The Struggle for Health - a second edition of the classic work

 Richard Carver writes:

David Sanders (1944-2019)

A very great number of people benefitted from the life of Professor David Sanders.* I should know, because I am one of them, although for me this was very personal - he was one of my oldest friends. Most importantly, David was an immensely influential figure in the progressive health movement internationally and in southern Africa. Central to that influence was his first book, The Struggle for Health: Medicine and the Politics of Underdevelopment. This first came out in 1985 and a second edition has just been published. (The open access e-book is here.)

It will be launched at an online lecture on Monday, 22 May.

First, a personal note. David died suddenly nearly four years ago. When one loses a friend the sadness is often expressed as a feeling that we didn’t spend enough time together - that there was so much more we wanted to talk about. In David’s case, this was literally true. We had been friends since the 1970s, but except for when we first met in London, we barely lived on the same continent. 

The Struggle for Health was of great importance in forming our friendship. David enlisted me as an editor and occasional amanuensis. This project began as a briefing booklet for medical personnel volunteering overseas. By the time I got involved, it was already shaping up to be a book. I knew nothing about health, but I could edit and write, so I came on board. Fairly soon, however, David was making use of me as a historical researcher. I ended up writing parts of the book and was very generously credited as co-author of the first edition. I say generously because the entire argument and theoretical framework of the book was David’s.

David was born in South Africa of Jewish descent - something he was very attached to. Students who have heard my lectures on refugees in history may recall a discussion of the arrival of Lithuanian Jews in the Cape during the ostrich boom. I owed all that  to David’s delightful anecdotes. He grew up in Zimbabwe, became a doctor, and was involved in the liberation movement. This was how I first came to know him and my collaboration on the book meant that I stumbled inadvertently, but delightedly, into a lifetime of work on human rights in Africa.

When he died, David was working on a second edition of The Struggle for Health. The central argument of the book is as relevant as ever - indeed some of it may read as truistic for the simple reason that it was ahead of the field and highly influential. It never lost touch with its origins as a briefing for health workers. The book argues that social determinants are by far the most important influences on health - not medicine of any sort, including preventive interventions, which were becoming more fashionable when he wrote the book. But that does not mean that the role of the health worker is irrelevant. If they understand these determinants and are prepared to work with others for social transformation, then health workers have a part to play. The book is particularly important in considering the role of community health workers, a development that David championed on his return to Zimbabwe at independence in 1980 - and later for nearly 30 years back in South Africa. Many of these experiences are reflected in greater depth in the new edition.

David did not finish the revised edition, but his widow, Professor Sue Fawcus, was determined that the work should be completed. A small committee took this on, including Sue herself, Wim de Ceukelaire, and Barbara Hutton. I was asked to review the draft, but my name, quite rightly, is no longer on the cover.

The second edition of The Struggle for Health is being launched on 22 May at the annual David Sanders Lecture in Public Health and Social Justice, to be delivered by Professor Fran Baum of the University of Adelaide, and with contributions from the book’s editorial committee.

The event is being streamed and is at 14.00 South African time, which is 13.00 BST.

 

* Not to be confused with the former CENDEP director, David Sanderson.

The Emigrant’s Adieu - The story of Irish and Scottish migrants told through their music

Richard Carver introduces his performance/lecture on Irish and Scottish migration for the Oxford Human Rights Festival.

There are obviously many downsides to retiring from CENDEP - but one of the positive things for me has been to free a lot of time to work on one of my passions: music. For more than 50 years I have been an amateur musician, with more enthusiasm than talent, if truth be told. In retirement, my focus has been much less on the classical music that I have played for most of my life than on the traditional music of the British and Irish Isles.

As I immersed myself in this music, I became interested, perhaps rather perversely, in one particular aspect: how tunes got their names. 

 

Mourning for the Cradle of Civilization[1], Cities of Heroes[2] and Veterans[3]

By Fatma Ozdogan

On 6^th of February, two earthquakes hit the city of Kahramanmaraş in southeastern Türkiye. First earthquake Mw7.8 was followed by another one only nine hours after with Mw7.7. The impact was enormous. 10 cities (Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Gaziantep, Osmaniye, Adıyaman, Malatya, Şanlıurfa, Adana, Diyarbakır and Kilis) are terribly affected by the earthquakes. Home to 13,5 million people, including 1.7 million refugees from Syria, more than 39.000 people (based on the latest reported number in the 12^th day of the disaster) lost their lives. The number is expected to increase with the removal of the rubbles in the coming days. We who are left behind are still in deep sorrow and mourning.

Like any border city, these cities carried a remarkable cultural heritage from the past. Host to dozens of civilizations, their stories go back to 100BC. They witnessed empires, wars, conflicts, migration waves for centuries. The city patterns were reflecting their abundant gastronomy blending many cultures, architectural assets and several languages used in this geography. Two earthquakes and a corrupted system swept away this cultural wealth, as are tens of thousands of our people who have died under the rubble.

Essential infrastructure such as airports and roads are damaged, which caused delay in humanitarian aid. In some cities, search and rescue operations did not start until the next day. Cold weather conditions worsened the situation for people under the rubble, also for the survivors outside. Management of a disaster in this scale was not an easy task. Authorities are still criticized due to the miscoordination. People desperately waited for help for hours for their loved ones under the collapsed buildings. We counted every minute. Minutes became hours, hours became days, days became weeks. Time took our hope to save more people. We lost so many under the collapsed buildings. Each of us who survived has left a part of ourselves under those rubbles. Traces will never be erased.

Crying to the cameras, people expressed their indescribable pain: I lost 5,6, 7..10 family members. I lost my daughter, I lost my mother, I lost my father, my wife, my husband, my granny, my cousin, my aunt, my uncle, my brother, my sister..

People buried their loved ones with their bare hands. While thousands of people are still under the rubble, their families are not leaving until the wreck removal so they can save the dead bodies and bury them traditionally, at least.

Arial view of Ataturk Street in Hatay (Cumhuriyet Gazetesi, 2023)

This geography has experienced similar pains in the past. Somehow some lessons were taken from those incidents.

In 1999, Mw 7.6 earthquake hit Marmara Region and caused more than 17.000 deaths. This became a milestone in Türkiye’s risk perception, disaster preparedness and building codes. The country built the disaster management system, strengthen the building codes and design regulations, introduced a control mechanism to ensure the quality of the constructions. Additionally, following another earthquake in 2011 in the eastern Türkiye, Van, an urban transformation law is passed. The law was supposed to lead to the modification / reconstruction of the buildings at disaster risks based on the updated building codes. In this way, the government was securing the transformation of old building stock and modifying them.

So, what happened? Why, 24 years after the massive earthquake in the same country, are we seeing the same devastation, even more severe than the past experiences? Why do ten-fifteen storey buildings turn into grains of sands and become graves to people? Why did we fail to prevent this disaster? Didn’t we know that it was coming? Weren’t we prepared enough? Didn’t we learn from previous disasters? Or is it simply because we forget quickly?

The response is complicated. Though, answers to these questions are not secrets either.

First of all, we are aware of the risks. We are quite familiar with the fact that Türkiye is vulnerable to earthquake risks. We know that Earthquake doesn't kill, building does; or there is no such thing as natural disaster, natural hazards become disasters if we are exposed to them! But awareness doesn’t reflect on decision-making process neither on the public demand.

Zoning amnesties as a political tool before every election is a common application. Zoning amnesty means any building, or an additional level or section to a building that did not receive engineering services and are not certified by authorities can be forgiven and officialise by the authorities. A few months before this disaster, another zoning amnesty was proposed by the government, as an election is on the way. The announcements of amnesties were always welcomed by the communities as they had chances to officialise their informal buildings. Even though specialists and experts are emphasizing the mistake in every amnesty, their voices are ignored totally. Twenty zoning amnesty was applied since 1948, and millions of housing and commercial unites are officialised with this method since then.

Secondly, the approach to urban land, urbanism, right to housing has shifted completely over the last 20 years. Construction became the main industry to develop the economy for the government instead of seeing it as a way to providing services and infrastructure to the public. Contractors became the main leaders of the construction industry, not specialists nor the experts. Expert involvement in the planning and decision making is totally ignored, their voices are suppressed over the years. The control mechanism of chamber of engineers and architects are canceled by using the delay they cause during the review as an excuse. Even, contractors have right to hire their own auditors and pay them directly. The whole process leads the lack of third-party control both in the planning and application processes. Not surprisingly, this conflict of interest between the contractors and auditors led to negligence of the technical requirements. Eventually, two-three years of residences collapsed in the latest earthquakes.

Similarly, mentioned urban transformation law was managed by the contractors. A great chance was missed to rebuild the areas at risk by giving the power to the contractors. Individual reconstructions prioritizing the benefit of the contractors deepen the spatial inequalities and exposed more people to disasters rather than reducing the vulnerabilities. Tackling the disaster risks on the individual building level caused missing the bigger picture in the neighborhood or city level.

From the land management point of view, land-use restrictions are rarely applied in the city centers due to the economic value of the land. The urban transformation and zoning laws does not lead to the construction ban in the lands prone to disaster risks. Instead, engineering solutions are imposed even for the lands with high disaster risks, and even when the land is directly affected by a disaster and buildings are damaged there.  

Another reason is the quality of university education. Almost every city in Türkiye has at least one university. The number is more in mega-cities like Istanbul, Ankara, İzmir. Architecture, engineering, and urban planning departments exist almost in all of them. However, not every department has the same quality level of education. Lack of qualified academics and services cause the non-qualified graduates. Furthermore, there is not a professional qualification system for graduates to be authorized to approve/sign a project. Any person graduated from the bachelor’s degree immediately obtain the right to approve a project. Considering the geographical risk factors, frequency of the disasters and the scale of the impacts, education quality and professional qualification system must be prioritized, and investments should be directed to the universities aiming higher quality.    

The role of unplanned migration movement and the social, environmental and economic pressure as a result can be named as another reason to exposure to disaster risks. Rapidly increasing urban density and uncontrolled urban sprawl challenged the governance of the affected cities. Especially Gaziantep and Hatay were already struggling to provide urban infrastructure to the increasing population before the earthquakes.

Finally, shortcomings in the risk perception and its consideration in the disaster management system is critical. Currently, investments and expertise focus on disaster intervention and post-disaster recovery, while still there is a great need for improving the capacities in the disaster preparedness.

Post-disaster reconstruction is a complex and sophisticated process. As listed above, it has many dimensions, and it cannot be done without addressing the root causes of the damage. An interdisciplinary, inclusive approach is the key to address the needs, reduce the pre-disaster vulnerabilities and avoid similar pains in the future.

Although this complex process requires time, upcoming election in 2023 makes the situation challenging politically for the current government. As a result, in the first week of the disaster, President Erdogan announced his promises to complete the reconstruction of the affected cities in one year. By acknowledging that the management was not impeccable, he claimed that no country in the world could manage a disaster of this scale perfectly, because it was the disaster of the century. This phase he used; disaster of a century; became iconic among the government. It is used as an excuse for any miscoordination or shortages in the management.

There is no doubt that the scale of the disaster is enormous. But there is no doubt that it could have been prevented and it could have been managed better.

Some decisions have been highly criticized by large majorities. For instance, as a quick solution to the housing needs, university students staying in the dormitories were told to evacuate immediately. Some of the earthquake victims were placed in these dormitories in all cities of Türkiye. University education is converted to remote. While quality of education was on the target of the disaster impact, this action was called into doubt. Especially while most of the current students lost already a few years due to the pandemic, mostly in applied sciences.

Another criticized decision was closing the primary level education in all cities until 20^th February, and indefinitely in the 10 affected cities (decision will be revaluated on 1^st March). Pedagogists state that closing the schools can only deepen the trauma of affected children and emphasize that in the 1999 Marmara earthquake education never stopped in any level.

With the given promises to rise these cities from their ashes, starting the wreck removal in the first week of disaster was another subject of critics. While people still had their hopes to save more people from the rubbles, rescuing more people alive during the wreck removal created another trauma in our minds. Additionally, as recommended by lawyers, collapsed buildings are evidence of crimes and a legal process should be followed before starting to clean the rubbles. Lastly, a tender process should be followed to award the companies for wreck removal which is not the case today.

It is certain that decisions need to be taken urgently due to the nature of the conditions; however, long-term impacts should be considered in a sensitive situation like that. Impetuous decisions usually neglect people’s voices. Identifying the needs of communities and planning based on the conditions require time. Post-disaster reconstruction has a responsibility to rebuild these cities by respecting historical and cultural values. While millions flee to neighboring cities, when they come back, destroying the traces of the past can only deepen their trauma and make the adaptation impossible. We need to keep in mind that we own a proper recovery to the cradle of civilization, and cities of heroes and veterans.

A graffiti in the City of Hatay, also known as Cradle of Civilization: Do not lose your hope Hatay, we will come back. (Credit: Barış Atay)

 I want to conclude with some recommendations for the reconstruction projects. Further research needs to be conducted further during this process in order to rebuild social, economic and physical lives in these cities.

First of all, solutions for housing, infrastructure, waste management, food security, livelihood should be planned in three time periods: Short-term, middle-term and long term. Short term solutions are ongoing for repairing the basic infrastructure. Planning for the longer periods should start immediately with the contributions of stakeholders. Revisiting the previous experiences and predicting the long-term impacts of applied solutions is critical at this stage.

Considering the reconstruction of these cities is not possible until the completion of damage assessment. The extent of the destruction varies in different provinces and districts. While destruction occurs at the city level in some districts (Elbistan, Defne, İslahiye, Nurdağı) and provinces (Hatay, Adıyaman, Kahramanmaraş), there are also provinces where the destruction is relatively low. Various solutions should be produced and should be developed with the participation of communities, specialists, scholars, experts, and decision makers.

The planning studies should be designed within the framework of the principles that will reduce these risks and take preventive measures. The plans to be made during the reconstruction process of our cities must necessarily include a holistic disaster prevention policy. Solutions should be in urban scale.

A comprehensive post-disaster reconstruction planning with social, environmental, and physical dimensions is essential in order to build resilient cities. While a similar size earthquake is expected in Istanbul in the next thirty years, reconsidering all the aspects of this damage is vital, to be prepared for future disasters not only in the affected cities but in every city of Türkiye.

Ancient and historical value of affected cities should be in the center of planning and decision-making. Principles should be designed according to these assets and integrated in the solutions in different levels.

The state of building inventory (even though they were not damaged) should be revisited in cities prone to disaster risks.  

Urban transformation law should be revised with more consideration of the current disaster risks, land management and vulnerabilities. Most vulnerable regions should be prioritized during the renovation.

Observing the impacts of applied solutions is essential. A lessons-learned mechanism should be integrated in the disaster management system. Reconstructed areas should be analysed in various period of times in the future. We need to ensure that lessons are taken from this experience.

I sincerely hope that the reconstruction process will produce broad solutions, including the problems that existed in the region before the disaster. A human-oriented urbanism, inline with the local needs and using the modern technologies, recovery will lead to tackle the deepening injustice through spatial solutions, and reduce pre-disaster vulnerabilities.

 

References:

Cumhuriyet Gazetesi, 2023. Depremin ardından Hatay'daki yıkım havadan görüntülendi. [En ligne]
Available at: https://www.cumhuriyet.com.tr/turkiye/galeri-depremin-ardindan-hataydaki-yikim-havadan-goruntulendi-2048787 [Accessed on 17 February 2023].

 

Author: Fatma Özdoğan

As an architect based in Türkiye, Fatma Özdoğan has international professional experience in Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Qatar, research experience in Colombia, Lebanon and Türkiye. After completing her studies in Türkiye, she was offered a scholarship at Oxford Brookes University, UK to study the MA Development and Emergency Practice programme. She improved her knowledge on the interrelationship between sustainable urban development and natural/man-made crises. She recently began her doctoral studies at the faculty of planning at the University of Montreal, Canada. Her research interest is disaster management with a particular interest in post-disaster reconstruction. She studies the relationship between the country's responses to disasters and development. Her current research aims to understand the needs of communities as architects and to propose sustainable solutions to bridge the gaps between the needs and the services provided.

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[1] Hatay has a historical importance for Türkiye, as the last city joined to the Turkish lands with ambition and dedication of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The name of the city, Hatay, is given by Atatürk.  

[2] Kahramanmaraş (Compound Name, Kahraman – Maraş) – The forename, Kahraman which means hero, is given by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) in 1973 with respect to their efforts in the Liberty War (1919-1922)

[3] Gaziantep (Compound Name, Gazi-Antep)) The forename, Gazi which means Veteran, is given by the Turkish Grand National Assembly (TBMM) in 1921 with respect to their efforts in the Liberty War (1919-1922).

Disaster Risk Reduction and Furthering Women’s Rights

By Supriya Akerkar

You can read the full discussion on links between disasters, development and women's rights in the article here 

CENDEP Newsletter September 2022 issue is available now!

Read the latest issue of the CENDEP Newsletter,

• The new Design in DEP module
• New Project - Ageing in Displacement
• Pathways Home
• Discussing Social Life of skills with Young Women in Cameroon
• Peace - justice tensions in post-war Sri Lanka
• Latest news from MA HAP and MA DEP
• Student Profile
• New Staff at CENDEP
• Other news and events
• Publications

From Fieldwork to Academia - Europe's migrant movement

By Sue Walsh (CENDEP alumna MA DEP 2021- 2022) 

In September 2015, the world awakened to the image of ‘Humanity washed ashore’ 2 year old Alan Kurdi dead on a beach in Turkey. A whole other part of the world woke up realising this symbol of the migrant crisis was now a European one and did not just belong to the Global South. 

This photograph was my introduction to volunteering, refugees and humanitarian aid. From that September 2015, I evoked community energy to canvassing radio stations, newspapers and groups to donate aid. We raised funds and dispatched it to Syria, Serbia, Hungary and Greece; regions selected because the march of the migrants along the Balkan route increased through the winter and their needs were ever great.

Pathways Home launch

 By Sue Webb and Bill Flinn

Download Pathways Home here

For the first time, guidance for humanitarian actors aiming to support the process of self-recovery after disasters has been published. A new publication from the Global Shelter Cluster articulates the need for a change in mindset in humanitarian responses to disasters linked to natural hazards and to other crises that result in loss of homes.

First Responder Trauma from major incidents

By Dr Melanie Henwood (OBE, Associate Consultant at the Institute of Public Care, Oxford Brookes University)   

Barely a day passes without national or international news of some natural disaster, major accident or terrorist incident causing fatalities and life changing consequences for survivors.  From the recurrent mass shootings and murder of multiple school children in the US, to a car being deliberately driven into a crowd in Berlin, or earthquakes, tsunami, and famine devastating communities, particularly in the developing world.  There are also frequent anniversaries of major incidents, in the UK alone there are regular reminders of such events as the terrorist attack at Fishmongers’ Hall (29 November 2019); the Manchester Arena bombing at the Ariana Grande concert (22 May 2017), the London Bridge and Borough Market terrorist attacks (3 June 2017), the Grenfell Tower fire (14 June 2017), and the July 7th terrorist bombings in London in 2005.  For people involved in such events, whether as survivors, bereaved families, or emergency responders, each anniversary risks retraumatising and revisiting unresolved issues and grief. 

Understanding displacement through collaborative research and artistic productions with young people in Jordan and Lebanon: New publication

Authors: Cathrine Brun, Zoe Jordan, Alexandra Kassir

Download the book here

The article was first published on the Centre for Lebanese Studies website here

Understanding impacts of Sanitation on Women and links to Gender Based Violence: Focus on East Africa

As part of CENDEP's Working Paper Series, our second paper no WP-02-2022, is by Aparna Maladkar on 'Understanding impacts of Sanitation on Women and links to Gender Based Violence: Focus on East Africa.'

The full paper can be accessed via https://doi.org/10.24384/CENDEP.WP-02-2022

Humanitarian Shelter in Southern Malawi

 CENDEP’s Sue Webb reflects on her recent visit to Malawi

The flooded Shire river valley in Chikwawa, Southern Malawi

CENDEP and CARE UK, with other partners, have been working for several years to advocate for an approach to humanitarian Shelter and Settlements assistance that supports shelter self-recovery, recognised by the Global Shelter Cluster and many humanitarian actors as being appropriate, effective and good value-for-money. However, to date, there has been no guidance on how to do this in practice. Through the GCRF-funded Self-recovery from Humanitarian Crisis project (2019-2021) the Guidance for Supporting Shelter Self-recovery has been developed; this will be published in the coming weeks - watch this space!

CENDEP Newsletter March 2022 is out!

 Read the latest issue of the CENDEP Newsletter, including

Gender and Older People: Research paper and online event

CENDEP Director, Dr Supriya Akerkar’s ‘Gender and Older People’ has recently been published (link here) which was undertaken for the Programme and Ageing Unit (PAU), United Nation Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA).

Supriya has also been invited as one of the panellists for a virtual event ‘Shameful Contrast: Inequality at the Intersection of Age and Gender’ on Tuesday, March 15 (8:00-9:30 am ET OR 12:00-1:30 pm, UK time). The event places a spotlight on older women and aims to transform political momentum into action that will empower older women and further promote gender equality.

Welcome to the 20th Oxford Human Rights Festival

The Oxford Human Rights Festival launches on the 11th March with the annual Nabeel Hamdi Lecture given by Yasmeen Lari, the first female architect in Pakistan and the recent recipient of the prestigious Fukuoka Prize (2016) and the Jane Drew Prize (2020), the latter awarded by the Architect's Journal in honour of the English modernist architect, Jane Drew.

Dr Supriya Akerkar, the new Director of Centre of Development and Emergency Practice (CENDEP) has this to say about the festival this year,

Calais experiences and reflections on OxHRF 2022 theme ‘Movement’

As the 20th Oxford Human Rights Festival (OxHRF) kicks off on March 11th, MA DEP Post Graduate student, Victoria Greenwood reflects on the festival theme of ‘Movement’ through her experience in Calais.

“Extreme inequality in our world makes free movement safe and easy for those of us privileged to hold a British passport and be protected by double vaccines.” by Victoria Greenwood. 

Human rights and root causes

In the last of a series of three blogs on human rights, Richard Carver writes, 

…[T]o be ‘for’ human rights means… to be willing to venture interpretations of those rights in the same place and with the same language employed by the dominant power, to dispute its hierarchy and methods, to elucidate what it has hidden, to pronounce what it has silenced or rendered unpronounceable. (Edward Said)

In my previous posts, I argued that human rights are only one possible lens for examining social and political issues and that they should not aspire to offer a universal panacea. In this post, I discuss the view that human rights practitioners can, or should, address the “root causes” of human rights issues.

Human rights as the universal panacea

In the second of a series of three blogs on human rights, Richard Carver writes, 

      Increasingly, people of good will concerned about poverty are drawn into debate about a series of ultimately impossible legal quandaries—right of whom, against whom, remediable how, and so on — and into institutional projects of codification and reporting familiar from other human rights efforts, without evaluating how these might compare with other uses for this talent and these resources. (David Kennedy)

I argued in my previous post that the besetting weakness of the human rights community is our apparent inability to understand that human rights constitute only one possible lens for viewing a particular problem. To illustrate this, consider an issue that seems to belong indubitably within the human rights sphere: the prohibition of torture. Yet human rights do not constitute the only approach to this issue. For example, the laws of armed conflict contain a clear and absolute prohibition on torture, along with mechanisms to punish its perpetrators. It is not unreasonable to assume that in certain circumstances, that might be a more appropriate way to address torture.

What we talk about when we talk about human rights

In the first of a series of three blogs on human rights, Richard Carver writes,

 What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician rather than the professor of metaphysics. (Edmund Burke)

The conservative political philosopher Edmund Burke probably finds little favour with most readers of this blog. However, for the past 13 years I have been in the slightly unusual position of teaching human rights in an architecture school and, with a bit of tweaking, Burke’s words have resonated with me fairly often. What is the use of discussing a person’s abstract right to adequate housing? I shall always advise to call in the aid of the architect and the structural engineer – in plentiful supply among my colleagues – rather than the human rights lawyer (me).

Jordan: How the EU is using trade deals to curb migration (An interview with CENDEP's Zoe Jordan)

This interview was first published in the Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS) written by ALICE TROY-DONOVAN (6 January 2022)

https://www.diis.dk/en/node/25402

Migrants drowning in the English Channel and freezing to death at the Belarus-Poland border have captured public and media attention across Europe, but these events only tell part of the story of EU attempts to block migration to its member states, says researcher Zoe Jordan.

The impact of EU migration policy now stretches far beyond the Union’s actual territorial borders, with millions of euros invested in efforts to control and curb mobility from and between African and Middle Eastern countries – also known as border ‘externalisation’. Such initiatives are profoundly impacting the lives of migrants themselves as well as entire political and policy-making landscapes within the countries from which they move.

Refugee-ness - how refugees are portrayed in photographs

 

A discussion around the current exhibition at Tap Social Botley. Shafiur Rahman, documentary filmmaker and curator of the exhibition, discusses the case of Rohingya refugees. He examines the case of Rohingya refugees, how they are represented in photography and argues that the complexities of refugee lives are reduced for the sake of expediency.

There are two links for booking free tickets

Website: https://www.oxfordhumanrightsfestival.net/book-tickets.html

Eventbrite direct: https://refugeeness.eventbrite.co.uk

Voices from the Oxford Human Rights Festival: Little Amal visits

Photo: Cathrine Brun

Oxford Human Rights Planning Committee member and CENDEP postgraduate student Victoria Greenwood shares her reflections on the UK Nationality and Borders Bill and Little Amal’s visit to the ‘dreaming spires’ of Oxford.

Elizabeth Laskar, Festival Coordinator writes:

The reflection below has been written by MA student Victoria Greenwood after the visit of a giant puppet called ‘Amal’, who visited Oxford on Tuesday 26 October 2021. The historic city was packed with people from all generations and backgrounds, all following Amal from street to street - everyone wanted a glimpse of her. The spectacle was more than just a puppet show: it was powerful in that her presence and movements embodied not only her story but the story of all displaced children and the inequalities within the city of Oxford and the institutions it holds. It was moving and deeply thought provoking.

As we plan to celebrate our 20th festival in 2022 it’s a timely piece to help ‘kick off’ the discourse on the festival theme of ‘movement’ and human rights. 

Considering ‘Refugeeness’ in Jordanian Policy: Priorities, Ambiguities and Hierarchies

Emily Joel is a graduate in Sociology and Anthropology at Oxford Brookes University, with a research focus on forced displacement. She is also a keen advocate for improving opportunities available to refugee and asylum seeking communities. Emily recently worked with CENDEP after securing a student placement wherein she contributed to the ‘Competing Priorities’ project, centred on coherence and competition within migration, education and employment policies in Jordan. Emily writes:

Analysing a country's migration policies is instrumental to understanding the nation's wider approach to forced displacement. In the Jordanian context, what is equally as significant is what - and who - is missing from policy discourse. 

Today, Jordan hosts the second highest number of refugees per capita in the world (UNHCR, 2021a). This includes approximately 2 million UNWRA-registered Palestinians and a government estimate of over 1.4 million Syrians (approximately 670,000 being UNHCR-registered) (UNHCR, 2021b). Jordan is also host to over 89,000 refugees and asylum-seekers from more than 52 other countries, including over 67,000 Iraqis (UNHCR, 2021c), 14,000 Yemenis, 6,000 Sudanese and 700 Somalis (UNHCR, 2021d).

Having a long history of accommodating forced migrants, Jordan is widely recognised as a welcoming host-state to refugees. However, this stereotype is significantly problematised by Jordan’s case-by-case approach to refugee-hosting. In this approach, policy absences, ambiguities – and indeed, comprehensiveness – act as strategic socioeconomic tools, where levels of policy attention are determined by the perceived costs and benefits of prioritising specific needs and communities. In the contemporary context, this has birthed a discourse of migration and employment policies which cohere in prioritising Syrian refugees, whilst excluding other refugee groups.

Voices of healthcare workers: supporting hospital staff after death of COVID-19 patients

Suwa Red Cross Hospital (Photo:Waka77)

Reo Morimitsu is a graduate of CENDEP's MA in Development and Emergency Practice (2018-19). He works as a clinical psychologist at Japanese Red Cross Suwa hospital and is a humanitarian activist devoted to working in the field of mental health and psychosocial support as roster member of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Psychosocial Centre. He writes about developing psychosocial support for healthcare staff dealing with COVID-19:

The Japanese Red Cross Society (JRCS) runs 91 Red Cross hospitals in Japan. As confirmed cases of COVID-19 spread all over Japan, many JRCS hospitals are providing medical support to patients of COVID-19 in each region. Healthcare workers are particularly vulnerable in the COVID-19 pandemic response both physically and psychologically since they are more likely to be exposed to the virus and witness those who die of COVID-19. As a mental health and psychosocial support roster member of the IFRC Reference Centre for Psychosocial Support, I got a request from the IFRC to collect case stories in the light of supporting healthcare workers after a patient’s death from COVID-19. Three interviews (two nurses and one medical doctor) were conducted through telephone from May to June 2020. This document was written with the aim of providing insights on how to support them to reduce the psychosocial impact of patients’ death related to COVID-19.

When leaving no one behind means ‘fixing’ those moving ahead: A call for collective action against disablism

 Grace Khawam writes:

More than 80% unemployed, 45% under the poverty line [1], 258 wounded and at least 42 newly disabled by the Beirut explosion [2]. Lack of inclusive education mainstreamed in schools, lack of implementation of legal protection frameworks, lack of affordable healthcare services [3], and lack of accessible online learning, health information and vaccination venues throughout the pandemic. This is a quick snapshot of the current state-of-affairs of persons with disabilities in Lebanon. The needs and rights of persons with disabilities have been systematically deprioritized in Lebanon, not only historically, but with every new crisis, every new humanitarian response, and every new development action.  

Why are people with disabilities in Lebanon constantly left behind? Contrary to what many may think, it is not because they are more vulnerable or need more special care: it is because they have been consistently marginalized in policies and practices, through socially imposed restrictions, and direct and indirect forms of institutional discrimination - this is what disablism means [4]. While refusing a discourse of victimization, let us unpack the underpinnings of this systemic marginalization. Let us first picture this: a world where pavements, buildings and public spaces are wheelchair-accessible; where sign language is a national language taught in schools; where quality healthcare is available for all; where school lessons are adapted to each learner’s needs; where workplaces provide reasonable accommodations for each employee to excel at their work. If we remove all barriers, all restrictions imposed by the environment, by people’s attitudes, by systems and structures, would persons with disabilities still be left behind?