Refugee economies: forced displacement and development
RSC Public Seminar Series, Michaelmas Term: Refugee Economies
Conveners: Alexander Betts and Naohiko Omata
In recent academic and policy arenas in forced migration, the issue of how to understand refugees' economic lives has emerged as one of the most pressing agendas. This seminar series will therefore gather leading scholars who have been working on related issues in order to consolidate the empirical and theoretical knowledge of refugee economies. Speakers will be convened from diverse and inter-disciplinary backgrounds from anthropology, economics, and political science. In addition to knowledge building, this seminar series is intended to initiate nurturing wider networks of researchers working on economic lives of refugees and to establish a common space for exchanging ideas, discussing findings and challenges.
About the speaker
Alexander Betts, Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, is Leopold Muller Professor in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies and a Fellow of Green-Templeton College at the University of Oxford, where he was previously the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International Relations. He received his MPhil (in Development Studies, with Distinction) and DPhil (in International Relations) from the University of Oxford.
His research focuses on the international politics of asylum, migration and humanitarianism with a geographical focus on Sub-Saharan Africa. He is author or editor of numerous books, including Protection by Persuasion: International Cooperation in the Refugee Regime (Cornell University Press, 2009), Refugees in International Relations (with Gil Loescher, Oxford University Press, 2010), Global Migration Governance (Oxford University Press, 2011), UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection (with Gil Loescher and James Milner, Routledge 2012), Survival Migration: Failed Governance and the Crisis of Displacement (Cornell University Press, 2013), and Implementation and World Politics: How International Norms Change Practice (with Phil Orchard, Oxford University Press, 2014).
Light refreshments will be provided after the event.