2016•09•08 Tilburg
The organisation ‘UrbanRefugees.org’ claims that 58% of the refugees now live in cities. The UNHCR estimates that more than 10 million refugees and 27 million IDPs (internally displaced persons) live in urban areas. Urban refugees avoid the traditional refugee camps because of the poor living and security conditions and the lack of prospect for the future. Although most camps are supposed to be temporal, refugees are often stuck for years and in some cases decades in these camps, putting their lives and the lives of their children on hold. For those reasons some refugees prefer to live in a city as they think cities provide them more opportunities to live their life, to regain control over their life and to build a future. They often remain unreported and undocumented and deprived of assistance from the international community. Without access to basic needs such as schooling and health services living a life as invisibles, they are extremely vulnerable to practices of abuse, exploitation and ill-treatment such as discrimination and violence.
The fall 2016 DAMR-conference will be devoted to research on Urban Refugees and will take place on 18 November 2016 from 11.00-15.00h at Tilburg University. You are all cordially invited to subsequently attend the inaugural lecture ‘Victimization through Migration’ of Conny Rijken, professor of Human Trafficking and Globalization, at 16.15h at the Auditorium, Tilburg University, followed with drinks.
We invite researchers from all disciplines to submit a paper (may be work in progress) for the fall DAMR-conference.
Deadlines: please submit your paper proposal (max. 300 words) before October 1st, 2016, to Lisa Berntsen (Tilburg University): L.E.Berntsen@uvt.nl. Full papers should be ready one week prior to the conference (11 November).
The purpose of the meeting is to give researchers the opportunity to present their research and to stimulate interdisciplinary exchange. Each paper presenter will receive feedback from a discussant. If you are interested in being a discussant or if you, as presenter, have suggestions for a discussant please let us know, and we will try to accommodate that.
Should you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact the organizers: Lisa Berntsen (L.E.Berntsen@uvt.nl) or Tesseltje de Lange (T.delange1@uvt.nl).