Communicating refugee research

Breakfast seminar with Cindy Horst (Prio) and Arne Strand (CMI), discussant: Synnøve Bendixsen (UiB)

Research involving refugees and migrants has the potential to improve public understanding of their experiences, and can inform evidence-based decision-making. Yet, it also raises particular ethical challenges and situations throughout the research process, in terms of which research questions are considered relevant and on which grounds, who is included in the research, how to pursue research with people in vulnerable situations, and how and where to communicate the research results.

This breakfast seminar will explore questions such as; what ethical dilemmas do researchers face, and how do they aspire to solve these? In which ways can researchers influence and decide which research questions to ask in commissioned research? How do researchers apply various policy makers’ categories and concepts in their research, and what are their consequences? How can researchers better assure that their knowledge are “evidence based”? What potentials exist for the researcher to induce change in migration and refugee related policies and practices?

Cindy Horst is a Research Director and Research Professor in Migration and Refugee Studies at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Her research focuses on the migration-development nexus, including diaspora engagement with regions of origin, and the transnational activities of refugees. Horst has published extensively in several international journals, such as Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and Citizenship Studies. 

Arne Strand is the Deputy Director for the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre at CMI. Strand is a Political Scientist with research focus on aid coordination, forced migration and reintegration, peace-building and security sector reform and humanitarian and development assistance. Strand has been team leader of several evaluations and research programmes in and on Afghanistan. He has also extensive management experience from NGOs and research institutes.

Synnøve Bendixsen is an Associate Professor at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Bergen and at the Western Norway University of Applied Science.  She has conducted research on refugees and irregular migrants in Norway, marginality, Islam in Europe, urban life and diversity. Bendixsen is also the co-editor in chief for the Nordic Journal of Migration Research and the series co-editor (with Edvard Hviding, UiB) for the Palgrave Macmillan series Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference.

This seminar is open to all!