A
student-led effort across facilitate multidisciplinary dialogue, awareness,
and action on international development.
Armed Conflict and Forced Migration: Push and Pull Factors of Resettlement
Saturday, April 9, 2005
CUPID thanks the conference organizers Frank Cohn (emcee), Jonathan Gant, and Marina Kaneti.
Download conference agenda here and biographies of speakers here.
Over
100 students and professionals from a range of disciplines –
social work, law, public health, international relations, and more
– gathered to learn about Armed Conflict and Forced Migration.The day started out with an introductory speech by Jeanette Takamura, Dean of the Columbia University School of Social Work (CUSSW). She highlighted some of the push and pull factors affecting the resettlement process for displaced people, and elucidated the important role that social workers have to play in the international arena.
Following that, Eyyub Hajiyev, Ia Svintradze, Darya Bournasheva, and Malika Mirkhanova – Social Work students from Azerbaijan, Georgia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, respectively – discussed policies, programs, practice, and personal experience with either Refugee or Internally Displaced Persons forced by armed conflicts to migrate. The panel was moderated by the Deputy Director of the Open Society Institute, and unabashedly examined the problems faced by many different groups, including refugees from Afghanistan in Tajikistan, Meshketian Turks resettling in the USA, IDPs in Azerbaijan, and Chechnyan refugees resettling in Georgia.
Then Dr. Dirk Salomons,
Director of the Humanitarian Affairs Program at the School of
International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University, was
introduced by Dr. Cheryl Franks
of CUSSW. Dr. Salomons provided a clear and functional overview of
situations of armed conflict, discussing how to analyze all the
different actors involved, what roles they usually play, and what roles
they should play. He used a special matrix
that he designed and handed out to the audience, and talked about
everyone from rebel fighting groups to United Nations agencies to
social workers. He also presented the idea that displaced people have
amazing resilience and a wealth of resources and potential, and that by
using a strengths-based perspective we can truly work with them towards
positive resettlement.Following lunch, the audience returned to hear an incredibly poignant and powerful reading by Kao Kalia Yang from her book about some of the profound physical, emotional, and psychological hardships of her Hmong family's journey as refugees through Laos, Thailand, and eventually to the USA.
The afternoon panel encapsulated perspectives on displacement and resettlement. Dr. Neil Boothby, Director of the Program on Forced Migration and Health at the School of Public Health, told of public health perspectives on humanitarian disasters in refugee camps in Africa, and of some of the macro changes in policies regarding refugees and IDPs following the end of the Cold War. He also highlighted some of the issues surrounding the forced repatriation of Rwandan refugees from the Congo and Uganda, a mere two years after the genocide of 1994.
Patrick Abal, who has worked for the local government administering humanitarian aid in civil war-torn Northern Uganda for 15 years, discussed policies, programs, and practice of dealing with the implications of war for local civilians. He illustrated some of the long-term effects on the lives of people being constantly displaced, and he proposed solutions to the almost twenty years of war and displacement.
Sara Kahn, Director of the Cross-Cultural Counseling Center at the International Institute of New Jersey, told the stories of numerous asylum seekers in the USA. She interwove an analysis of post-9/11 policies on migration with a profound look at some of the psychosocial effects of armed conflict and subsequent migration policies on individuals.
The overarching theme of the day was to provide multidisciplinary perspectives on Armed Conflict and Forced Migration situations. As Marina Kaneti said in her closing remarks, this event was only one step in our journey to establish multidisciplinary dialogue regarding international development. The conference was the result of the work of students in Social Work, Law, Public Health, and SIPA, with the support of Moira Curtain, Dr. Cheryl Franks, and Dean Takamura. It truly epitomized the fact that in many ways we are all working on the same issues, and by collaborating across fields of study and practice we can work more effectively and be of greater assistance to those in need.
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