FiftyRefugees: Stories of Refugees in Malaysia

by Aris Oziar

For the past three months I have been working on a
website project called FiftyRefugees.  As the name implies, it chronicles the
story of 50 refugees who currently call Malaysia their home.

Malaysia does not recognise the Geneva Refugee Convention, and partly as a
result of this (we have other legal avenues to give them rights, such as IMM13
but the government has refused to act), Refugees in Malaysia who cross the
border illegally or whose visa has lapsed are classified as Illegal Immigrants,
subject to arrest and detention by the police, RELA and Immigration.
 They have restricted access to healthcare services and the children cannot go to
government schools, effectively denying them education.

As a Malaysian, I am outraged to hear their stories of Malaysia – 3
years of detention or living in makeshift jungle camps / jungle due to fear
of arrest.  Stories of a 6 year old girl whose last visit to town was 4 years
ago (the mother is too afraid to bring her out), and her 55 year old father who
eventually died because the police took all their money the one time they were
desperate enough to go to the hospital to treat his illness. And of course, of
the Malaysian immigration authorities dumping them across the border in
Thailand, where they are rounded up by agents and either pay these agents to
get back to Malaysia , or face slave labour – the men in fishing boats and the
women, probably sold to the sex trade.

I want people to know that refugees do exist in Malaysia .  To know that they
braved a dangerous journey to Malaysia  to escape atrocities in their own
country.  To know that most of them live a marginal life, often exploited,
almost always in fear.

http://fiftyrefugees.wordpress.com/

Internally Displaced People’s Voices

Listen to the voices of people who have been violently forced from their homes, as they tell about their lives. Discover the personal stories behind the figures on internal displacement.

Find out more at: http://www.idpvoices.org

World Conference of Humanitarian Studies

World Conference of Humanitarian Studies,
Groningen, The Netherlands, 4-8 February 2009

Billed as the first world conference focusing on this field of study

Participants and occasion:
An estimated number of 500 participants from a variety of institutions, universities, NGOs and other relevant organisations, associations, governmental departments and intergovernmental agencies.

For more information see: http://www.humanitarianstudies2009.org/

New Journal: migrations & identities

Call for papers

migrations & identities is a new journal published bi-annually by  
Liverpool University Press. The title represents a programme: We aim  
to interrogate notions of ‘identity’ while asking how the fact of  
mobility and displacement shapes understandings of self and the wider  
world, among both migrants and ‘host’ societies.  By the same token,  
we seek to understand how ideas and concepts are transformed as they  
‘migrate’ from one place and culture to another.

Multi- and interdisciplinary in both conception and management,  
migrations & identities aims to cover the widest possible range of  
places, periods and methods, subject only to a shared curiosity and  
enthusiasm about the possibilities of working at the interface  
between the investigation of the material conditions of migration  
processes and the study of ideas and subjectivities.

Online Petition to support academic freedom in Iraq

Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA) Online Petition in Support of the Future of Academic Freedom in Iraq 

CARA is doing considerable work to raise awareness of the plight of Iraqi academics and what can only be described as the wholesale destruction of the Iraqi education system. Over 280 Iraqi academics have been assassinated since 2003 and thousands more have fled to neighbouring countries and beyond. This petition aims to highlight the UK government’s responsibility and role in safeguarding and supporting them in the immediate, to ensure they survive to fulfil their crucial role in the future reconstruction of Iraq’s higher education sector. We would be extremely grateful for you support.

Please may we invite you to MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD by signing CARA’s online petition in support of Academic Freedom in Iraq http://cara.academic-refugees.org/

CFP: Ireland and the Caribbean

Call for Contributions, “Irish Migration Studies in Latin America”

Volume 5, Number 3 (November 2007)

Ireland and the Caribbean

Invited Editor: Jorge Chinea, Wayne State University, USA

 

The editors of “Irish Migration Studies in Latin America” invite

contributions for the forthcoming issue of the journal (Vol. 5, No. 3,

November 2007). Articles on any aspect of connections between Ireland

and the Caribbean region during both the colonial and post-colonial

periods will be considered for publication. This special edition will

focus on the Irish experience in the Dutch-, English-, French- and

Spanish-speaking Caribbean, together with the relationship between

Ireland and the Antilles, and the life and work of people from the

Caribbean in contemporary Ireland. Contributions will be drawn from the

fields of the humanities, literature, history, geography, international

relations, social and political sciences and the arts, and comparative

studies in other disciplines. We also welcome book, film and website

reviews, biographies and edited source material. Articles in English

must be emailed to the editors no later than 1 October 2007 (articles in

French, German, Portuguese or Spanish no later than 1 September 2007).

Contact:

Edmundo Murray, Claire Healy

“Irish Migration Studies in Latin America”

Society for Irish Latin American Studies Maison Rouge (1268) Burtigny,

Switzerland, +41 22 739 50 49

Email: contact@irlandeses.org

http://www.irlandeses.org/0711cfc.htm 

Call for Contributions to Exiled Ink Magazine

The next feature of Exiled Ink Magazine will focus on:

Exiled writers’ relationships to their new British space and the British relationship to them. How do you express this in poetry, prose and drama?

We are particularly interested in work by exiled writers living outside London.

Please send to: lynette.craig@btinternet.com

Please send all other articles, poetry, prose, drama and images to: jennifer@exiledwriters.fsnet.co.uk

Deadline: End of September

Literary Representations of “British Muslims”

Thursday 8 November 2007, Senate House, University of London, Malet St., London WC1E

Hosted by the Institute of English Studies in association with Goldsmith’s College, University of London, and Leeds Metropolitan University.

Deadline for handing in proposals was 30 July 2007.

In the current political climate, an increasingly complex debate is emerging about what it means to be “British Muslim”.  Yet criticism of the UK ‘s migrant writing still tends to subsume religious identity under such categories  as ethnicity, nationality, hybridity and “race”. In an effort to develop a more appropriate critical vocabulary, this colloquium will examine representations of Islam and specific Muslim communities in recent British  writing. It will explore the diversity of Islam, both as a religion and a civilization, as it is represented in a rich and often contestatory body of writing.

An End to History? Climate Change, the Past and the Future

3 and 4 April 2008, Birmingham and Midland Institute, Birmingham
 
Deadline for papers and contributions: 30 November 2007
 
This conference might be of interest to everyone working in the area of climate change and forced migration (‘Intersections’ theme of the months of July and August).

The premise of this conference is that human society has had a potentially catastrophic effect on the earth’s climate. For some commentators it is not out of the question that we will bring about our own extinction unless we modify our behaviour. And while the scientific community has had a major influence on governments’ and the public’s understanding of climate change, the contribution of the humanities has been less significant. With that in view, this conference seeks contributions from across the humanities, from historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, human geographers, demographers, philosophers, writers, and from students of politics, economics, international relations, religion, literature and culture.

‘Borders’ Exhibit in Barcelona

Sent in by photographer Lauren Hermele, an exhibit at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona

“The examination of boundaries we propose in this exhibition is an exploration of borderline territories which somehow express the contradictions of a world that moves between hypercommunication and deep schism. The closer we move together, the more labyrinthine the world becomes.”

From 4 May to 30 September 2007.

‘Borders’