Photo credit: Student Connect Ltd
The University of Gloucestershire is launching a collaborative research initiative focused on advancing knowledge and understanding of forced migration, as part of its activities to mark University Refugee Week 2006.
The university’s website reports that starting on Monday, 2 March, University Refugee Week brings together higher education communities across the UK to recognize the contributions and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary, and to reflect on the role universities can play in fostering a culture of welcome, opportunity and belonging.
The university – a Supporting Organization of the University of Sanctuary initiative – will launch the Voices of Rights and Refugee Research Network on Friday, 6 Marchto enable researchers to share insights and expertise, and enhance wider understanding.
The network will focus on how displacement and migration are understood, represented and experienced, and how ideas of “otherness” – the process by which groups distinguish themselves from others whom they devalue – are produced, challenged and reshaped.
The University, which offers a number of sanctuary initiatives to students from a forced migration background, has carried out a number of studies around forced migration. This includes research into the experiences of women living in settlement communities in Uganda, international labour migration and food production in rural Europe, and the employment insecurity faced by migrants in low-wage and insecure work.
