Geographies of Vulnerability. Assessing Protection in the Screening and Resettlement of Refugees
Géographies de la vulnérabilité. Évaluation de la protection dans le cadre de la sélection et de la réinstallation des réfugiés
Geografías de la vulnerabilidad. Evaluación de la protección en la selección y reasentamiento de refugiados
Published on Monday, June 23, 2025
Abstract
Central to policy discourses on refugee protection and resettlement is the imperative to include those with the greatest needs. International protection mechanisms for refugees increasingly aim to categorize and identify target populations according to their vulnerability. This topical collection recognizes vulnerability as fluid and contested, shaped by evolving policy landscapes and international cooperation dynamics and explores the impact of different understandings of vulnerability on access to protection and the aim of burden-sharing.
Announcement
Argumentation
International protection mechanisms for refugees increasingly aim to categorize and identify target populations according to their vulnerability. Organizations such as the UNHCR and IOM actively advocate for incorporating a vulnerability perspective into needs assessments and prioritization strategies (Flegar, 2018; Leboeuf, 2021). In the 2000s, the UNHCR formalized the concept of vulnerability by developing guidelines and handbooks (UNHCR, 2011) to identify and select eligible refugees for resettlement, aiming to depoliticize the selection process. These guidelines classify refugees based on gender, age, and disability, addressing special needs for those deemed “particularly vulnerable” (UNHCR, 2011). However, the assessment of vulnerability remains inherently subjective and political, influenced by geopolitical developments, local implementing contexts and national politics (Bjørkhaug, 2017; Sandvik, 2018; Weiss, 2014). Understanding how vulnerability is applied in various protection contexts necessitates recognizing its fluid and contested nature, shaped by evolving policy landscapes and international cooperation dynamics.
The resettlement of refugees—the movement of refugees from their first country of asylum to a third country that can offer permanent residency and protection—is a contested aspect of the global refugee-protection system. Traditionally, resettlement has been seen as a last resort, a “durable solution” when refugees are unable to return home or settle in their countries of first asylum. In recent policy developments, however, resettlement is increasingly framed as a complementary “pathway” to protection[1] that is embedded in broader policies of containment and deterrence. As such, resettlement becomes an alternative for migrants to spontaneous arrival in Europe and, therefore, may be regarded as a tool for managing migration flows. However, only a small percentage of the world’s refugees are given the opportunity to resettle and resettlement remains a scarce resource. Although the Global Compact on Refugees called for an expansion of resettlement operations as a safe access to protection and means of burden- and responsibility-sharing, this has not manifested. Instead, alternative channels have proliferated under the umbrella term of “complementary pathways”. Also, refugee-receiving countries in Europe especially have focused more on the question of relocation within Europe, which has been a major problem for the realization of a common European asylum system and safe access to protection for refugees arriving along the southern borders. Here, too, categorization of vulnerability plays a crucial role in whose protection needs are met and how (Leboeuf, 2021).
Central to policy discourses on refugee protection and resettlement is the imperative to not exclude those in the most destitute categories (Garnier et al., 2018; Long, 2013), and thereby to also share the burden with the counties of first asylum. The question that arises is how various gatekeepers assess the refugees and categorize their needs in various geographical contexts, while refugee-receiving countries in the global North are increasingly seeking to harmonise their refugee-protection policies with concerns about migration management (Betts, 2010; Garnier, 2014). Studies on refugee resettlement suggest that political rationales and selection criteria for how access to protection is managed through such channels appear to be shifting. Increasingly, selection and verification methods focus on security. The UNHCR’s categories identify eligible refugees according to their categorization of vulnerability and needs, but resettlement states often apply their own criteria in selecting from the UNHCR’s lists, considering factors such as security risks and “ability to integrate” (Mourad and Norman, 2019), which may affect how the factor of “vulnerability” is understood and applied (Janmyr and Mourad, 2018). Given the mixed and possibly conflicting aims that drive the involvement of actors at local, national and supranational levels, there is a need for contextualized studies of how the categories and priorities shape access to protection in practice. Such empirical insights will allow an assessment of whether resettlement and other such pathways can meet the protection goals specified by the international community (Betts, 2017).
The key question that will be explored in this topical collection is the impact of different understandings of vulnerability on access to protection and the aim of burden-sharing. The topical collection furthermore gives priority to studies that provide contextualized insights on these dynamics in different geographic locations. Contributions may explore:
- the operationalization of vulnerability in the (local) contexts of resettlement, humanitarian corridors, and other complementary pathways,
- the impact of shifting resettlement regimes on access to protection and burden sharing,
- the impact of geopolitical or local developments on how vulnerability is categorized for protection purposes.
Proposals should present empirical examples from various geographical locations and of different legal frames (for instance, the resettlement from signatory and non-signatory to the 1951 convention relating to the status of refugee countries). In selecting contributions to this topical collection, special attention will therefore also aim at empirical and theoretical breadth and balance.
Submission Modalities
Abstract proposals may be written in French, English or Spanish, and should include the author’s affiliation, a proposed title and an abstract (1,000 words or 7,000 characters including spaces). They should clearly present the method, the data and the empirical and theoretical contribution of the article to the theme of the topical collection. They may come from any social science discipline or law and should be sent to kamel.dorai[at]cnrs.fr and nerina.weiss[at]fafo.no,
before September 1st, 2025.
Accepted papers can be written in French, English or Spanish.
For further details (standards, number of characters, presentation, etc.): https://journals.openedition.org/remi/5849
Calendar
- Start of the call: June 1st, 2025
- Deadline to send abstracts and closure of the call: September 1st, 2025
- Selection and decision: October 1st, 2025
- Deadline to send articles: February 1st, 2026
Peer-review
- Deadline to send articles in their latest version: August 1st, 2026
- Publication: December 2026
Selection Committee/Coordination
- Kamel Doraï, Geographer, Research Fellow, CNRS, Université de Poitiers, Migrinter, Poitiers, France; Fellow of the French Collaborative Institute on Migration
- Nerina Weiss, Social anthropologist, senior researcher, Oslo University, Fafo Institute for Labour and Social Studies, Oslo, Norway
- Jessica Schultz, Legal scholar, senior researcher, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Bergen, Norway
Contact
- remi[at]univ-poitiers.fr
Bibliography
Armbruster Heidi (2019) “It was the photograph of the little boy”: reflections on the Syrian Vulnerable Persons Resettlement Programme in the UK, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42 (15), pp. 2680-2699.
Beirens Hanne and Fratzke Suzan (2017) Taking stock of refugee resettlement: policy objectives, practical tradeoffs, and the evidence base, Brussels, Migration Policy Institute Europe.
Betts Alexander (2017) Resettlement: where’s the evidence, what’s the strategy?, Forced Migration Review, 54, pp. 73-75.
Betts Alexander (2010) The refugee regime complex, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 29 (1), pp. 12-37.
Biehl Kristen (2015) Governing through uncertainty: experiences of being a refugee in Turkey as a country for temporary asylum, Social Analysis, 59 (1), pp. 57-75.
Bjørkhaug Ingunn (2017) Tales of loss and sorrow: addressing methodological challenges in refugee research in Uganda, Forum for Development Studies, 44 (3), pp. 453-471.
Flegar Veronika (2018) Who is deemed vulnerable in the governance of migration? Unpacking UNHCR’s and IOM’s policy label for being deserving of protection and assistance, Asiel-& Migrantenrecht, 8, pp. 374-383.
Garnier Adèle (2014) Migration management and humanitarian protection: the UNHCR’s “Resettlement Expansionism” and its impact on policymaking in the EU and Australia, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 40 (6), pp. 942-959.
Garnier Adèle, Jubilut Liliana Lyra and Sandvik Kristin Bergtora (2018) Refugee Resettlement. Power, Politics and Humanitarian Governance, New York, Berghahn.
Horst Cindy (2007) Transnational nomads: how Somalis cope with refugee life in the Dadaab camps of Kenya, New York, Berghahn Books.
Ikanda Fred Nyongesa (2018) Animating “refugeeness” through vulnerabilities: worthiness of long-term exile in resettlement claims among Somali refugees in Kenya, Africa, 88 (3), pp. 579-596.
Janmyr Maja and Mourad Lama (2018) Modes of ordering: labelling, classification and categorisation in Lebanon’s refugee response, Journal of Refugee Studies, 31 (4), pp. 544-565.
Jansen Bram J. (2008) Between vulnerability and assertiveness: negotiating resettlement in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya, African Affairs, 107 (429), pp. 569-587.
Koçak Mert (2020) Who is “queerer” and deserves resettlement? Queer asylum seekers and their deservingness of refugee status in Turkey, Middle East Critique, 29 (1), pp. 29-46.
Leboeuf Luc (2021) Humanitarianism and Juridification at Play: “vulnerability” as an emerging legal and bureaucratic concept in the field of asylum and migration, VULNER Research Report 1, [online]. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5722934
Long Katy (2013) When refugees stopped being migrants: movement, labour and humanitarian protection, Migration Studies, 1 (1), pp. 4-26.
Mourad Lama and Norman Kelsey P. (2019) Transforming refugees into migrants: institutional change and the politics of international protection, European Journal of International Relations, 26 (3), [online]. URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066119883688
Reklev Line Marie and Jumbert Maria Gabrielsen (2018) Shaping the political space for resettlement: the debate on burden sharing in Norway following the Syrian refugee crisis, in Adèle Garnier, Liliana Lyra Jubilut and Kristin Bergtora Sandvik Eds., Refugee Resettlement. Power, Politics and Humanitarian Governance, New York, Berghahn Books, pp. 151-181.
Sandvik Kristin Bergtora (2018) Technology, dead male bodies, and feminist recognition: gendering ICT harm theory, Australian Feminist Law Journal, 44 (1), pp. 49-69.
Schiocchet Leonardo (2019) Outcasts among undesirables: Palestinian refugees in Brazil between humanitarianism and nationalism, Latin American Perspectives, 46 (3), pp. 84-101.
Suter Brigitte (2019) Social networks and mobility in time and space: integration processes of Burmese Karen resettled refugees in Sweden, Journal of Refugee Studies, 34 (1), pp. 700-717.
Turner Lewis (2017) Who will resettle single Syrian men?, Forced Migration Review, 54, pp. 29-31.
UNHCR (2011) UNHCR Resettlement Handbook, Geneva, UNHCR.
Weiss Nerina (2014) Research under duress: resonance and distance in ethnographic fieldwork, in Ivana Maček Ed., Engaging violence: trauma, memory and representation, New York, Routledge, pp. 127-139.
Note
[1] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1601287338054&uri=COM:2020:609:FIN#document2
Subjects
Date(s)
- Monday, September 01, 2025
Keywords
- réinstallation, vulnérabilité, mécanismes de protection internationale, resettlement, vulnerability, international protection mechanisms, reasentamiento, vulnerabilidad, mecanismos internacionales de protección
Contact(s)
- Kamel Doraï
courriel : kamel [dot] dorai [at] cnrs [dot] fr - Nerina Weiss
courriel : nerina [dot] weiss [at] fafo [dot] no
Reference Urls
Information source
- Audrey Montépini
courriel : remi [at] univ-poitiers [dot] fr
License
This announcement is licensed under the terms of Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal.
To cite this announcement
« Geographies of Vulnerability. Assessing Protection in the Screening and Resettlement of Refugees », Call for papers, Calenda, Published on Monday, June 23, 2025, https://doi.org/10.58079/146fv
