Thesis advisor: David Hollenbach / The purpose of this reflection – Dignity across borders: Rethinking the protection of refugees and IDPs from an ethical perspective – has been to challenge contemporary ways of thinking and dealing with issues related to refugees and IDPs. Today, refugees and IDPs are often reduced to their needs. They are often perceived as bodies to shelter, to heal or to clothe; mouths to feed; victims of persecution to protect, etc. In the same perspective, contemporary debates on treatments of refugees and IDPs tend to rotate around the financial costs of processing claims, social security benefits for asylum seekers, and social tensions arising from the presence of large numbers of refugees and IDPs in receiving countries or communities. While acknowledging the importance of all these issues and needs, the stance of this reflection has been to refocus the debate on the concept of human dignity which transcends borders such as nationality, ethnicity, religion, race, etc. From this standpoint, the debate changes and gains more fundamental and moral depths. From the same stance, but grounded in the biblical experience, the Roman Catholic Church‘s social discourse on refugees and IDPs challenges the current international refugee protection regime. Because all are created in the image and likeness of God, all humans share the same dignity. Their dignity and their rights as humans are not related to their citizenship, but to the fact that they have been born into the human family. This is the foundation of Christian universalism that challenges the current refugee protection regime that is based on the membership of states. Yet, Christian universalism includes also a realism that respects the state sovereignty within its borders. Conversely, the main claim of Catholic social teachings on refugee issues is that the refugee issues should not be perceived only from the standpoint of the state, such as national security concern and borders control. Above all, refugees should be perceived as human beings, as dignities across borders. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

The purpose of the dissertation is to further our knowledge of the process of normalization in the displaced person (DP) camps in the American zone of occupation in Germany after the Second World War. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) welfare workers brought with them their years of education and training in the United States, primarily as professional social workers, to their work in these camps. They believed that their task was not only to feed and clothe the DPs, but to provide rehabilitation as well. They continually emphasized the importance of reinstituting prewar social norms as the key element in rehabilitating the DPs. However, once they entered the DP camps in Germany, they soon discovered that the DPs had very different understandings of what constituted “normal life.” As a result, rehabilitation included not only reinstituting prewar social norms, but also introducing the DPs to new ones. UNRRA focused their rehabilitation efforts on six aspects of DP care: housing, cleanliness, education, work, and respect for civil and criminal law. While the DP camps were administered by UNRRA, they existed next to German communities who governed by Military Government and in the midst of their own reconstruction efforts. Given the immense wartime destruction, widespread shortages and the arrival of large numbers of German refugees, resources for all groups were at a premium. As a result, there were numerous opportunities for creative and broad-minded people to work at solving problems in unconventional ways. While UNRRA planning had provided some direction for its welfare workers, staff working in field came to play an important role in defining UNRRA’s policies. At the same time, their competing goals of rehabilitation and repatriation, as well as their at-times difficult relationship with the military, worked to constrain their efforts. Nevertheless, when UNRRA’s tenure as administrator of the DP camps ended in the summer of 1947, they left behind a legacy which highlighted the importance of the successful integration of refugees into their societies, and which made rehabilitation as central as relief in all future humanitarian responses.

Thesis (J.S.M.)--Stanford University, 2009. / Submitted to the Stanford Program in International Legal Studies at the Stanford Law School, Stanford University. "April 2009." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-128). Also available online.

The purpose of the dissertation is to further our knowledge of the process of normalization in the displaced person (DP) camps in the American zone of occupation in Germany after the Second World War. The United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) welfare workers brought with them their years of education and training in the United States, primarily as professional social workers, to their work in these camps. They believed that their task was not only to feed and clothe the DPs, but to provide rehabilitation as well. They continually emphasized the importance of reinstituting prewar social norms as the key element in rehabilitating the DPs. However, once they entered the DP camps in Germany, they soon discovered that the DPs had very different understandings of what constituted “normal life.” As a result, rehabilitation included not only reinstituting prewar social norms, but also introducing the DPs to new ones. UNRRA focused their rehabilitation efforts on six aspects of DP care: housing, cleanliness, education, work, and respect for civil and criminal law. While the DP camps were administered by UNRRA, they existed next to German communities who governed by Military Government and in the midst of their own reconstruction efforts. Given the immense wartime destruction, widespread shortages and the arrival of large numbers of German refugees, resources for all groups were at a premium. As a result, there were numerous opportunities for creative and broad-minded people to work at solving problems in unconventional ways. While UNRRA planning had provided some direction for its welfare workers, staff working in field came to play an important role in defining UNRRA’s policies. At the same time, their competing goals of rehabilitation and repatriation, as well as their at-times difficult relationship with the military, worked to constrain their efforts. Nevertheless, when UNRRA’s tenure as administrator of the DP camps ended in the summer of 1947, they left behind a legacy which highlighted the importance of the successful integration of refugees into their societies, and which made rehabilitation as central as relief in all future humanitarian responses.

Rehlet Iraqi was created to depict an Iraqi refugee family’s struggle after fleeing war-torn Iraq. Their struggle is highlighted with hope and high expectations for a better life within the United States. This film emphasizes the toll that emigration has on the life of a family before and after their arrival to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Thesis (M.S.S.W.)--University of Texas at Arlington, 2009.

Violent conflicts and social unrest in the Middle East, in Central Asia, and in Africa have led to growing numbers of persons seeking refuge in Europe since 2011. The phenomenon culminated in 2015. In that year, with 88,300 new asylum applications, Austria was the 4th largest receiver of asylum seekers in the EU, thereby increasing visibly religious diversity in the country. Using two social surveys carried out in 2015 and in 2017 among asylum seekers and refugees, we study religious affiliation, religiosity, and attitudes as well as participation in religious groups. By focusing on the time span shortly after arriving in Austria, we aim to shed light on first steps in the host society and the multi-layered roles of religion for participation and integration. We provide a comparison with the host society in terms of religious affiliation and religiosity, and discuss recent qualitative research on refugees and religiosity. Insights into the engagement of refugees in several activities related to religion or not are valuable to shed light on the multi-layered characteristics of the recent inflow of forced migrants in Austria.

Scholars of peacebuilding have identified a link between peacebuilding and internal displacement, but internally displaced persons are yet to be regarded as impactful peacebuilders. This thesis explores the role of internally displaced persons in peacebuilding processes, particularly the bottom-up strategies IDPs employ in conflict settings that contribute to the achievement of a peaceful society and in the long run to sustainable peace. This research looks at the documented IDP everyday peacebuilding activities identified in Georgia and Azerbaijan, and thereafter a structured focused comparison of the two selected cases is undertaken. The theoretical underpinning of this study identifies internally displaced persons as part of the ‘local agency’ with the potential to positively contribute to peacebuilding. The empirical findings suggest that indeed IDPs in Azerbaijan and Georgia spearhead peacebuilding at the local level aside from being victims of conflict. However, the empirical assessment also highlights that the influence IDPs have on peacebuilding is limited by the challenges they face in displacement.

There are new challenges, facing the 21st century and one of them is the discussion around climate change and global warming. This phenomenon brings with it a deeper problem, which is the fact that millions of people have their lives strongly damaged as a consequence of the climate changes. There is no international instrument that protects these climate victims, which in this thesis are referred to as environmental refuges. This thesis focused on trying to evaluate solutions to the problem of environmental refugees. To achieve this we first had a look at the different types of forced migration since it would define which type of solution would suit this type of refugees the best. We had a look at the "Oustees" which are the people who are forced to move due to development projects in the different countries. Then we had a look at Bangladesh as one of the case studies since it is one of the countries at higher risk of suffering the adverse consequences of climate change, which forces many people to move internally or to cross the border to India. We were able to conclude that cross border migration increases tensions between countries and between social groups of the receiving communities. Since these people need protection and since these types of tensions threaten peace and security in some...

This thesis seeks to better conceptualise how and why there is an absence of international protection for ???environmental refugees???, and to place these findings in the critical geopolitics literature. A poststructuralist framework, drawing on Foucault???s ideas of discourse, subjectivity, power and governance, was deemed most appropriate for this thesis, and provided a means of differentiation from previous literature on ???environmental refugees???. This thesis develops a genealogy of the subject category of ???environmental refugees??? since the 1970s, to better understand how the United Nations, Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and the media have constructed environmental issues and refugees in texts. Fieldwork undertaken in 2004 enabled me to conduct 45 semistructured interviews with United Nations diplomats and representatives from IGOs and NGOs. Critical scrutiny of these interview texts revealed the constructions of ???environmental refugees??? as various subject identities, particularly in relation to climate change. Pacific ambassadors to the United Nations were also interviewed in 2004 to explore how they negotiated discourses on climate change and ???environmental refugees???, and attempted to articulate their concerns at the United Nations. This thesis contends that an absence of policy at the United Nations to protect ???environmental refugees??? has been produced by a combination of discursive and institutional politics. Unequal power structures at the United Nations have limited the capacity of small island states to lobby and articulate concerns, while subject categories of ???environmental refugees??? have been constructed in ways that alter the terms of debate, evade legal response, or deflect blame away from the perpetrators of environmental damage. Reasons for this policy absence have been the shifting attitudes towards environmental issues and the role of multilateral political institutions. The overall contribution of this thesis is to critical geopolitics, through its examination of the role of multilateralism, representations of environmental issues causing population displacement, and how and why policy absences are created within multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.