Refugee decision-making in first countries of asylum

How do individual refugees perceive and respond to opportunities and challenges that have a bearing on their decision to remain where they are or to move onwards, whether within one country or across an international border?

The "Refugee decision-making in first countries of asylum" (ReDeFi) project aims to develop a model for understanding refugee decision-making and consequently protection that allows for nuanced and quantifiable predictors of protection gaps.

The project utilises risk management theory alongside vulnerability studies and an inductive approach to examine comparative data from Turkey and Lebanon to understand in what ways the following four clusters shape protection outcomes:

• Physical safety and procedural rights - protection against non-refoulement, legal and de facto recognition of refugee status, access to courts and other remedies, rule of law 
• Socio-economic rights - shelter, health, sanitation, level of domestic and international assistance, access to the labour market and the market’s capacity to absorb refugees
• Social inclusion and social resilience - level of discrimination and hate crimes, inter-group dynamics, social networks, community initiatives, innovation, and entrepreneurship
• Durable solutions and right to a future - length and security of residence permits, access to naturalisation, resettlement, access to formal education/self-organised schools

In this closing workshop of the project we aim to present the results and findings of the project’s empirical work and engage the audience in an open dialogue with the researchers and an expert panel in order to provide further insights and challenge some of the misconceptions on refugee movement and decision-making particularly the ones perpetuated in the media. The purpose is to shed light on an issue that is usually dealt with in figures and statistics in policy, while the project focused on humanising and getting closer to refugees’ personal stories. The aim is also to use the workshop as a stepping stone for continued and further work in this area and hopefully start a network of interested researchers who would wish to collaborate.

Programme

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