The Urbanization of Forced Displacement: UNHCR, Urban Refugees, and the Dynamics of Policy Change

Citation

Crawford NJW (2021) The Urbanization of Forced Displacement: UNHCR, Urban Refugees, and the Dynamics of Policy Change. McGill-Queen's Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Series, 6. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. https://www.mqup.ca/urbanization-of-forced-displacement--the-products-9780228008187.php

Abstract
Displacement in the twenty-first century is urbanized. The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the world’s largest humanitarian organization and the main body charged with assisting displaced people globally, estimates that over 60 per cent of refugees now live in urban areas, a proportion that only increases in the case of internally displaced people and asylum seekers. Though cities and local authorities have become essential participants in the protection of refugees, only three decades ago they were considered to sit firmly beyond UNHCR’s remit, with urban refugees typically characterized as aberrations. In The Urbanization of Forced Displacement Neil James Wilson Crawford examines the organization’s response to the growing number of refugees migrating to urban areas. Introducing a broader study of policy-making in international organizations, Crawford addresses how and why UNHCR changed its policy and practice in response to shifting trends in displacement. Citing over 400 primary UN documents, Crawford provides an in-depth study of the internal and external pressures faced by UNHCR - pressures from above, below, and within - that explain why it has radically transformed its position from the 1990s onward. UNHCR and global refugee policies have come to play an increasingly important role in the governance of global displacement. The Urbanization of Forced Displacement sheds new light on how the organization works and how it conceives its role in global politics today.

Keywords
United Nations; Refugees; Urban Refugees; International Organisations

Notes
Free access to this e-book is available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book or the resources needed to purchase these publications. Please see full access conditions below. Ebooks published in the McGill-Queen's Refugee and Forced Migration Studies Series have been made available by McGill-Queen's University Press (https://www.mqup.ca) and Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (https://carleton.ca/lerrn) with the assistance of Carleton University Library. The specific intent is to make these publications available to readers, scholars, and students located in the Global South, where the majority of forced migration unfolds, whose institutions lack the resources to purchase access to these books, as well as to those in other regions who are part of non-profit or community organizations concerned with displacement and who lack alternate forms of access to the book, or the resources needed to purchase these publications. By downloading this ebook, the user honestly declares to be located in the Global South, or part of a non-profit or community organization concerned with displacement, without the resources to acquire the book otherwise. https://repository.library.carleton.ca/concern/works/k930bx013?locale=en

People

Dr Neil Crawford

Lect. in Int. Politics & Public Policy, Politics