What can and what should be done about mass displacement? Around 70 million people are currently displaced within or outside their countries, many of them in limbo for years or decades at a time: solutions to their plight have long proved elusive. In the wake of the refugee and migration crisis of 2015-16, the international community agreed global compacts on migration and refugees towards the end of 2018. But while the aims of the compacts are worthy, many wondered if much would come of them based on the record of similar international agreements so far. Nor is there much confidence that the current refugee architecture is up to the task: the three conventional solutions to displacement—repatriation of refugees, their local integration, or their resettlement—seem unable address the challenge on the scale needed. Only a small proportion of the displaced find their situation resolved through such pathways: most languish in camps or are self-settled in cities in precarious and constrained circumstances for years without legitimate means of making a living or leading a decent life.
Against this background, a number of new proposals have emerged to attempt to resolve refugee and migration challenges, including new nations, city states, regional initiatives, and free zones. Some of the more radical of these suggestions have been dismissed as fantasies by commentators, but perhaps such seemingly outlandish proposals should not be rejected out of hand. We have reviewed several of them and proposed an alternative that we have called Refugia: a confederal, transnational polity emerging from the connections built up by refugees, with the help of sympathizers. Unlike many of the proposals that we have reviewed, we do not envisage this as an island or other bounded territory. Rather Refugia would be a linked set of territories and spaces connecting refugees into a polity that is neither a new nation state nor simply an international organization, but has some characteristics of both: a new kind of transnational polity, governed by refugees and migrants themselves. There would be mobility among the constituent parts of Refugia, which would link refugee and migrant communities globally: moreover the whole would be greater than the sum of its parts.
We argue that such a transnational polity is already imperfectly prefigured in many of the transnational practices that refugees and migrants deploy and the environments in which they find themselves today. Camps and communities in countries neighbouring conflicts, neighbourhoods in global cities, transnational political practices and money transfers, emergent communities in disparate locations en route: all are fragments that taken separately do not seem to promise much. But cumulatively they could add up to Refugia, imperfectly prefigured. Consolidating them into a common polity might prove to be a way out of the current impasse.
We set out our vision in our book Refugia: radical solutions to mass displacement, published by Routledge in 2020.
Refugia – a new solution for displacement?
Blog | COMPAS Communications
Refugia: using social science fiction to get a new idea across
Everyday Society | Robin Cohen | 10/02/2020
See Outputs tab for media coverage prior to 2020
Review and analysis of policy and political philosophy literature
Cohen, R., & Van Hear, N. (2020) Refugia: Radical solutions to mass displacement, London: Routledge; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429470042
Turkish edition published by Gavperspektif
Van Hear, N., Barbelet, V., Bennett, C. and Lutz H. (2018) Refugia Roundtable – Imagining Refugia: Thinking Outside the Current Refugee Regime, Migration and Society 1:1, pp:175–194; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2017.010116
N. Van Hear (2018) ‘Imagining Refugia: thinking outside the current refugee regime’, Migration and Society 1, 1 (2018): 175–185; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2018.010116
Cohen, R. & Van Hear, N. (2017) ‘Visions of Refugia: territorial and transnational solutions to mass displacement‘, Planning Theory & Practice, 18, 3, pp:494-504; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14649357.2017.1330233
Refugia book launch
Led by Robin Cohen and Nick Van Hear, chaired by Dace Dzenovska | 27/02/2020
Refugia – a durable solution?
Contribution to the webinar hosted by the Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP), on ‘Rethinking solutions in never ending displacement: what are the alternatives?’, Oxford Brookes University | Nick Van Hear | 01/12/2020
Reflecting on Refugia
Refugee Studies Centre public seminar series (Michaelmas Term) | Nick Van Hear | 11/11/2020
It isn’t an international agency or a state. It’s Refugia.
Radix | Robin Cohen | 10/09/2019
Refugia: Towards a New Transnational Polity
Centre for Global Cooperation Research | Nicholas Van Hear | 9/05/2019
Refugia: solving the problem of mass displacement
The International Inequalities Institute | Robin Cohen | 14/02/2019
Listen to the podcast here
Imagining ‘Refugia’
Late Night Live, Radio National (ABC) | Nicholas Van Hear | 13/02/2019
Reflecting on Refugia: a new transnational polity in the making
Sydney Social Sciences and Humanities Advanced Research Centre (SSSHARC) | Nicholas Van Hear | 6/02/2019
Furthering Refugia: Engaging with our Critics
Blog | Nicholas Van Hear
Refugia: Answering the Critics
Refugees Deeply | Nicholas Van Hear | 29/10/2018
Imagining Refugia: pragmatic utopianism
International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) conference 2018, ‘Whither Refugees?’, Thessaloniki | Nicholas Van Hear | 24-27/07/2018
Imagining Refugia: thinking beyond the current migration impasseT
he Centre for Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) Work in Progress Seminar | Nicholas Van Hear | 1/03/2018
Imagining Refugia
Presentation at the Department of Cultures, Politics and Society, University of Torino | Nicholas Van Hear | 1/02/2018
Imagining Refugia: thinking outside the current refugee regime
Presentation for the Fafo seminar on on the future of the asylum system in Europe, Oslo | Nicholas Van Hear | 26/01/2018
Imagining Refugia
For the workshop ‘Transnational lives: economies, bureaucracies, desires’; workshop hosted by the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Oslo | Nicholas Van Hear | 11-12/01/2018
Imagining Refugia
Presentation for the workshop ‘Diasporic Dislocations: Forced Migrations in an Interconnected World’, Migration Institute of Finland, Helsinki | Nicholas Van Hear| 4-5/12/2017
Imagining Refugia
Oxford Department of International Development, Oxford (MSc students), QEH | Nicholas Van Hear | 13/11/2017
Imagining Refugia: from areas of limited statehood to transnational alter-governance
International workshop on ‘Diasporas and homeland governance: decentering the state as an analytical category’, Collaborative Research Centre on ‘Governance in areas of limited statehood’, Free University of Berlin | Nicholas Van Hear | 3-4/11/2017
Imagining Refugia: Could a New Transnational Polity Help Solve the Refugee Crisis?
Foreign Affairs online | Nicholas Van Hear | 17/10/2017
Imagining Refugia
UNU-WIDER/ARUA conference on migration and mobility The WIDER Development Conference on migration and mobility, jointly organized with the African Research Universities Alliance (ARUA), Accra, Ghana | Nicholas Van Hear | 5-6/10/2017
Pragmatic utopianism: framing a different approach to migration
University of Westminster, London | Robin Cohen & Nicholas Van Hear | 18/09/2017
Refugia: a Utopian solution to the crisis of mass displacement
The Conversation | Robin Cohen | 7/08/2017
Imagining Refugia: thinking outside the current international refugee and migration architecture
UNU Merit seminar, Maastricht | Nicholas Van Hear | 08/06/2017
Imagining Refugia: thinking outside the current international refugee and migration architecture
UNU-GCM (Institute on Globalisation, Culture and Mobility) Conference on Migration and Displacement in Contemporary Africa, Barcelona | Nicholas Van Hear | 30/05/2017
Imagining Refugia: addressing the challenge of global mobility outside the current international architecture
ICMPD/ENIGMMA International Migration Conference, Tbilisi, Georgia | Nicholas Van Hear | 9-12/05/2017
Imagining Refugia: from Ref-dystopia to Ref-utopia?
RSC Conference, Beyond Crisis: Rethinking Refugee Studies, Keble College, Oxford | Nicholas Van Hear | 16-17/03/2017
Listen to the presentation recording here (from 1.07)
Imagining Refugia: transnationalism as a durable solution
BICC International Conference Fleeing conflict: trajectories of displaced persons, Bonn | Nicholas Van Hear | 3/11/2016
Imagining Refugia: from Ref-dystopia to Ref-utopia?
COMPAS work in progress | Nicholas Van Hear & Robin Cohen | 17/11/2016
Imagining Refugia
Blog | Nicholas Van Hear
Refugia: the limits and possibilities of Buzi’s Refugee Nation
Blog | Robin Cohen | 30/07/2015
‘The migrant and refugee crisis’, a panel discussion on responses and solutions
Oxford Martin School | Robin Cohen & Nicholas Van Hear | 26/10/2015
Watch the presentation recording here (from 42 minutes)
Tyler Correira (2023) Book review of Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement (2020) by Robin Cohen and Nicholas Van Hear. Routledge. Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees
2023-01-30 | Journal article | URI: https://refuge.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/refuge/article/view/41106
Ian Murphy-Pociask (2022) Book review of Cohen, Robin & Van Hear, Nicholas (2020) Refugia. Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement. Oxon & Routledge. 148 pp. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 12(2), pp.247–250. DOI: http://doi.org/10.33134/njmr.511
Benjamin Thomas White, Utopian thinking, dystopian consequences: reflecting on ‘Refugia’
Singular Things (blog) | 19/08/2022
Ceylan, H (2021) Robin Cohen and Nicholas Van Hear, Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement, Turkish Journal of Diaspora Studies, 1 (1), 161-164
Gerhard Hoffstaedter & Antje Missbach, Send them to the moon! A polemic on refugee crisis solutions
RLI Blog on Refugee Law and Forced Migration | 24/11/2020
Kimber, N (2020) Citizenship-Based Durable Solutions: Hannah Arendt Revisited, MSc dissertation in International Development & Humanitarian Emergencies, London School of Economics
Sana Murrani (2020) Refugia: Radical Solutions to Mass Displacement, Journal of Refugee Studies, feaa077, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feaa077
Heaven Crawley, Why we need to protect refugees from the ‘big ideas’ designed to save them
The Independent, Voices (online) | 28/07/2018
Veronique Barbelet & Christina Bennett (2018) ‘Refugia: a place where refugees survive, but do not thrive’, Migration and Society 1, 1 (2018): 186–189; https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2018.010116
Helma Lutz (2018) ‘Beware of social engineering: a response to “Refugia” by Nicholas Van Hear’, Migration and Society 1, 1 (2018): 190–192; https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2018.010116
N. Van Hear (2018) ‘Refugia: Pragmatic Utopianism’, Migration and Society 1, 1 (2018): 193-194; https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2018.010116 (response to Barbelet, Bennett and Lutz)
Rebecca Buxton, Jade Huynh & Theophilus Kwek, Reply to Refugia: Nothing Utopian About an Archipelago of Exclusion
Refugees Deeply (blog) | 8/11/2107
[Rebecca Buxton, Jade Huynh & Theophilus Kwek are alumni of the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre (2017)]
A line-by-line ‘live tweet’ critique by Benjamin Thomas White @rain_later:
Thread 14 July | Thread 21 August | Thread 12 November
The debate around Refugia is stimulating reflection and discussion in policy, practitioner and civil society circles
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