TRAFIG Meeting in Brighton

The University of Sussex (Brighton, UK) was the chosen location for a gathering of several TRAFIG members over a couple of days (5-6 June 2019). Colleagues from across Europe, with several others from around the globe joining virtually, met to discuss the progress so far in Work Package 3, which is dedicated to analysing the governance of displacement. We heard presentations on the draft reports from Pakistan, Jordan, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Italy and Greece. We discussed in particular overarching policy trends in a cross-country comparison, and how these reports will inform our empirical work in the near future.

In the evening of the first day of our meeting, we presented the TRAFIG project to a wider audience at a public lecture. We introduced the “Transnational Figurations of Displacement” conceptual framework adopted (see TRAFIG Working Paper No. 1), analysed lessons from the past on how protracted displacement situations unfold, and discussed some provisional findings on governing displacement in the Global North and South.

The second day of our meeting at the University of Sussex was dedicated to making progress on our methods handbook and ethical guidelines, in advance of our empirical work soon to start. We also planned our participation in upcoming events (such as the IMISCOE Annual Conference, the CEASEVAL Project Conference, and the IASFM Conference), and brainstormed a few more exciting ideas – watch this space!