CRS Seminar: The Urbanization of Forced Displacement: UNHCR, Urban Refugees, and the Dynamics of Policy Change
March 14, 2023
11:30am – 1:00pm (Toronto)
This is a virtual meeting.
To register, please go here: https://yorku.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcld-iqrz8iE9PUsKOeueUJy-U-wph7e5ba
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Guest Speaker: Neil J. W. Crawford, Research Fellow in Climate Action at the School of Geography, University of Leeds
Displacement in the twenty-first century is urbanized. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the world’s largest humanitarian organization and the main body charged with assisting displaced people globally, estimates that over 60 per cent of refugees now live in urban areas, a proportion that only increases in the case of internally displaced people and asylum seekers. Though cities and local authorities have become essential participants in the protection of refugees, only three decades ago they were considered to sit firmly beyond UNHCR’s remit, with urban refugees typically characterized as aberrations. In The Urbanization of Forced Displacement Crawford examines the organization’s response to the growing number of refugees migrating to urban areas. Introducing a broader study of policy-making in international organizations, Crawford addresses how and why UNHCR changed its policy and practice in response to shifting trends in displacement. Citing over 400 primary UN documents, Crawford provides an in-depth study of the internal and external pressures faced by UNHCR – pressures from above, below, and within – that explain why it has radically transformed its position from the 1990s onward. UNHCR and global refugee policies have come to play an increasingly important role in the governance of global displacement. The Urbanization of Forced Displacement sheds new light on how the organization works and how it conceives its role in global politics today.
Neil J. W. Crawford is a Research Fellow in Climate Action at the School of Geography, University of Leeds (United Kingdom) and a Research Associate at the Refugee Law Project, Makerere University (Uganda). Neil works on the UK Research and Innovation-funded project, ‘Gender, Generation and Climate Change (GENERATE): Creative Approaches to Building Inclusive and Climate Resilient Cities in Uganda and Indonesia’, leading work in Uganda. They are the author of the monograph, The Urbanization of Forced Displacement: UNHCR, Urban Refugees, and the Dynamics of Policy Change, published as part of the McGill-Queen’s Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Series (McGill–Queen’s University Press, 2021). They are co-editor of The Climate Connection – Cultural Relations Collection (British Council, 2021), See Change: Visualing the Urban Climate Crisis (FOTEA Foundation, 2023), and Climate Justice in the Majority World: Vulnerability, Resistance and Diverse Knowledges (Routledge, 2023).
