The Irish Experience of Globalization and Migration: Migrants and Refugees in Dublin

Project Leader: Suzanne Shanahan
Group Size: 8-10
Housing: University College Dublin student apartments

Students spend two months in Dublin working with communities of refugees and migrants. There are five core elements of this summer program. First is an NGO placement. During this eight-week period, students spend four days a week working in one of several NGOs in Dublin. Placements are based on  the match between student interest and experience and NGO need. The objective in each placement is not just to serve but to do something that could not have happened without the Duke students’ leadership and participation.  Student work will be tailored to their particular interests and skills but may include, for example, the development of programs for migrants/refugees that would help them navigate the asylum and social services bureaucracies, summer school modules to help migrants/refugees hone their basic academic skills, the development of community programming to abate mounting xenophobia, or programs that would bring Irish and refugee youth together.

Second, students participate in a weekly workshop on immigration in Europe at the Geary Institute at University College Dublin. These workshops are a forum where government officials, policy makers, advocates, immigrant groups and researchers come to the Geary Institute to meet with students to debate both the practical and ethical issues at stake.

Third, students spend one half-day each week working together at the Geary Institute on a project to benefit the migrant/refugee community in Ireland. The objective here is for the students to come together with their different perspectives and experiences with the immigrant community to design a project of their own choosing.

Fourth, to ensure a broad introduction to Irish society, traditions and politics, students participate in a broad set of supplementary cultural activities. Understanding how and why Ireland responds to refugees in a particular way requires understanding the beliefs, values and norms into which migrants come. These activities include attending Gaelic sporting events, attending the Abbey Theater, walking tours of Dublin to highlight the literary and political history, and a trip to Belfast.

And finally, the immersive experience is kicked off with an intensive week long field training module in Dublin. The field exercise is centered on a three-day ethnographic census and mapping of the social, economic and ethnic landscape of Dublin.