General Public

Camps are a controversial strategy to manage an influx of refugees. Host countries want to minimize negative effects on citizens, but relief organizations worry that isolation reduces employment and self-reliance over time. Using a large and representative survey, Dr. Ginn studies Syrians in Jordan and Iraq, comparing camp residents to other refugees who self-settle in the same country. He identifies the effects of camp residence with multiple strategies: controlling for a rich set of observables, and a difference-in-differences with Lebanon where camps were never opened.

Cumulative trauma due to displacement and exposure to violence can lead to long-run impacts on mental health, with consequences for human capital accumulation. This may be particularly true for adolescents given that this is a time of intensified emotional distress and a critical period for development. Using mixed-methods longitudinal data from the Gender and Adolescence: Global Evidence (GAGE) study on over 6,000 refugee adolescents aged 10-17 and their local peers in Bangladesh and Jordan this research explores the challenges faced by adolescents growing up under forced displacement.

Based on the New York Times Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic story of a refugee family who fled the civil war in Syria to make a new life in America, this acclaimed novel follows the Aldabaan family as they start a new life in Connecticut. Panelists in this event will examine the role of translation, both linguistic and cultural in the context of refugee resettlement.
Naji Aldabaan | Hall High School
Jake Halpern | New York Times
Mohammed Kadalah | Department of Modern Languages and Literature, Santa Clara University

Studies on European countries “outsourcing” border enforcement and immigration control to neighboring states pose questions about how sovereignty travels beyond nation-state territories; how such transnational regimes are organized in line with market rationalities; and how liberal or humanitarian discourse often reinforces security regimes. Less explored is the relationship between European racial imaginaries, transnational border projects, and shifts in racial-social categories of belonging in neighboring countries.

Professor Sandra Rozo studies the electoral effects of the arrival of 1.3 million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia as a consequence of the Venezuelan humanitarian crisis. She exploits the fact that forced migrants disproportionately locate in places with earlier settlements of Venezuelans after the intensification of the crisis. She finds that larger migration shocks increase voters’ turnout and shift votes from left- to right-wing political ideologies.