How can we contribute to discussions about the formation of categories and definitions by deconstructing, questioning and changing their meanings and contents? My work in Sri Lanka looks at the common understandings of the IDP category and how it affects…
Since the General Assembly approved UNHCR’s establishment, it has on several occasions passed resolutions extending UNHCR’s mandate to facilitate assistance for people displaced within the region of their own domicile. When the then UN Secretary-General invited UNHCR in 1991 to…
Can Kurdish IDPs return from the cities to which they fled? What strategies are needed to help displaced Kurds resume disrupted livelihoods? How can Kurdish women be empowered to play a major role in reconstruction? Internal displacement in Turkey took…
During flight their health is endangered by extremes of temperature, lack of shelter, food and clean water and physical and psychological stress. The WHO principles of primary health care can be used for medical evaluation and for designing relevant health…
Methods used included advocacy work at central government level in Colombo, training workshops, leaflet / poster dissemination, formation of district monitoring working groups, consultations, listening to IDP focus groups and participatory evaluation assessments. When the project began there were 492…
What methodological problems inhibit psychological research on trauma in Africa and the relevance of the meaning that the continent’s 12 million IDPs individually and collectively attribute to their experience? The experience of internal displacement is an extraordinary life experience, often…
The CHT, which is the single largest forest-clad area of Bangladesh, owes much of its economic value to the role given by the British to the Chakmas, the largest group of Jummas, in commercial forestry. The first displacement of Chakmas,…
How have women’s lives, livelihoods and coping strategies changed by the inundation caused by the construction of Zambia’s Kariba Dam and the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) on India’s Narmada river? Have women benefitted from resettlement programmes and been adequately compensated…
How can war-affected areas of Ethiopia meet the challenges of post-war recovery at the household and community level in order to enable an effective return to productive and secure lives? Women and children comprise three quarters of those displaced. Many…
In recent years, the forced removal of people from their homes in black townships has resumed. This time round it is justified by a desire to improve living conditions for those affected. Could displacement of people to areas which offer…