Summer 2023

June 25 - 27, 2023

Since the creation of Schengen in 1985, the European Union and individual member states have found ways to externalize their border control policies to other neighboring countries, including those of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). This course examines the consequences of this externalization for MENA countries and their transformation from countries of migrant transit to important migrant and refugee host states. The course includes three days of lectures, discussion and case studies.

• Day one: Provides an analytical framework for approaching the course and the topic of migration in the Middle East specifically, as well as the processes of EU border externalization over the last four decades.
• Day Two: examines the consequences of EU border externalization for MENA host states prior to 2015 in terms of domestic and regional politics, societal transformations, and the lives of individual migrants and refugees.
• Day Three: Looks at the impact of Europe’s attempts to manage migration in the wake of the 2015 European refugee ‘crisis.’ We will cover the EU-Turkey deal and related compacts, the Valletta Summit on Migration, and will discuss how to conceptualize new attempts at migration management such as the Global Compact for Migration. Through academic literature, journalistic accounts, film clips, lectures, and case studies, students will gain an in-depth knowledge about the important transformation of Middle Eastern and North African ‘transit’ countries into key migrant and refugee host states and will develop analytical tools for examining the impact migration has on societies, domestic politics, international relations, and local and regional economies.

About the Instructor

Kelsey P. Norman is a fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and director of the Women’s Rights, Human Rights and Refugees Program. She also teaches courses on Middle East politics and the politics of migration and refugees in Rice University’s Master of Global Affairs program and the Department of Political Science. She has conducted extensive, empirically grounded research on refugees, migration, and state policy, reflected most recently in her book, Reluctant Reception: Refugees, Migration and Governance in the Middle East and North Africa, published by Cambridge University Press in 2021. Her research has also been published in academic journals, including the European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Review, the Journal of North African Studies, International Migration Review, the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies, and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, among others. She has also published numerous policy-oriented articles in outlets including The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of California, Irvine. 

Location: Room 602, Hill House, Tahrir Square Campus.
Deadline: May 25, 2023.

Applicants will be notified of their acceptance and the method of payment by June 1.
To reserve a place in this course, accepted applicants must pay the full fee by June 8.

July 4-6, 2023

In the past 30 years, women went from being ignored to taking a central place in the humanitarian discourse on refugees and becoming the main focal point of refugee policies. In 1990, the UNHCR adopted its first Policy on Refugee Women, and thirty years later, all UN actors, many government donors and many larger humanitarian NGOs had developed their own gender policies. Humanitarian aid in general, and international refugee protection in particular, have left gender blindness behind. A considerable collection of policy documents, field handbooks and programmatic responses have been developed.

This course will examine how gender is impacting refugee policy and refugees’ experience from a multidisciplinary perspective: sociological, historical and political. For instance, the course will examine how gender is taken into account by outlining practices and goals that encourage the implementation of programs that explicitly address women’s protection and needs in post-conflict

humanitarian and refugee resettlement efforts. From a more sociological perspective, we will also look at how refugee women are both represented as vulnerable and targeted as crucial actors in the establishment of refugee support programs, particularly those that involve food and education. The course will also critically reflect on the meaning of concepts such as vulnerability, labeling or culturalization/sexualization of citizenship. 

About the Instructor

Alexandra Parrs, PhD, is a senior professorial lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the American University (AU) in Washington, DC. She is a member of AU’s immigration research lab. She previously taught at the American University in Brussels, University Rene Descartes Paris V (Sorbonne), and the American University in Cairo, where she taught for the sociology department and the Center for Migration and Refugees Studies. She was a research associate at the Center for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS) at Antwerp University.

Her research focuses on gender and refuge, ethnic and religious minorities’ identity construction and diasporic practices. Parrs spent three years in Namibia, where she worked with the Ju/’hoansi communities of northern Namibia on educational and cultural projects. She has also lived and taught in Burma and the Sultanate of Oman. She is currently writing a book with her colleagues at the research lab on the comparison of Arab migrations to Beirut, Mexico, Paris and Washington, DC

Location: Room 602, Hill House, Tahrir Square Campus.
Deadline: June 1, 2023.

Applicants will be notified of their acceptance and the method of payment by June 6.
To reserve a place in this course, accepted applicants must pay the full fee by June 11.

July 9-11, 2023

Integration is one of the most debated and ambiguous terms. The ambiguity stems from the variety of understandings, interpretations and applications that have taken place in the last decades. In this course, we will first conceptualize the idea of integration and then dive into the different integration models to assess their effectiveness, efficiency, implications and impacts. In this course we will address the following models: the assimilation model, the multicultural model, the universalist model, and the segregationist model.

In this intense summer course, we will adopt an interactive learning experience where you won’t just be the recipient of information, but you will also be on the front line of the learning process. This means that each day is embedded with all sorts of activities, from debates to presentations, from documentaries to negotiations, amongst others, aimed at making sure the students learn by doing and enjoy while doing so. By the end of this course, you will be able to know the multifaceted reality of migrant integration in host countries, from its challenges to its opportunity and be able to deeply reflect on the consequences and implications of integration today.

About the Instructor

Adham Aly is a researcher, project manager, tutor and assistant lecturer at Erasmus University, Rotterdam (NL). He received his bachelor’s degree at Bocconi University in Milan (IT), majoring in International Economics, Management and Finance. Thereafter he received his master’s degree in Public Administration with a specialization in Governance of Migration and Diversity at Erasmus University. He currently teaches and lectures Public Administration subjects such as International Migration, Political Philosophy and Political Science within the Erasmus School of Social Behavioral Sciences faculty at EUR. He previously worked for IMISCOE, the largest interdisciplinary network of scholars in the field of migration. He was also the project manager and leading researcher for one of the SPRING (H2020 project) work packages. His work focuses on migration integration, second-generation dynamics, belonging and racism. He is also a public speaker, often invited to anti-racism symposiums and events.

Location: Armenian Room, Tahrir Square Campus.
Deadline: June 8, 2023.

Applicants will be notified of their acceptance and the method of payment by June 13.
To reserve a place in this course, accepted applicants must pay the full fee by June 18 

Note: Participants in need of a visa letter must indicate that in their applications and apply as early as possible.