Civil society and the everyday politics of the global refugee regime: Early lessons from LERRN
Channel: refugeeresearch
Date: 2020-01-28

The Centre for Refugee Studies (CRS)  held a seminar on January 23, 2020 with guest speaker Prof. James Milner. 

(Download thePowerPoint presentation: https://crs.info.yorku.ca/files/2020/01/LERRN-project-overview-January-2020.pptx)

While there is a rich literature on the politics of the global refugee regime and the politics of asylum in the global South, there has been less systematic treatment of the role of civil society actors in navigating the everyday politics of the regime, especially in the global South, which hosts 80% of the world’s refugees. This gap is surprising given the literature on the role that civil society plays in other global regimes and the range of civil society actors engaged with the work of the global refugee regime. In response, the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN) was launched in 2018 as a partnership between four Canadian universities, INGO partners, and working groups in Kenya, Tanzania, Lebanon and Jordan, which include local academics, national NGOs and refugee-led initiatives from each context. This presentation will share the early results of LERRN and its work to understand the everyday politics of the global refugee regime. 

James Milner is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Carleton University and Project Director for LERRN: The Local Engagement Refugee Research Network. His research and teaching focus on the politics of asylum in the global South and the politics of the global refugee regime.