Scholars and policymakers primarily characterize refugee resettlement as a humanitarian solution or a migration pathway. While these descriptions may be accurate, they are not comprehensive. This Special Issue and book examine how such framing influences understandings of resettlement’s scope and impact, generating conceptual blind spots that limit critical inquiry. By reframing resettlement as an institution embedded in a complex network of actors, relations, and practices, the contributions to this Special Issue and book reveal how resettlement is not a passive process by exploring the historical and contemporary questions about how resettlement influences refugee hosting countries in the Global South and its political dimensions as a “humanitarian” program offered by countries in the Global North. This launch event will bring together the co-editors and contributing authors to discuss the implications of this approach for scholarship, policy, and humanitarian practice.

Special Issue co-editors and event organizers:

Rawan Arar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Law, Societies, and Justice at the University of Washington. She completed her PhD at the University of California San Diego and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University. Her book, co-authored with David Scott FitzGerald, is The Refugee System: A Sociological Approach.

Molly Fee is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at the University of South Florida. Her research examines how refugees interact with the institutions that grant rights and resources. She is the author of Believing in Light after Darkness: Displacement and Refugee Resettlement.

Heba Gowayed is Associate Professor of Sociology at CUNY Hunter College and Graduate Center and author of the award-winning book Refuge: How States Shape Human Potential. Her research and writing centers the lives of people who migrate across borders and the unequal and often violent institutions they face.

Speakers:

Dr. Rebbeca Tesfai, Temple University

Dr. Sophia Balakian, George Mason University

Dr. Neda Maghbouleh, University of British Columbia

Dr. Laila Omar, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies

Rachel McNally, Carleton University

Sarah Nandi, McGill University

Dr. Jake Watson, University of California, San Diego

Dr. Jean-Benoît Falisse, University of Edinburgh

Dr. Patti Lenard, University of Ottawa

Dr. Cemile Gizem Dincer, Boston University

Discussant:

Dr. Hiba Salem, University of Oxford