Themes
Diaspora and Community Building
How have Sudanese people-built communities of social security, economic opportunity, and political possibility beyond or despite state structures and borders? This theme examines historic and current translocal and diasporic networks and communities, and the forms of social security, investment, education, and community order they create to protect themselves from violent presents and uncertain futures.
Host countries and Policy Responses
How do neighboring countries such as Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Uganda and Ethiopia respond to the influx of refugees from Sudan? How does the European Union and national governments respond to these migration processes? How does Sudanese communities outside the war zones respond to the people on the move?
Refugee experience and Belonging
What does it mean to be a refugee in neighboring countries/Western countries? What difference it makes if it is the second or the third time to be a refugee? How might being a refugee affect the perception of belonging to Sudan? How being refugee affect: Interethnic relations, competition over resources, security problems, spontaneous forms of integration?
Documentation, Identity and Citizenship
What are the meanings of paperwork to these refugee communities, and what local ideas of citizenship are demanded or promised by various documents and statuses? What are the practical processes of documentation, obtaining and using documents, and the moral limits to manipulating identity for paperwork?
The Refugee Regime
How is the ‘refugee regime’ affecting refugee population experiences and identifications?: How have official refugee policies of different countries of refuge affected and shaped diaspora communities? How have INGOs’ policies and practices affected Sudanese refugees’ practices of settlement, self-identification, and planning for the future?
