Geography of Refugees

While there is debate about terminology, ‘refugee’ broadly defined refers to people who have been forcibly displaced from their homes. In 2019, there were 26 million refugees, 45.7 million internally displaced persons, and 4.2 million asylum seekers according to the UNHCR. By legal definition, refugees are those who cross international borders and are legally processed in another country; asylum seekers are those seeking legal protections in other countries; and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are individuals who have been displaced within the boundaries of their country. There are 148 state signatories, including the United States, on either or both the 1951 Convention on Refugees, formed in the aftermath of WWII, and the follow-up 1967 Protocol. The 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees outlined the legal definition and rights of refugees and the obligations of receiving countries. Taken today as customary international law, this agreement was premised on a right to move. In the 21st century, the refugee experience globally has been characterized by decreased mobility; protracted journeys that are punctuated with legal and physical waits and permanent residency in informal encampments; or increasingly dangerous travels via informal, illegal, and unsafe smuggling networks. Refugee management is a global process that both transcends and is shaped by the fortification of borders—national and otherwise. While much of the current legal framework dictating the rights of refugees was adopted in the context of large-scale war, in the 21st century causes of forced displacement include those that are war-induced or famine-induced, or caused by environmental change, natural disasters, government coercion or oppression, and the construction of large infrastructural projects, such as dams or mega-event complexes. To study refugees from a geographic perspective is to examine the spatial dimensions of the nation state system that legally and materially produces refugees, the multiple and interacting scales of government that oversee and manage refugee movements and settlement, and the embodied spatial experience of being displaced and dislocated across time and space. Moreover, geography offers methodological frameworks to understand and study the origins, impacts, and experience of forced displacement.