January 8-10, 2012

Displacement – the involuntary movement of persons and groups from the places they call home – affects more than 36 million (1 in 170) people worldwide. Refugees, Rights and Resettlement, this year’s winter forum, will explore the practical and ethical challenges of displacement. Students will meet with policy makers at all levels, NGO leaders, academics, humanitarian aid workers and local refugees to debate legal questions of repatriation and resettlement; assess and design solutions to practical problems of camp life; develop more effective resettlement processes; and consider the politics of representation through performance and the arts.

Existing programs offered by the Institute already allow students to explore these issues, with first-year students taking courses on international migration law and policy in the Focus cluster Ethics, Leadership and Global Citizenship. DukeEngage Dublin participants partner with refugee- and migrant-led NGOs in Ireland, while students working with the Bhutanese Resettlement Project research refugees in the process of resettling from eastern Nepal to Durham. After the Winter Forum, the Kenan Institute for Ethics will launch a Leaving Home: The Law, Ethics, and Political Economy of Displacement (LEAPED), a pilot Duke Immerse program.

For more information, contact Nadia El-Shaarawi.