People on the Move: Migration, Displacement, Refugees, and Urbanization

Over the past five years, we have worked with a range of organizations to increase our knowledge and understanding of urban migration.

Our evidence-based field research continues to document and analyze the experience of urban migrants of all kinds, but especially refugees and internally displaced people.

Active Research

  • Refugee Livelihoods in Urban Areas: Identifying Program Opportunities

    For refugees in urban areas, there is little evidence about which humanitarian programs work, what livelihoods initiatives refugees undertake themselves, and where opportunities for programming interventions lie.

  • Developing A Profiling Methodology For Displaced People In Urban Areas

    In September 2010, we began a one-year research project, funded by the US State Dept.’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (BPRM), to develop a profiling methodology intended to capture livelihood, integration, and vulnerability data on displaced people in urban settings.

  • Livelihood Programming for Disaster Risk Reduction

    According to the Hyogo Framework for Action, disasters affect over 200 million people annually, causing significant loss of lives, forced migration, and disruption of livelihoods and institutions. The trend over the past 15-20 years points to a greater frequency of environmental, climatic, political, and economic hazards and therefore a growing risk for vulnerable populations worldwide. Though disasters affect everyone, often the impact disproportionately falls on poor countries and the poor and marginalized people within.

  • Remittances to Conflict Zones, Phase 2: Sudanese Refugees in Cairo

    Refugees and migrants in transit countries like Egypt are linked into wider diaspora networks that help support them, and in turn enable the migrants to support their families and communities back home. In this study we will explore the significance of these transnational linkages, particularly remittances, for Sudanese refugees and migrants in Cairo.


Recent Publications



Teaching and Academics

Our academic courses at Tufts and our partnerships with African universities are a key part of our research and our mission. As part of the Feinstein Center’s academic program, the following academic courses, taught by Karen Jacobsen, are taught at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy:

  • DHP D236: Global Migration and Displacement
  • DHP D235m: Research Seminar in Forced Migration and Human Security

Related courses offered by faculty at the FIC, and taught at either the School of Nutrition or the Fletcher School, include:

  • DHP D230: Humanitarian Assistance in Complex Emergencies (taught by Daniel Maxwell);
  • DHP D213: Humanitarian Studies in the Field (taught by Peter Walker)
  • DHP D232: Gender, Culture and Conflict in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies (taught by Dyan Mazurana);
  • DHP D231: Human Rights Protection of Civilians During Armed Conflict (taught by Dyan Mazurana);
  • DHP D237: Nutrition in Complex Emergencies: Policies, Practice and Decision Making (taught by Kate Sadler and Helen Young).

African University Partnerships

The R&FMP is partnered with Forced Migration programs at two African universities:

These partnerships include joint research programs, and provide exchanges of faculty, students and interns, as well as materials and other teaching support.

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