2025/03/28 by Rawan Arar, Molly Fee, Heba Gowayed +1 · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Asian Geopolitics and Ethnography #Migration, Refugees, and Integration #Political Conflict and Governance
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/01419870.2025.2474625
openalex publication_date 2025/03/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
Refugee resettlement is described as primarily a humanitarian solution or a migratory pathway. These characterisations may be accurate, but they are not comprehensive. We argue that such framing influences scholarly analyses of resettlement’s scope and impact and introduces conceptual blind spots that limit critical inquiry. We propose understanding resettlement as an institution embedded in a complex network of actors, relations, and practices. The authors of this Special Issue reveal that resettlement is not a passive process. They demonstrate how refugees actively strategize to become resettle-able, advocate for others within their networks, or even reject resettlement altogether. Several contributions expand the discourse by centreing perspectives from the Global South, examining how resettlement operates from Southern host countries. These dynamics underscore how the specter of resettlement shapes refugee experiences, even when the prospect of being resettled is unattainable.