Mobilities
WICID will research the effectiveness of different migration-development regimes and initiatives in addressing issues underlying situations of conflict, poverty and border violence. Our focus will be to understand how North-South inequalities have been produced and reproduced both historically and contemporaneously, while providing assessment of the success and limitations of different educational, humanitarian and broader aid packages across various regions of the world. This research theme therefore assesses the potential and limitations of development initiatives that are designed to address the ‘root causes’ of precarious forms of migration. It focuses on challenges posed to migration-development initiatives in contexts specifically characterised by violent bordering practices that produce and reproduce inequalities within and between North-South and intermediary states.
Current Projects
Data and Displacement: Assessing the Practical and Ethical Implications of Targeting Humanitarian Protection
Funder: AHRC and DFID under the Collaborative Humanitarian Protection Programme
Investigator(s): Prof Vicki Squire (PI, WICID), Dr Briony Jones (Co-I, WICID), Dr Olufunke Fayehun (University of Ibadan), Dr Leben Moro (University of Juba), Prof João Porto de Albuquerque (University of Glasgow), Prof Dallal Stevens (Warwick Law), Rob Trigwell
Partners: University of Ibadan, University of Juba, International Organisation for Migration
Data and Displacement assesses the data-based humanitarian targeting of assistance to internally displaced persons in two contexts that are characterised by conflict and high levels of displacement: northern Nigeria and South Sudan. It examines the production and use of large-scale data in each case, focusing on the operational and ethical challenges that arise in the collection and use of such data. The project employs mixed methods, combining a range of data analysis techniques with qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews. It emphasises the importance of involving local stakeholders in the assessment of data-driven processes of targeted assistance, in particular IDPs themselves. In so doing, the project aims to explore issues such as barriers to participation in data collation processes for ‘at-risk’ groups, the implications of data-based targeting on intersecting and spatial inequalities, and the impacts of large-scale data use for humanitarian principles such as ‘do no harm’.
Previous Projects
Mapping and Documenting Migratory Journeys and Experiences
Funder: ESRC
Partners: University of Malta, Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy.
Human Dignity and Biophysical Violence: Migrant Deaths Across the Mediterranean
Funder: The Leverhulme Trust