Dr Stephanie Schwartz

This course is available on the BSc in International Relations, BSc in International Relations and Chinese, BSc in International Relations and History and BSc in Politics and International Relations. This course is not available as an outside option. This course is available with permission to General Course students.

Priority will be given to students on the BSc in International Relations programme.

The number of forcibly displaced people has nearly doubled in the last decade.  Amid this rise in forced migration, how are states, international organisations, and local communities responding? What is causing this increase in displacement and what are the political consequences - both in the Global North and the Global South? What are the everyday realities of being forcibly displaced? This course takes on these questions as we examine the politics of displacement and the evolution of the global asylum and refugee protection regime.

The course begins with an overview of the historical and legal origins of the asylum and refugee protection regime, including who qualifies as a refugee and asylum-seeker under international law and why. We then explore the disconnect between this foundation and the realities of displacement and mobility today. The course continues with an analysis of the causes and consequences of displacement, followed by an examination of the evolution of state, international and local responses to asylum-seeking. Throughout the course we pay particular attention to the politics of refugee and IDP hosting in the Global South, where the majority of displaced persons live, as well as refugees' and migrants' own perspectives on the experience and politics of displacement.

By the end of the course students will be able to articulate complex issues related to forced migration and global asylum governance; synthesize and critique scholarly work from a variety of disciplines - including political science, sociology, and anthropology; and analyze the causes of displacement and state responses to asylum-seeking.

Lectures and classes totalling a minimum of 20 hours in AT. Students on this course will have a reading week in Week 6, in line with departmental policy.

Students will be expected to produce 1 case study and 1 presentation in the AT.

Students can choose between one of two formative coursework options:

Option 1: Students can produce a case study proposal and a class presentation in the Autumn Term (AT).

Option 2: Students can produce an essay outline in tandem with a volunteer posting (this formative coursework option is available only if the student secures a volunteering position previously agreed with the course convener).

Both of these assessments will elicit feedback to aid the student in the preparation of the summative case study submission.

• Hannah Arendt. “We Refugees” (1943)
• Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Elena et al., eds. Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2014.
• Greenhill KM (2010) Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy. Cornell studies in security affairs. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press.
• Steele A (2017) Democracy and Displacement in Colombia’s Civil War. Cornell University Press.
• Gammeltoft-Hansen T (2011) Access to Asylum: International Refugee Law and the Globalisation of Migration Control. Cambridge studies in international and comparative law. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Nguyen, V.T. ed., 2018. The displaced: Refugee writers on refugee lives. Abrams
• Tinti, P. and Reitano, T., 2018. Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour. Oxford University Press.

Assessment path 1
Case study (80%) in the WT.
Class participation (20%) in the AT.

Assessment path 2
Essay (80%, 2500 words) in the WT.
Class participation (20%) in the AT.

Students can choose one of two summative assessment paths listed above.