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Background/objective Some refugee and migrant populations globally showed lower uptake of COVID-19 vaccines and are also considered to be an under-immunized group for routine vaccinations. These communities may experience a range of barriers to vaccination systems, yet there is a need to better explore drivers of under-immunization and vaccine hesitancy in these mobile groups. Methods We did a global rapid review to explore drivers of under-immunization and vaccine hesitancy to define strategies to strengthen both COVID-19 and routine vaccination uptake, searching MEDLINE, Embase, Global Health PsycINFO and grey literature. Qualitative data were analysed thematically to identify drivers of under-immunization and vaccine hesitancy, and then categorized using the 'Increasing Vaccination Model'. Results Sixty-three papers were included, reporting data on diverse population groups, including refugees, asylum seekers, labour migrants and undocumented migrants in 22 countries. Drivers of under-immunization and vaccine hesitancy pertaining to a wide range of vaccines were covered, including COVID-19 (n  = 27), human papillomavirus (13), measles or Measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) (3), influenza (3), tetanus (1) and vaccination in general. We found a range of factors driving under-immunization and hesitancy in refugee and migrant groups, including unique awareness and access factors that need to be better considered in policy and service delivery. Acceptability of vaccination was often deeply rooted in social and historical context and influenced by personal risk perception. Conclusions These findings hold direct relevance to current efforts to ensure high levels of global coverage for a range of vaccines and to ensure that marginalized refugee and migrant populations are included in the national vaccination plans of low-, middle- and high-income countries. We found a stark lack of research from low- and middle-income and humanitarian contexts on vaccination in mobile groups. This needs to be urgently rectified if we are to design and deliver effective programmes that ensure high coverage for COVID-19 and routine vaccinations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how successfully integrated refugees are often made invisible to institutions, academics and within social contexts. It argues that certain elements of social and institutional categorization processes—including partiality, functionality, conflation, immutability, self-confirmation and negotiability—tend to obscure people who are integrated. The paper presents a case study which juxtaposes the ways in which three different kinds of categorization have been applied to people of Mozambican birth who settled in a rural South African border area after fleeing the Mozambican civil war in the 1980s. The three cases of categorization come from the South African government for the purpose of legal regularization; from an academic unit of the University of the Witwatersrand for the purpose of demographic and public health research; and from residents of Bushbuckridge District to describe and manage their relationships with each other. The paper demonstrates how each of these different perspectives obscures the experiences of integrated Mozambican refugees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the complex security and economic dynamics that influence the lives and opportunities of self-settled refugees living in Uganda. It focuses on the opportunities and problems faced by self-settled refugees, and questions the assumption that Uganda's current local settlement policy is best suited to the country's social, economic and political realities. It suggests that far from being passive victims, self-settled refugees are taking control of their lives without any additional external assistance and are planning for the day they can return to their homeland. Consequently, the paper argues that there is reason to believe that local integration is likely to succeed where other models have failed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Refugee determination is one of the most complex adjudication functions in industrialized societies. In Canada, despite a relatively broad recognition rate and a teleological interpretation of the international refugee definition, dissatisfaction with the decision‐making process at the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) has been expressed by numerous actors. This paper documents the influence of legal, psychological and cultural factors on the process of refugee determination. Forty problematic cases referred to the research team by professionals were studied using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results indicate numerous problems affecting the role and behaviour of all actors: difficulties in evaluating evidence, assessing credibility, and conducting hearings; problems in coping with vicarious traumatization and uncontrolled emotional reactions; poor knowledge of the political context, false representations of war, and cultural misunderstandings or insensitivity. In a majority of cases, these legal, psychological and cultural dimensions interact together, often impacting negatively upon Board Members' ability to evaluate credibility and upon the overall conduct of hearings. These findings suggest that the refugee determination process might benefit from revised selection criteria for Board Members and refugee claim officers, as well as improved training and support for all actors. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This essay explores the means through which Palestinian refugees have sought to make themselves and their claims visible, both within their community and to the 'international community'. The principal site for this exploration is the Gaza Strip under Egyptian Administration (1948-1967). Because Gaza is home to both a large refugee population and a significant native population that was also dispossessed in the aftermath of 1948, it is an illuminating site for this investigation. In mapping the visibility field, the essay looks at both the monumental and the mundane, at both the bureaucratic and the symbolic, and at both the instrumental and the affective. Particular attention is given to identification documents, whether issued by governments or humanitarian organizations, as visible markers of existence and continued claims. The essay illuminates ways that a humanitarian apparatus can incidentally offer tools for ordinary people to demand that they and their community be recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While UNHCR and its local partners in Malaysia have commemorated World Refugee Day with a number of ‘awareness-raising’ activities and festive events each year, starting in 2005, the Malaysian authorities have pursued a range of increasingly punitive measures targeting ‘illegal migrants’ during this period. In the context of a country which is, at the same time, a non-signatory to the 1951 Convention and a destination for significant refugee populations in the region, the celebration and commemoration of the figure of the refugee raise a number of questions. First of all, how does the figure of the refugee appear, as such, in Malaysia when seen through the prism of the various activities, events and campaigns held in conjunction with World Refugee Day since 2005? Second, how is it possible for this figure—an ‘illegal migrant’ under the Immigration Act—to emerge, however sporadically and incompletely, in Malaysian public discourse as another Other, one deserving of ‘our encouragement, support, and respect’, to quote UNHCR's official website? Third, how does the case of Malaysia help illuminate our understanding of the slippage produced in the encounters between national body politic and international humanitarian spirit? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study of two seemingly counter-intuitive phenomena—'involuntary immobility' and 'socially fortuitous wartime migration'—seeks to reveal important limitations in the theoretical framing of the interdisciplinary field of forced migration/refugee studies. In the Mozambican context, I demonstrate that the forms of disruption and disempowerment usually attributed to wartime movement were more often produced by involuntary immobility than by migration per se; even while wartime migration paradoxically resulted in forms of empowerment for at least some social actors. I argue that the implicit conflation of migration with displacement that currently serves as the definitional point of departure in forced migration/refugee studies, not only renders invisible an entire category of people who suffer a form of `displacement in place' through involuntary immobilization, but also distorts our analysis of the experience of wartime migrants themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given that research into forced migration is looking at processes of enormous human suffering and often involves working with people who are extremely vulnerable to exploitation and physical harm, it seems difficult to justify if it has no relevance for policy. This article argues that the search for policy relevance has encouraged researchers to take the categories, concepts and priorities of policy makers and practitioners as their initial frame of reference for identifying their areas of study and formulating research questions. This privileges the worldview of the policy makers in constructing the research, con- straining the questions asked, the objects of study and the methodologies and analysis adopted. In particular, it leaves large groups of forced migrants invisible in both research and policy. Drawing on a case study of self-settled refugees, the article explores how these limitations affect the research process, despite the efforts of the researcher to move beyond policy categories. In order to bring such `invisible' forced migrants into view, the conclusion calls for more oblique approaches to research, which recognize the `normality' within their situation rather than privileging their position as forced migrants as the primary explanatory factor. Such studies may help to bridge the gap between refugee studies and broader social scientific theories of social transformation and human mobility. By breaking away from policy relevance, it will be possible to challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions that underpins much practice and in due course bring much more significant changes to the lives of forced migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2001, there were estimated to be two million Afghan refugees in Pakistan. In the past six years, however, over 3.5 million refugees have returned, and recent census data show that nearly 2.5 million still remain in Pakistan. Three straightforward explanations for this monumental discrepancy have been posited: Afghans' high birthrates, their history of cross-border migration, and increasing levels of urbanization in Pakistan. Yet the fact that none of these processes comes as a surprise to researchers familiar with the history of Afghan refugees begs a still deeper question: how and why were these processes so utterly overlooked in 2001? The answer, it is argued, is a fundamental confusion not only in how we count refugees but in how we conceptualize them. The dichotomous distinction between refugees and non-refugees, while possessing a certain legal clarity, does a poor job of describing the reality of individuals whose movements are influenced by numerous social, political, and economic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to capture refugees' experiences and narratives it is necessary to create space within research to be able to notice the untold within the interviews. This article focuses on the ways that Iranian women refugees (in the Netherlands and the United States) narrate their experiences of the past and the present or stay silent when the experiences are too difficult to talk about. Including the moments of silence within the process of analysing the stories has helped the researcher to discover different layers within the interviews. The main argument of this article is that the combination of the life stories method and the comparative nature of the research have especially helped to find out about the different ways in which the past is positioned within the present narratives. The life stories in particular have created the necessary space to listen to the often untold stories of refugees. This has enabled the researcher to go beyond the expressed words in order to understand different layers of expression within the narratives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Libya's emergence as a key jumping-off point for entry into Europe by sea has created a sense of urgency within the EU, which seeks to prevent arrivals from this new point of departure, and has led to the initiation of EU-Libya cooperation on migration. This article argues that the EU is failing to adopt an integrated approach to migration management in Libya, despite its repeated assurances to the contrary. It examines EU-Libya cooperation, still in its early stages, and analyses the experiences of refugees and migrants in Libya and on their journeys to Europe. Both elements strongly indicate that the current approach, which focuses on border control and surveillance, is likely to meet with limited success in achieving the EU's aims of stemming the flow of irregular migrants arriving from Libya in Italy and Malta, protecting the human rights of those in transit and ensuring humanitarian outcomes for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees has been described as an unnecessary addendum to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. However, if the 1967 Protocol was superfluous, why did the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in the early 1960s insist on its development? This article seeks to establish that the 1967 Protocol was originally intended to encompass the broader concerns of African and Asian states concerning refugee populations in their region. However, the political influence upon the development of international refugee law radically altered the UNHCR's endeavour to make the 1951 Convention universally accessible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to the discussion on place/space/identity recently re-opened by David Turton, who introduces the notion of 'place-making project' to describe the relation between a group of Ethiopian agro-pastoralists and place. This article aims to expand Turton's framework to situations other than the one he depicts, as well as to develop some of the concepts presented therein. With reference to Afghans in Pakistan, the following arguments are made. First, a vast array of overlapping place-making projects simultaneously encompass territory and individuals, attributing a different significance to them on the basis of peculiar logics. Second, the interaction between such projects has material effects on spatial and institutional practices of migration and assistance. Third, these material effects have different significance for refugees, since each of them is differently encompassed by such projects. The article concludes by highlighting how such a framework can be used to assess power relations and challenge de-politicized narratives of refugee protection and assistance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes the extent of the politicisation of the return of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP) to Bosnia and Herzegovina during the initial years of peace-building. It provides an overview of the return process in Bosnia by examining the legacy of the conflict, the authority of the Office of High Representation (OHR) and the national legal framework. It examines the key players involved in the return process, with specific focus on the modality and the magnitude of the politicisation, as well as the approach utilised in Bosnia for the return of refugees.