This call is part of a collaborative work between four IDRC research chairs on forced displacement located at the University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), Asian Institute of Technology, Center on Gender and Forced Displacement (India), and the University of Guadalajara (Mexico). It stems from a larger multiyear collaboration between a 12-chair global research network funded by Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). Since Chimni’s 1998 article in the Journal of Refugee Studies on the geopolitics of refugee studies, there has been a call for greater attention to research produced in the Global South by the actors most affected by forced migration. Implicit in these calls is a sense that scholarship from the North is subject to the policy paradigms of the Global North, especially concerning containment and exclusion. Subsequent scholars, such as Landau (2012) and Shivakoti and Milner (2022), have called for new approaches to overcome power asymmetries in research partnerships to allow for research to be foregrounded in the research priorities of Global South researchers. Less attention has been paid to the differentiated knowledge global South researchers produce on displaced persons. This call for papers seeks to go beyond geopolitical/postcolonial/epistemological arguments that only highlight the historical domination of the Global South by the Global North and the co temporary asymmetries and diverse inequalities between them. Instead, it seeks to draw upon the diverse perspectives of scholars based in contexts across the Global South working on forced migration and displacement issues. The call seeks to organize a three day online regional webinar to foster discussion about progress and barriers in the generation of knowledge on forced displacement in the Global South. The ultimate goal is to develop a “Global South School of Thought” on human displacement, which can air the voices of scholars in the Global South on displacement at the global level. Using the concept of “situated knowledge”, as defined by Donna Haraway, the regional workshops will examine how such knowledge can reshape global discourses, particularly in terms of understanding displacement from the Global South perspectives. The webinar is informed by the fact that the policies and laws on displacement, and in particular refugees, originate from the Global North and are adopted by the Global South. We therefore ask: What are different ways in which the global South conceptualizes displacement and what are new and emerging ways of knowing and studying displaced people which are not part of mainstream Global North knowledge? The webinars will culminate in the publication of selected academic works that synthesize insights from the workshop and provide a framework for future comparative research projects between Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. The event will also serve as a learning and experience-sharing opportunity for researchers and practitioners working on forced displacement, thereby ensuring that stakeholders are aligned in their understanding and approaches to finding sustainable solutions for forcibly displaced people.

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