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In this issue...
Disclaimer
“New technologies are changing the environment in which we work, creating risks that we must not ignore while bringing opportunities for both displaced people and those who work on their behalf.” As UNHCR Deputy High Commissioner Alex Aleinikoff points out in the Foreword to this issue, we need to get used to the idea that modern technologies are reaching and affecting not only researchers and agencies but even the displaced and uprooted themselves. This issue of FMR is full of examples of how this is true. In fact it may be the agencies which – despite their own use of technology – need to catch up with the importance of technology in the lives of displaced people. Technology can have a transformative effect for displaced people and for their relationships to governments, the agencies, the diaspora and each other. The articles in this issue cover much of what we hoped
they would when we put out the call for articles – the
positive and the negative aspects of the spread of
technologies; the increased accountability, and the
increased scope for controlling displaced people; the We are less happy about the fact that there was almost
nothing in the articles that we received that dealt either
explicitly or implicitly with gender issues in technology
and communications and their impacts on people. Unusually, we have included several pages of very short
articles – ‘technology bytes’. Out of the large number of
articles submitted for this issue, some contained specific
ideas or facts that we felt were valuable but that did not
need longer explanations to put them in context. As ever, we hope that this issue of FMR will open up
this subject for you, as it has done for us. In that spirit,
please Tweet about it or re-Tweet our announcement, ’like’ our Facebook page, add a link on Delicious, text
people you know… This issue also contains a range of articles on other aspects of the experiences of and responses to forced migration in a variety of circumstances – in Japan, in cities, at sea, in Egypt, and more. We are very grateful to Paul Currion and Linda Leung for
their help and advice on the theme of this issue, and to
our Advisory Board for their reviews, advice and support. We would also like to thank those agencies that have
generously provided funding for this particular
issue: AusAID, DfID, Oxfam Australia, Stephanie and
Hunter Hunt/The Hunt Institute for Engineering and
Humanity, UNHCR Division of Programme Support
and Management, UNHCR Policy Development and
Evaluation Service, and the University of Queensland. New! An expanded contents listing – FMR#38 –
is available in print and online at The whole issue is online in a variety of formats, including audio, at www.fmreview.org/technology/ All issues of FMR are freely available online and searchable. We encourage you to post online or reproduce FMR articles but please acknowledge the source, provide the original url and do let us know. ■ FMR 39 will include a feature on being young and out
of place and will come out in early 2012. New FMR website: Over the next few months the
FMR website will be rebuilt and redesigned to make it
more accessible in mobile reading formats, more easily
searchable and shared, and generally more up to date. Keep up to date on all FMR developments – sign up for
our email alerts or email
us at fmr@qeh.ox.ac.uk to request alerts. Online giving to FMR: We now have an online ‘giving
site’ for FMR where you can make a donation by credit
or debit card. With our best wishes Marion Couldrey and Maurice Herson |
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