From July 4 to 7, 2023, Annika Heyen participated in the Third Annual International Seminar in Historical Refugee Studies hosted by Jan C. Jansen and Dane Kennedy at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research in Duisburg. Fifteen advanced Ph.D. students and early postdocs from universities and research institutes in ten countries on four continents gathered and discussed papers on the main topic, “Historicizing the Refugee Experience.” In addition to Jan C. Jansen and Dane Kennedy, they were accompanied and supported by a team of well-known scholars in the field of refugee history: Delphine Diaz, Ilana Feldman, Peter Gatrell, and Susanne Lachenicht.

Before the meeting in Duisburg, all participants handed in papers addressing an aspect of their current projects. Instead of being presented, these papers were read by the entire group of scholars and commented on by two participants. They not only summarized the main questions and arguments but expressed their own thoughts on the topic and thus laid the foundation for the discussions with the other participants and the senior scholars. Keynote lectures by Ilana Feldman on “Humanitarian Time and Refugee Presence: On Palestinian Lives in Extended Displacement” and Egemen Özbek on “The Acacemy in Exile” provided further thought-provoking impulses.

The paper topics ranged from refugee (self-)perception in the Early Modern period (Stephanie Bode, Peter Walker) to recent resettlement programs in the United Kingdom (Phoebe Shambaugh) and refugee containment policies in South Africa (Oladotun Awosusi), touching questions of utility paradigms (Victoria Gonzales Maltes), gender perspectives (Franziska Maria Lamp, Alba Martínez), refugee policies as part of nation building processes (Rohail Salman), intergenerational trauma (Al-Khoder Al-Khalifa), the importance of migratory networks (Michele Magri, Grecia Chávez Medina) and identity in the case of returnees (Martin-Oleksandr Kisly, Alessandra Vigo). Annika Heyen participated with her paper “The Bermuda Conference on the ‘Refugee Problem’ of 1943 and the term ‘Refugee’ in the early 1940s”.

One observation for the entire Summer School was that the term and status “refugee” always was – and still is – contested ground and that the process of negotiating who is defined as a “refugee” never comes to a definitive end but to new temporary stopovers. These negotiation and categorization processes are shaped by emotions, trauma, humanitarian intentions, security concerns, and ambitions of the different actors involved: the refugees themselves, nongovernmental organizations, and the host states. However, vice versa, refugees – after the loss of certainties and disruption -, through their sometimes long-term presence, shape their environment in the host states and form a new exile identity.

The Call for Applications for the Fourth Annual International Seminar in Historical Refugee Studies taking place in Tübingen next year will be published soon. Advanced Ph.D. candidates and early postdocs from all over the world researching the history or presence of refugees will be invited to apply. Keep your eyes open, for example, by following the seminar’s Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/RefugeeSeminar!

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