Call for Papers: for the Special Issue- Who is a Refugee in the 21st Century? , Submission Deadline- March 31st, 2025

“We don’t like to be called ‘refugees’,” wrote Hannah Arendt in 1943 amidst the consolidation of new protection regimes by some western nation-states. In 1951, the United Nations introduced the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, providing a formal definition of who counts as a refugee in need of protection. Since then, the Convention’s terms have been amended in 1967 to expand the eligibility criteria for protection. These treaties serve as reference points for parties to the Convention, which then interpret and implement their own national policies to determine who is a refugee and entitled to protection

We therefore invite contributions to a Special Issue exploring “Who is a Refugee in the 21st Century?”. We invite paper abstracts that focus on the empirical bottom-up experiences of individuals and groups who have been (internally or internationally) displaced from their recent or original place of residence due to factors such as armed conflicts, persecutions, and natural disasters. How do these groups refer to themselves, and which political, racial, gendered, socioeconomic, and age-related factors shape their self- and other-ascriptions as refugees or otherwise? How do subjective understandings and self-descriptions vary situationally and over time? Authors are encouraged to reflect on the impact of (inter)national definitions of “refugee” but prioritize empirical and on-the-ground experiences including feelings of shame and honor, financial (in)dependence, temporal aspects of displacement, legal possibilities of return, relations to other migrants, and trust in the receiving societies.

Submission Guidelines

Abstract submissions from around the world, particularly from outside of Europe and North America, are highly encouraged. Please submit your 400- to 500-word abstracts by March 31st, 2025, to [email protected]. Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by April 25th, 2025. The abstracts and the Special Issue proposal will be submitted to the Journal of Refugee Studies for publication consideration.