Geographies of Displacement: The Karenni and The Shan Across The Myanmar-Thailand Border

First, central to our analysis is the argument that human movement within and across borders fundamentally challenges the view of geopolitics based upon fixed territorial states, inter-state relations, national identities and citizenship; indeed the whole idea of "national geographic". Using the examples of the Karen and Shan peoples, we explore the processes and patterns of forced relocation, displacement and migration in the border regions of Myanmar and Thailand. Our main concern is with forced displacement as a result of political and ethnic conflict; specifically, how the Burmese military regime's desire for "national unity" within Myanmar's "national space" has influenced the militarily inspired displacements of hundreds of thousands of villagers and civilians within the border zones inhabited mostly by so-called "national minorities". We examine the particular problems of the so-called "internally displaced persons" within "national" boundaries compared with the "refugees" and "undocumented migrants" who make it across "international" space into Thailand. We illustrate the ways displaced people are represented by state agencies and the media as "threats" and "transgressors". We consider some of the "long term" aspects of the displacement problem along the Myanmar-Thai border and the vital contribution geographers can make to the study of displacement.     

Forced migration and deslocados in the Huambo Province,Angola

Angola has three to four million internally displaced persons, one of the highest per capita figures in the world. Most of the displaced persons originate from Huambo and other parts of Planalto Central, where the Ovimbundu is the dominant ethnic group. Through the experiences of displaced people, this article discusses why people flee, and thus aims to provide better understanding of the causes of their displacement, the strategies they choose and apply during flight and settlement and their identity as deslocado. The displaced population in Huambo can be divided into two groups: new deslocados and old deslocados. There are several causes of displacement, such as civil war, degradation of the land resources and displacement during the colonial period (war, forced labour, expulsion from land, etc.). The data used in this article were collected in Huambo and Luanda from November 1998 to June 1999.     

A Post-Cold War Geography of Forced Migration in Kenya and Somalia

Drawing on recent research in the Horn of Africa, emerging patterns of managing forced migration in the post-Cold War landscape are identified and analyzed. While camps continue to house refugees, the meaning and value of ‘refugee’ have changed dramatically since the Cold War. Efforts to prevent people from crossing political borders to seek safety are increasing, giving rise to a new set of safe spaces. These new spaces are expressions of a distinct geopolitical discourse and take the names ‘UN protectedarea’, ‘preventive zone’, and ‘safe haven’. Their significance as a challenge to state-centric geopolitics both within conflict zones and as refugee camps is explored in the Kenya-Somalia context.     

A Post-Cold War Geography of Forced Migration in Kenya and Somalia

Drawing on recent research in the Horn of Africa, emerging patterns of managing forced migration in the post-Cold War landscape are identified and analyzed. While camps continue to house refugees, the meaning and value of ‘refugee’ have changed dramatically since the Cold War. Efforts to prevent people from crossing political borders to seek safety are increasing, giving rise to a new set of safe spaces. These new spaces are expressions of a distinct geopolitical discourse and take the names ‘UN protectedarea’, ‘preventive zone’, and ‘safe haven’. Their significance as a challenge to state-centric geopolitics both within conflict zones and as refugee camps is explored in the Kenya-Somalia context.     

'Why should I send my child to school?': A study of Burundian Hutu refugees' experiences of exclusion from education and how this motivates education in Tanzanian exile

This paper focuses on Hutu refugees from Burundi who, as a consequence of the mass killings in Burundi in 1993, were forced into Tanzanian exile. The actors in the study are the refugee teachers who have participated in the development of the educational programme in Lukole refugee camp in Ngara, Tanzania. The aim of the research was to explore Burundian Hutu refugees' experiences of exclusion from education in Burundi, and how this in turn has motivated education in Tanzanian exile. Before this could be accomplished, the need was recognized to investigate socio-political causes of the refugee situation, with special reference to education. As an illustration of how societies develop disasters like those witnessed in Burundi, a 'disaster model' is presented. What is revealed is that the Hutu majority has been systematically discriminated against and excluded from any post-primary education. The educational system in Burundi has, furthermore, been the arena for ethnical-political tension that has repeatedly escalated into violence. As a consequence, sending Burundian Hutu children to school was in many cases seen as a 'risk'. Given the testimonies of the refugee teachers, this fact also affected the refugee community in Tanzania and their willingness to send their children to school in the camp.     

UPROOTED LIVES: GENDER, VIOLENCE AND DISPLACEMENT IN COLOMBIA

During the last decade, more than 600,000 people have been forced to leave rural areas and migrate to regional urban centres in Colombia as a result of political violence in which guerrilla and paramilitary groups and the armed forces are the principal actors. The number of displaced people is still increasing. Nearly 60 per cent of them are women, and at least 25 per cent of the displaced households are headed by women, most of whom are widows. Focusing on three regions of the country - the northern Caribbean Coast, the central Middle Magdalena region and the Eastern Plains - the effects of forced displacement on women and men are analysed in terms of intra-household relationships, survival strategies and gender identities. The paper evaluates the gains and losses for women and men in the process of displacement. It argues that displacement has the strongest impact on women during the stage of “destruction”, while men, confronted with unemployment and loss of identity, are most affected during the stage of “reconstruction”.     

跨地方饮食文化生产的过程研究──基于符号化的原真性视角

全球化是去地方化,抑或在全新体系中定义新的地方性、凸显地方性,学术界对此一直存在争论。伴随全球化进程,地方性饮食追逐人口流动跨地方扩展,这些跨地方饮食在保持文化原真性和适应本地顾客需求方面挣扎。如何保持原真性,保持何种原真性成为跨地方饮食文化生产的焦点。本文通过对地方性与跨地方、原真性与符号化的相关研究进行梳理,基于饮食文化原真性的理论分析,揭示了“原真性的符号化”这一跨地方饮食文化生产的重要过程。与此同时,还阐述了在跨地方饮食文化生产过程中,原真性符号化的必然性及其循环过程,旨在为跨地方饮食文化生产提供理论依据和实践指引,同时也有利于理解地方性文化的跨地方传播、创新与发展。     

Reservoir resettlement in China: past experience and the Three Gorges Dam

This paper reviews involuntary resettlement resulting from dam-building, which has been ignored relative to the dominant focus of migration research in China, rural to urban migration. Reservoir resettlement in China has a long history, often of misery and hardship for those displaced. Relocatees affected by the Three Gorges Project (1994–2009) on the Yangtze River face a similar situation. In China priority has been given to building the dam to provide electricity, flood control and navigation. Less attention has been paid to the problems of the people affected by the reservoir inundation. The rural population forced to relocate and rural-urban migrants in general have been discriminated against by national policies.     

Spatial practices of integration and segregation among internally displaced persons and their hosts in Sri Lanka

This article recounts how a group of Muslim internally displaced persons from the Northern Province of Sri Lanka arrived and settled in the North-Western Province of the island. The account is placed in the context of local integration, as one of the so-called durable solutions for refugees and displaced people. It is argued that it is useful to study integration and segregation as related processes. The main focus of the article concerns the development of resettlement villages for displaced people and how this has made it necessary for local people to reconstruct and redefine their places. One particular confrontation that took place between local Sinhalese people and displaced Muslims is discussed, to show how the negotiation of place may become violent. The article concludes by arguing that, in order for the process of local integration to succeed, active participation by all groups involved in the local integration process is a prerequisite.     

Evolution of Chinese Settlement Geographies in Sydney,Australia

In 1996, there were 250,000 people of Chinese ancestry in metropolitan Sydney. Eighty percent of the first generations among Chinese who arrived in Australia after 1973 were migrants from Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia and 20% from China. Some of the migration from Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia is skilled migration, a portion of which comprises business professionals in producer services associated with Sydney's emergent global city role. There is no strong level of residential concentration except for those of refugee origin. The sponsored family reunion relatives of the skilled migrants are present indirectly because of the globalization process, although others from the former Indochina are of refugee migration origin. There are thus economic inequalities among different origin groups of Chinese in Sydney. Complex Chinese presences have evolved in Sydney at the neighborhood level partly related to social class, and there are visible impacts in a rejuvenated Chinatown and in several suburban shopping and commercial centers. These presences overlap in terms of community origins, social class, language, and religion but there are discrete impacts in the context of diversity.     

Modelling population retention in Australia’s Northern Territory – how do current forms of migration contribute to population turnover and retention?

ABSTRACT

In the past, population growth in Australia's Northern Territory, as in other peripheral parts of high-income countries, has been driven by internal labour migration and migration from outside of Australia. These have been contributing to the high population turnover experienced in peripheral areas. Since 2010, the Northern Territory has experienced low (and even negative) population growth, and public policy is currently focused on migration as a lever to reverse this trend. However, the extent to which the characteristics of migrants influence the potential for longer-term population growth is poorly understood. This paper uses a new method to analyse the contributions of various types of migrants to both population turnover and retention. Two major sets of findings emerge: First, the significance of separating newer in-migrants from longer-term residents when analysing migration patterns; and secondly, the contribution of age, gender, Indigenous status, international origin, wages and industry of employment to the Northern Territory's population turnover. The research suggests that current forms of migration favour people who are likely to stay for only short periods, and have high wage demands. The main policy inference is that long-term population growth will likely not eventuate unless new forms of migration can be stimulated.     

International refugees: a geographical perspective

In the modern era, the world's refugee problem has changed magnitude and location; it has expanded from a local to a continental, and now global, scale issue. About 90% of the world's 10 million refugees are from developing countries, and over 90% of these will stay there. Refugee generating and receiving countries are concentrated in 5 world regions: Central America, Southwest Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa. Each concentration is unique and is associated with a particular set of regional conflicts. International efforts address short-term relief needs, whereas political instability and repression that generate refugees continue unabated. Refugees along sensitive border regions affect bilateral relations, large groups of refugees can pose political and security problems for the host country, and disputes over refugee policies and their implementation can complicate diplomatic ties. Some highlights of the data follow. 1) The 3 million cross-border refugees and 5.5 million internally displaced persons make the many governments in Sub-Saharan Africa increasingly dependent on Western assistance to solve their problems. Refugees are fleeing armed conflict, tribal violence, and drought, and often generate additional regional turmoil. 2) 3-4 million Afghans have fled their country since the 1978 Marxist coup; about 2.5 million have entered Pakistan. Most choose to remain in camps near the Afghanistan border where they are targets of cross-border attacks. 3) 1.2 million Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans live outside their native countries. Official refugee and unofficial migrant populations are active in various rebel insurgencies, contribute to strained bilateral relations and tensions in border areas, and are the subject of heated political debate in host countries. 4) 90% of the 1.7 million Indochinese who fled from 1975-May 1986 have been resettled; 168,000 refugees remain in 1st-asylum camps, not including 240,000 Khmer without refugee status, in temporary camps in Thailand. Thailand's large refugee population is involved in factional strife, smuggling, and guerrilla activities. The Thai are particularly concerned about Hmong refugees, who are accused of opium cultivation and destruction of Thai forests through slash-and-burn cultivation. 5) Nearly 62% of the thousands of present Vietnamese refugees to Hong Kong have been in camps 3 years, and 17% 6 years. Many have turned to crime, alcohol, drugs, or prostitution.     

Energy Policy in Australia: A comparison of environmental considerations in New South Wales and Victoria

World-wide, people and governments are gradually becoming more aware of the potential environmental, economic and health effects of climate change and the need for governments to take action to mitigate such impacts. This was emphasised by the creation of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. There has been much discussion on the greenhouse policy response of the commonwealth government of Australia, especially its stance taken at Kyoto in December 1997. Despite the recent nationalisation of Australia's state energy markets, due to Australia's federal political structure, much of the policy responsibility for energy and environmental issues rests with the states. Given these circumstances it is surprising that there has been relatively little academic focus on the energy policies of the states. This paper attempts to partially fill the policy analysis 'gap' by investigating the present environmental aspects of the energy policies of NSW and Victoria, implemented since the signing of the UNFCCC in 1992. NSW and Victoria are Australia's most populous states and are responsible for the bulk of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions with two very distinct policies.     

A Prospective on Zelinsky's Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition

Wilbur Zelinsky's 1971 paper in Geographical Review entitled the “Hypothesis of the Mobility Transition” was both forward‐looking and offered innovative ideas regarding human geographic mobility. One of the most interesting aspects of the paper was a set of predictions for mobility in a “future superadvanced society”. Many of these predictions have now come to pass, including a general decline in international and internal migration and residential change, the increasing regulation of migration ‐ especially internally, and the possibility that the widespread adoption of information and communication technologies has impacted human geographic mobility. Hence, this essay looks at the mobility transition not as an obsolete frame of reference but as a prescient, pliable, and adaptable framework which not only informs the study of human geographic mobility today but also, perhaps, even into the future.     

The Asymmetric Border: The United States’ Place in the World and the Refugee Panic of 2018

The year 2018 saw a moral panic in the United States in the media and among many citizens over the treatment of refugees/asylees at the U.S. southern border, particularly the separation and detention of children apart from their parents. This happened in the context of a period in U.S. political history in which “immigration,” without much discernment about different types of immigration, was central to political discourse. In fact, in terms of numbers, there was no immigration crisis at the border. Undocumented migration from Mexico across the southern border of the United States has been in decline for many years, and the irregular movement of people from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras is currently small by historical standards. The only crisis, to which the U.S. panic was a response, has been a human rights crisis. Families and children seeking asylum from horrendous civil‐rights conditions in their countries of origin were criminalized and denied their right to asylum hearings. The panic points both to the extreme politicization of immigration in the United States, particularly since Donald Trump's entry into national politics in 2015, and to popular confusion over categorizing different types of immigrants. But it also raises questions about the nature of the U.S. southern border in relation to the United States’ place in the world. Rather than thinking about the United States as simply the rich destination country of unfortunate people coming from poor origin countries, the refugee panic of 2018 brings into the focus the fact that the United States itself is complicit in the conditions in those countries that produce so many refugees in the first place.     

Scenarios for the Future Population of Sydney

The period 1996-2001 has witnessed a refocusing of population growth on Sydney and Melbourne as both cities have developed significant concentrations of so-called 'new economy' jobs and taken on, to greater or lesser extents, the characteristics of global cities. The consequence of these trends, for Sydney most particularly, is population growth. This paper establishes this demographic reality by describing recent demographic trends in Sydney and possible future scenarios for Sydney's population, given differing levels of fertility, internal migration and international migration. A related future trend is also traced--that the number of households in Sydney will grow more rapidly than the population due to changes in household structure. This raises the issue of how and where these households will be accommodated, given the relative land shortage in the Sydney Statistical Division and given that there is no doubt that planners in New South Wales will be attempting to maintain and enhance Sydney's status as a global city. In sum, the paper argues that Sydney planners should be preparing for growth of around one million people in the next 20 years and a further one million in the following 30 years. To maintain that potential future residents of Sydney can be redirected to other parts of New South Wales is a vain hope.     

Damming China’s rivers to expand its cities: the urban livelihoods of rural people displaced by the Three Gorges Dam

Over the next two decades, China, the country with the world’s largest urban population, is orchestrating the urbanization of some 300 million rural people. In its National New-Type Urbanization Plan (2014) the State Council has outlined a range of strategies to grow its cities not least of which is rural-to-urban migration. This plan will have significant effects on other types of displacement, particularly, the forced displacement and resettlement of those living in the path of large dams. This paper reviews what is known about New-Type Urbanization Approach to Reservoir Resettlement. Then, based on a longitudinal study of 145 resettled households at the Three Gorges Dam, the livelihood effects of rural-to-urban resettlement are unpacked to provide lessons for its use in advancing urbanization. It finds that rural-to-urban resettlers have lower incomes than their urban-to-urban and rural-to-rural counterparts, and higher rates of food and income insecurity.     

Organization‐Led Migration,Individual Choice,and Refugee Resettlement in The U.S.: Seeking Regularities

The role of organizations in migration has received less attention than warranted; individual choice has typically been emphasized. As an in‐depth illustration, we consider refugee resettlement in the United States, post–World War II, wherein intermediary organizations play(ed) a major role. Central to this system are voluntary agencies (VOLAGs) and community organizations, but secondary migration also is critical. Attention is given to all refugees between 2000 and 2010, and in greater detail to Somalis. The latter provides deeper understanding through state refugee coordinators and case studies of Columbus, Ohio, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Lewiston, Maine. Aside from process, it is evident that the geography of the foreign‐born settlement has been altered. While refugee resettlement and subsequent migration is the example, we broaden that to argue that migration studies have neglected the derived nature of movement via intermediary organizations; directed migrations and/or similar interventions have played a significant, if not dominant, role in population redistribution; and organization‐led migration should be considered in terms of general aspects, not simply as discrete case studies.     

Hazards and 'forced' migration in Bangladesh

This paper deals with two basic assumptions about migration patterns in Bangladesh. First, it is commonly assumed that poverty and landlessness in rural Bangladesh lead to migration to and settlement in disaster-prone areas along the main rivers or in low-lying areas in the Bay of Bengal. Second, it is also commonly assumed that when people living in these areas experience loss of land, property and income opportunities due to natural disasters, they are forced to seek their livelihood and housing in urban areas. These two assumptions are discussed on the basis of data from a char in Jamuna river and a slum settlement in Dhaka.     

Refugees in the IT Sector: Young Syrians’ Economic Subjectivities and Familial Lives in Jordan

This article explores refugee economic subjectivity in the context of restrictive asylum policies and disrupted transnational family lives. Drawing on fieldwork with young Syrian refugees pursuing IT training in Jordan, I focus on the “coding boot camp,” an emerging educational format in the field of refugee professional training. I thus explore how Syrian youths approach humanitarian policies in which, in the absence of full social and economic rights for refugees, the question of livelihoods is addressed through the paradigms of self‐reliance, creativity, and innovation. Reframing the refugee from a “protected” to a “productive” subject, and offering individual solutions to a structural economic impasse, these policies produce tensions between individual responsibilities and more‐than‐individual relations and identifications—with families, religious identities, and national communities—that remain unresolved. The findings contribute to geographical scholarship on economic subjectivity, familial relations, and the migrant and refugee condition, while shedding light on some of the effects of the encounter between technology‐centred, neoliberal approaches to humanitarianism and restrictive migration regimes in responses to the Syrian displacement.