By: Jacqui Hatch 1/27/23
Peer reviewed by REAL members
Throughout time, people have fled their home countries due to the fear of persecution, political and economic instability, armed conflicts, and natural disasters. These experiences show both traumatic experiences during flight, in displacement, and upon resettlement as well as displaced populations’ resilience and agency. The literature on forced migration presents a myriad of challenges faced by those displaced, including the lack of educational opportunities in their new host country, yet it is not the firsthand accounts of these migrant communities that are being shared. Rather than amplifying the voices of those displaced, the responsibility of telling these stories and conducting research has been placed in the hands of scholars in the Global North, most of whom have never experienced displacement.
Looking to change this narrative, the University of Oxford’s Forced Migration Review (FMR), an online journal in partnership with the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN) launched a pilot mentorship program designed to promote the inclusion of authors with forced migration backgrounds from the Global South. To improve access to peer-reviewed journals for researchers who have experienced displacement, FMR’s issue #70 ‘Knowledge, voice and power’ explores issues of representation, influence, privilege, discrimination, and access for refugee scholarship in publication. Per the program mentees, each of these topics serve as key issues and lack visibility vital for systemic change.
On September 28th, 2022, FMR and LERRN hosted a virtual panel with several program mentees who shared not only their interests in forced migration research but also their own trials in access to publish their research. The panelists included academics, scholars, and practitioners (e.g., co-founders of nonprofit organizations, risk strategists and those appealing to local government policies). All agreed that the most predominant barrier to publishing their research is adequate funding and the implicit requirement of credibility.
This was especially true for panelist Rossmary D. Marquez-Lameda, a Refugee Health Researcher and PhD candidate studying Behavioral Health at Indiana University. In reflecting on her research regarding cases of healthcare access for Venezuelan refugees in Colombia, she explained, “often your perspective is overlooked when you do not have credibility. [A funding agency] wants metrics, but [it] does not always acknowledge that there are factors related to prejudice and discrimination that will affect outcomes.” While Marquez-Lameda admits she has more success as a doctoral candidate attending a U.S. university than her colleagues in Latin America, she recognizes the challenges impeding opportunities to gain credibility. “Sometimes you read these funding announcements and you think they were written for the North.” Recognizing that there is still a long road ahead until access to publishing research for displaced people is normalized, she suggests that the best way to mitigate these challenges is through creating meaningful connections in the field. “Research networks are a great place to start. They help connect academics conducting similar research and provide opportunities to co-author, despite geographics.”
Noor Ullah, who previously served as a Youth Researcher on Voices of Refugee Youth, a project exploring the impact of post-secondary and higher education for refugees in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, described a parallel sentiment regarding issues with credibility. There is a colossal issue with what he described as impossible visa and permit requirements. Noting the clear hierarchy within Pakistani universities, documentation makes it particularly difficult to establish one’s position as a researcher. Additionally, he noted the hostility towards young refugee students in local research cultures. “Research supervisors often act as gatekeepers, determining what can or cannot be published and imposing their own perspectives on research papers. This can result in silencing of refugees’ perspectives in academia.” Among just one of his many suggestions, policy makers must prioritize funding for refugee education, increasing research capacity.
On par with the challenges of credibility for refugee scholars and researchers is the task of establishing identity, a question that has led to much exploration, and at times torment for Aleksejs Ivashuk, representing the Apatride Network, an organization connecting stateless people with the European Union. Ivashuk stated, “I have, and will always, identify as a stateless person but being stateless is not my identity.” In sharing his family’s journey of leaving the Soviet Union after its collapse, he addressed the core issues of being a stateless person. “Stateless people don’t have rights to have rights.” This, compounded with the mass number of stateless individuals, 10 million globally, and nearly 1.5 million in the EU alone, causes a major lack of awareness of who and where stateless people are globally (Berthon, et al., 2022, p. 13). With numbers so substantial, how do we move forward? In sharing his belief on amplifying displaced voices in the political arena, Ivashuk shared, “voices of stateless actors need to be treated as players in discussion, not variables in those discussions. We are not chess pieces.” While the dialogue is essential, there are more explicit factors to be addressed. Ivashuk affirms that racism, state obstruction, misinformation, and any other forms of discrimination need to be exposed through research to end statelessness. “We have a choice to exploit the barriers that restrict the rights affecting the communities to which we belong and challenge the policy makers through our research.”
While each panelists’ pathway to authorship is varied and complex, the key question to be addressed remains “How do we localize research?” It is the same question that James Milner, the Project Director of LERRN, aims to address in the mentoring program. “We want [this program] to act as a place of social cohesion and move away from tokenizing inclusion.” But avoiding tokenization goes beyond just solidarity among those who have experienced displacement. Olivia Berthon, the Deputy Editor of FRM, echoes these sentiments. “We aim to practice what we preach by offering the publication in six languages and are working on procuring resources for additional translations in the hopes to localize [research] contributions.” As stated by panelist Bahati Kanyamanza, the Director of Partnerships for Asylum Access, “local integration is a gradual process with legal, economic, social, and cultural considerations, demanding action from both the individual and receiving society. People in displaced situations must be willing to take on leadership roles and figureheads must be willing to relinquish power. Right now [this] seems near impossible, but there is hope.”
Perhaps the discussion leaves its panelists and attendees with more questions than answers. But to reiterate Kanyamanza, there is hope in access to research for displaced people. Through the panelists’ contributions we see multiple commitments to change. Currently, there are tireless efforts being made to mitigate the obstacles for refugees, stateless people in their access to research. Amplifying refugee voices and their research will create more pathways for future researchers, promoting equity, authorship, and the stories of the Global South.
References
Berthon, O., Ivashuk, A., Kanyamanza, B., Marquez-Lameda, R. D., Milner, J., Ullah, N. “Forced Migration Review- 70, Knowledge, Voice, Power, exploring issues of representation, influence, privilege, access and discrimination.” September 28, 2022. Virtual. Panel Discussion.
Berthon, O., Ivashuk, A., Kanyamanza, B., Marquez-Lameda, R. D., Milner, J., Ullah, N. (September 2022). Forced Migration Review: Knowledge, voice and power: Issue #70. PP 10,12-13. https://www.fmreview.org/sites/fmr/files/FMRdownloads/en/issue70/magazine.pdf