This Policy Brief is a result of Global South Perspectives on Internally Displaced People webinar organized by IDRC Research Chairs Network on Forced Displacement, 13 February, 2025. It featured Paula Gaviria Betancur, UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and four IDRC Research Chairs, Abebaw Minaye (Ethiopia), Hiram Angel (Mexico), Sawsan Abdulrahim (Beirut) and Houwayda Matta Bou Ramia (Lebanon). The speakers reflected on some of the work priorities, methods and challenges presented in the report, specifically in the current geo-political context, and ask, what has changed and what has stayed the same given changing global dynamics over the two years since the publication of the report.

To view the full webinar and read the summary, click here.

This fully online program is open to international students and offers flexible access to high-quality academic content. Courses are conducted in English. However, understanding English is the only language skill required, as students have the option to write their assignments in French, English, or Arabic.

Find more information, read the brochure on the program here. (French version available here.)

For any questions: houwayda.bouramia@usj.edu.lb.

Hosted by the Centre on Gender and Forced Displacement (CGFD) at the , the conference featured four panels with active participation from IDRC Research Chairs.

Taking feminist perspectives on war, conflicts, displacements, migration, and peace, the three-fold objectives of the conference are

1. To Investigate the gendered assumptions/stereotypes in the study of forced migration, displacements, international relations, and national and foreign policy making, including their explicit geopolitical and biopolitical reasoning and how political spatialization renders women and vulnerable groups even more vulnerable.
2. To examine the implications of militarized notions of territorial citizenship, using the masculinist ideas of power, space, and security and feminine representations of peace, security, and victimhood.
3. To explore how the practical everyday implications of geopolitics and biopolitics and their intersectionalities impact the causes and consequences of displacements.

Panel One: Gender, Geopolitics, and Internal Displacements

Chair: Professor Paula Banerjee (IDRC Research Chair, Director of CGFD, AIT)

1. IDP’s in Myanmar
   Speaker: Dr. Nyi Nyi Kyaw (IDRC Research Chair for Chiang Mai University, Thailand)
2. Spatial Confinement and Displacement: The Bedouins (Badu) of the Negev (Naqab)
   Speaker: Dr. Priya Singh (Post Doctoral Researcher, CFGD, AIT, Thailand)
3. IDP’s and Climate Change
   Speaker: Mr. Bradley Mellicker (Senior Regional Emergency Post Crisis Specialist, Regional Office for Asia Pacific, International Organization for Migration)

Panel Two: Gendered Vulnerabilities under the Rubrics of Citizenship and Statelessness

Chair: Professor Geraldine Forbes (Professor, State University of New York Oswego, USA)

1. LTBTQ Community in Lebanon
   Speaker: Dr. Houwayda Matta Ramia (IDRC Research Chair, St. Joshep University, Lebanon)
2. Women in 1971 Conflict
   Speaker: Dr. Purna Banerjee (Associate Professor, Presidency University, Kolkata, India)
3. Biometric Data, Identity and Refugee Protection: the Case of Rohingya Camp in Bangladesh
   Speaker: Professor Nasreen Chowdhory (Professor, Department of Political Science, Delhi University)

Panel Three: Gender, Biopolitics and Displacements

Chair: Professor Lydia Potts (Coordinator, European Masters in Migration and Intercultural Relations, Carl Von Ossietzky University, Germany)

1. “The Complex Nexus of Geopolitics and Biopolitics on the Health and Well-Being of the Displaced: Evidence from Rohingya Refugees in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh”
   Speaker: Dr. Monira Ahsan (Postdoctoral Researcher, CGFD, AIT, Thailand)
2. “Security of the Rohingya Refugees among Thai Muslims”
   Speaker: Dr. Amporn Marddent (Assistant Professor, Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University)

Panel Four: Geopolitics and Biopolitics: Everyday Experiences of the Displaced

Chair: Dr. Mike Hayes (Lecturer, the Institute for Human Rights and Peace Studies, Mahidol University)

1. “The ‘abandoned’ Identities and Realities of being a Migrant Worker: The Case of the Bangladeshi Women Domestic Migrants in Asia”
   Speaker: Dr. Poonam Sharma (International Center for Cultural Studies, NYCU, Taiwan)
2. “The Compounded Victimization of Women in Assam’s NRC Process – A Geopolitical Analysis”
   Speaker: Ms. Shuma Talukder (Corporate Lawyer and Corporate Governance Professional and Director of LexED Research, Kolkata, India)
3. “Gendering Salaita: Dissent in American Academia in the Era of Zionism”
   Speaker: Dr. Debojoy Chanda (Assistant Professor, Department of English, Panskura, Banamali College, India)
4. “Brothels and its relationship with geopolitics: A case study on Migrant women in Kolkata”
   Speaker: Dr. Sangbida Lahiri (Assistant Professor, JK Lakshmipat University, India)

View the conference agenda for a full list of panel topics, keynote addresses, lectures, and speakers:

FR: Travailleurs sociaux libanais à l’épreuve de l’histoire et de l’altérité

La pratique professionnelle des travailleurs sociaux auprès des populations migrantes expose ces professionnels à des dilemmes majeurs relevant de différents registres. Au Liban, la question des liens interculturels pacifiques entre la population hôte et les déplacés syriens se situe au cœur des préoccupations. Pris dans cette dynamique, les travailleurs sociaux libanais se retrouvent parfois confrontés à leurs propres biais et incertitudes. Ces dilemmes nous ont incité à inviter certains d’entre eux qui travaillent dans ce contexte à faire un retour réflexif sur leurs rapports à cette altérité. Des enjeux profonds issus de cette réflexion interpellent foncièrement la formation.

EN: Lebanese social workers put to the test of history and otherness

Research Chairs and colleagues, with IDRC and ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University staff and professors, in Dar es-Salaam

To the casual observer, this gathering of academics may have looked like just another ivory tower workshop, long on talk and short on new ideas. A closer look would reveal something truly unique: a frank debate about forced displacement between experts based in countries like Mexico, Thailand, Lebanon and Burkina Faso. A debate that was taking place in Tanzania, another country with a lot at stake when it comes to displacement. The conversation was held with no filter and absent the heavy hand of donors or northern academics with fixed agendas, from countries where the crisis is always far away, and migration is always something to be “managed.” Here was a genuine attempt to peel back the usual layers of gatekeepers and sub-grantees from the Global North and let experts from Morocco, Ethiopia and Ghana discuss the usefulness of international policy spaces like the Global Refugee Forum to Africa, or how to address the increased securitization of migration in Africa.

If the conversation was frank, getting everyone together wasn’t always easy. Visa problems are a constant reality for academics from countries in the Global South, even when travelling to other Global South countries. Flights often transit through Europe or the Gulf, adding hugely to the cost and travel time. Finding quality translation in certain languages can be expensive and difficult. The lack of academic journals based in Global South universities can make it hard to find a home for conference proceedings outside of the Global North. These are not simply logistical challenges, they represent facets of our colonized world that, like a vortex, pulls academic conferences, workshops, and publications inevitably towards the Global North. Over the next few years, the Chairs will be embarking on an innovative plan of co-authored and co-designed research projects, alongside a series of webinars, conferences, workshops and events, in multiple languages and across multiple continents. These activities will test the limits of technology in our interconnected world, and highlight the flaws and gaps in the current academic system.

What does the localization of forced migration research really mean? It means letting the real experts speak and actually listening to what they have to say. It means giving money for research without needing to control the outcome. It means being willing to let that research change your mind. It means having a conversation in a language other than English. It means recognizing the vital roles of teambuilding and egalitarian debate, when western academia is modeled on competition and complex social hierarchies about who speaks and who listens. Yet this is not to say that donors and northern academics have no role to play. Quite the contrary. Canada’s International Development Centre and ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University facilitated the workshop, but we were there to listen and support, not dictate or dominate. The workshop agenda was set by the Research Chairs, the conversation was led by them, and the message, for once, was loud, clear, and unfiltered: Localization doesn’t just mean having a seat at the table, it means having all the seats.