Humans and animals in refugee camps (360G-Wellcome-205708_Z_16_Z)

This project explores the question what roles have animals played in refugee camps, in the past and in the present, and to what effect? Refugee camps have been a durable part of the political landscape for a century. Animals—livestock, pack animals, companion animals, or pests—have been a constant and often vital presence in the lives of people who live in them. But cross-disciplinary and comparative research on their multi-faceted role in camp life is lacking. Our goals are to establish a cross-disciplinary academic/practitioner research network; to set out and disseminate a research agenda, and identify appropriate methodologies, to explore the present and past of this subject; and to develop a collaborative funding bid to pursue that research. We will hold three cross-disciplinary academic/practitioner workshops, plus six smaller meetings with a reference group of people who have lived in refugee camps as refugees. Outputs will include a 16-page feature in the leading practitioner/policymaker publication on forced migration, a working paper for UNHCR, blog posts, and applications for follow-on funding. Stimulating new research across a range of disciplines, the project will establish effective knowledge exchange partnerships to inform humanitarian practice and improve the lives of refugees and their animals.