Negotiating Resettlement. Negotiations, processes and long-term development of violence-induced migration after World War II.
Final Report Abstract
The project dealt with the International Refugee Organization (IRO) resettlement program from 1946 to 1951. It examined the negotiation processes of the resettlement of the so-called Displaced Persons (DPs) in Venezuela after World War II, the corresponding historical backgrounds of global strategies concerning displacement, and the emergence and transformation of the modern global refugee regime. After World War II, more than eight million so-called DPs—predominantly victims of the Nazi regime and individuals fleeing from the Stalinist Soviet Union—faced the challenge of finding new life prospects. Following an initial phase of massive (forced) repatriation of these people to the Soviet Union by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) from 1943 to 1946, the replacement of the UNRRA by the IRO in 1946 led to a fundamental paradigm shift from a group-based refugee policy, which included involuntary repatriations, to an individualized approach, centered on a large-scale global resettlement program. This paradigm shift, the detailed focus of the project’s first research outcome, laid the foundation for the modern refugee regime that recognizes individual refugee status and is aimed at providing individual protection from persecution. Secondly, the active role of Venezuela in the IRO project was highlighted, showcasing a country that exemplifies the Global South, which has predominantly been viewed as a destination for resettlement rather than as an actively involved political actor in the work of the IRO. A third outcome sheds light on the dynamics between the DPs and the IRO staff, where individual negotiation processes played a key role in the recognition of refugee status. In this context, social and cultural factors, as well as the self-presentation of applicants, were crucial to the success of their applications. Fourthly, the project included a critical analysis of the concept of "displaced persons," which emerged with the UNRRA. Fifthly, a social profile analysis of the refugees and DPs who migrated to Venezuela was conducted to illuminate the diversity of migrant groups and their influence on Venezuelan society. Lastly, the public discourse on the immigration of European refugees to Venezuela was examined.
Publications
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Eurozentrismus und strategische Interessen in der Wissensproduktion über Migration in den 1940er und 1950er Jahren, in: Völkerrechtsblog.
Huhn, Sebastian
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Negotiating Forced Migration in the IRO’s ‘Care and Maintenance’ (CM/1) Files. One Setting, Three Underlying Aims, (at Least) Four Actors, and Multiple Forms of Human Agency. IMIS Working Paper 12, Osnabrück: IMIS [ISSN: (Print) 2628-5525, ISSN: (Online) 2628-5533].
Huhn, Sebastian
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‘Populate or Perish’. Zu den Interessen Australiens und Venezuelas in den Verhandlungen der Genfer Flüchtlingskonvention, in: Völkerrechtsblog.
Huhn, Sebastian
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Der 30. Juni 1947, eine Geburtsstunde des modernen Flüchtlingsregimes, in: NGHM Blog.
Huhn, Sebastian
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Displacement und Displaced Persons. Exil, Flucht, Migration, 38-49. De Gruyter.
Huhn, Sebastian & Rass, Christoph
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Rethinking the Postwar International Migration Regime from the Global South: Venezuela in a Global History of White Immigration. Itinerario, 46(2), 214-232.
Huhn, Sebastian
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‘Plausible Enough’: The IRO and the Negotiation of Refugee Status After the Second World War. Journal of Contemporary History, 58(3), 398-423.
Huhn, Sebastian
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Displaced person(s): the production of a powerful political category. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 48(4), 718-739.
Huhn, Sebastian & Rass, Christoph
