Berkley Center

Since 2000, the numbers of refugees and displaced persons have skyrocketed worldwide. These population movements have created vast challenges for the international community as well as for destination countries and local communities where refugees and displaced persons settle. Effective policies in this area must address the refugee crisis at three different levels—global, national, and local—and how they interact in practice. Just as critically, they must foster inclusion by countering the xenophobic narratives that exacerbate the politics of the refugee issue worldwide. 

With support from the Georgetown University Board of Regents, during 2019 and 2020 the Institute for the Study of International Migration and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs led the two-year Global Refugee and Migration Project, which convened leading experts and practitioners to grapple with the worldwide crisis and develop concrete policy recommendations. Specifically, work focused on responses to migrants and refugees and considered how these responses, practices, and policies may hold lessons for other local, national, and global contexts. The project culminated with a capstone conference in November 2019 and the publication of a special issue of The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in August 2020.