Professor Loren Landau inaugurates Refugee Law Initiative’s ‘New Challenges in Refugee integration’ seminar series
On 26 October 2011, Professor Loren Landau, Director of the African Center for Migration and Society (ACMS) at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg (South Africa) inaugurated the “New Challenges in Refugee Integration” seminar series run by the Refugee Law Initiative jointly with the Refugee Council.
Professor Landau’s paper explored the meaning of refugee integration in a fragmented age where multi-culturalism is said to be dead. He focused on the results of his recent research in four cities in South and East Africa, which showed an increasing tendency towards new forms of association that he termed “communities of convenience”. This led him to reflect upon the lessons that these highly mobile African urban contexts offered for refugee integration in Britain.
Attended by around a hundred participants, including refugees from countries such as Afghanistan, Eritrea and Kenya, the seminar was convened by Dr David Cantor, RLI Director, and the ensuing discussion chaired by Donna Covey, Refugee Council Executive Director. A short report of the seminar is available from the RLI website.
