New Center on Forced Displacement Addresses the Global Refugee Crisis

“Forcibly displaced people often are very vulnerable and have no way of getting their voices heard,” says Muhammad Zaman, a Boston University College of Engineering professor and vice chair of biomedical engineering and of materials science and engineering, who studies refugee and migrant health.

As the global refugee crisis worsens, crossing borders has been met with increasing hostility and stigma, often putting displaced people in perilous positions, after already difficult journeys. (Last month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis transported about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard under false pretenses, raising legal concerns. The International Rescue Committee has called on the United States and European countries to resettle more people as the number of people displaced has grown.)

Zaman and Carrie Preston, director of BU Kilachand Honors College and a College of Arts & Sciences professor of English and of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, want to face the global crisis head on. They’re the founders of the new University-wide Center on Forced Displacement (CFD), with the mission to improve the lives of, and give voice to, displaced people around the world.

The center has its roots in the Initiative on Forced Displacement (IFD), which they began together in 2017, later starting BU’s Border Studies Program, which gives students hands-on experiences learning about migration at the US-Mexico border. The new center’s projects will be a continuation of many of the projects from IFD, including studying the impact of border policies on countries with high numbers of migrants—like Mexico and Serbia—as well as understanding risk factors on health in refugee camps and settlements. Over the next few months, Preston and Zaman aim to grow the center’s focus on the impacts of climate change on displaced communities, health and medicine, and voice and identity.

“This problem is truly universal and we need ideas that really span the disciplines on campus,” says Zaman.

A Unifying Force

The two CFD founders make a dynamic, though surprising, duo; with Zaman’s expertise in antimicrobial resistance and global health, and Preston’s in theater, performance, and gender studies, their partnership brings a multidimensional perspective to the issue of forced displacement. And that is exactly the point. They hope the work of the center spans disciplines to make the quality of life for refugees and asylum seekers better.

“Displacement is a risk that can bind us across identities,” Preston says. “One of the binding features of being human is we all long for something we think of as home—and at the same time we are all at risk of being displaced.”

Zaman grew up in Pakistan, and came to the United States in 1996. His experiences witnessing xenophobia and discrimination against Afghan refugees in Pakistan while growing up, and against Muslim communities in the United States, became part of what fueled him to specialize in refugee medicine and health. Since starting his lab at BU in 2009, Zaman has written dozens of articles and three books on the subject, including the forthcoming Migration and Health (University of Chicago Press, 2022), coedited with Sandro Galea, Robert A. Knox Professor and dean of BU’s School of Public Health.

Zaman is particularly excited to offer more opportunities for research in engineering, math, and medicine—areas of study that are not typically included in displacement and refugee studies. His lab looks into improving medications and testing pharmaceuticals available in refugee camps. He developed a portable device that detects counterfeit medications, called PharmaChk. Now, he is continuing to investigate medical supply chains in forcibly displaced communities, which often do not have adequate capacity to diagnose, manage, and treat illnesses. Research at CFD will specifically look at antibiotic use, including how they are distributed, mapping the antibiotic supply chain in refugee settlements and identifying ways to supply high-quality medicines, limit unnecessary antibiotic use, and reduce the threat of antibiotic-resistant infections.

“We need new technology, we need ethical guidelines for new technologies, we need new solutions across the board,” Zaman says. “Hopefully, we can really make an impact in the lives of people.”

Preston uses the term “critical displacement studies” as a way to describe her work and the work of the center. In the past, she’s examined theater performances by and about displaced people. Typically, she says, theater companies enter into camps to include refugees in casts, an opportunity that is usually well-intentioned. But, at the same time, there’s little to no consideration for the trauma people have already endured. If productions are not handled with care and the crew is not trained properly, “asking people to relive traumatic experiences for the sake of a production can be problematic and appropriative,” she says.

She is also studying the language used to guide humanitarian agency volunteers working with women and gender minorities. She collects training materials from NGOs that support asylum seekers to see whether or not organizations are training employees to be sensitive to nonbinary and queer asylum seekers, and examines protocols that could particularly affect people who do not neatly fall into the definition of an asylum seeker. Under language set by the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, women and LGBTQIA+ people are not clearly protected. This creates a barrier for people who may be escaping gender-based violence or are being threatened because of their sexuality, Preston says. Written materials can give clues to see how workers are being trained to understand these categories beyond international law, and help better understand how nations and agencies may be treating people differently.

Another group of displaced people that is not clearly recognized under the law are climate refugees, people leaving their homelands due to climate change—fleeing disasters like drought, flood, inability to grow crops, and storms. To add to emerging research about climate change and migration, CFD leadership aims to look at how communities themselves react and respond to environmental displacement.

“Right where we’re sitting can eventually be underwater because of climate change,” Preston says from her office at the Kilachand Honors College in Boston’s Back Bay—a neighborhood projected to be susceptible to sea level rise if fossil fuel emissions remain at their current rate. UNHCR has released guidance recognizing that climate change will make the lives of displaced populations worse, especially in poorer regions.

From Research to Action

As the metaphorical doors to CFD open (the center will have a permanent location in spring 2023), its leadership plans to bring in expertise from research areas across the University, as well as from neighboring and international institutions. This semester, CFD is hosting lunchtime book talks—the first one was with Sally Hayden, author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned, about the migrant crisis across North Africa. The center’s next event, on October 18, will be a virtual conversation with Marta Stojic Mitrovic, a researcher from the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, about the impact of the European Union’s border policies on Serbia.

The center will also give students hands-on experiences through class trips and research opportunities. Last spring, Preston traveled to the US-Mexico border with students participating in the Border Studies Program. The experience made one student on the trip more determined than ever to become an immigration lawyer after witnessing the harsh realities of people crossing the border.

CFD is currently accepting applications for graduate and postdoctoral research fellowships related to critical displacement studies. Eventually, the CFD leaders would like to complete an oral history project that amplifies the voices of displaced people and indigenous communities in the United States with the help of student researchers.

“We really think about how we can make a positive impact and a difference in the lives of people, turning research into tangible solutions, actions, and policies,” Zaman says.