OUR BLOG
Ukraine. Support for displaced children 2023 © UNHCR/Andrew McConnell
Researching Internal Displacement offers a platform for publishing short pieces of writing, artistic productions and other research outputs, policy briefings and think pieces on internal displacement from our networks and others in a conversational and informal setting. We hope that the posts will be engaging and insightful, and welcome comments on the pieces.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE
Researching Internal Displacement publishes engaging and insightful short pieces of writing, artistic and research outputs, policy briefings and think pieces on internal displacement.
We welcome contributions from academics, practitioners, researchers, officials, artists, poets, writers, musicians, dancers, postgraduate students and people affected by internal displacement.
We welcome contributions from academics, practitioners, researchers, officials, artists, poets, writers, musicians, dancers, postgraduate students and people affected by internal displacement.
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By Ana Mosneaga | Mar 17, 2026
The drastic funding cuts undertaken by the major donors in 2025 have forced the humanitarian sector into ‘hyper prioritisation’, resulting into its retreat from all activities deemed as non-essential to ensuring immediate survival. This first volume in our series on ‘Internal Displacement in a Changing World Order’ considers the far-reaching consequences that such ‘hyper prioritisation’ carries for the lives of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in humanitarian crises. The analysis shows that, besides already costing lives, hyper prioritisation risks pushing more people into starvation, disease, missed educational opportunities, and shattered livelihoods, thus eroding IDPs’ prospects to embark on the path towards self-reliance and solutions. It concludes by suggesting the need for humanitarian action to be guided, not by the dehumanising exercise of hyper prioritisation, but by the existing clear evidence showing the powerful potential of community-led responses.
By Corrie Sissons | Mar 5, 2026
This article explores how Market-Based Approaches can support internally displaced people by providing essential goods and food security, as well as strengthening social networks, relationships, and trust in their places of displacement. Focused on Sudan, which currently has the world's largest internal displacement crisis, this article provides evidence that Market-Based Programming (MBP) is suitable in adverse contexts. Markets often recover and resume operations before humanitarian agencies can reach affected communities. This resilience enables interventions such as supporting key businesses, using financial service providers for cash assistance, and supporting community-based mutual aid and agricultural markets. When well-managed and intentional, MBP dispels the stereotype that displaced populations are a burden on local economies. MBP not only meets the immediate needs of IDPs with speed and dignity but also supports local economies, fosters social integration, and lays the groundwork for long-term resilience and recovery amid profound uncertainty.
By Charlotte DuBois and Christopher Belden | Feb 18, 2026
This short article spotlights the dire healthcare access challenges faced by internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Colombia, home to the world's second-largest population of IDPs. Widespread violence among armed groups has forced people in many parts of the country to flee their homes, either preemptively or in the midst of ongoing conflicts. The injustices faced by IDPs, however, don't end there. Due to continuing violence, controls on communities instigated by armed groups, and discrimination against IDPs in urban and other locations of resettlement, IDPs face severe challenges accessing healthcare. While humanitarian organizations can provide limited health services in some regions of the country, many IDPs in Colombia remain without access to healthcare. The article argues that the government must do much more to intervene in the conflicts to provide access to health and other services and end widespread discrimination against IDPs.
By Walter Kälin | Feb 12, 2026
This timely article by one of the world's leading experts on internal displacement highlights the growing crisis of climate-related internal displacement, which is unfolding against the backdrop of drastic funding cuts and humanity's apparent failure to adequately mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. Arguing that the world is ill-prepared to address the crisis, including the severe challenges faced by populations living in protracted displacement, the author outlines a bold strategy for change. The blog calls on all stakeholders to acknowledge the severity of loss and damage related to displacement and prioritise durable solutions programming. It also highlights the systemic and financial changes required, including the need to make the still-elusive 'humanitarian-development nexus' a reality. Ultimately, the author makes separate but related recommendations to the United Nations, country donors and affected countries on how, through collaborative multi-year programming, the process of loss associated with displacement can be reversed and deliver sustainable improvements for affected populations.
By Natasha Chávez | Feb 5, 2026
This article examines how large-scale mining and oil extraction in Ecuador's Amazon systematically displaces Indigenous communities through "dispossessive engineered migration." Analyzing displacement at the Mirador and San Carlos Panantza mines and in Yasuní National Park, the piece shows how over 1,200 Indigenous People have been removed from ancestral territories through militarised evictions, manipulated consultation processes, and environmental degradation that makes land uninhabitable. The article argues that displacement is not an unintended consequence, but a deliberate strategy driven by state and corporate interests, effectively treating Indigenous Territories as disposable assets. The piece calls for demilitarising development projects, enforcing Free, Prior and Informed Consent as binding law rather than bureaucratic formality, reforming compensation frameworks to account for cultural loss, and strengthening Indigenous leadership in development decisions.
By Thiruni Kelegama | Jan 29, 2026
This article examines the right to return for internally displaced persons within the context of post-war resettlement, focusing on Sri Lankan IDPs and the military-bureaucratic apparatus they must navigate to return home. It demonstrates how military interests and the political significance of contested territories continue to override humanitarian considerations in the Northern and Eastern provinces, producing ‘ethnocratic regimes’, or governance systems that privilege territorial control whilst marginalising ethnic minorities through spatial regulation. The author argues that land distribution continues to function as a tool of state-making and power consolidation, even as it appears to remedy decades of displacement. Ultimately, bureaucratic controls, militarised surveillance, and procedural barriers in accessing land serve to reinforce ethno-territorial politics, reframing religious and ethnic minority IDPs not as bearers of rights but as populations requiring management and control.
By Ahmad Ibrahim | Jan 15, 2026
This short article argues why a decolonial approach to planned relocation is essential, particularly in contexts where states have demonstrated a proclivity to weaponise development and climate change adaptation in pursuit of nation-building, including minoritisation. Looking at Bangladesh as a case study, the article examines the colonial roots and dubious application of "guccharam", the "cluster village" program, in the Chittagong Hill Tracks region of Bangladesh, an area of non-Bengali Indigenous Peoples. Ultimately, the author argues that because planned relocations can have profound effects on communities and the broader political and social fabric, for example, leading to political and social minoritisation of certain ethnic groups, a much higher level of scrutiny of states and their "state-making" ambitions is called for. As this case study demonstrates, viewing the state's approach to combatting climate change normatively risks erasing the ways in which many states have committed violence against their own citizens, potentially leading to the normalisation of further harm.
By Tomas Balkelis | Jan 8, 2026
This brief article highlights the lesser-known deportations of people from Lithuania conducted in 1940-1950s by the Soviet authorities. The unlawful Soviet actions led to the forced displacement, imprisonment, and deaths of thousands of Lithuanians within the Soviet Union, resulting in significant shifts in political, cultural, and economic life in Lithuanian society. Since the Soviet government concealed the deportations until just before the Soviet Union's collapse, scholars are still at work analysing the deportations and their long-lasting consequences for the re-establishment of Lithuania's independence in 1990, for Lithuanian historical memory and national identity. This blog provides a glimpse into this tragic period in Lithuanian history.
By John Mussington | Dec 18, 2025
This short blog by a Barbudan community advocate examines how the Government of Antigua and Barbuda cynically forced the evacuation of Barbuda during Hurricane Irma in 2017 to make way for a luxury real estate development project catering to the exclusive private lifestyles of millionaires. Declaring the island ‘uninhabitable’, the government used threats and dubious legal procedures to confiscate all Barbudan land and prevent Barbudans from asserting their right to live on their land and island. Eight years on, Barbudans, led by community representatives and activists, continue their struggle. As the author notes, their challenges have strengthened the resolve of the people of Barbuda and helped forge alliances with other communities facing similar injustices.