The book launch of Continental Encampment: Genealogies of Humanitarian Containment in the Middle East and Europe was held on Friday 28 April from 11:30AM at the University of Bergen Library (Haakon Sheteligs plass 7, Bergen).
Editors of the volume, Are John Knudsen and Kjersti G. Berg were joined in conversation with NCHS Director, Antonio De Lauri and Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen.
The discussion focused on two cases from the edited volume, namely Lampedusa, Italy and the so-called Balkan-route (based on De Lauri and Bendixsen’s chapters respectively) and discuss some key, and current dynamics of continental encampment.
During the past decade, Syria’s displacement crisis has made the Middle East one of the world’s foremost refugee-hosting regions. The measures to prevent refugees and migrants from leaving the region, and returning those who do, has made the region a zone of containment where millions remain displaced. The edited volume explores responses to mass migration and traces the genealogy of humanitarian containment from the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the first refugee camps to the present-day displacement ‘crises’ and the re-bordering of Europe.
Read a blog about the origins of the book here. The volume is published by Berghahn Books and is also available as an e-book here.
Are John Knudsen is Research Professor at the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) and an International Fellow at the Institut Convergences Migrations (ICM), Paris. Knudsen specialises in forced displacement, camp-based and urban refugees in the Middle East, in particular Lebanon.
Kjersti G. Berg is a researcher associated with CMI, Bergen, and Associate Professor at NLA University College, Norway. Kjersti is a historian and researches encampment, Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and the Palestine Question.
Antonio De Lauri is Research Professor at CMI and the Director of the NCHS, and co-founder of the Anthropology of Humanitarianism Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).
Synnøve Kristine Nepstad Bendixsen is Head of the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Bergen. Her anthropological work relates to migration issues, more specifically to migrants along the Balkan route, irregular migrants in Norway and Islam and Muslims in Europe, with a particular focus on Germany.