Refugees and village renewal in Yugoslavia

Using statistics collected by UNHCR and the Serbian government, the paper examines aspects of the refugee problem in FR Yugoslavia whose war-affected population amounted to 646 066 persons in 1996 (a figure that is almost certainly an underestimate). Relatively few refugees will return to their homes even with a political settlement because so many homes are damaged or destroyed. Many people would like to settle in Western Europe and some have already succeeded (especially in Scandinavia where asylum seekers from Former Yugoslavia accounted for 80 percent of the applications in January-September 1993). But regulations are being tightened and asylum seekers are now facing deportation. Housing refugees in FRY is expensive (only 350 refugees got new homes and permanent citizenship in 1994), but some exchanges have been arranged between Serbs arriving from Croatia and Croats established in Vojvodina who are willing to move in the opposite direction. The most promising solution discussed in the paper is resettlement in border villages which have experienced steady depopulation since the Second World War. Houses are available for refurbishment and arable land is cheap. The resettlement of refugee farmers could make an immediate impact on food production and over the longer term there could be sustained economic growth in the context of a newly-constituted Euroregion. Such a strategy would make a virtue out of necessity by helping the refugees and the border regions which have had their potential enhanced by cross-border cooperation. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The changing nature and European perceptions of Europe's refugee problem

Many in Western Europe regard it as being in the grip of a refugee crisis. This paper considers this contention. It describes the main stages in the development of the current refugee crisis and argues that having established the agenda in the 1940s, Western Europe has been able to progressively distance itself from refugee episodes and define them as essentially problems of the Third World. The end of the Cold War and the growth in numbers of spontaneous, rather than quota, refugees have been considerable shocks to the West, which can no longer contain and distance itself from refugee flows. Shock has led Europe to overreact and become myopic in its view of refugee matters. In reality, figures demonstrate that Wetern Europe is not the centre of refugee generation, applications or resettlement. Despite this, governments have taken draconian unilateral and multilateral action to exclude not only Third World asylum seekers but also those from the East.     

‘Any place could be home’: Embedding refugees’ voices into displacement resolution and state refugee policy

This article explores refugees’ views about the ‘durable solutions’ or three Rs – Voluntary Repatriation, Local or Re-Integration and Resettlement – underscoring the need for refugees’ voices to inform policy actions taken on their behalf. Central to discourses on the right to return and the policy practice of voluntary repatriation is the salience accorded the nation-state of which territorial boundaries are an important defining feature. Drawing on ethnographic interviews with Liberian refugees in the Gomoa-Buduburam camp in Ghana, this article elucidates the effects of essentialist assumptions about territory, nation-state, home and enforced repatriation on the rights of refugees. By studying practices around and responses to the so-called solutions to displacement, especially VR, insights are gained into various ways in which space is reproduced and contested by international/local implementers and refugees, respectively, in the search for solutions. Importantly, the extent to which the views of displaced persons are allowed to shape such practices is highlighted. The article concludes by encouraging an embedding of refugees’ views about the three Rs into reformulating state policy expressions in displacement interventions. Including refugees as active participants in resolving their own problems, it is suggested, is one sustainable way to address the canker of protracted displacement in our times.     

Refugees’ expectations of durable solutions to their problems: deliberations from the Buduburam camp in Ghana

From the year 1990 to date, refugees living in Ghana encounter various socio-economic challenges in their toils to survive, leading to tensions over limited resources between them and members of the host communities. Voluntary repatriation, local integration, and resettlement programmes have been introduced as permanent solutions to their plights, but the given packages do not correspond with their expectations; resulting in their indefinite stay in camps. Despite this, not much information is available on their specific expectations about the durable solutions. Employing ‘When Displacement Ends’ framework, this article examines refugees’ expectations about the durable solutions. Questionnaires and interview guide were used to gather data from the refugees living in the Buduburam camp. Regardless of their preferred durable solutions, demand for employment, quality education/scholarships, skills training, and affordable health care services were common expectations. Quest for more financial incentives and security were eminent expectations of voluntary repatriation while they called for nondiscrimination against them, if they integrate into Ghana. However, there were variations in these expectations considering their background characteristics. For instance: those with no formal education mostly hoped-for skills training, the aged were eagerly concerned about health services while those in the assumed ‘school age’ predominantly requested for quality education with scholarships.     

Settler migration during the 1984/85 resettlement programme in Ethiopia

The recent history of resettlement in Ethiopia is briefly reviewed and the caused, flow patterns and some demographic impacts of the 1984/85 government-sponsored resettlement migration are examined with the objective of identifying motivations and constraints in the migration process, analysing changes in population distribution and examining policy implications. Famine was the major push factor in migration, but traditional reactions of peasants to drought and overpopulation caused more drought victims to leave their homes spontaneously for relief and transit centres than as recruits of the government-sponsored resettlement programme. However, motivation to migrate and distances travelled to centres showed strong regional variation, indicating the severity of the famine and traditional adaptive strategies. Changes in rural population density were significant in several awrajas (districts) but were reduced by return migration. Problems associated with this emergency resettlement programme are reflected in difficulties during programme implementation, generally low agricultural production of settlers and high rates of return migration. Further studies are needed on the ecological impact of settler migration in both sending and receiving areas, peasant coping behaviour, as well as the evolution of new settler migration patterns in the new settlement areas in W Ethiopia.     

From ‘There’ to ‘Here’: An investigation of the initial settlement experiences of Ethiopian and Somali refugees in Toronto

Very little research exists on the resettlement of refugees in Canada. This is particularly so in the case of refugees from African countries, albeit there are significant numbers of them in Canada. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, this paper contributes to the scanty geographical literature on refugee research by examining the initial settlement needs and experiences of Ethiopian and Somali refugees in Toronto. Analysis suggests that most Ethiopians and Somalis encounter considerable difficulties during the initial stages of resettlement in Canada. They face social exclusion and multiple forms of disadvantage including high unemployment, underemployment, and overcrowding, as well as frustrations and despair that sometimes result in suicidal behaviours, particularly among the young males. Host language incompetence and recency of immigration are some explanatory factors, but it is clear that systems of institutional and everyday racism have created very formidable barriers for Ethiopians and Somalis as they integrate into their new country. For Ethiopian and Somali newcomers settling in Toronto, information on (initial) settlement assistance tends to come from sources other than the government. Majority of respondents obtained such information through their personal network of friends, family, and compatriots. Ethnic origin does not discriminate between Ethiopian and Somali refugees in regard to the difficulties they face in Toronto, in that it does not show any statistically significant relationship with almost all the variables examined in the study. Understanding how refugees attempt to reconstruct their social geographies in the most multicultural and cosmopolitan Canadian city will contribute to a better understanding of their settlement needs and assist in the provision of higher quality services and programmes, besides informing policy decision-making on immigration and settlement in Canada. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

From compassion to compliance? Trends in refugee and humanitarian migration in Australia

Australia has a long history of offering protection to refugees. In the post-World War II period it has predominantly been involved in an offshore refugee settlement program whereby it has assisted international efforts to assist refugees and resettled almost 600,000 refugees in Australia. In recent years, however, substantial numbers of asylum seekers have arrived on Australia's shores and this has seen the development of an onshore refugee program which is seen as quite separate from the offshore program. This has involved the detention of asylum seekers while their claims for protection are assessed and when they are assessed as being qualified for protection they are given different status to offshore determined refugee settlers. The paper summarises the development of refugee policy in Australia and the evolution of the offshore and onshore policies. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Occupational structures in urban squatter settlements of the Republic of Sudan — The examples of Hay Maio,Khartoum and Village 17, New Halfa

The significance is outlined of the diffrrent forms of self-engaged occupations and occasional jobs for gainful employment of migrants to the metrolis or to a provincial city (New Halfa) of the Republic of Sudan. Permanent job opportunities are,as expected, better for educated migrants no matter how long they stay. Reason to return is not necessarily a failure in finding a satisfactory job, but rather rests in personal and family ties which cause the migrants to return home.     

Organic functionalism, `community' and place: refugee studies and the geographical constitution of refugee identities

The growth in the global population of refugees over the last 20 years has been paralleled by the development and growth of refugee studies as a recognised discipline. However refugees do not comprise a naturally self-delimiting domain of scientific knowledge and have been constituted by refugee studies through discourses that emphasise humanitarian, apolitical and organic functionalist discourses that root refugee identities in particular places. This paper argues that the presently inadequate constitution of refugee identities in refugee studies has been compounded by geographic representations of regional refugee emergencies, stable conceptions of refugees and asylum seekers and dated and unproblematic understandings of space as inactive and not constitutive of social life. Using data collected in interviews held between 1995 and 1998 with representatives from refugee and asylum institutions and organisations this paper illustrates how discourses and funding policies that unproblematically assume community groups represent refugees asylum seekers ignore transnational differences and tensions that can exist in marginalised communities. However it should be pointed out that the discourses about place, nationality and identity and `natural' communities can also be used by the powerless to resist their marginalised and excluded positions.     

Climate change and forced migrations: An effort towards recognizing climate refugees

The scientific community has long urged for the broadening of the refugee term, which remains identical since the 1951 Refugee Convention, despite strong evidence showing connections between forced migration and climate change. Even though the concept of climate and environmental refugees is not legally recognized, the discussion concerning these definitions is increasing. Furthermore, with the intensification of global climate change, a more specific subcategory of refugees began to be popularized: climate change refugees. A climate change refugee is any person who has been forced to leave their home, or their country, due to the effects of severe climate events, being forced to rebuild their lives in other places, despite the conditions to which they are subjected.     

Economic refugees in post-apartheid South Africa – Assets or liabilities? Implications for progressive migration policies

While South Africa's political transformation has been lauded internationally, one of the greatest challenges facing the post-apartheid democratic government is undocumented immigration. There has been a xenophobic tendency to stigmatise immigrants, particularly those from other African countries as criminals, as people who undermine economic development and take jobs from locals. The aim of this paper is to critically review changing policies towards undocumented migration in post-apartheid South Africa. More specifically, the paper will present a historical context to migration; question whether there are millions of illegal immigrants in South Africa; identify reasons for the increasing influx of migrants into the country; analyse the rise of xenophobia in the Republic; discuss problems associated with migrants; and assess changing immigration policies. The main reason for leaving their home countries was a lack of employment opportunities. Therefore the migrants could be regarded as economic refugees. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Housing demolition and refugee resettlement schemes in the Gaza Strip

This case study examines Israeli resettlement policy and housing demolition measures practiced in the Gaza Strip. Since the Gaza Strip is distinguished by a huge concentration of dispossessed Palestinian refugees maintained in large camps, the Israeli authorities, from the early stage of the 1967 occupation of the area, have devoted major effort to breaking up the camps and relocating their inhabitants elsewhere. The Israeli authorities have applied a clear policy of systematic destruction of refugee shelters and initiation of resettlement schemes, aimed in the short run at making the refugee camps less congested, while in the long run, the policy appears designed to remove these camps from the landscape entirely, since they remain a constant reminder of Palestinian uprootedness and exile. To date, the Israeli strategy of demolishing the entire refugee camp network has failed to achieve its final objective.     

东北非矿业投资环境分析

东北非地区成矿地质条件优越,矿产资源丰富,主要优势金属矿产为金、铜金矿、稀土及铂族元素矿产。本文对东北非主要矿产类型、开发现状进行了介绍,并详细阐述了埃塞俄比亚、厄立特里亚、苏丹三国的矿业法律法规、矿业权管理制度等内容,在此基础上对三国的矿业投资优势及风险进行了分析,并对投资者提出了相应的建议,认为东北非具有较好的矿产资源开发潜力和投资环境,中方企业应依据各国国情,把握机会,适时介入。     

Choice or circumstance: The UK as the location of asylum applications by Bosnian and Somali refugees

Questions concerning why asylum seekers make their applications in particular countries rather than others have not been fully researched. Some explanation can be found via aggregate migration theories, but there is a need to consider the circumstances of individual movers. Respondents here were drawn from amongst Bosnian and Somali refugees in northern England. The interviews showed that asylum movement is of a variety of types, with two stage migration commonly involved – firstly immediate flight to a neighbouring haven, and secondly on to a more permanent place of settlement. Very few respondents had any real choice in where they ended up. Instead, family circumstances, cultural connections, and the actions of a variety of institutions produced scenarios in which there was generally no alternative to the actual destination arrived at. It is suggested that a mix of individual level and institutional explanations is needed to understand patterns of asylum destinations. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Rural “development” planning under apartheid: Betterment planning in Lebowa, South Africa

An important subject of debate in the Third World is that of the application of alternative strategies of rural development. Critical examination is undertaken of the programme of betterment planning as an agency of rural development in South Africa's impoverished Black Homelands. The rhetoric of “development” obscures the fact that betterment is an important dimension of the political economy of apartheid. A detailed study of betterment planning in Lebowa reveals that the programme is associated with the growth of landlessness, reductions in land available for ploughing, the forced resettlement of large groups of people and major reductions in Africa livestock holdings. Evidence from one case study village shows that the application of betterment may transform formerly self-sufficient rural populations into communities dependent for their existence upon the debilitating migratory labour system.     

Third world cities and the environment of poverty

This paper examines environmental problems associated with Third World cities. It concentrates on environmental problems as they relate to health and living conditions, especially for lower income groups. After an outline of urban growth trends, these problems are discussed on three different geographic scales. At the regional level, the paper discusses how cities draw on a wider area for natural resources (and usually for labour) and have environmental impacts which stretch far beyond their boundaries, although the most pressing impacts tend to be on their immediate hinterland. At the city-wide level there are problems of disposing of household, human and industrial wastes and of associated problems of air and water pollution. At the level of the home or workplace there are problems of inadequate space and ventilation, inadequate infrastructure and basic services, and lack of provision for the safeguarding of human health. The final section discusses how governments might tackle the causes of these environmental problems on each of these scales.     

Using project food aid to help alleviate urban poverty - experience and issues

As urban poverty in the Third World worsens, an increasing proportion of World Food Programme (WFP) food aid is being used to support poor urban dwellers. WFP food aid has typically been used in three main ways in urban areas: as free relief after disasters (such as floods or earthquakes) have struck urban centres; as part of institutional feeding projects; and as support to urban renewal. While there have been some creative approaches to using food aid to help overcome urban poverty, the benefits have usually only been temporary. It has proved difficult to design food aid interventions for the urban poor that help to overcome the causes of poverty in sustainable ways. The challenge is to use food aid to help make permanent as well as temporary improvements in the lives and livelihoods of the poor.     

Refugees’ reflections on their stay in the Buduburam Camp in Ghana

Since the 1990s, Ghana has been hosting refugees from neighbouring West African countries and other parts of Africa but not much information is available on their experiences in the country. The main objective of this paper therefore is to examine the experiences of the refugees using the Liberian refugees in the Buduburam Refugee Camp as a case study. Using an in-depth interview guide, 44 refugees of both sexes were interviewed through a convenient sampling procedure based on their consent and willingness to participate in the study. The study employed the structuration theory of migration to examine their experiences and the Kunz’s (Int Migr Rev 15:42–51, 1981) typology of refugees to classify the refugees. Through their own capabilities and opportunities offered by both structure and institution, some refugees were able to sustain themselves through petty trading and artisanship while others were unemployed and had to depend occasionally on their social networks for economic support. Cultural shocks, acculturation, tension and occasional quarrels with the indigenes, stigma and discrimination against refugees in schools and at health centres, inaccessibility to formal sector employment, poor security and inadequate infrastructural facilities were some of their experiences in and outside the camp. The need for proper identification of refugees for security reasons, provision of better security and adequate infrastructural facilities and skills training for refugees to engage in livelihood activities were some of the recommendations from the refugees themselves.     

The migration of the Danagla to port Sudan: A case study on the impact of migration on the change of identity

The study of the history and dynamics of the migration of the Danagla to Port Sudan proves that they belong to the most active groups in the Sudan. Though they have completely dropped their agricultural background and adopted an entirely urban character they still have close contacts both to each other in town and to their home land. Their migration is, nontheless, a permanent one.     

Urban land consolidation: a review of policy and procedures in Indonesia and other Asian countries

Many Asian mega-cities are growing rapidly and they face formidable urban problems: unplanned squatter settlements, inadequate infrastructure and basic amenities. Smaller Asian urban areas also need badly the provision of basic infrastructure and facilities. However, efforts to improve are often constrained by either nonavailability of suitable land or its exorbitant cost. Strategies such as land consolidation have shown considerable promise. Implementation of the strategy varies from country to country and from project to project. In general, the land consolidation approach is participatory in nature and places emphasis on in situ development with voluntary contribution of private assets by affected households in need of infrastructure and basic services. However, to make any significant impact of the land consolidation strategy on urban development, financial support from multilateral agencies such as the World Bank is necessary. To enable this it is necessary that the policy and implementation procedures fully conform to the objectives of the World Bank's safeguard policies such as OD 4.30 `Involuntary Resettlement'. This study reviews the land consolidation policies and procedures as applied in several Asian countries in general, and in Indonesia in particular. The objective is to identify the gaps that exist between the policy and procedures and that of the objectives of the World Bank's Policy of Involuntary resettlement and to recommend general policy and procedural guidelines for land consolidation projects that would enable financial support from multilateral agencies such as the World Bank. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.