To improve the protection and resilience of refugees and to enhance trust and cooperation between refugees and host communities, BICC (Bonn International Center for Conversion) together with research partners from Europa, Africa and Asia, will engage in a new 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.
TRAFIG introduces a novel perspective on protracted displacement situations (PDS). It considers 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 will develop 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 will support 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, will closely cooperate 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 will deal with the questions how displaced people gain access to and make 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?
Project partners (outside BICC):
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Norway
Danube University Krems, Austria
International and European Forum on Migration (FIERI), Italy
International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD), Austria
Society for Human Rights and Prisoners' Aid (SHARP), Pakistan
Sussex Centre for Migration Research, UK
Leiden University, the Netherlands
Yarmouk University, Jordan