Understanding the gendered dynamics of migration, displacement and culture.
Understanding the gendered dynamics of migration, displacement and culture is central to promoting inclusive societies and peace. This research project brings together communities and scholars from South Asia and the Middle East in the use of innovative methods to provide knowledge for development.
Spanning several years, this research advances the delivery of Sustainable Development Goal 5 on gender equality; 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions; and the implementation of the Women, Peace and Security agenda.
While the number of forcibly displaced people continues to rise worldwide, there remains very little discussion around the impact of gender and the need for policies directed at women. This research explores the nature of migration and displacement (internal and international) for adults, adolescents and children through a gender lens in order to better to understand the many ways gender informs experiences of displacement and access to resources and opportunities in displaced households.
While migration remains a key issue globally, relatively little work has been done on gender and migration in the Global South, and what has been done has largely focussed on domestic and care work. This research advances a gender-sensitive understanding of the interaction between economic and socio-cultural drivers of labour migration and the experiences of work and living in different cities
Research on return migration has mainly covered return to political and economically stable countries. The literature usually focusses on economic reasons for return. Much less is known about the gendered experience of return migration to conflict-affected contexts, and how this relates to development, gender equality, justice and peace. This research explores and analyses the gender experiences of returnees (forced and voluntary). It reviews return policies to understand the possibilities, challenges and obstacles for returnees in the process of participating in re-construction.
This research investigates the value of culture to women in conflict settings. It explores gendered economic exclusion and its relationship to peacebuilding, economic agency and empowerment. It uses a cultural mapping methodology to explore how communities of women across different conflict contexts rely on coded and tacit knowledge to rebuild their lives and to understand how cultural practices continue to exist and resist in these challenging contexts.
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This research project is part of the Middlesex University partnership on the UKRI GCRF Gender, Justice and Security Hub project 2019-2024
It brings together communities at Middlesex University we hosted the Migration and Displacement workstream Co-Directed by Prof Eleonore Kofman
The culture and conflict project was part of the Transformation and Empowerment workstream and was led by Dr Neelam Raina
Our research partners were:
Mosaic MENA Lebanon.
Kadir Has University Turkey
Kurdistan
Yakjah Peace and Reconciliation Network, India.
Paiman Alumni Trust, Pakistan
Laajevrd, Pakistan
Association of War Affected Women, Sri Lanka
Women for Peace and Participation, Afghanistan.