Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Report of Activities 2006-2007

Forced Migration and
Refugee Studies
Report of Activities
2006-2007
T
The American University in Cairo
he American University in Cairo, founded nearly a century ago, is the region’s
premier university — an essential contributor to the social, political and cultural life
of the Arab world. It serves as a crossroads for the world’s cultures: a vibrant forum
for reasoned argument, spirited debate and global understanding between the Middle East
and the West. It is a vital bridge between cultures, linking Egypt and the region to the
world through scholarly research, study-abroad programs and partnerships with academic
and research institutions.
AUC is an independent, nonprofit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal-opportunity
institution. An English language university, it is accredited in the United States by the
Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. In addition, AUC has reached top
levels in international education through higher levels of accreditation of its separate
programs, including business, computer science and engineering.
Through its unique career advising and placement services, AUC ensures its graduates
have the opportunity to secure jobs in Egypt and abroad. With small classes, career training
and a broad array of extracurricular activities, students acquire the practical skills they need
to succeed in the real world. Located in Tahrir Square, the university boasts one of the
largest English language libraries in Egypt, well-equipped laboratories and a
technologically advanced learning environment. In 2008, AUC will move to a new 260acre state-of-the-art campus in New Cairo, designed to the highest international standards.
Working to attract top performing students throughout Egypt and the rest of the world,
AUC offers more than $20 million in financial aid and scholarships each year. Its diverse
student body hails from more than 100 countries.
Currently, the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies (FMRS) program is situated on
the fifth floor of the Falaki Building, one of the several buildings owned by the
university in downtown Cairo.
The Forced Migration and Refugee
Studies Program
F
orced Migration and Refugee Studies (FMRS) is a program of education, research
and outreach that seeks to improve the understanding, policies and practices of
those who are concerned or work directly with refugees and other forced migrants.
While maintaining a global and comparative perspective, FMRS focuses on the particular
issues and circumstances of displacement in Africa and the Middle East from multiple
viewpoints, including those of host societies, policy makers, states, humanitarian
organizations, and in particular, of the forced migrants themselves.
Under the leadership of its new director, Philippe Fargues, FMRS is in the process of
widening the scope of its research activities by developing from a local program on
refugees studies into a regional center on migration and refugee studies. In terms of
education, FMRS is working to offer along with its specialized diploma in refugee studies,
an MA in migration and refugee studies. The degree will be the only one in the world that
specializes in migration in the region of the Middle East and North Africa.
The following pages summarize recent developments and activities undertaken by
FMRS during the 2006 - 2007 academic year.
Contents
6
Message from the President
7
Message from the Provost
8
Message from the Director
10
Program Developments 2006-2007
Faculty
Staff
Funding
The Library
15
Diploma Program
FMRS Diploma Courses
Developing the Diploma into a Master’s Program
FMRS Fellows
FMRS Graduates 2006-2007
Alumni News
21
Research
Ongoing Research Projects
Future Research Projects
FMRS Publications
FMRS Visiting Research Fellows and Scholars
27
Outreach
Special Educational Programs
Wednesday Seminar Series
Conferences and Workshops
Student-run Organizations and Community Outreach Activities
43
Networking and Collaboration
Local Networks
Regional and International Networks
46
Faculty, Staff and Affiliates
Faculty, Staff, and Affiliates Activities
Publications by FMRS Faculty and Affiliates
FMRS Faculty and Staff
FMRS Affiliated Faculty and Researchers
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Message From the President
he continuing crisis in many parts of the world and the
associated uprooting of people from their natural habitat
highlights the local, regional and global importance of
migration and refugee issues. The strategic position of Egypt at the
crossroads of three continents makes AUC uniquely situated to
continue to engage with the pressing issues associated with the
movements of people, particularly in the region of the Middle East
and North Africa.
Since its inception, the FMRS program has boasted a unique interdisciplinary approach
that combines dynamic teaching, incisive research and innovative community outreach. Its
core commitment to this research and providing professionally oriented graduate
education continues to develop a promising new generation of scholars, advocates and
activists that understand the complexities of forced migration and are equipped to tackle
its associated critical issues in their future careers.
Just as AUC finds itself at a crossroads, leaving its historic premises in downtown Cairo
and moving to a new campus home, the FMRS program currently finds itself in a time of
transition, reflecting upon its past successes and looking forward to its future endeavors.
Under the leadership of its new director Philipe Fargues, it envisages itself as a regional
center on migration and refugee studies with a strong network of scholars in each of their
respective countries. Moreover, FMRS’ planned master’s degree in migration and refugee
studies will be the first degree in the world that combines both fields with a focus on, and a
presence in, the Middle East. These developments look set to grant the program an even more
authoritative voice to speak on the complex matters associated with migration and refugees.
The caliber and significance of FMRS’ work continue to contribute to the rich legacy
of AUC and to fulfill its dual mission of educational excellence and public service. We are
proud to be the institutional home for this dynamic and important program, and are excited
to see how the program further develops as these carefully laid plans come to fruition.
David Arnold
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F
Message from the Provost
or many years faculty and staff at the American University
in Cairo have worked hard to create and develop the
Forced Migration and Refugee Studies (FMRS) program.
We want to expand and develop this program in the future.
Under the leadership of its new Director Philippe Fargues, we
hope that FMRS will expand from a local program on refugee
studies into a regional center on migration and refugee studies and
eventually serving as a leader in the region on matters related to migration and refugee
issues. FMRS is currently applying for the necessary funds to reach this goal.
Studies of migration and refugee issues have become very prominent on the global
agenda and given this reality it is essential to support the growth and capacity of FMRS.
We are proud of FMRS achievements and look forward to much success in the years
to come.
Tim Sullivan
7
W
Message from the Director
hen I arrived at FMRS in February 2007, the program
was not unfamiliar to me. As anyone researching
migration and refugee issues in the Middle East, I pay
close attention to the quality work produced by a unique program
established in a region which is by far the main producer and
receiver of refugees, with 6.5 million persons of concern to
UNWRA and UNHCR, representing 42 percent of the world’s
total refugees. For the last 12 months, the program was run under
the dynamic leadership of its acting director, Ray Jureidini, and very
much marked by the full dedication of Barbara Harrell-Bond.
Education is an evident success of the program. In six years, the graduate diploma had
attracted almost 100 students, from Egypt (one-third) as well as from the United Sates and
other countries around the world (two-thirds). Alumni have occupied several positions of
responsibility in a variety of organizations, be it local or global, working for and with
forced migrants or more generally in the fields of development and humanitarian aid.
Outreach is another remarkable aspect of the program. FMRS not only provides short
courses and weekly seminars that open the university gates to a broad audience of
intellectuals and professionals in Cairo, but a number of FMRS student-run organizations
are very active in the provision of assistance to local refugee communities, helping them
to better handle their situation in Egypt through education and income-generating
activities. The program’s third building block, research, is also well on track with a number
of reports and papers published on the FMRS Web site.
Since the creation of FMRS in 2000, the issue of cross-border mobility and diasporas has
gained tremendous momentum on the global agenda, reaching new heights in 2006 with
the High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development held under the United Nations
General Assembly. In the Middle East and Northeastern Africa, recent political and
economic developments have intensified and complicated migration and refugee
movements, including the new waves of refugees triggered by crises in Iraq, Darfur,
Somalia and Eritrea, to the amplification of labor migration from, through and to countries
of the region. Not only do the Middle East and Northeastern Africa come first in the world
based on the number of refugees, but it ranks third according to the number of international
migrants exiting and entering the region. As a result, there is a growing demand for
knowledge, globally and locally, which FMRS is in a unique position to meet.
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In order to take up the challenge, FMRS faculty prepared two major initiatives during
the spring of 2007. The first project consists of upgrading the graduate diploma in FMRS
into a Master of Arts degree in migration and refugee studies. If this master’s were to be
created, AUC would become the only university in the world offering one specializing in
migration and refugees in the Middle East, broadening the scope of FMRS to include
migration that is multifaceted, and enabling continuity for students at a higher educational
level. The second initiative is expanding the FMRS program into a Middle Eastern and
African center for migration and refugee studies that would be driven by research.
Gathering the Middle Eastern and African migration and refugee studies community into
a structured network, defining research objectives and methodologies to be shared within
the network, then building comparative knowledge on migration and refugees across the
region is the program’s goal for the coming years.
Philippe Fargues
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Program Developments 2006-2007
Faculty
T
his academic year witnessed many positive developments. In February 2007, FMRS
welcomed its new director, Philippe Fargues. Fargues was the founding director of
the Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on International
Migration at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. He is also the co-director
of the Florence School on Euro-Mediterranean Migration and Development since
February 2004. Moreover, he served as a
senior researcher and head of the
International Migration and Minorities unit
at the French National Institute for
Demographic Studies in Paris, a visiting
professor at Harvard, and the director of the
Centre for Studies and Economic, Legal and
Social Documentation in Cairo. His research
interests include migration, population and
politics in Muslim countries, family building,
and demographic methodologies and their Philippe Fargues, FMRS director, attending World Refugee
Day, June 2007
application in the Middle East and North
Africa. He has numerous publications and has lectured in various universities in Europe
and the Middle East. Fargues has an ambitious new vision for FMRS, especially in terms
of research and education (Detailed information under Research). FMRS welcomes Philippe
Fargues and looks forward to his ambitious plans.
Ray Jureidini continues his dynamic involvement with FMRS in his new capacity as
FMRS associate director. Jureidini has been with FMRS since Fall 2005, teaching two of
the diploma core courses. He was the acting director of FMRS from June 2006 to
February 2007 and is the principle investigator in the program’s collaborative research with
Sussex University on female migrant domestic workers (See under research).
This year, FMRS was fortunate to welcome Susan M. Akram as a distinguished visiting
professor with both the FMRS program and law department. Akram is affiliated with
Boston University’s Law School where she teaches courses in immigration law, comparative
refugee law and international human rights law. In addition, she supervises students
handling refugee cases in Boston University’s civil litigation program. Her contributions to
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the AUC community varied throughout the year, and included academic and outreach
activities such as the instruction of the FMRS core course, International Refugee Law.
FMRS also welcomed Micheal Kagan, who taught the diploma elective course MEST
430 Palestinian Refugee Issues in Spring 2007, and will be teaching the core course
International Refugee Law as of Fall 2007. Kagan, a Juris Doctor, is an American lawyer
who has worked since 1998 to develop refugee legal aid programs throughout the Middle
East. He is the founder of the Web site RSDWatch.org, which promotes fairness in the
UN’s refugee status determination procedures. He is the author of FMRS working paper
Assessment of Refugee Status Determination Procedure at UNHCR’s Office 2001-2002, as well
as a variety of articles on refugee-related topics, including UNHCR policies, legal aid,
United Nations reform, Palestinian property rights in Israel and the role of international
law in shaping the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Staff
Maysa Ayoub, who has been with the program since November 2004 in the capacity of
assistant to the director, was promoted to the new position of FMRS projects manager.
The new position better reflects the work undertaken by Ayoub, as she is entirely
responsible for the coordination of FMRS activities, including its semi-annual short
courses and weekly seminars. Moreover, she provides academic advising to students and
works to secure funding to support the program’s developing research agenda.
During this year, two new research assistants were hired to contribute to the
department’s continuing research projects. Assmaa Naguib is the new research assistant to
Barbara Harrell-Bond for the FMRS collaborative research project on migration,
globalization and poverty with the Development Research Centre of Sussex University
(For detailed information on the project, see under Research). Naguib has a BA in political
science from AUC and an MA in history from the University of Nottingham. Reem
Mohamed also joined FMRS as a research assistant to Ray Jureidini on the new research
on migrant domestic workers, which is also part of our aforementioned collaborative
project with Sussex University. Mohamed holds a BA in sociology from AUC, an MPhil
in development studies from the University of Cambridge, and is currently undertaking an
MA in international human rights law at AUC.
On a less cheerful note, FMRS witnessed the departure of its program secretary this year.
Mai Emad left the program after three years of dedicated service to take on a public
relations specialist position with the Egyptian Ministry of Communications and
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Information Technology. Eman Samir ably stepped into the vacant position in January
2007. Samir has a BA in accounting from Ain Shams University.
Funding
With the arrival of the new director in February, ambitious fundraising plans have been
set in motion to meet the changing demands of the program. FMRS is currently applying
for the necessary funding for the expansion of its activities, especially to enable its transition
from a local program focused on forced migration and refugee issues to an established
regional center more broadly focused upon migration and refugee studies in the Middle
East and Africa (See under Research).
In addition, FMRS is also seeking funding to generate knowledge on Iraqi refugees and
migrants. FMRS envisages carrying out the first scientific study of this population displaced
as a consequence of war and the spread of insecurity. An estimated 4 million Iraqis have
already been displaced internally and externally, out of which 2 million or more have
sought refuge in nearby countries and in other parts of the world. FMRS has already
approached potential sponsors and hopes funding will soon be secured to allow this
important work to begin (see Research for more information).
Meanwhile, FMRS is still supported through the generous grant from the Ford Foundation,
which covers the program’s administrative expenses. Moreover, the project on migration,
globalization and poverty with the Development Research Centre is still continuing under
the support of the University of Sussex.
The Library
The FMRS Grey Files Collection maintains a special place in the AUC Library,
representing a treasure trove of unique and hard-to-find publications related to the field.
The program is especially grateful to Emily Eidenier, the former FMRS library specialist
from April 2005 until August 2007, for her dedication to the collection and her efforts to
see its contents catalogued. Fortunately, Mohamed Berray, an FMRS alumnus himself,
took on the duty of overseeing the collection since the end of August 2007, replacing
Eidenier who went back to her hometown in the United States. Additionally, FMRS
would like to thank several other individuals inside and outside of the library for their
contribution to the collection, including: Jayme Spencer (public services), Cheryl Rueby
(cataloging), Shadia El Hanafi (cataloging), Christiane Sidawy (acquisitions), Wafaa Fahmy
(acquisitions) and Mindy Nolt (FMRS graduate student).
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New acquisitions
In 2006-2007, the FMRS holdings at the AUC Library increased through book orders,
donations and additions to the Grey Files Collection. The majority of the new donations
were given by the Cairo Ford Foundation library, with other materials generously donated
by Professor Barbara Harrell-Bond and the Refugee Studies Centre Library at Oxford
University. The collection currently contains documents in Arabic, French, German,
English and Italian, with publication dates ranging from 1948 to 2006 — the majority of
which were published between 1999 and 2004.
Cataloging
Emily Eidenier completed the cataloging of all existing Grey Files materials that were
acquired by FMRS until her departure in August 2007. The total number of documents
in the Grey Files Collection rests at slightly more than 1,500, and it is expected that the
collection will significantly expand with the move to the new AUC campus in Fall 2008.
It is the present aim of the new FMRS director and the current library specialist to further
expand the Arabic collection of the Gray Files, especially concerning migration
movements in the Middle East.
Special projects
Emily Eidenier worked very closely with Mindy Nolt (FMRS student) to create a
collection of useful research tools for whoever works as the FMRS library specialist. These
research tools include listings of publishing houses, research centers, libraries and Grey File
collections, working papers, Web sites and list servers focused on the field of refugee
studies. This collection of tools is designed to help the new FMRS library specialist
adequately respond to research and reference questions posed by researchers and graduate
students visiting the FMRS collections. Given the keen anxiety of the FMRS to create
close ties with “Arab-serving” organizations working with refugees in the region, it is
anticipated that the creation of this comprehensive list will put FMRS in a position to help
them with their activities and lead to further collaboration.
Student and faculty support
During the year, Emily Eidenier met with FMRS students in their first day of classes to
explain the Grey Files Collection and to give a general introduction to using the AUC
library for their research. Moreover, she met with students, faculty and researchers
throughout the year and helped them use the collection, online databases and the library
catalogue to research their topics.
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Recording collection use
It was the initiative of the library specialist to create a user log to chart the use of the Grey
Files Collection. There was a total of 35 recorded users in the first period of data collection
from September to December, 2006. Of these, 12 were outside of the FMRS program
(two professors, six graduate students from other programs and four undergraduate
students). The files that were most popular in use during the first three months of data
collection were those concerned with Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Burma.
Relationship with the main library
The FMRS library specialist helps to contribute to library by serving an hour each day at
the main library reference desk and actively e-mails information regarding research in
refugee studies to the reference team and library blog.
Outreach
Duplicate materials from the FMRS collection were donated to the library of Africa and
Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA) in Garden City, Cairo, during the summer
of 2006. Other duplicate magazines were contributed to the refugee English and Arabic
classes operated by Student Action for Refugees (STAR) at AUC.
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Diploma Program
The FMRS graduate diploma has proven to be one of the most attractive graduate
programs for international students at AUC and is increasingly attracting more Egyptian
students. The geographic diversity of FMRS students has always been a strong point of the
program, bringing individuals together from Africa, Western Europe and North America,
with more recent interest shown by students from Asia and Eastern Europe, including
individuals from India, Pakistan, Turkey, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland and
Azerbaijan. On average, 25 students are enrolled in the program, consisting of around
two-thirds international students and one-third Egyptian students. This academic year we
received 24 new students, 14 in the fall semester and 10 in the spring.
FMRS Diploma Courses
The graduate diploma currently requires the completion of six courses, including a core of
four courses and two electives. The core courses cover a range of topics including political,
sociological and anthropological analyses of forced migration; methods of research; and
critiques of humanitarianism and the treatment of refugees, particularly in the Middle East
and Africa. The additional core courses address international refugee law and psychosocial
issues in forced migration, providing critical insight into often overlooked facets of refugee
affairs. The diverse range of interdisciplinary electives supplement the core and create a
program that caters to the individual interests and concerns of the students, with some
additional classes addressing human rights law, the United Nations, ethnicity, identity
and nationalism.
Two of the core courses of the diploma were taught this year by Ray Jureidini, associate
director of FMRS and associate professor of sociology. He taught Introduction to Forced
Migration and Refugee Studies in Fall 2006 and Issues in Forced Migration and Refugee
Studies in Spring 2007. Elizabeth Coker, assistant professor of psychology, taught the core
course Psychosocial Issues of Refugees during the spring semester, and Susan M. Akram,
FMRS distinguished visiting professor from Boston University, taught International
Refugee Law during both the fall and spring semesters.
Several interesting elective courses were offered during the year. FMRS offered an
elective titled Going Home? Is Repatriation the Best Solution for Refugees? taught by
Barbara Harrell-Bond during Spring 2007. Our joint elective course with the Middle East
Studies Program, Palestinian Refugee Issues, was taught by Michael Kagan, also during
spring 2007. This course is very popular and was previously instructed by the former
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director of FMRS, Fateh Azzam. Moreover,
a new course was offered jointly with the
English and comparative literature
department in Spring 2007, titled Literature
and Human Rights, in which several FMRS
students participated. Finally, FMRS will
offer a new course in Fall 2007 that will be
instructed by its new director, Philippe
Fargues. The course will be offered in Michael Kagan, FMRS adjunct professor, lecturing at AUC
conjunction with the sociology and
anthropology department, Middle East studies and the political science department. The
course will present a systematic review of the different migratory trends in the region of
the Middle East and North Africa over the last several decades.
Developing the Diploma into a Master’s Program
While the FMRS diploma has been a successful means of educating students and
practitioners about the intricacies of migration in the region, it has been a long-time
aspiration to expand the diploma into a full-fledged master’s degree.
Students have heretofore been able to pursue a number of options to complete an MA,
either through the cooperation of other departments within AUC or other academic
institutions. At AUC, the FMRS diploma can be pursued in conjunction with an MA in
international human rights law, professional development, sociology/anthropology or
Middle East studies, as many FMRS courses are cross-listed with these programs. Linking
the FMRS graduate diploma to an MA program at AUC has proven to be a very popular
strategy for many of our students. Alternately, students have been able to apply their
diploma credits toward the MA in refugee studies offered at the University of East London
since February 2006. The additional requirements include the completion of a 12-week
research module and writing a dissertation.
While these options remain in place, the program’s plans to offer its own degree are
nearing fruition. The result would be the new master’s program in migration and refugee
studies, the mission of which would be to provide a high quality and unique graduate education
in migration and refugee studies with a focus on the Middle East and North Africa. Its primary
aim is to provide graduates with critical knowledge and analytical skills of current theoretical,
legal, political, economic, social, demographic and psychological issues in migration and
refugee studies. Excitingly, it will be the only program in the world that combines both
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migration and refugee studies with a focus on, and a presence in, the Middle East.
The proposed structure of the MA is designed for flexibility in order to allow students
from various undergraduate backgrounds to obtain an area of specialization that will
provide them with marketable skills in fields concerned with migration and refugees. The
degree would emphasize the multifaceted nature of migration (emigration, immigration,
transit migration, labor migration, return migration, replacement migration, regular and
undocumented migration, family reunion, remittances, brain drain, etc.), effectively
broadening the current scope of the FMRS diploma.
Courses would be largely drawn from the existing AUC catalog, which will make the
implementation of the program a quick process; out of 28 planned courses to be offered
for the MA program, 25 already exist. The three new courses would seek to address
refugees issues (the current focus of FMRS) within the broader notion of migration. These
will include International Migration and Development, Legal and Administrative
Questions on Migration, and Migration and Refugees in International Relations. As with
other MA programs, all students will be required to complete a thesis according to
university regulations.
FMRS Fellows 2006-2007
Nida Ghouse
Ghouse was awarded the Writing Center Fellowship from February to June 2007 upon
entry during spring 2007. She has a BA in English, as well as peace and justice studies from
Tufts University, from which she graduated in 2005. She is currently pursuing the diploma
on a full-time basis, and is expected to graduate in Fall 2007.
Jutta Gravesen
Gravesen was awarded a partial FMRS Graduate Merit Fellowship for the 2006-2007
academic year. She graduated from Portland State University with a BA in liberal studies
in May 2005.
Catherine Njoroge
Njoroge was awarded an African Graduate Fellowship from February 2007 to January
2008. She obtained her LLB, a bachelor of laws, from the University of Nairobi in May
2004. She is currently pursuing the diploma on a full-time basis, and is expected to
graduate in Fall 2007.
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FMRS Graduates – Fall 2006 and Spring 2007
The following is a group of students who fulfilled the requirements of the Graduate
Diploma in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies and graduated in the 2006-2007
academic year. FMRS congratulates all of them and wishes them continued success with
their future endeavors.
Miriam Aertker (Germany)
Iveta Bartunkova (Czech Republic)
Laura Breslin (USA)
Kate Burton (UK)
Talita Cetinoglu (Turkey)
George Fahmy (Egypt)
Jamie Hoffman (USA)
Christina Kielsmeier (USA)
Shannon Mcdonald (USA)
Mindy Nolt (USA)
Jennifer Renquist (USA)
Sarah Hany Sadek (Egypt)
Dan Stoenescu (Romania)
Rica Terbeck (Germany)
Knoul Zamanova (Azerbaijan)
George Fahmy completed an MA in international human rights law in addition to the
diploma, and is now working with UNHCR, Cairo. Dan Stoenescu has been working as a
diplomat in the Middle East and Africa Department of the Romanian Foreign Ministry on
political issues and issues related to refugees and internally displaced persons. He is in the
last year of a PhD program, and has also taught political science classes focused on the
Middle East at Bucharest University. Iveta Bartunkova is pursuing an MSc in social policy
design from the Graduate School of Governance at Maastricht University. Sarah Sadek and
Miriam Aertker traveled to the University of East London to upgrade their diploma to an
MA in refugee studies. Sarah is currently working within the FMRS department while
completing her thesis, while Miriam has worked as a project manager for a development
agency in the Kharaz Refugee Camp in Yemen.
Alumni News
Many of our graduates have put their diplomas and experience gained in Cairo to work
in a variety of ways around the world. The summaries below detail just a few of the
unique undertakings that FMRS has enabled them to pursue:
Annie Dumont (2005)
After graduating, Annie worked as research assistant for the UN Representative for
Internally Displaced Persons in Washington, D.C., with the Brookings-Bern Project on
Internal Displacement. She subsequently returned to Egypt to intern at UNHCR in the
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resettlement unit for six months. She was recently accepted as an international UN
volunteer and received a position as a programme officer responsible for food assistance to
Bhutanese refugees under the World Food Program in Nepal.
Hebah Hussein (2006)
Hebah completed an MA in Middle Eastern studies in conjunction with her diploma, drafting
a thesis titled “New Imaginings: Iran, Hizballah and the Dynamics of Articulation.”
Ashraf Ruxi (2004)
Ashraf worked for Refugee Legal Aid, a private law office, and has since taken up a
position with the United Nations Development Programme in Darfur.
Hilary Ingraham (2005)
Hilary completed an MA in political science in conjunction with the FMRS diploma
before taking positions with the Asylum and Refugee Office under the U.S. Citizenship
and Immigration Services, and subsequently the Bureau of Population, Refugees and
Migration at the U.S. Department of State.
James Pearce (2005)
James completed the MA in international human rights law at AUC while also working as
a legal adviser at AMERA. He subsequently was offered a position as a rule of law officer
with the United Nations Development Programme in West Darfur, Sudan.
Jeanelle Sears (2006)
Jeanelle took on a two-year Americorps VISTA assignment in Louisville, Kentucky,
where she lives and works in a low-income housing complex with more than 1,000
immigrants and refugees, including many Somali Bantu. Her diploma has been of
particular use in coordinating Americorps programs and services in her community.
Martin Rowe (2006)
Martin coupled his FMRS diploma with an MA in sociology and anthropology before
moving to Cyprus, where he currently volunteers with a local asylum advocacy NGO and
an international development NGO.
Matthew Lewis (2006)
Matthew completed his MSc in forced migration from Oxford University. Currently, he
works as a project manager for a refugee legal aid clinic in Bulgaria.
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Naaz Khan (2007)
Naaz has continued her studies through Columbia University’s Teachers College in
pursuit of a master’s in international educational development with a concentration in
humanitarian issues. She supplements her studies by working with after-school refugee
resettlement programs in New York City.
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S
Research
ince FMRS was created, migration and refugee issues have become high priorities
on the global agenda and are still gaining momentum. For the first time in
history, a High Level Dialogue on Migration and Development took place
during the Annual General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in September
2006; and from July 9 to 11, 2007, a Global Forum on Migration and Development took
place in Brussels. The Middle East and Northeastern Africa are among the largest source,
transit and destination regions for migrants and refugees in the world. In spite of its
strategic position, however, the region suffers an acute deficit of accurate knowledge with
regard to international migration. In order to fill this knowledge gap, a strong research,
education and outreach center covering the Middle East and Africa is urgently needed.
Today, under the leadership of new director Philippe Fargues, FMRS is planning to
expand into a Middle Eastern and African center for migration and refugee studies. This
center will be built on the previous achievements of FMRS and driven by research. FMRS
is uniquely positioned, geographically at the crossroads of Africa, the Middle East and the
Mediterranean, to take the lead for such an initiative. Proximity to the sources and
destinations of massive migration and refugee movements gives it a distinct vantage point
to construct knowledge on these issues.
Gathering the Middle Eastern and African migration and refugee studies community into
a network, defining research objectives and methodologies to be shared within the
network, then linking this network to the wider migration and refugee studies community
worldwide is the program’s goal for the coming years. It aims at systematically building
comparative knowledge on migration and refugees across the region. Its research and
studies will be directed toward the academic community, as well as a variety of nonacademic stakeholders such as NGOs and civil associations, policy makers, international
organizations and the media. The center will construct the first database containing
systematic information on the quantitative and qualitative aspects of migration and refugee
movements in the region. The database will include all the demographic, economic, legal,
social and political information that can be gathered or constructed on migration and
refugee movements in the region.
These plans are already taking shape. An exploratory meeting will be organized by
FMRS from October 23 to 25, 2007 at AUC. It will bring together approximately 40
scholars representing different disciplines and covering all the countries in the region. They
will deliver preliminary papers taking stock of the various dimensions of migration and
21
refugee movements in the region and present their own views on research priorities.
In addition to the formulation of the program’s ambitious plan to construct the first
regional center on migration and refugee studies, FMRS also continued its ongoing
research agenda and initiated new research ideas during the past year.
Ongoing Research Projects
DRC - Phase II
The second and current phase of FMRS participation in the Development Research
Centre on Migration, Globalization and Poverty (DRC), coordinated with the University
of Sussex, started in April 2006. The FMRS program’s part of the research is coordinated
by Barbara Harrell-Bond, assisted by Asmaa Naguib (See under Staff). The main aim of
Phase II of the DRC-FMRS collaboration is to find ways of effective translation of
research into improving policies on forced migrants and their well-being, and to inform
policy-makers of the links between the rights of forced migrants and the potential for
development (especially as it relates to rights of education, work, health and protection).
The following is a brief synopsis of the activities undertaken so far in Phase II:
Winter short course: Refugees and Migrants: Rights-based Approach to
Development (January 8-17, 2007)
FMRS, in collaboration with the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) at the
University of Sussex, conducted a 10-day advanced course titled Refugees and Migrants,
and a Rights-based Approach to Development during the period from January 8 to 17,
2007. The course was designed for practitioners from governmental, inter-governmental
and non-governmental agencies; and donors and community representatives in the Middle
East and Africa with institutional responsibilities in the field of refugees and migration. The
participants explored the practical implications and challenges of applying the much-touted
human rights approach to policy making in real situations. The course was both theoretical
and practical, drawing on the wealth of lessons arising from trial and error to determine
the best-possible development outcomes for hosts, refugees and migrants. Participants
learned new skills and techniques to apply in their own context.
The course instructors came from a number of institutions and organizations, and
included Joseph Schechla (Housing and Land Rights Network), Anthony Rutabanzibwa
(International Labour Organization - Tanzania), Lana Baydas (OHCHR), Michael Kagan
(AMERA - Egypt), Abrar Chowbury (The Refugee and Migratory Movements Research
Unit - Bangladesh), and Barbara Harrell-Bond (FMRS/AUC).
22
Overall, the course proved to be very successful, and FMRS is planning to conduct the
same course in Arabic for Arabic-speaking participants in January 2008. Current work is
being undertaken to translate the course materials into Arabic to make this possible.
Research on the situation of migrant domestic workers in Cairo
The research project titled A Social Profile and Analysis of Migrant Domestic Employees
in Cairo, is undertaken by Ray Jureidini, FMRS associate director and associate professor
of sociology. The project conducts a statistically significant study of migrant domestic
workers (MDWs) that includes Filipina, Indonesian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, Nigerian and
Sudanese in Cairo. The project takes a human rights approach, drawing upon the
methodology of a similar study completed by Jureidini in Beirut that surveyed Sri Lankan,
Filipina and Ethiopian female domestic workers. Thus far, more than 700 interviews have
been conducted with female domestic workers. Moreover, a compilation of relevant labor
laws, previous cases of crimes involving MDWs, and interviews with the different
concerned institutions have been completed. Final results of the study should provide
sufficient evidence to initiate the development of policies that address issues regarding human
rights abuses and the living conditions of the various types of migrant domestic work.
Capacity building
Enhancing the skills of young researchers and scholars in the region is an important
component of DRC Phase II. This is accomplished through the following two schemes:
Research fellowships
Two research fellowships per year are offered by FMRS to young academics or those
interested in getting involved in forced migration research. During this academic year, the
fellowships were given to the following two researchers:
Marie Genevieve Nightingale
Nightingale conducted qualitative research on the situation of separated refugee children
in Cairo. She conducted in-depth interviews with the children themselves, as well as with
the organizations concerned with these children to identify the services and resources that
are, or may become, available to this vulnerable group. The research was conducted under
the supervision of Barbara Harrell-Bond and the findings of the research are expected to
be available as of December 2007.
Ahmed Mustafa
Mustafa undertook his research under the supervision of Dr. Hania Sholkamy. His work
23
focused on the reproductive health of domestic female workers. The fieldwork is currently
finished, and FMRS is awaiting the written report.
Internship schemes
FMRS is participating in the DRC internship scheme by having interns from both the
global North and South spend between three and six months at FMRS working on issues
relating to the DRC collaboration. During this academic year, Reeda Buhari interned
with FMRS from October 2006 to January 2007. Reeda researched the particular situation
of Sudanese female refugees in Egypt and produced a detailed report on her work. During
her internship, she participated in two of the program’s core diploma courses, Introduction
to Refugee Studies and International Refugee Law. She also attended AMERA’s weekly
seminars on refugee law and served as an interpreter for Arabic-speaking refugees.
Future Research Projects
FMRS is looking toward its future research agenda, and several research proposals have been
submitted to various donors to secure the funding needed to initiate the projects listed below.
A survey of Iraqi refugees and migrants
One of the aims of the planned center on migration and refugee studies is to respond to
the challenges resulting from emerging migration-related situations across the Middle East
and the Northeastern African by conducting systematic research programs with a view to
delivering rapid and accurate results to impact the academic community, as well as
policymakers, the media and other concerned stakeholders. There is a particular urgency
to gather knowledge on Iraqi refugees and migrants. FMRS envisages carrying out a
scientific study on Iraqi refugees and migrants who have left their country in recent years
as a consequence of wars and the spread of insecurity.
Insecurity and war in Iraq have so far displaced an estimated 4 million people internally
and externally, out of which 2 million or more have found refuge in nearby countries and
in other parts of the world. The Iraqi refugee crisis has already become the largest ever in
the Middle East — in absolute numbers three times the size of the Palestinian exodus from
Israel in 1948 — and is now the fastest-growing one in the world.
FMRS is planning to use its current available funds to conduct the survey in Egypt in
collaboration with the Information and Decision Support Centre of the Egyptian Cabinet
of Ministers. In addition, FMRS has already approached potential sponsors for expanding
the survey in a comparative way in other countries of the Middle East.
24
Remittances to conflict zones: Darfurians in Cairo
FMRS is approaching potential donors for collaborative research with the Feinstein Center
at Tufts University to study the flow of remittances to and from the Darfuri community
in Cairo. The proposed study is part of a larger study of remittances to Sudan conducted
by the Feinstein Center that focuses on the Darfuri diaspora and the conflict in Darfur.
Human trafficking
During this academic year, a voluntary group of academics, students and practitioners
engaged in a collaborative initiative to fill the current information gap on trafficking in
Egypt with the aim of furthering policy discussion about the protection of human rights
in Egypt. The initiative, entitled Trafficking Research and Action Collective (TRACE),
was headed by Ray Jureidini, FMRS associate director, under the umbrella of FMRS. In
the context of this initiative, a development officer was temporarily hired for further
development of the programmatic aspect of FMRS/TRACE. On October 1, 2006, Iveta
Bartunkova, an FMRS alumna, was hired to investigate the research gap in the area of
trafficking. During her employment period, she developed three proposals to study three
phenomenon in Egypt that are related to human trafficking. One proposal was on the
situation of “summer marriages” in Egypt, a kind of marriage whereby young Egyptian
girls from low-income families are married off to wealthy visiting Arab tourists in return
for a bride-price and are often divorced at the end of the visit. The second was on
migration through Egypt in the Mediterranean. The proposal is aiming to provide initial
information about the experiences of those transiting through Egypt, their motivations and
needs, and whether or not they are able to access their rights. The third project proposed
to study the work experiences of refugees in Cairo. The study will provide some detail
about the conditions and situations which refugees experience at work in Cairo.
FMRS Publications
The Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Working Paper Series is a forum for sharing
information and research on refugee and forced migration issues in Egypt, the Middle East
and Africa at large. FMRS Working Papers and research reports are available in hard copies
as well as in electronic version from the FMRS Web site.
This year, FMRS published the following research reports:
The Son of a Snake is a Snake: Refugees and Asylum Seekers from Mixed EritreanEthiopian Families in Cairo
This is the result of six-months of fieldwork conducted by Louis Thomas in Cairo on the
25
experiences of refugee generations of mixed Eritrean and Ethiopian marriages. The study
illustrated the exclusion, isolation and vulnerability that these communities experience.
The political tension between the two countries since 1993, as well as the current situation
of neither peace nor war, had an impact on the lives of Eritrean and Ethiopians of mixed
marriages. The findings of the study were presented by Thomas in one of the FMRS
seminar series and was published as FMRS Working Paper no. 7.
Refugee Diet in a Context of Urban Displacement
This report, published as FMRS Working Paper no. 8, was conducted by FMRS researcher
Peroline Ainsworth, who investigated the changes in food consumption practices
experienced after displacement and its implications on the physical and mental health of
Sudanese refugees in Cairo. This is timely, as research on changing food consumption
practices of refugees has been very limited despite the fact that a large number of refugees
are self-settled in urban areas of the South with poor access to sources of income or services.
FMRS Visiting Research Fellows and Scholars
During this academic year, FMRS hosted the following visiting research fellows who
carried out independent research projects in Cairo through AUC’s School of Humanities
and Social Sciences.
Natoschia Scruggs
Natoschia Scruggs is a graduate student at the African Diaspora Studies Program,
University of California, Berkeley. She was affiliated with FMRS during the field work
for her PhD dissertation on the Somali diaspora.
Hala Mahmoud
Hala Mahmoud is a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on
the use of culture as a resource by Sudanese refugees in Cairo. She has previous experience
working with Sudanese refugees in Cairo as she was assisting Elizabeth Coker in a pilot study
that aimed to design a community health program in El-Haganah slum in Cairo.
Omayma Al-Khaffaf
Omayma Al-Khaffaf is currently a second year PhD researcher at the University of
Manchester and intends to conduct interviews with the Iraqi refugees in Cairo towards her
PhD dissertation, hopefully in conjunction with the FMRS program’s proposed survey of
Iraqi refugees throughout the region.
26
T
Outreach
his year, FMRS continued its active engagement with the community through its
ongoing outreach activities: winter and summer short courses, weekly wednesday
seminars, Cairo Community Interpreters Program (CCIP), as well as several
conferences and workshops. Its student-led community outreach activities include the Cairo
to Camps, an Arab youth solidarity project; and Student Action for Refugees (STAR), an
organization that facilitates a diverse set of activities on behalf of the refugee community.
Special Educational programs
FMRS winter and summer short courses
FMRS has been offering specialized short courses since the initiation of the program in
2000, and since then a total of 31 short courses have been offered. Our short courses are
funded by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), that has been covering
the courses entirely since January 2005. Before that date, funding was made available by
the Ford Foundation grant. (See more under Funding)
FMRS short courses provide specialized education in particular topics within the field of
refugees and forced migration. Previous participants have included staff members from the
Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Office of Migration,
Caritas, churches, human rights lawyers and other NGOs. The participants are not only
from Egypt and the surrounding regions, but also from Europe, the United States and Asia.
The courses continue to attract undergraduate and graduate students from the AUC
community from an array of fields, including political science, anthropology, sociology
and human rights law, and many have decided to pursue the FMRS graduate diploma as
a result of their positive experiences in the courses. Additionally, the courses have been
fortunate to have refugees from the community in attendance to contribute their unique
perspective to the proceedings.
Some of our short courses are either provided annually or repeated according to demand.
Two of our regular courses that are repeated each year are The International Refugee and
Human Rights Law, and Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Refugees. Most of our
courses are delivered through a combination of lectures and interactive small group
exercises where participants learn how to relate theory to practice.
During the 2006-2007 academic year, FMRS successfully undertook four short courses
attended by 129 participants. The following includes a description content of the courses.
27
Refugees and Migrants, and a Rights-based Approach to Development
As part of its collaborative research with the University of Sussex, FMRS conducted a 10day advanced course from January 8 to 17, 2007. (See detailed information under Research)
Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Refugees
The course was taught this summer between
June 11 and 16, 2007 by Dr. Nancy Baron,
director of Global Psychiatric and PsychoSocial Initiatives (GPSI). Baron is also the
international training director for the
International Trauma Studies Program at
Columbia University, and senior trainer for
the Psychosocial Training Institute of the
Transcultural Psychosocial Organization of
Uganda. The purpose of the course is to Group discussion during the course on psychosocial needs of refugees
help psychosocial workers enhance their knowledge of refugee needs and increase their
ability to meet them appropriately. Topics included cultural concepts of mental health and
well being, basic interviewing and supportive counseling skills, working with translators,
conceptualizing and treating refugee trauma, understanding and meeting children’s needs,
and managing stress and preventing burnout among humanitarian workers.
Understanding Ethnicity and Nationalism
Taught from June 18 to 23, 2007 by Eftihia Voutira, associate professor in the Department
of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies at the University of Macedonia in Thessaloniki,
Greece, presented an overview of different theoretical approaches to notions of
nationalism and ethnicity from a sociological and anthropological perspective. It raised
questions regarding the relation between national and ethnic identity, and state formation,
Group picture during the summer course on ethnicity and nationalism
28
Effie Voutira lecturing during FMRS summer
school, June 2007
national consciousness and ethnic consciousness. Taking the end of the Cold War as a
turning point in the affirmation of “new” nations and nationalisms, it challenged its 23
participants to explore the relation between “old” and “new” nationalist phenomena, with
special reference to current developments in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Middle East.
International Refugee and Human Rights Law
This course, amongst other things, introduces its participants to refugee and international
human rights law, and covered the primary elements of the 1951 Geneva Convention, as
well as its interaction with the 1969 OAU Convention. This was the seventh time the
course was taught, and due to ever-increasing demand, FMRS opened two class sections
to be taught simultaneously by two equally qualified instructors from June 25 to 30, 2007.
One section was taught by Michael Kagan, adjunct faculty at AUC and director of Africa
and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA). The second section was taught by Martin
Jones, adjunct professor at the Faculty of Law, Queen’s University, Kingston (Canada). He
is also the managing editor of Refuge: Canada’s periodical on refugee issues at the Centre for
Refugee Studies, York University. Jones has published and presented in various academic
conferences, particularly on the issue of Canadian immigration and refugee law.
Martin Jones lecturing during FMRS summer school, June 2007
Martin Jones and Micheal Kagan, instructors of the
two sections on international refugee law
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The Cairo Community Interpreters Project (CCIP)
Since its beginning in 2002, CCIP’s mission has been to build multilingual capacity among
migrant and refugee communities in Cairo to build bridges of communication between
their communities, aid organizations and the Egyptian host community, while supporting
research on language and communication issues in migration. CCIP accomplishes its
mission through:
Interpreter training and education for refugee interpreters serving their communities as
language and cultural bridges
Linguistic resource development in refugee languages to support interpreters
Community outreach and awareness building to increase understanding of language issues,
refugee and migration studies, and community work
Participatory research support between scholars and refugee communities on language issues
in migration
CCIP activities in 2006-2007
Interpretation training
This year, CCIP updated its training curriculum to incorporate new pedagogies into the
modules covering interpreter roles, protocols, ethics and cognitive skill development. The
new curriculum was piloted in the spring 2007 Refugee Community Interpretation
Training, with 36 students in Amharic, Sudanese Arabic, Fur, Somali and Tigrinya. The
impact of the curriculum and pedagogic improvements were seen in the student pass rate
on the final exams. Of the 33 students who took the exams, 78.8 percent passed and were
issued certificates. This reflects the highest pass rate of any class since CCIP began in 2002.
Linguistic resource development
Interpreters working in the refugee communities in Cairo have limited access to
dictionaries and language reference tools to assist them when interpreting subjects of a
highly technical nature, or subjects with complex culturally-specific concepts. For this
reason, CCIP works with local interpreters to develop locally relevant glossary resources
in the main languages spoken by refugees in Cairo: Amharic, Sudanese Arabic, Fur, Somali
and Tigrinya. In this academic year, CCIP continued to expand its database of glossary
terms, in particular the sections on cultural specific geography terms, traditional healing
practices, and culturally-specific social relationship practices. Furthermore, the glossary
project introduced a new section on court terminology, drawn from state and federal court
Web sites from the United States, Canadian and Australian court systems. Overall, there
are more than 15,000 terms in the five languages of the glossary project.
30
Outreach and awareness raising
CCIP works with local organizations serving refugees to provide ongoing support in
accessing interpreters and understanding how to communicate effectively through an
interpreter. In this year, Mariam Hashim, CCIP coordinator, continued her participation
in the orientation sessions for new interns at AMERA, supporting the AMERA
interpreters to orient new staff on how to effectively work with interpreters. The training
session screened the documentary film, To Be or Not to Be, to highlight the challenges
encountered by service providers, clients and interpreters themselves in multilingual
communication. The interns and interpreters then discussed the interpreter’s roles and
responsibilities in a multilingual interview, and discussed simple techniques to facilitate
cross-cultural communication, including special attention paid to the seating arrangement
of service provider, client and interpreter, as well as awareness of body language and how
the use of jargon and acronyms affects the flow of communication through an interpreter.
In other outreach areas, CCIP supported FMRS and STAR activities such as World
Refugee Day and the Global Day for Darfur, by providing both written translation support
for the events as well as stage interpretation with the masters of ceremony at the events.
Research support
CCIP supports research by providing researchers with access to trained interpreters for
their fieldwork, as well as guidance on working with interpreters for effective
communication in the field. In January 2007, Alice Johnson, CCIP manager, participated
in the founding conference of the Southern Refugee Legal Advocacy Network, which was
held in Nairobi, Kenya. During the conference, Alice gave a presentation on interpretation
training for refugee legal aid services. As the conference included participation from Latin
America, Alice also provided simultaneous English-Spanish interpretation during the
conference. During Spring 2007, several refugee students in the program participated in
research studies being conducted by FMRS faculty.
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Wednesday Seminar Series
T
he FMRS Wednesday Seminar Series is a vital element of the program’s outreach
activities. It is intended to create a platform for raising awareness about refugees and
forced migration issues among a wider audience. Each week, a different topic
related to the field is presented by an expert or researchers from FMRS, allowing for open
discussion and debate. As in previous years, the series hosted a number of visiting lecturers
from institutions and organizations worldwide, and attracted considerable interest from
students, scholars, refugees, practitioners and the general public.
The following is a list of FMRS Wednesday Seminars during the rest of the 2006-2007
academic year:
- Legal Aid and UNHCR: Current Issues
Michael Kagan, human rights lawyer and advocate
- Solidarity Under Siege: Testimonies from War Witnesses, Activists and Cairo to Camps Members
Members of Cairo to Camps group and war witnesses
- Survivor Testimony: From Theory to Practice during War Time: A Panel Discussion
Anne Cubilie, Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and Maher
Nasser, director, UN Information Center
- The Organization of Youth Associated Violence
Jacob Rothing, FMRS researcher
- Palestinians in Jordan: Social Stratification from Above and Within
Gudrun Kroner, FMRS research fellow
- International Liability for Committing Genocide
Aiman Salama, professor of public international law, Nasser High Military Academy
- Medecins Sans Frontieres: The Practice of a Medical Humanitarian Organization
Dalita Cetinoglu, FMRS fellow
- Community Based Peace Building Initiatives in Countries During and After War
Nancy Baron, director, Global Psychosocial Initiatives (GPSI)
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- Temporary Protection and the Palestinian Refugee Case
Susan Akram, FMRS/law distinguished visiting professor
- Documentary on Darfur followed by a discussion on the recent events in the region
- Human Rights, Global Citizenship and Refugees
Abdullahi AnNaim, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Law, Emory University,
School of Law
- Palestinian Refugees as a Political Card: From Oslo to the Present
Ambassador Daoud Barakat, , Member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)
and member of Shaml (Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Center). Former ambassador
of the PLO in Geneva, Moscow and Vienna.
- Refugee or Terrorist? How the U.S. War on Terror Impacts Refugees
Parastou Hassouri, Human rights lawyer, Legal Advisor at The Africa and Middle East
Refugee Assistance (AMERA).
- Details of an Interview with Hassan Nasrallah
Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Professor of Sociology, The American University in Cairo
- Rights, Protection and Care of Children in Forced Migration Movements
Kristina Touzenis, Researcher, Istituto di Sociologia Internazionale di GoriziaUniversity
of Trieste.
- Livelihood of Palestinian Refugee in Lebanon Refugee Camps
Hoda Baraka, AUC Alumnus and Member of Cairo to Camps, an Arab Youth Solidarity
Project with Palestinian Refugees Children.
- Testimonials from Lebanon - 2006
Cairo to Camps, an Arab Youth Solidarity Project with Palestinian Refugees Children.
- Iraq’s Refugees — War and the Strategy of Exit
Philip Marfleet, Director of the Refugee Research Center, University of East London.
- A UN Perspective on the Humanitarian Situation in Darfur
Khaled Mansour, Regional spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Program Middle
33
East/North Africa and Antoine Gerard, United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (OCHA)
- Humanitarianism Transformed
Michael Barnett, Stassen Chair of International Affairs, Hubert Humphrey School, and Professor of
Political Science, University of Minnesota
- Crossing Borders: Lebanon and Jordan
Saad Eddin Ibrahim, Professor of Sociology, The American University in Cairo.
- Promoting the Rule of Law for All: Experiences on the Ground in Darfur
James Pearce, FMRS Alumnus and a rule of law officer with the United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) in West Darfur, Sudan.
- “I Live in Cairo”
A documentry on Sudanese in Cairo followed by discussions by Abdalla Shams El-Din,
Akram Abdo, Reda El-Burah
Philippe Fargues introducing Philippe Marfleet during one of
the FMRS Wednesday seminars
Additionally, FMRS had the privilege of hosting a special lecture given by Professor
Rainer Muenz, head of research and development, Erste Bank; and senior fellow at the
Hamburg Institute of International Economics, titled “Forced Migration in 20th Century
Europe.” This special lecture was delivered on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 in the AUC
Rare Books and Special Collections Library. It addressed the history and effects of the
nearly 60 million Europeans displaced due to forced migration, ethnic cleansing,
deportation and the exchange of populations.
34
Conferences and Workshops
Workshops and conferences are an important venue for bringing together academics, field
experts, and inter-governmental, governmental and civil society actors to explore
particular aspects of forced migration studies.
Researching Internal Displacement – State of the Art and an Agenda for the Future
The Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, in collaboration with the Institute
for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, organized a two-day
expert workshop on internal displacement hosted by FMRS on March 8 and 9, 2007. The
intention of the meeting was to review the state of the art in the field and develop a
research agenda for the next several years. The emphasis of the workshop was on
identifying research gaps and developing strategies to respond to them, including
identifying appropriate methodological approaches, building institutional partnerships and
thinking through funding opportunities.
Religion and Humanitarianism Workshop
The FMRS program and the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic
Engagement at AUC, in collaboration with the Hubert Humphrey School of Public
Affairs at the University of Minnesota and the Munk Centre for International Studies at
the University of Toronto, organized a one day workshop on Religion and Humanitarianism.
The workshop took place at Shepheard Hotel in Cairo on Sunday, April 15, 2007 from
9:00 am to 5:00 pm and was attended by members from Islamic-based humanitarian
organizations, Coptic-based humanitarian organizations, international secular humanitarian
organizations, as well as academics and intellectuals.
The central question of the workshop was the changing role of religious organizations
in the delivery of humanitarian assistance. What difference does religious commitment
make for the delivery of assistance? How are different kinds of religious commitments
translated into different kinds of humanitarian action? Which religious principles are most
important for generating feelings of charity, benevolence and philanthropy? Are certain
principles that translate into a concern for others shared by different religions and different
religious traditions? These critical questions were discussed during the workshop, not only
to further the understanding of religion in contemporary humanitarian action, but also to
potentially eliminate fundamental misunderstandings between different religious and
secular humanitarian organizations in the field.
35
A one-day meeting between the partner organizations followed the workshop. In this
meeting, it was decided to organize a graduate workshop and a summer institute to
tentatively take place in June 2008. The graduate workshop would be geared towards
advanced PhD students, in which they would have the ability to exchange drafts of their
research, present possible ideas and discuss common themes. The summer institute would
be attended by both academics and practitioners in the field where they would be asked
to write short memos (five to seven pages) to address the themes of the institute, to be
announced later.
The upcoming 11th IASFM Conference
The FMRS program is especially pleased to be hosting the 11th conference of the
International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM). The IASFM brings
together academics, practitioners and decision-makers working on forced migration issues.
The upcoming conference, to take place January 6 to 10, 2008 at AUC, will provide
another opportunity for these groups to come together to develop greater understanding
of the implications of forced movement.
The theme of the conference, “Refugees and Forced Migrants at the Crossroads: Forced
Migration in a Changing World,” uses the crossroads image as a metaphor for the
phenomenon of forced migration and, increasingly, for the field of study itself.
Presentations will look at the places, peoples and policies impacted by forced migration, and
again, at the methods used to study the dynamic issues associated with forced migration.
FMRS staff has been working hard in preparation for this big event. In August 2007,
Sara Sadek, FMRS alumna and former DRC/Sussex coordinator, joined FMRS staff in
the capacity as conference coordinator.
36
Student-run Organizations and Community
Outreach Activities
T
he community outreach activities undertaken by our students are unique features of
FMRS, reflective of the program’s encouragement of students to engage in
extracurricular service activities. Two of the most active student-run organizations in
AUC were established by FMRS students: Cairo to Camps and Student Action for Refugees.
Although both work under the auspices of FMRS and with the guidance of the FMRS
director as their academic adviser, they have a great degree of autonomy that allows them
to engage creatively in initiating new ideas and programs.
Cairo to Camps
The philosophy of Cairo to Camps, an Arab youth solidarity project with Palestinian
refugees, is based on the belief in the power of art and self-expression, and the role of
workshops that attempt to go beyond merely having fun with children.
The main component of the group’s activities is their annual trip to refugee camps in
Lebanon where they work with Palestinian refugee children conducting workshops in
literature, music, art, theater and filmmaking. Unfortunately, they could not conduct their
annual trip in August 2006 because of the Lebanese-Israeli conflict that started on July 12, 2006
and the resulting naval and air blockades over Lebanese territories. Despite these unfortunate
circumstances, Cairo to Camps decided to continue their activities in the 2006 - 2007
academic year through building awareness and carrying out training activities in Egypt
through the following activities.
Awareness activities
The awareness campaign targets both new members as well as the extended AUC
community. To this end, members of Cairo to Camps held a concert in June 2007 in
solidarity with the displaced Palestinians from Nahr Al-Bared Camp in an attempt to raise
awareness about the recent crisis. This was done simultaneously with lectures that aimed
to discuss the status of Palestinian Refugees in Egypt and elsewhere. Moreover, senior
members of the group conducted awareness sessions for new Cairo to Camps members on
the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Palestinian refugees and their status in the Middle
East with special focus on Lebanon and Jordan, the Lebanese civil war, Black September
and the different Palestinian factions and their formation.
37
Trip to Jordan
During the 2006 - 2007 academic year, Cairo to Camps members made the decision to
take their activities to Palestinian camps outside of Lebanon. Jordan was their chosen
destination, and they spent August 2007 working with children in Jabal Al-Nazeef — a
residential area in Amman mostly populated with Palestinians. During their trip, Cairo to
Camps volunteers carried out a filmmaking workshop with the youth of the camp, the
result of which was the production of a short film titled How We See Jabal Al-Nazeef. The
young filmmakers specifically wanted to show people that despite the poverty and misery
of Jabal Al-Nazeef, it still has a lot of activities and is full of talented people.
The group conducted another workshop aiming to help the refugee children express
their ideas and beliefs freely through art. Children were encouraged to draw and paint their
own pictures and interpret each others’ drawings. The workshop also focused upon building
theatrical skills, where the children participated in several activities meant to introduce them
to the theater and different forms of nonverbal communication. As a last focal point, the
volunteers stressed the importance of literature and helped the kids with their reading, writing
and creation of their own stories to help them discover their own creativity and imagination.
Future plans
Cairo to Camps volunteers who returned from Jordan at the end of August 2007 hope to
give a presentation at AUC to share reflections about the status of Palestinians in Jordan, as
well as their reflections on their own personal encounters with the children. The testimonies
will be supplemented by a documentary that the volunteers produced during their visit.
Student Action for Refugees
Student Action for Refugees (STAR) was established in 2001 to raise awareness about
refugee issues and offer students the opportunity to work with refugees in practical ways
through volunteering and education. Following the model of the international STAR
network, AUC students work to establish their own network of students and refugees here in
Cairo. STAR has been as active as ever in the last year through facilitating a variety of activities
for raising awareness about refugee issues and providing services for the refugee community.
Jennifer Renquist was president of the organization since spring 2006, and was heavily
involved both with STAR and within the refugee community since her arrival at AUC in
spring 2004. This former FMRS/IHRL student’s excellent communication, personnel and
managerial skills enabled her to build strong relationships with the various AUC offices
involved in the implementation of the various STAR activities, helping ensure the success
of STAR’s events. FMRS is especially grateful for Jennifer’s contributions to the program
38
over the years and was sad to see her depart. An equally qualified student, Edefe Ojomo,
will be heading STAR as of the 2007-2008 academic year. During this year, STAR
additionally benefited from the work of its two vice-presidents, Mindy Nolt, an FMRS
student, and Ali Hollenbeck, an undergraduate studying abroad for the year. Mindy and
Ali assumed joint responsibility for organizing and overseeing the annual World Refugee
Day event, along with Gafar Salim, FMRS office assistant.
STAR continued to fulfill its mission through organizing a variety of volunteer
opportunities and educational programs. Traditionally, one of the most significant
programs that STAR has implemented is its offering of English language courses. The
STAR English program provides free classes to hundreds of refugees in the Cairo
community, made possible largely through STAR volunteer teachers and the gracious
allowance of AUC to host the classes on its campus. Past experience showed such a high
demand for the English courses and only limited space to accommodate the students,
leading to the decision to branch out and take classes into the community. Starting in
March 2006, STAR helped to create the El-Wafa Center in Ain Shams, a neighborhood
in the northeast of Cairo. Ain Shams boasts a significant refugee population, and the choice
to hold classes there benefitted all involved: the students, by saving them travel time and
expense, and the volunteer teachers, giving them an opportunity to move beyond the
campus gates and see an often missed face of Cairo. Aided by Abdel-Rahman Siddiq, the
center’s manager, classes saw enrollment reach as many as 90 students before the end of
the academic year. In total, nearly 300 students benefitted from the program.
Moreover, through the efforts of STAR, the handicraft project was able to expand this
year, organized with the help of Fatma Suleiman, an Eritrean refugee in Cairo. Fatma
worked with a number of refugee women’s groups to develop their skills with arts and
crafts, which they then are able to sell in surrounding areas and on the AUC campus
during STAR-run monthly craft bazaars. This effort is in accordance with the STAR
mission that aims at building the skills of refugees, providing them with income
opportunities and teaching other refugees the skills they have acquired.
Finally, STAR organized several major events that attempted to draw attention to the
plight of refugees and celebrate their diverse cultures. These included the Global Day for
Darfur, a memorial of the Sudanese Refugees’ Martyrs, and the annual celebration of the
World Refugee Day.
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The Global Day for Darfur
September 17, 2006 was marked as the Global Day for Darfur, falling on the one-year
anniversary of the signing of the 2005 UN World Summit Outcome Document. The
document, which enshrined the “Responsibility to Protect” as an international doctrine
for the first time, pledged “to take collective action … if national authorities manifestly fail to
protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”
To commemorate the occasion, many organizations and individuals around the world
participated in peaceful demonstrations, rallies, marches, exhibitions and concerts to raise
awareness regarding the Darfur crisis. STAR stood in solidarity with these groups by
organizing an event at AUC on September 16, 2006, sharing the same name: Global Day
for Darfur. The event featured a film festival followed by discussion, a concert featuring
Darfurian music and dance, an exhibition of arts and crafts, as well as traditional food. The
evening ended with a candlelight vigil.
Candle lighting during the Global Day for Darfur, September 2006
Memorial of the Sudanese Refugees’ Martyrs
On December 28th, 2006, STAR in collaboration with the Office of Students
Development organized an event that
gathered NGOs, students, faculty, and
Sudanese refugees in a memorial day
remembering the sad event of the forced
removal of Sudanese protestors from a park
near the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees on December
30, 2005. The event started with a moment
of silence mourning the victims. Following
Memorial of the Sudanese Refugee Martyrs
that, the day was divided into sessions that
40
tackled the situation of Sudanese refugees in Egypt, how the protest and its aftermath were
covered by the Egyptian media, the impact of the incidents on the relation between Egypt
and Sudan and the future of this relation, and finally the role of NGOs in avoiding similar
incidents. The event ended by the screening of a documentary on the event followed by
a moment of silence on the vigil of candles.
World Refugee Day
World Refugee Day, hosted in conjunction with members of Cairo’s refugee communities
and the support of outside donors, was held on June 15th, 2007, at the AUC campus for
the sixth year in a row. Unfortunately, a
tragic attack outside the campus carried out by
rival Sudanese gang members overshadowed
the day’s outstanding successes. The victim,
Malia Poljor Bakama, was a Sudanese refugee
aged 24 years old and a member of one of the
gangs. He was assaulted when exiting the
campus in the early evening, rushed to
hospital but unfortunately eventually
succumbed to his injuries. The AUC security Preparation for World Refugee Day
team was forced to close down the event early to prevent the outbreak of further violence,
casting a pall over the otherwise successful event.
Historically, World Refugee Day has provided refugees in Cairo a chance to celebrate
Mariam Hashem, CCIP coordinator, working with children during the World Refugee Day
41
their cultures by displaying and enjoying their own cultures, giving them a stage to
perform songs and dances from their tribes and to exhibit and sell their handicrafts.
Another important feature of World Refugee Day is that it creates a unique opportunity
for members of the AUC campus to learn about refugees’ cultures and interact with them.
As with previous years, World Refugee Day proved a tremendous draw within the
community as more than 2,000 people, including many children, attended the event. The
attendees and participants came from different refugee communities in Cairo (Sudan, Iraq,
Ethiopia, Palestine, Burundi, Somalia and elsewhere), and also netted significant numbers
of Egyptians and members of the AUC community. Publicity for the event included posters
placed at venues around the city and interview opportunities with local radio stations.
The event itself took full advantage of the campus, offering children’s activities for the
first half of the day on Main Campus and a full day of live performances on Greek Campus.
Beginning in the early afternoon, children’s activities kicked off with the arrival of children
from various refugee schools. The afternoon included games facilitated by volunteers from
the British Council’s Dreams and Teams youth group and art activities carried out under
the auspices of Cairo to Camps. On the Main Campus, attendees were able to enjoy ethnic
foods from a variety of different refugee groups in Cairo, as well as purchase the arts and
crafts displayed by refugee women’s handicraft groups. Live music and dance performances
involving more than 24 performing groups and a number of genres, ranging from rhythm
and blues to traditional, folk and rap, represented groups from all over Africa and the
Middle East. As mentioned, the festivities were tragically cut short a few hours early due
to the outbreak of gang violence.
While STAR and FMRS principally supported the event, it was most certainly not
alone. Thanks to the generous financial support of many other sponsors, including AUC’s
Office of Student Development, Catholic Relief Services and the International
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), with meals provided for the children and
performing groups by McDonald’s and bottles of water from ICRC. Finally, the event
would have been impossible without the many hours of work and planning put in by
STAR student volunteers and refugees, as well as the kind assistance provided by the AUC
security team.
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T
Networking and Collaboration
hroughout the years, FMRS has established a strong presence both within AUC and
beyond by forging important links with a variety of bodies. Whether academic and
research centers or international and non-governmental organizations working in
the field, FMRS continuously seeks to share its unique experience and knowledge for the
benefit of forced migrants.
Local Networks
A strong collaboration already exists between FMRS and AUC departments and centers
since the four core courses of the FMRS diploma are offered by three departments —
sociology, anthropology, psychology and Egyptology; political science; and law — and
elective courses for the FMRS diploma are offered by these departments, as well as English
and comparative literature, Middle East studies and the Cynthia Nelson Institute for
Gender and Women’s Studies. Faculty members from each of these departments and
programs hold positions on the Joint Steering Committee that governs the diploma
program and curricula.
With the expectation that the program will expand to include a master’s degree, it is
anticipated that new links will form with AUC departments and centers. FMRS hopes to
employ an expanded Joint Steering Committee that will include representatives from other
disciplines that are crucial to the field of migration studies, including economists,
anthropologists and journalists. It is hoped that the broadened list of courses offered in
conjunction with other departments for the MA will result in an enriched program of
collaborative research and outreach activities with other centers at AUC, especially with
European studies, American studies, and performing and visual arts.
Outside AUC but still locally, FMRS continued its collaboration with the Africa and
Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), a U.K.-registered charity operating in Egypt.
AMERA’s activities in Egypt started in 2000 as the Refugee Legal Aid Project within
FMRS. It moved in 2001 under the umbrella of the Egyptian Organization for Human
Rights, and finally became an independent entity as a branch office of AMERA UK in
2003. Barbara Harrell-Bond is one member of AMERA Egypt’s advisory board, and
Michael Kagan, its director, is an FMRS adjunct professor. (More under Faculty)
FMRS is also connected to Tadamon, the Egyptian Refugee Multicultural Council, an
organization dedicated to promoting greater coordination between refugee-assisting
NGOs and Egyptian NGOs, and facilitating better communication between the Egyptian
43
host community and the refugee population in Cairo. The council operates as an outreach
program of the Townhouse Gallery, and Mohammed Yousry is the full-time coordinator.
The activities of the organization are overseen by a steering committee composed of
groups of representatives from NGOs, in addition to FMRS distinguished professor,
Barbara Harrell-Bond. During the 2006-2007 academic year, Tadamon collaborated with
FMRS on two different projects. A pilot project for violence prevention was initiated by
two FMRS students, Nida Ghouse and Stina Karlmeister, who facilitated a hip-hop
workshop for a group of Sudanese refugee girls. Tadamon assisted in generating project
strategies, coordinating between the project trainers and volunteers, and worked to oversee
the implementation of the workshop. Tadamon also cooperated with STAR on World
Refugee Day, working to exhibit paintings produced in the Townhouse Gallery’s Sawa
(community arts workshop) during the celebration. Sawa regularly invites Egyptians and
refugees to create and collaborate in a free artistic environment. Tadamon attempts to
market their productions in the Townhouse Gallery and other appropriate venues
whenever possible.
FMRS also continued its sponsorship of Salon Afrique. An initiative that is organized by
the English and comparative literature department and the graduate studies and research
office with the cooperation of AUC’s African fellows. The activities of Salon Afrique started
a series of cultural activities highlighting the African continent in Fall 2005. This year,
FMRS and STAR helped sponsor an African cultural night in April 2007 with food and
various arts and crafts on display.
Finally, FMRS had the opportunity to join with Ma’an, the Women Action Institute, in
hosting a seminar at AUC on July 15, 2007 to address “Issues of Refugee Youth in Cairo.”
The gathering allowed different participating groups, from NGOs and churches to schools
and research groups, to take the opportunity to present findings from their individual
studies on how to better engage refugee youth to avoid the proliferation of gangs and gang
activity in Cairo.
44
Regional and International Networks
The FMRS program’s planned transition into a regional center dedicated to migration and
refugee studies will further enhance its networking and collaboration with the regional
institutions. (For information on the planned center, see Research)
On the international level and in terms of research, FMRS continues its networking with
Sussex University through the DRC research project and initiated new projects ideas with
the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University (See Research). In terms of
education, FMRS collaboration with the University of East London is still ongoing. Thus
far, two FMRS students have taken advantage of the opportunity that the diploma credits
satisfy the requirements for the MA at the University of East London. Because of the
success of this initial collaboration, more avenues for cooperation in terms of research and
education are being explored.
FMRS continues as the Middle East partner of Oxford University’s Forced Migration
Online, which offers up-to-the-minute information and resources for practitioners,
researchers and students in the field. This year, FMRS further consolidated its networking
with the Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) of Oxford University by being a partner
institution in the Regional Information Networks initiated by RSC. Additionally, FMRS
submitted a joint proposal with a number of other institutions in the field headed by York
University in Canada to create a strategic knowledge cluster on refugee and forced
migration research and practice.
Last but not least, AUC is looking forward to the privilege of hosting the upcoming 11th
Conference of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM)
from January 6 to 10, 2008 at AUC, titled “Refugees and Forced Migrants at the
Crossroads: Forced Migration in a Changing World.”
45
Faculty, Staff and Affiliates Activities
FMRS faculty members are involved in a variety of activities in addition to teaching,
including research and activism in refugee studies, as well as other fields and disciplines.
Barbara Harrell-Bond, FMRS distinguished adjunct professor, continued her active
involvement in the program, teaching the course entitled Going Home? Is Repatriation
the Best Solution for Refugees? In addition to her other academic and advocacy-related
activities, she implemented the FMRS short course, A Rights-based Approach to
Refugees and Development, from January 8 to 17, 2007 and worked to organize a
conference for Southern Refugee Legal Aid Organizations in Nairobi, Kenya. On April
17 and 18, 2007, she attended a conference in Geneva at the invitation of the UNHCR,
titled Addressing Humanitarian Needs of Refugees an Internally Displaced Persons inside
Iraq and in the Neighboring Countries. She also attended a conference of the Federation
for Human Rights in Geneva, presenting a paper on the situation of refugees in Egypt.
Finally, she attended quarterly meetings in London for the African and Middle East
Refugee Association Board of Trustees, of which she is a member.
Gurdun Kroner, FMRS research affiliate, contributed to the AUC community with her
lecture, “Palestinians in Jordan: Social Stratification from Above and Within,” on October
11, 2006 as part of the FMRS Wednesday Seminar Series. While in Cairo, she was
conducting research towards her PhD dissertation. She is now working for the Austrian
Academy of Sciences, Commission for Social Anthropology, where she is currently doing
field research on Palestinians in Jordan. Throughout the last year, she had the opportunity
to offer lectures at several other venues. On November 15, 2007 she traveled to San Jose
in the United States to speak on “Facts versus Fiction — Refugee Policies versus Refugee
Hopes” at the 105th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, with
the theme “Critical Intersections/Dangerous Issues.” On November 17, she served as a
discussant on the panel for “Understanding Cultural and Religious Identities in the Somali
Diaspora” at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association in San Francisco. On
November 24 she spoke on “Refugees of Somalia and Palestine: Their Situation
Compared,” in Vienna at the Austrian Academy of Sciences’ workshop on comparison
and social anthropology. She also offered a lecture entitled “Migration in Mashreq” at the
University of Luxembourg’s Migration Workshop on July 8, 2007.
Michael Kagan, adjunct faculty with FMRS and the law department, and program
director for the Africa and the Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA) in Cairo. In
46
September 2006, he offered a lecture as a part of the FMRS Wednesday Seminar Series
entitled “Legal Aid and UNHCR: Current Issues.” He also contributed heavily to the
Southern Refugee Legal Aid Conference, which convened in Nairobi, Kenya in January
2007. This included organizing the conference, giving a presentation on legal aid
methodologies, and circulating a working paper that became the foundation of the
“Nairobi Code,” a model code of ethics for refugee legal aid. In April 2007, he gave
another lecture through AUC’s law department entitled “Destructive Ambiguity: Enemy
Nationals and the Legal Enabling of Ethnic Conflict in the Middle East.” In June 2007, he
traveled to Doha to participate in the International Federation for Human Rights Regional
Conference on Migration, offering a presentation on migration flows in Egypt.
Mulki Al-Sharmani, Senior researcher at the Social Research Center and FMRS research
affiliate, traveled to the United States to present two papers at different conferences. The
first, entitled The Secondary Movement of Somali Refugees and the Issue of Protection, was
presented at the Annual Conference of the American Anthropological Association in San
Jose on November 15, 2006, followed by Reconstructing Somali Nation in Diaspora, offered
at the annual conference of the African Studies Association in San Francisco, on
November 17, 2006
Maysa Ayoub, FMRS projects manager, traveled to Italy from June 14 to 29, 2007 to
attend the third session of the Florence Summer School on Euro-Mediterranean Migration
and Development.
Philippe Fargues, FMRS director, joined FMRS in February 2007. On March 17, he
participated as a discussant at the Conference on Arab Family Working Group held in Cairo.
On March 21 to 25, 2007, he traveled to Florence, Italy to attend the Mediterranean
Research Meeting where he organized the workshop, Senders Turned into Receivers:
Transit Migration in the Middle East and North Africa (For information, please visit
www.eui.eu/RSCAS/Research/Mediterranean/mrm2007/Index.shtml). On May 21, 2007
he traveled to Paris for the IPEMed, and offered a seminar on Mobilités transméditerranéennes.
Ray Jureidini, associate director of FMRS and associate professor of sociology, served as
the FMRS acting director until February 2007. He taught two FMRS core courses,
including Introduction to Forced Migration and Refugee Studies, and Issues in Forced
Migration. He also continued supervising the ongoing Migrant Domestic Workers in Cairo
survey research project. His outreach activities were varied and numerous throughout the
year, and included acting as the organizer for the Arab Families Working Group conference
entitled Rethinking Arab Family Projects in Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, held in Cairo
47
from March 16 to 19, 2007 (at which he presented the paper Historical Trajectories of Domestic
Workers in Lebanon); the supervisor for the annual World Refugee Day held at AUC on May
15, 2006; adviser for the Cairo to Camps group; advisory committee member for AMERA;
and executive editor for Labour and Industry, an Australian academic refereed journal.
Susan M. Akram, FMRS and law distinguished visiting professor, taught the course
International Refugee Law during both the fall and spring semesters while in Cairo. She
contributed a number of presentations and lectures for the law department during her stay,
including a “Teach-In” on Guantanamo for the law department entitled “Does
International Law have Relevance in the War on Terror?” (October 12, 2006). She also
gave a guest lecture for the law class on Palestinian refugee issues called “Implications of
the ‘Protection Gap’ and the Proposal for Temporary Protection” (April 12, 2007), and a
presentation to the department and Law Students Association entitled “Global Strategies
for Advancing Palestinian Claims of Return, Restitution and Compensation” (April 19,
2007). Her contributions were not limited to the law department, and she offered several
other lectures for other members of the AUC community, including a presentation for the
AUC Model United Nation’s “33 Days Campaign,” entitled “Belhas v. Ya’alon, The
Qana Case” (November 12, 2006); a Wednesday Seminar called “Temporary Protection
and the Palestinian Case” (November 15, 2006); and finally, a panel discussion with
Maher Nasser on “Palestinian Refugees: International Legal Protection,” for the student
group, “Cairo to Camps,” (March 19, 2007), a group for which she also served as the
faculty adviser during the 2006-2007 academic year. On November 26, 2006, she
presented on “A Proposal for Temporary Protection and its Relevance to the Palestinian
Case” in East Jerusalem at the Al-Quds University. She returned to Cairo and made a
presentation to African Middle East Refugee Assistance, on “The Palestinian Refugee
Problem” on December 4, 2006, and also offered a presentation in the same month before
the Arab Women’s Legal Network’s Legal Education Workshop at AUC, entitled
“Models of Clinical Legal Education Programs and their Relevance to Legal Education in
the Middle East.” In February 2007, she collaborated with international NGOs in the
drafting of a submission for presentation to the UN Committee on the Elimination of
Racial Discrimination, in addition to lobbying on behalf of the submission at the
committee’s session on the Examination of the State of Israel. She also presented testimony
on invitation before the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting
Human Rights of the Palestinian People and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories on
July 22, 2007.
48
Publications by FMRS Faculty and Affiliates
Akram, Susan M., “The Palestinian Refugee Problem” in Akram, Susan M., et. al. (eds.),
A Rights-Based Approach to the Israel-Palestine Conflict, (forthcoming) Routledge
Publishers, London, 2007.
Akram, Susan M., “Myths and Realities of The Palestinian Refugee Problem: Reframing
the Right of Return” in Farsakh, L., et. Al. (eds.), Forty Years of the Naqse, Sixty Years
of the Naqba, (forthcoming) Routledge Publishers, London, 2007.
Akram, S. with Al-Midani, Mohammed, A. and Cabanettes, M., revision of English
Translation of the Arab Charter on Human Rights 2004 with Introduction, published in
Vol. 24 Boston University International Law Journal 146, 2007.
Al-Sharmani, M. “Reconstructing the Nation in Diaspora: The Poetics and Practices of
Soomaalinimo” in Kusow, Abdi and Bjork, Stephanie (eds.), From Dixon to Mogadishu:
The Somali Diaspora in Global Context, The Red Sea Press, Trenton, New Jersey, 2007.
Coker, E., “Religion, ethnicity, and community mental health: Service provision and
identity politics in an unplanned Egyptian community.” Community Development
Journal, forthcoming, 2007.
Fargues Ph., “The Demographic Benefit of International Migration: Hypothesis and
Application to Middle Eastern and North African Contexts,” in Özden, Caglar and
Maurice Schiff, International Migration, Economic Development and Policy,
Washington, World Bank, 2007.
Fargues, Ph. (ed.), Mediterranean Migration Report 2006/2007, Florence, July 2007, xxvi
+ 401 p. http://www.carim.org/index.php?areaid=8&contentid=9, 2007.
Fargues, Ph., Circular Migration: A Concise Overview, 7 p., European University
Institute, CARIM Background Paper
http://www.carim.org/public/workarea/workarea.php?admin=1&admintype=workarea
&dir=home/%20TS%20October%202007/Back%20ground%20papers, 2007.
Fargues, Ph. & Hervé Le Bras « Des migrations aux mobilités méditerranéennes », Report
for IEPEMED, Institut de Prospective Economique du Monde Méditerranéen, Paris, May
2007, 36 p.
49
http://www.ipemed.coop/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid
=244, 2007.
Harrell-Bond, B.E. with Arnold-Fernandez, E. and de Lorenzo, M. (Date TBD). “Starting
a Movement: Legal Aid for Refugees in the Global South” in Kaufman, Zachary (ed.),
Changing Our World: Case Studies of Emerging Social Entrepreneurs (Publisher TBD).
Kagan, M., “Destructive Ambiguity: Enemy Nationals and the Legal Enabling of Ethnic
Conflict in the Middle East,” 38:2 Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 263, 2007.
Kagan, M., “Setting Standards of Ethics, Competence and Accountability for Legal Aid
in the Context of UNHCR RSD”, accessible
http://www.rsdwatch.org/KaganEthicsWP&Proposal.pdf, 2006.
Kagan, M., “Darfur,” International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd Edition,
MacMillan Reference USA publishers, forthcoming.
Kagan, M., “Legal Refugee Recognition in the Urban South: Formal v. De Facto
Refugee Status,” 24:1 Refuge: Canada’s Periodical on Refugees, 2007.
Kagan, M. with Trad, S., “Rights, Needs and Responsibility: Challenges to Rights-Based
Advocacy for Non-Palestinian Refugees’ Health and Education in Lebanon,” in Grabska
and Mehta, (eds.), Problematizing Rights and Policies in Forced Displacement: Whose
Needs Are Right?, Palgrave Press, London, forthcoming 2007.
Kagan, M., “Politically-Preferred Solutions and Refugee Choices: Applying the Lessons of
Iraq to Palestine,” in Dumper, (ed.), Palestinian Refugee Repatriation: Global Perspectives
at 250, Routledge Press, London, 2006.
Kroner, G., “Migration in the Mashreq Countries,” in Bilger, V. and Kraler, A. (eds.),
Migration und Globalgeschichte, 2006.
Kroner, G., “Transit or Dead End: The Somali Diaspora in Egypt,” in Kusow, A. and
Bjork, S. (eds.), From Mogadishu to Dixon: The Somali Diaspora in a Global Context,
The Red Sea Press, Trenton, New Jersey, 2007.
50
FMRS Faculty and Staff
Phillipe Fargues
FMRS Director and Professor of Sociology
Ray Jureidini
FMRS Associate Director and Associate Professor of Sociology
Maysa Ayoub
FMRS Projects Manager
Lamyaa Mady
Administrative Assistant and Accountant
Eman Samir
Program Secretary
Gafar Salim
Office Assistant
Alice Johnson
Cairo Community Interpreter Project Manager
Mohamed Berray
FMRS Library Specialist
Sara Sadek
11th IASFM Conference Coordinator
Reem W. M. Mohamed
Research Assistant, FMRS/Sussex DRC Project
Assmaa Naguib
Research Assistant, FMRS/Sussex DRC Project
Ted Oswald
Graduate Merit Fellow, Editor of FMRS Report of Activities, 2006-2007
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FMRS Affiliated Faculty and Researchers
Abdel Aziz Ez ElArab
Associate Professor, FMRS JSC Member
Barbara Harrell-Bond
Distinguished Adjunct Professor, FMRS Adviser, FMRS JSC Member
Elizabeth Marie Coker
Assistant Professor of Psychology, FMRS JSC Member
Ferial Ghazoul
Professor of English and Comparative Literature
Hania Sholkamy
Research Assistant Professor at the Social Research Center, FMRS JSC Member
Jayme Spencer
Senior Librarian, Director of Public Services, FMRS JSC Member
Martina Riecker
Assistant Professor, Associate Dean of HUSS, Director of CNIGWS, FMRS JSC Member
Michael Kagan
FMRS Adjunct Professor, FMRS/Law
Mulki Al Sharmani
Senior Researcher, Social Research Center
Nazek Nossier
Associate Professor Sociology, FMRS JSC Member
Samer Soliman
Assistant Professor, FMRS JSC Member
Susan Musarrat Akram
FMRS and Law Distinguished Visiting Professor
Associate Professor, Boston University School of Law
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For more information about the program, e-mail [email protected]
www.aucegypt.edu/researchatAUC/rc/fmrs
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