After Displacement

This book presents a collection of double-blind peer reviewed papers under the scope of sustainable and resilient approaches for rebuilding displaced and host communities. Forced displacement is a major development challenge, not only a humanitarian concern. A surge in violent conflict, as well as increasing levels of disaster risk and environmental degradation driven by climate change, has forced people to leave or flee their homes – both internally displaced as well as refugees. The rate of forced displacement befalling in different countries all over the world today is phenomenal, with an increasingly higher rate of the population being affected on daily basis than ever. These displacement situations are becoming increasingly protracted, many lasting over 5 years. Therefore, there is a need to develop more sustainable and resilient approaches to rebuild these displaced communities ensuring the long-term satisfaction of communities and enhancing the social cohesion between the displaced and host communities. Accordingly, chapters are arranged around five main themes of rebuilding communities after displacement. Response management for displaced communities The Built environment in resettlement planning Governance of displacement Socio-Economic interventions for sustainable resettlement

This book explores the increasing concern over the extent to which those suffering from forced cross-border displacement as a result of environmental change are protected under international human rights law. Formally they are not entitled to admission or stay in a third state country, a situation that has been identified as an international "legal protection gap". The book seeks to provide answers to two basic questions: whether and to what extent existing international law protects cross-border environmental displacement, and whether and how existing formalized regional complementary protection standards can interpretively solidify and conceptualize protection for cross-border environmental displacement. The discussion outlines that the protection of the human person is not only an ex post facto obligation of states, but must be increasingly seen as an ex ante one. The analysis further suggests that the European Union regionally orientated protection regime can help states to consolidate an evolving protection paradigm of proactive and reactive measures being erected at the international level. It can also narrow the identified legal protection gaps. In so doing, it helps states to reconceptualise protection as a holistic and dynamic enterprise. This book will be of great interest to academics in law, political science and human rights, policy makers and civil society organisations both at national and international level.

Hurricane Katrina was the most costly and devastating natural disaster in U.S. history. It and Hurricane Rita combined left the Gulf region with tremendous challenges for recovery and the need to rebuild infrastructure and reestablish services. This report focuses on the displacement of approximately 200,000 public school students in Louisiana. To help guide educators and policymakers in their ongoing responses to this disaster and in their preparations for future events, this technical report documents many of the short-term effects of the movements of students caused by the storms. Focusing on the Louisiana public school system, it explores the experiences of displaced students during the first academic year following the hurricanes: their movements among schools, the durations of enrollments at each site, time out of school, and the number and characteristics of students fitting each of four patterns of movement. It also reports on the effects of the displacement on schools and their students, and policies adopted in response to serving displaced students. Using Louisiana's student data system, we obtained information about all students in the state who entered or exited a public school at any time during the 2005-06 school year because of the hurricanes, and we surveyed principals from a stratified sample of schools serving displaced students statewide. The student displacement due to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita persisted throughout the entire 2005-06 school year; 55 percent of the displaced students ended the school year outside their original schools. The students who remained displaced were disproportionately minority students and students who had been achieving poorly prior to the storms. But even among those students who have returned to their original schools, a substantial amount of schooling was lost, and the effects of the storms linger. Principals reported that displaced students, both those who have returned to their original schools and those who have enrolled elsewhere in the state, exhibited several common symptoms of trauma. In some schools, the displaced students were more likely than others to engage in fighting, arguing, bullying, eating or playing in isolation, and violating school rules; they were less likely to engage in school clubs, activities, social events, or sports teams. Principals also frequently reported that displaced students were more likely than preexisting students to need mental health counseling. Schools throughout the state and the nation will continue to be called on to serve displaced students, and it is imperative that they obtain the resources they need to serve them well. Policies and resources to help teachers manage their own hurricane-related problems and mental health needs might ultimately improve the services teachers provide to students. Finally, education officials at both the state and local levels would benefit from better access to complete and accurate student records and a national system to coordinate two-way sharing of student information across state boundaries.

Amid pervasive and toxic language, and equally ugly ideas, suggesting that migrants are invaders and human mobility is an aberration, one might imagine that human beings are naturally sedentary: that the desire to move from one's birthplace is abnormal. As the contributors to this volume attest, however, migration and human mobility are part and parcel of the world we live in, and the continuous flow of people and exchange of cultures are as old as the societies we have built together. Together, the chapters in this volume emphasise the diversity of the origins, consequences and experiences of human mobility in the Middle East. From multidisciplinary perspectives and through case studies, the contributors offer the reader a deeper understanding of current as well as historical incidences of displacement and forced migration. In addition to offering insights on multiple root causes of displacement, the book also addresses the complex challenges of host-refugee relations, migrants' integration and marginalisation, humanitarian agencies, and the role and responsibility of states. Cross-cutting themes bind several chapters together: the challenges of categories; the dynamics of control and contestation between migrants and states at borders; and the persistence of identity issues influencing regional patterns of migration.

Grounded in multidisciplinary research, this book presents a methodical understanding of those displaced within their national borders, the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). The IDP phenomenon remains less understood than that of refugees due to the "internal" nature of the crisis, linked to a nation’s sovereignty, which assigns the responsibility for care to the national actors as opposed to an international body. However, the IDP phenomenon poses an international humanitarian challenge, with upwards of 40 million people currently in internal displacement across the globe. This book helps answer the most perplexing questions surrounding conflict-induced protracted displacements: namely, how do positions embraced by key actors inform/influence IDP policies, and why, despite the promise of robust return packages, do families remain reluctant to return to home communities and equally reluctant to embrace new host communities? Capitalizing on the diagnostic tool kit known as Dugan’s Nested Model, uniquely adapted to the Kashmiri Pandit displacement, this book also analyzes issues of the similarly displaced communities of Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Kosovo, and Darfur regions. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, humanitarianism, Asian politics, and International Law in general.

In a protracted displacement situation, refugees are sequestered in camps without right of mobility or employment; their lives remain on hold and stagnate in a state of limbo for a long period. This book reviews the situation and results of research and policies that have left refugees as a forgotten group in protracted situations. The work features case studies by experts who conducted field work examining long-term protracted refugee situations in Nepal, Thailand and Bangladesh, the protracted internally displaced (IDP) situation in Sri Lanka, and the refugee and IDP situation in Afghanistan. Also discussed is an emerging protracted refugee and IDP problem in Iraq. The volume concludes with an analysis of the lessons learned and the applications for policy, and incorporates a valuable bibliography detailing research in this hugely important area. This is a critical resource for academics and policy makers concerned with migration and governance issues.

Environmental migration is not new. Nevertheless, the events and processes accompanying global climate change threaten to increase human movement both within states and across international borders. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted an increased frequency and severity of climate events such as storms, cyclones and hurricanes, as well as longer-term sea level rise and desertification, which will impact upon people's ability to survive in certain parts of the world. This book brings together a variety of disciplinary perspectives on the phenomenon of climate-induced displacement. With chapters by leading scholars in their field, it collects in one place a rigorous, holistic analysis of the phenomenon, which can better inform academic understanding and policy development alike. Governments have not been prepared to take a leading role in developing responses to the issue, in large part due to the absence of strong theoretical frameworks from which sound policy can be constructed. The specialist expertise of the authors in this book means that each chapter identifies key issues that need to be considered in shaping domestic, regional and international responses, including the complex causes of movement, the conceptualisation of migration responses to climate change, the terminology that should be used to describe those who move, and attitudes to migration that may affect decisions to stay or leave. The book will help to facilitate the creation of principled, research-based responses, and establish climate-induced displacement as an important aspect of both the climate change and global migration debates.