Transnational Figurations of Displacement: Connectivity and Mobility as Solutions to Protracted Refugee Situations (TRAFIG)

To improve the protection and resilience of refugees and to enhance trust and cooperation between refugees and host communities, bicc together with research partners from Europa, Africa and Asia, engageed in a EU funded Horizon 2020 research project. The project “Transnational Figurations of Displacement: Connectivity and Mobility as Solutions to Protracted Refugee Situations” (TRAFIG) started in January 2019 and ran until March 2022.

TRAFIG introduced a novel perspective on protracted displacement situations (PDS). It considered the transnational and local connectivity of displaced people and host communities as well as their capability of mobility as socioeconomic and socio-psychological resources that displaced people use and upon which their resilience relies. The project developed a rapid assessment tool to identify the most vulnerable groups in PDS and to analyse interactions between displaced and host communities.

As an evidence-based tool for creating impact, it supports policymakers and practitioners to enhance the self-reliance of displaced people as well as host-refugees relations through tailored programming and policy development. The research partners from Austria, Ethiopia, Germany, Greece, Italy, Jordan, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, United Kingdom, closely cooperated with key stakeholders throughout the entire life cycle of the project.

Through comparative empirical research, both qualitative and quantitative, in camps and urban settings at sites in Asia, Africa, and Europe, TRAFIG dealt with the questions (1) How displaced people gained access to and made use of humanitarian and migration policies and programmes? (2) Why and how do displaced people live in vulnerable situations and sustain their livelihoods? How can policy support their self-reliance? (3) How do transnational networks shape refugees’ experiences and trajectories? (4) Which processes structure relations between displaced people and host communities? (5) What are the medium and long-term economic impacts of PDS?