Activities

The 2018 yearly Cities of Refuge stakeholder board meeting was held at a very special place – the FRA Fundamental Rights Forum in Vienna. Apart from the stakeholder board itself, about 30 activists, policy-makers and politicians participated in an interactive workshop on the opportunity structures in cities, the discourse of burden/benefit/duty and gift and its consequences, and the advantages of city networking . The feedback from the FRA participants will be incorporated in the research.

“Renewing rights in times of transition”, was the theme of the annual conference of the association of human rights institutes, where Elif Durmus, Moritz Baumgartel and Barbara Oomen participated in September 2018. Elif shared her first insights on the international legal human rights responsibilities of local authorities. Moritz presented a paper in which he and Barbara discuss the notion of “city society” as a way of overcoming the dichotomy between civil society and the state. The AHRI discussions showed that, in considering human rights renewal, local authorities are a good place to turn to.

Poster presentation at the annual research day of the Netherlands Network for Human Rights Research “The Future of Human Rights – Human Rights of the Future” (Tilburg, 22 June 2018)Title of the poster: “Human Rights and Refugee Reception and Integration at the Local Level in Greece and Italy”

Paper presentation at the European University Institute’s Migration Working Group (Florence, 24 April 2018). Title of the paper (written with Romana Careja) “Marriage of Convenience? Local Development and Refugee Integration in Rural Areas”

Paper presentation at the International Migration Conference "EU at the crossroads of migration. Critical reflections on the 'refugee crisis' and new migration deals" (Utrecht, 7-8 May 2018). Title of the paper: “A Holistic Relational Model for Studying Local Approaches to Migration Governance”