There are various causes of forced migration, with war and protracted armed conflict predominating. A mere five countries, not including the war presently in Ukraine, account for 68 percent of the world’s forcibly displaced: Syria, Venezuela, Afghanistan, South Sudan, and Myanmar. The prime characteristics of all these countries - save Venezuela which is a special case - is that they have been embroiled in protracted armed conflict for decades. The top ten refugee producing countries in the world today have been marred in war and protracted armed conflict for years. Indeed, one of the consequences of war is, of course, the mass production of refugees. Something that everyone has been witnessing with Russia’s illegal invasion of the Ukraine is the millions of forced migrants that have been produced. It is patently obvious that forced migration or displacement is a byproduct of war and protracted armed conflict. This Research Topic in Frontiers in Human Dynamics is dedicated to the t
Instability in the world order and conflicting models of democracies, shifts in global economic powers, the food-water-energy nexus, climate change and resource scarcity, transformational urbanism, technological and globalization breakthroughs, global health crises, concerns about transnational security, and demographic developments are all megatrends that bear structural impacts on both prosperity and stability, or lack thereof, across the globe. Human mobility, accordingly, stands at the epicenter of all these crosscutting megatrends. The best witness to this claim is the recent Syrian refugee crisis and the current Ukrainian one.These two crises share similarities that could inform future trends of human spatiotemporal movements, at a time governed by fast technological developments and unpredictability of the world order. Both crises have been triggered by political factors, led to the largest and fastest forced people-displacements since World War II, and have tensioned the socio-
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 fundamentally changed the European post-Cold War order. From a communication perspective, the invasion differs from other European conflicts, as the development and diffusion of digital communication technologies have altered the nature of modern war. Today, digital media is not only the major venue for conflict information, it is also an integral part of modern warfare, e.g., through the spread of disinformation. Conflict parties make use of digital communication for means of strategic communication, while citizens both actively use the web to seek information and are incidentally exposed to conflict communication by browsing social media platforms or using messaging apps. Activists use social media platforms to organize conflict aid and mobilize for protests. Finally, stakeholders and the public increase pressure on corporations to move their business out of Russia and take a stance on the conflict in their corporate communication.The R
In the broad field of Refugee Studies, and in the activism of Civil Society and NGOs, there is a general commitment to enabling the stories of people who have been forcibly displaced to be told and heard. Working from multiple national, institutional and disciplinary perspectives, this Research Topic will significantly deepen understanding of The Function of Stories in Hostile Asylum Regimes. It will articulate what is at stake when stories are silenced and the political imperative of enabling such stories to be heard.The proposal arises from a British Academy funded project titled ‘Hostile Environments: Policies, Stories, Responses’. The project brings together academics and activists from four national contexts in which a hostile asylum regime is in operation: the UK, Italy, Canada, and the USA. The purpose of the project has been to compare and contrast policies that underpinned hostile environment regimes in the different contexts and also activist and civil society responses t
The danger climate change constitutes is glaring in the contemporary world. The human insecurity and socio-economic challenges the unmitigated climate change has generated is taking its toll on societies, particularly on the Third World nations. One of the conflicts that has become intractable in sub-Saharan African countries is the pastoralist-farmer conflict induced by migration of herders across national borders. The transnational migration of the herders is caused by unmitigated climate change and challenges of desert encroachment and degradation of environmental resources. The havocs the conflict has wrecked in West African nations like Chad, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria, to name a few, cannot be overstated. It has constituted a serious challenge to national security and to human and socio-economic development, particularly in Nigeria. More empirical research needs to be conducted so as to add to the existing body of literature on the implications of unmitigated climate change and develop