Teaching
Modules currently taught at St Andrews relating to migration and/or forced migration:
EC4424 Economics of Migration
Dr Toman Barsbai, Reader, School of Economics
IT4027 Migration and Transculturality in New Italian Narratives
Dr Emma Bond, Senior Lecturer, School of Modern Languages
IT4027 (Migration and Transculturality in New Italian Narratives) focuses on a range of texts which deal with migration, postcolonial and transcultural issues in order to enrich and challenge national-bound ideas of cultural belonging and literary canons. It places contemporary Italy’s fast-changing demographics within a historical context of emigration and internal migration, and explores the experiences of present-day migration to Italy through texts written by migrant authors such as Pap Khouma, Amara Lakhous, and Ornela Vorpsi.
IR3065 Refugees and International Relations
Dr Natasha Saunders, Associate Lecturer, School of International Relations
Related modules
IR3033 Post-Conflict Transition in Sub-Saharan Africa (Dr Jaremey McMullin): in various weeks, the module touches on UN interventions to assist refugees and IDPs in diverse African contexts, and analyses the return of SWAPO refugees from Angola to Namibia in the early 1990s.
IR3030 Human Rights in Theory and Practice (Prof. Patrick Hayden): we examine the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, legal definitions of refugees, asylum and the protections afforded by the Convention, and how these relate to broader human rights norms and current state geopolitical interests.
IR3042 Representations of Violent Conflict (Dr Jaremey McMullin): in Weeks 2 and 4, the module addresses the role of the Sierra Leonean migrant diaspora in post-war transition and discusses tensions between different categories of returnees after war.
IR3044 European State Formation (Dr Jeffrey Murer): we spend three weeks discussing how the state creates categories and sorts bodies, including the most basic categorical split: citizen/non-citizen. This then leads to discussions of other categories such as asylum seeker/refugee/migrant/expat, as well as discussions of degrees of citizenship where some citizens are objects of surveillance and assessment while others are not. The module finishes with a discussion of uneven global development and the considerations as to why people are in motion.
IR3054 Mapping the Boundaries of Emerging and Evolving Securities (Dr Faye Donnelly): module includes a week on refugees and trafficking, specifically on interrogating how migrants and refugees are framed as security threats.
IR3113: Gender and Generation (Prof. Ali Watson): There is a week on this module on ‘Movement and Migration’ that looks at the gender and generational dynamics of the refugee crisis and of displacement more generally.
IR3303 & IR5057 The Arab-Israeli Conflict (Dr Jasmine Gani): has a week on Palestinian refugees, resettlement and right of return. We We mostly focus on the political implications and legal loopholes at the UN and it exposes students to some foundational issues relating to the refugees regime.
IR3405 Violence in Deeply Divided Societies (Dr Nick Brooke): part of the module focuses on the conflict in Yugoslavia and how ethnic cleansing forced many people from their homes, and the challenges faced in the aftermath in trying to ensure those who were forced out could return.
IR4538 Identity, Belonging, and Others (Dr Jeffrey Murer): the students explore the experiences of bodies that have been ‘sorted’. IR4538 is largely about lived experience. In this module there is a discussion of why the state desires bodies, and on what terms it may offer membership, explicitly through Althusser’s concept of interpellation. The next week explores the experiences of those who have been displaced, as a discussion of diasporas. In the module’s penultimate week, we explore what happens to many people who are in motion, and their experiences of being in camps, addressing immigration officers, and expectations for integration.
IR4543 Activism and Resistance (Prof. Ali Watson): this module also includes a week on displacement, specifically as a result of climate change and exploring the climate justice movement.
IR4553 Europe, America and the Transatlantic (Dr Faye Donnelly): module includes a week on migration, specifically on interrogating how migration is framed as a security threat.
IR4575 Queer IR, Queering Global Politics (Dr Jaremey McMullin): in Week 4 the module addresses the human rights of LGBT+ refugees as an intersectional challenge and discusses the impact of homo-nationalism and interventionist foreign policies vis-à-vis the human rights of African forced migrants and conflict-affected individuals to generate a critical case study that queers the treatment of African Studies in the discipline of IR.