Refugee Research Network

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Open Access
“Aid, Conflict, and Migration: the Canada-Sri Lanka Connection”
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2003) Hyndman, Jennifer
This paper aims to disentangle patterns of aid, trade, conflict and migration between Canada and Sri Lanka, illustrating the surprisingly significant traffic between the two countries and exploring the significance and quality of these connections. International aid to Sri Lanka is closely related to the opening of markets to multinational investment beginning in 1977. This economic liberalisation overlaps with periods of conflict in Sri Lanka and of macroeconomic growth. The prosperity it has generated, however, has not benefited all social classes and ethnic groups. Accordingly, conflict in Sri Lanka has been characterised by uprisings led by unemployed youth, peaceful and violent protests of discrimination against Sri Lankan Tamils and militarised government reprisals to both. A long period of macroeconomic growth ended in the final quarter of 2001, after the bombing of commercial airliners at Sri Lanka's international airport. Geopolitical and geoeconomic conditions in Sri Lanka changed dramatically. In this context, Canada's International Development Agency (CIDA) and other aid agencies aspire to 'correct for conflict' and promote a democratic and peaceful Sri Lanka through peace-building and other aid measures. Militarised conflict over at least the past 20 years has generated massive human displacement both within and beyond the country's borders, spawning international migrants in search of asylum. In 1999, Sri Lanka was the leading source country of refugee claimants to Canada. Canada hosts the single largest Sri Lankan diaspora of any country. By examining the nexus ofeconomic liberalisation and aid, I analyse its relation to conflict in Sri Lanka and migration to Canada.
Open Access
“The Americanization of American Geography”
(Springer Verlag, 1998) Hyndman, Jennifer; Kirby, Andrew
Open Access
“Another Brick in the Wall? Neo-refoulement & the Externalisation of Asylum in Europe & Australia"
(Wiley-Blackwell) Hyndman, Jennifer; Mountz, Alison
Open Access
"Beyond Either/Or: A Feminist Analysis of September 11th"
(University of British Columbia, 2003) Hyndman, Jennifer
â€˜Feminist geopoliticsâ€™ offers a critical framework for analyzing the events and aftermath of September 11th. This grid of intelligibility seeks to provide a more accountable, embodied understanding of intersections of power and space at multiple scales. It challenges the logic of either/or reasoning, and related responses to September 11th. The escalation of violence, such that terror begets more terror, is not the only possible response to the murder and destruction in New York City and Washington, yet the dominant geopolitical discourse leads us to believe it is. Critical and feminist geopolitics are crucial if we are to go beyond the binaries and establish a third space of 'neither/nor'. Finally, to generate a more accountable and embodied political vision, feminist geopolitics is employed in relation to body counts at two distinct geographical and geopolitical sites.
Open Access
"Beyond Gender: Towards A Feminist Analysis of Humanitarianism and Development in Sri Lanka"
(Feminist Press, 2003) de Alwis, Malathi; Hyndman, Jennifer
Open Access
"Bodies, Shrines, and Roads: Violence, (Im)mobility, and Displacement in Sri Lanka"
(Taylor and Francis (Routledge), 2004) Hyndman, Jennifer; de Alwis, Malathi
In Sri Lanka, gender and national identities intersect to shape people's mobility and security in the context of conflict. This article aims to illustrate the gendered processes of identity construction in the context of competing militarised nationalisms. We contend that a feminist approach is crucial, and that gender analysis alone is insufficient. Gender cannot be considered analytically independent from nationalism or ethno-national identities because competing Tamil and Sinhala nationalist discourses produce particular gender identities and relations. Fraught and cross-cutting relations of gender, nation, class and location shape people's movement, safety and potential for displacement. In the conflict-ridden areas of Sri Lanka's North and East during 1999-2000, we set out to examine relations of gender and nation within the context of conflict. Our specific aim in this article is to analyse the ways in which certain identities are performed, on one hand, and subverted through premeditated performances of national identity on the other hand. We examine these processes at three sites-shrines, roads and people's bodies. Each is a strategic site of security/insecurity, depending on one's gender and ethno-national identity, as well as geographical location.
Open Access
“Border Crossings”
(Wiley-Blackwell, 1997) Hyndman, Jennifer
Open Access
"Business and Bludgeon at the Border: a Transnational Political Economy of Human Displacement in Thailand and Burma"
(Springer Verlag, 2001) Hyndman, Jennifer
Transnational economic integration between Thailand and Burma is intimately linked to protection for Burmese refugees in Thailand. In the case of Burmese nationals who seek safety in Thailand, their protection becomes more negotiable as economic integration with Thailand proceeds. Since 1988, hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens have fled beyond the borders of their state, fearing both human rights abuses and successive offensives by a military junta intent on its own survival. Critical analysis of the dynamic of human displacement and bi-national economic cooperation between the governments of Thailand Burma grounds this study. The story is one of transnational trade across one border, where people's labour, homes, and passports are exchanged - in an obscured fashion - for investment, natural resources, and economic cooperation. The Thai-Burmese border proves to be a flexible concept that can be invoked to produce refugees or blurred to promote binational economic infrastructure and trade. Despite economic booms and busts in Southeast Asia, economic integration in the region is on-going. At the same time, Burma's government - the State Peace and Development Council - and its military force more and more citizens into neighbouring countries. Their reception in Thailand, however, is increasingly chilly.
Open Access
“Change and Challenge at UNHCR: A Retrospective of the Past 50 Years”
(York University, Centre for Refugee Studies, 2001) Hyndman, Jennifer
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is arguably the lead UN agency in complex humanitarian emergencies. But this is a recent role, whereby UNHCR provides assistance to displaced persons both beyond international borders, in refugee camps, and within conflict zones. The agency has evolved, in practice, beyond its original mandate to protect refugees and ensure solutions to their plight. This short article traces the emergence of UNHCR after World War II in the context of cold war geopolitics and provisions of international law. Specific references are made to the OAU Convention on Refugees and the Cartagena Declaration, both of which shape a specific geography of refugee determination in Africa and the Americas respectively. The paper concludes that with the end of the superpower tensions, humanitarian assistance is being delivered in distinct ways and with new meanings.
Open Access
“Feminism, Conflict and Disasters in Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka”
(Sage Publications, 2008) Hyndman, Jennifer
Social relations, including gender, are destabilized by conflict and disaster. Approaches informed by feminist thought illustrate this by probing the ways in which different identities and locations produce inequality, violence and disparate power relations. In this article, a feminist approach to development and disasters is advocated. In Sri Lanka, a country at war on and off for more than two decades, the social impact of the 2004 tsunami cannot be divorced from the pre-existing landscape with its layers of conflict, nationalism and economic disparities. This article explores the ways in which the tsunami changed peopleâ€™s relations of home, family and security for those who lost a spouse. Interviews with 40 widows and widowers along the east coast of Sri Lanka in February 2006 suggest that the tsunami not only reorganized gender relations among specific ethno-national groups, but also changed the meaning of â€˜widowâ€™ with war widows and tsunami widows positioned differently within post-tsunami society and across ethnic groups. The study shows that men with surviving young children who lost their wives view remarriage as highly desirable. The Sri Lankan governmentâ€™s policy of no-build buffer zones along this coast has also increased insecurity with many people still living in temporary accommodation two years after the tsunami. The prospect of remarriage for widowed women is fraught, yet more appealing as a way to mitigate insecurity than it was pre-tsunami. The author argues that a â€˜feminism and disasterâ€™ lens should be coupled with a â€˜feminism and developmentâ€™ approach to understanding change in the wake of the tsunami. Focusing on gender alone is insufficient.
Open Access
“Feminist Geopolitics Revisited: Body Counts in Iraq”
(Routledge, 2007) Hyndman, Jennifer
Feminist geography and political geography still represent two solitudes within the discipline. While increased traffic between these different parts of the discipline points to a degree of intellectual engagement, there remains a paucity of feminist thought in political geography. This article examines recent scholarship on feminist political geography, with a view to applying its insights to the struggles to protest and end political violence. The concept of feminist geopolitics is employed and recast, both as a bridging concept between feminist and political geography and as an analytical approach that has political valence in the context of the war in Iraq. Feminist geopolitics is revisited in this article, but remains a critical analytic in relation to body counts and other casualties in war zones.
Open Access
“The Field as Here and Now, Not There and Then”
(American Geographical Society, 2001) Hyndman, Jennifer
Fieldwork is at once a political, personal, and professional undertaking. It provides crucial reference points and evidence upon which knowledge claims are made. Careful consideration, though, is required of one's own assumptions about the field, especially boundaries between here and there. I make three related arguments: that, as a researcher, one is always in the field; that by being in the field one changes it and is changed by it; and that field experience does not automatically authorize knowledge, but rather allows us to generate analyses and tell specific kinds of stories. I underscore the importance of field research as a basis for developing accountable analyses and theory with the caveat that the field is separate from the everyday spaces of home. In this essay I first examine essentialized notions of the field as bounded by time and place, drawing on the work of feminist geographers. With a clearer understanding of how the field may be conceptualized, I draw on my fieldwork to illustrate political and practical considerations. Finally, I illustrate how I have become part of the fields I purport to study and contend that, as field-workers, we are always in the field.
Open Access
“Global Minds, Local Bodies: Kosovar Transnational Connections Beyond British Columbia”
(York University, Centre for Refugee Studies, 2006) Sherrell, Kathy; Hyndman, Jennifer
In 1999, 905 Kosovar refugees settled in the province of British Columbia (BC) in Canada. Despite their sudden and forced departure, many have maintained contact with and returned to visit Kosovo/a. We contend that these transnational links are different for refugees than for other classes of immigrants. In this case, â€œrefugee transnationalismâ€� refers to the social, cultural, economic, and political relations that Kosovar refugees in Canada keep with those in Serbia and Montenegro (formerly the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). A salient feature that shapes Kosovar transnationalism is the uncertain status of the region of origin, namely Kosovo/a. Based on interviews and focus groups with Kosovars in seven BC cities, we discuss the quality and distinctiveness of transnational links among this refugee group and their implications for settlement and integration in Canada.
Open Access
“Hidden Homelessness in Greater Vancouver”
(Elsevier, 2006) Fiedler, Rob; Schuurman, Nadine; Hyndman, Jennifer
While homelessness is a growing problem in Greater Vancouver, immigrants are not yet a visible part of the region's homeless. The over-representation of immigrants among the population considered at-risk suggests that immigrant homelessness remains hidden. Using census-based housing indicators, we examine the geographies of immigrants at-risk of homelessness to discern where 'hidden' homelessness might be occurring. Findings indicate that: spatial concentrations of recent immigrants at-risk of homelessness are found in inner suburban locations; in these at-risk areas the vast majority of immigrants are recent arrivals; and recent immigrants are disproportionately excluded from at-risk estimates because they are significantly over-represented among households that have shelter costs that exceed their incomes (which are excluded by the indicator). These conclusions are reached through analysis at the regional and sub-regional scale, which revealed broad trends and patterns, and a second small-area (neighbourhood) scale analysis, a means of better documenting the highly-localized geography of low-cost rental housing, revealing fine-grained patterns of social difference, that in Greater Vancouver identify areas where 'hidden' homelessness may be present.
Open Access
“Improving Census-Based Socioeconomic GIS for Public Policy”
(University of British Columbia, 2006) Fiedler, Rob; Schuurman, Nadine; Hyndman, Jennifer
There are a number of socioeconomic phenomena that are difficult to discern using only census data. We present an innovative approach developed to discern the spatial dimensions of risk for homelessness amongst recent immigrants in Vancouver, Canada. Dasymetric mapping and a postal survey are employed to improve the resolution and utility of census data. The results illustrate the potential for developing a more nuanced understanding of the spatial dimensions of complex socioeconomic phenomena using a combination of secondary data and primary data. It is argued that higher-resolution data aids in identifying and understanding socioeconomic phenomena that are highly localized and misrepresented by coarsely aggregated data. Finally, the potential for population surveillance is discussed and weighed against the benefits for policy-makers, non-governmental organizations, and researchers.
Open Access
“Interrogating Borders: A Transnational Approach to Refugee Research in Vancouver”
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2000) Hyndman, Jennifer; Walton-Roberts, Margaret
Immigration is predicated on the centrality of the nation-state. The authors argue that analyzing settlement patterns and successful integration within a strictly national context is insufficient to understand the political, social, and economic relations which shape the lives of refugee immigrants in Canada. To support this claim, a less state-centric theoretical framework of transnational migration is outlined. The paper examines methods emerging from transnational migration, focussing in particular on research with Burmese refugees who have settled in the Greater Vancouver Area. Based on 50 personal interviews conducted with refugee newcomers from Burma who are now settled in the Lower Mainland, the authors use the case study as a basis to raise methodological and theoretical questions about immigration research. We argue that the very politics of doing research with this group of refugees and other immigrant groups are shaped by the relations Of power experienced before arriving in Canada.
Open Access
“Managing Difference: Gender and Culture in Humanitarian Emergencies”
(Taylor and Francis (Routledge), 1998) Hyndman, Jennifer
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has a mandate to respond to crises of human displacement on a global scale. The ways in which the organization conceives of gender and culture in this humanitarian context are problematic because they tend either to essentialize 'woman' and 'culture' in the planning process or to minimize the meaning and implications of these differences vis-a-vis gender policies which focus on integration. In this article, the discourse of 'UN humanism' is analyzed, noting a long-standing tension between culture as shared humanity and culture as a pivotal basis of difference. Drawing on current research relating t0 UNHCR's gender policies and on initiatives against violence towards refugee women in camps, the implications of overarching frameworks which attend to gender and cultural differences are discussed. Strategies to avoid authenticating or fixing categories of difference, on the one hand, and to avoid treating gender and culture as simply variables, on the other, are proposed in the context of emerging transnational feminist practices. Transnational approaches point to important interventions which may serve to unravel the dominant discourses of UN humanism and vulnerable groups that continue to organize UN refugee and humanitarian operations today.
Open Access
"The Methods and Meanings of Collaborative Team Research"
(Sage Publications, 2010) Hyndman, Jennifer; Jamal, Arif; McLean, James; Houston, Serin D.
Team research enables the collection of multiple, sometimes conflicting, stories of migration, family, and belonging. Using common qualitative methods within a team research context can stretch these research techniques in productive and instructive ways and proffer new insight and meaning. Therefore, the authors suggest that team research offers an important avenue for both extending qualitative methods and expanding interpretative lenses. To illustrate these points, the authors draw upon their study of the settlement and migration patterns of East African Shia Ismaili Muslims in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and discuss their experiences with focus group effects, the simultaneous household interview strategy, and postinterview dialogues. The article highlights how these three techniques and effects enacted in the team research context helped the authors explicitly locate contradictions, ambiguities, and paradoxes within the narratives of first- and second-generation Ismailis.
Open Access
“Mind the Gap: Bridging Feminist and Political Geography Through Geopolitics”
(Elsevier, 2004) Hyndman, Jennifer
The intersections and conversations between feminist geography and political geography have been surprisingly few. Feminist geographersâ€™ forays into geopolitics and international relations within political geography have been relatively rare compared to their presence and influence in social, cultural, and economic geography. Likewise, only a few political geographers concerned with IR and geopolitics have engaged with scholarship in feminist geography. In an attempt to traverse this gap, the notion of a feminist geopolitics is elaborated; it aims to bridge scholarship in feminist and political geography by creating a theoretical and political space in which geopolitics becomes a more gendered and racialized project, one that is epistemologically situated and embodied in its conception of security. Building upon scholarship in critical geopolitics, feminist international relations, and trans-national feminist studies, a theoretical framework for feminist geopolitics is sketched in the first part of the paper. Feminist geopolitics represents more accountable and embodied political responses to international relations at multiple scales. Its application to pressing issues of security and mobility is illustrated in the second half of the article.
Open Access
“A Post-Cold War Geography of Forced Migration in Kenya and Somalia”
(Taylor and Francis, 1999) Hyndman, Jennifer
Drawing on recent research in the Horn of Africa, emerging patterns of managing forced migration in the post-Cold War landscape are identified and analyzed. While camps continue to house refugees, tbe meaning and value of 'refugee' have changed dramatically since the Cold War. Efforts to prevent people from crossing political borders to seek safety are increasing, giving rise to a new set of safe spaces. These new spaces are expressions of a distinct geopolitical discourse and take the names 'UN protected area', 'preventive zone', and 'safe haven'. Their significance as a challenge to state-centric geopolitics both within conflict zones and as refugee camps is explored in the Kenya-Somalia context.