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On 15 December 2008 the
Sixth Annual Winter Course on Forced Migration came to an end. The
course since its inception has tried to move beyond the issues of
forced migration and incorporated various salient features about the
reasons of migration and displacement. Despite its South Asian
focus, an attempt is made to draw a comparative analysis from other
regions to discuss issues of forced migration, racism and
xenophobia. The major emphasis of the Sixth Annual Winter course on
Forced Migration was to address the impact of climate change and its
impact on population movement. The Course has attempted to
constantly reinvent itself keeping with the time and issues like
climate change and its impact on forced displacement, media coverage
of refugee experiences and displacement issues were some of the
highlights of this year’s programme. In addition to this, the legal
regimes of protection and ethics of care and justice is particularly
important to understand the recent tightening of borders due to
“security “ reasons. This only reproduces vulnerability of the
migrants and creates hierarchies. The course builds on CRG’s ongoing
research work on displacement and forced migration has attempted to
question these power structures and hierarchies. It plays particular
attention to various forms of vulnerabilities in displacement
without creating any hierarchies. Hence it is constantly evolving.
With the increasing importance to study the impact of climate
change the course committee introduced a compulsory module on
“Resource politics, climate change, environmental degradation, and
displacement”. The course is built around eight modules.
The Compulsory modules
A. States, Partitions, and Issues of
Citizenship
B. Gender dimensions of forced migration,
vulnerabilities, and justice
C. International, regional, and the national
legal regimes of protection, sovereignty and the principle of
responsibility
D. Internal displacement with special
reference to causes, linkages, and responses
E. Resource politics, climate change,
environmental degradation, and displacement
The
Optional modules
F. Research methodology in Forced Migration
Studies
G. Ethics of care and protection
H. Media and displacement and forced
migration
The course activities besides the writings
assignments, included workshops assignments, media assignments,
group discussions, field visit, creative sessions of film screenings
and a day long media workshop and face to face interactions with
resource persons experienced in related areas.
Duration and activities
The course is divided into two segments. The
distance education segment course began on 1 September during which
core reading material with short introductory notes were sent to
each participants. The reading materials were sent to the
participants in three phases. For review assignments and term
papers, lead questions and discussion points were sent at regular
intervals. Each module had a tutor and a number of faculty members.
On the basis of the modules chosen by them the participants were
encouraged to contact the faculty persons for necessary advice and
inputs. Chat sessions were organised so that participants could
discuss their assignments with module tutors.
Participants were required to prepare an
assignment paper each and bring the papers with them for the
workshops where the papers were discussed. These papers were first
read and commented upon by the module tutors and then made available
for wider circulation and discussion in the CRG website. The
participants were also given assignments termed as creative
assignment so that the period of three months could also be used for
training in communication aspects of humanitarian and human rights
work, and other practical aspects such as providing the participants
with information and documentation skills, preparing local data
base, campaign for fund-raising for human rights and humanitarian
efforts, and report writing. Creative assignments were made a
mandatory part of the course since 2006 and their results were
varied and rich. Participation in the field visit to Hamidpur Char,
Malda was also compulsory.
The preparation of course material was of
great significance. The course material included mandatory, optional
and supplementary materials. The mandatory materials included a
number of books, essays and web-based materials. Supplementary
materials including one CRG publication on erosion-affected people
of Malda for fieldwork were handed to them when they arrived in
Kolkata. Three weeks before the participants arrived in Kolkata they
were given workshop themes. Each of them was required to participate
in one of the workshops. Participants were graded on all these
assignments and on the valedictory day these grades were handed to
them.
Since 2005, the course has introduced two
optional modules. In 2008, one compulsory module on ‘Resource
politics, climate change, environmental degradation, and
displacement ’ was introduced as per the recommendations of the
Advisory Committee Meeting of the Sixth CRG Winter Course on Forced
Migration held on 5-6 April 2008 in Darjeeling. The module on
“Research Methodology in Forced Migration Studies” was introduced as
an optional module. This year the participants, besides completing
three compulsory assignments (term paper assignment, review
assignment and creative assignment) had the option of engaging with
another optional assignment based on the module “Media and
displacement and forced migration”.
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From Left to Right:
Montserrat Feixas Vihe and Sanna Selin
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