Request for Papers and Commentaries on Protracted Displaced Situations, Creative Solutions, and Refugee-Led Initiatives

The Journal on Migration and Human Security (JMHS) requests papers for a special collection on solutions to situations of protracted international and internal displacement. The papers should provide extensive background on one or more situations of protracted displacement and describe the degree to which the affected populations have been able to avail themselves of traditional durable solutions; i.e., safe and voluntary return to their home communities, local integration, and third-country resettlement. The papers should also outline promising complementary approaches to the need for secure, permanent homes, such as expanded mobility and legal migration options, privately sponsored resettlement, self-reliance initiatives, and faith-based programs. 

JMHS would welcome papers authored by researchers with refugee backgrounds, or co-authored by researchers and refugees or other forced migrants. Papers should include all the elements and be written in the style of JMHS papers, as set forth in the journal’s submission guidelines at https://cmsny.org/jmhs/submission-guidelines/.   

Potential authors should submit abstracts of their proposed papers (600 words or less) to the co-editors, Elizabeth Ferris ([email protected]) and Donald Kerwin ([email protected]) by April 1, 2022.  The co-editors will invite full submissions of eight to ten papers based on: (1) their proposed coverage of one or more situations of protracted displacement; (2) the need to cover diverse populations and geographies; and (3) the authors’ knowledge of complementary and alternative solutions to protracted displacement situations. Papers will be due July 1, 2022. 

The request for papers also welcomes shorter commentaries (no longer than 2,500 words) from organizations led by refugees or internally displaced persons on their experiences of protracted displacement, their advocacy and operational priorities in support of permanent solutions, and the ways they have organized their efforts. The co-editors hope to collect and combine these commentaries into a single paper that will be part of the special collection.

The Journal on Migration and Human Security is a peer reviewed, public policy journal on international migration. It has a strong record of publishing work on forced migration, including special editions on strengthening the global refugee protection system the US refugee protection system on the 35th anniversary of the 1980 Refugee Act, and (most recently) new demographic directions in forced migrant and refugee research. Please make any inquiries regarding this special JMHS collection to the co-editors.