Date/Time: 28th of April, 11:30-12:30
Place: Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen (Haakon Sheteligs plass 7)
It is with great pleasure that we invite you to the book launch of Continental Encampment – Genealogies of Humanitarian in the Middle East and Europe.
We will mark the book launch with delicious Syrian finger food and a conversation with the editors of the book John Knudsen and Kjersti G. Berg together with Antonio De Lauri and Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen.
During the past decade, Syria’s displacement crisis has made the Middle East one of the world’s foremost refugee-hosting regions. The measures to prevent refugees and migrants from leaving the region, and returning those who do, has made the region a zone of containment where millions remain displaced. The volume explores responses to mass migration and traces the genealogy of humanitarian containment from the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the first refugee camps to the present-day displacement ‘crises’ and the re-bordering of Europe.
We will zoom in on two cases from the volume, namely Lampedusa, Italy and the so-called Balkan-route – based on De Lauri and Bendixsen’s chapters respectively – and discuss some key, and current dynamics of continental encampment.
More about the participants:
Are John Knudsen is Research Professor at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and an International Fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations (ICM), Paris. Knudsen specializes on forced displacement, camp-based and urban refugees in the Middle East, in particular Lebanon.
Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen is the head of the department of Social Anthropology. Her anthropological work relates to migration issues, more specifically to migrants along the Balkan route, irregular migrants in Norway and Islam and Muslims in Europe, with a particular focus on Germany.
Antonio De Lauri is Research Professor at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and the Director of the Norwegian Centre for Humanitarian Studies, and co-founder of the Anthropology of Humanitarianism Network (AHN) of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).
Kjersti G. Berg is a researcher associated with CMI, Bergen, and Associate Professor at NLA University College, Norway. Kjersti is a historian and researches encampment, Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and the Palestine Question.
Photo: public domain (Zaatari refugee camp – Wikipedia)