No abstract

Researchers' methodological decisions have an impact on who gets to hear a refugees' story, the meaning a story conveys, and, consequently, the implications a story might have for forced migrants. What we as researchers, or aid workers, do with the stories gathered from forced migrants can contribute to their social and political invisibility, or our scholarship can be a tool to amplify refugee voices as forms of knowledge that are valid not only as testimony but as expertise to design research, programmes and policies. What potential do such methods have to disrupt the “established regimes” of what is audible, visible, or legible in society (Rancière, 2010)? In response to what is now widespread recognition of the “dual imperative” in forced migration research (Jacobsen and Landau 2003), action research has emerged as a common way to do research that is useful to the communities with which we engage. In this article we reflect on our efforts as researchers to address power imbalances by placing forced migrant stories at the forefront of our methods. We rely on two case studies to provide insights into and learn from critical narratives from the displaced themselves: 1) at the Thai-Burmese border, 2) with Somali refugee returnees in Kismayo. The two case studies reveal different ways of working with stories and strategies that can help address the inaudibility of refugee stories. We recognize that such work is necessarily partial and ongoing. To identify space for continued growth and learning, we point to moments where collaboration faltered and moments where our research inadvertently reproduced power inequities.

Historically, culturally, and politically, the United States has maintained an ambivalent relationship with the discourse of international human rights. While integral to its codification as transnational principle and law, the United States has not moved significantly toward ratification of human rights conventions, nor has the language of human rights been widespread in US society. Within the context of this complicated relationship, this article explores how US activists conceptualize, relate to, and utilize the human rights framework. In addressing this question, this article examines activists' organizational framing choices, the factors that influence them, and the implications of these choices for the future of human rights organizing in the context of US urban activism. Based on 51 interviews across 42 organizations, this research finds that activists contend with substantial political obstacles, including the US government's perceived exploitations of the human rights framework. Far more pervasive among respondents, however, is the notion that it is the cultural barriers that prevent widespread social movement mobilization under the banner of human rights language. Because of this, respondents point to grassroots approaches as a potential avenue for future human rights organizing in the US context. Relying on the findings from these interviews, this article considers social movement strategy, history, and public perception as central factors underlying activist conceptions of the utility of a human rights discourse to their work.

While it is not uncommon for humanitarian organizations, such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to implement information campaigns about forced migrant rights, the assistance available to them, and options for the future, these efforts often meet unintended consequences. Forced migrants have, at times, rejected, misinterpreted, and condemned the information they get from these sources. This paper argues that official information campaigns often falter for two crucial reasons beyond resource scarcity. First, those agencies disseminating information are often under pressure to curb the outflow of migrants from the Global South, and as a result, information provision has tended to be coloured by efforts to control or protect against forced migrants’ movement or desires. Second, these agencies do not typically consider or engage with migratory capital, including migrants’ informal networks for sharing knowledge about the migratory process. As a case study, this paper relies on qualitative interviews and focus groups with Iraqis displaced in Jordan to explore their lived experiences vis-à-vis both the official information from humanitarian agencies and their informal networks that are transnational in nature.

When it comes to field research in contexts of forced migration, many of the challenges relate to questions of power. Most research is plagued by a power imbalance between those who call themselves ‘researcher’ or ‘technical expert’ and the forced migrants who participate in the research in various ways. This Special Section considers how this imbalance influences the production of research and how we might address the challenges created by research practices that are exclusionary, even if unwittingly so. What, for example, are the politics of designing methods for research with/on refugees? What kinds of negotiations and gatekeeping take place in determining the assemblage of actors involved in crafting and carrying out the research? Who has a seat at the table to design the research, interpret results, and write up outcomes? The three contributing articles that follow this introduction each discuss strategies the authors deployed, i.e. how they attempted to upend dominant research practices by centreing the voices of migrants and refugees, and re-balancing power inequities. In this article, we offer an introduction to how this Special Section conceptualizes power in the context of research with forced migrants.