expose refugees to discrimination, both from state officials, and members of the host community too. However, as Kat Eghdamian (UCL) argues in this piece (originally…

A Successful Alternative to Refugee Camps: A Greek Squat Shames the EU and NGOs

In light of the limited hospitality offered to refugees and asylum seekers by European states,  local communities, volunteers, faith groups and activists have often acted as key providers of support and solidarity. In this piece, Zareena Grewal (Yale University) demonstrates the important role such local initiatives are playing in Athens and Lesbos, including in spaces such…

Summer Newsletter

Our Summer newsletter is now available to view online. This issue highlights our activities over the summer, as well as our recent Faith and Displacement series, which you can read in full on our website. Please follow the link below for important project updates, including blog highlights and information on recent and forthcoming events: Newsletter…

Athens and the Struggle for a Mobile Commons

In this piece, Tahir Zaman reflects on how new models of citizenship are up-ending the myopia of state-centric responses to displacement. In Athens, a 'mobile commons' is opening up, defined by sharing, solidarity and resistance to a state whose priorities reflect more the interests of international capital than the needs of both refugees and hosts…

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…

Spring Newsletter

Our Spring newsletter is now available to view online. Please follow the link below for information on the project, including blog highlights, updates and information on how you can get involved: 2017 01 Spring If you have any questions, or would like to get involved in the project, please get in touch by visiting our…

‘Travelling Fear’ in Global Context: Exploring Everyday Dynamics of In/Security and Im/Mobility

By Aydan Greatrick and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, University College London This piece puts Trump’s recent “Muslim Ban” (and the exceptional responses to it) in context by focusing on the everyday dynamics of in/security and im/mobility that have long framed the lives of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, including refugees from Syria.…