*News:
The Kaldor Centre has launched a
special series to mark the five-year anniversary of the Andaman Sea crisis. Its aim is to "to inform regional discussions about protection. With analysis from a diverse range of perspectives from refugees, academics, human rights organisations and others at the forefront of forming regional policy in this area, we aim to consider how far the region has come in the past five-years, and encourage critical discourse about the steps yet to be taken." Follow the link to the
series web page for an introductory podcast and the first two contributions.
Blog posts/commentary & press:
ASEAN: Overhaul Regional Response to Rohingya Crisis (Human Rights Watch, June 2020) [
text]
ASEAN Must Ensure Protection for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in the Region (APRRN, June 2020) [
text]
"'The Fear is Always with Me': Refugees in Malaysia Recount Recent Lockdowns and Raids,"
Pulitzer Center, 15 June 2020 [
text]
In Limbo in ASEAN: Pandemic and Irregular Migration, RSIS Commentary, no. 131 (Nanyang Technological University, June 2020) [
text]
"Indonesian Villagers Defy Covid-19 Warnings to Rescue Rohingya Refugees,"
The Guardian, 26 June 2020 [
text]
- See also related
joint press release from Indonesian civil society organizations.
"Lost in Translation: Language Barriers and the Rohingya Response,"
The New Humanitarian, 25 June 2020 [
text]
"'Not fit for a human': Coronavirus in Cox's Bazar Refugee Camps,"
The Guardian, 29 June 2020 [
text]
- See also related
Caritas and
DW news stories and
Lancet Global Health comment.
"Plight of Rohingyas Under COVID-19 Spotlights ASEAN’s Failure,"
The Diplomat, 16 June 2020 [
text]
*Risking Another Rohingya Refugee Crisis in the Andaman Sea, SWP Comment, no. 30 (German Inst. for International & Security Affairs, June 2020) [
text]
"We Need Long-term Solutions, not Long-term Encampment, for Rohingya Refugees,"
Globe and Mail, 15 June 2020 [
text]
Academic research on Rohingya in Bangladesh:
A
recent post on the Scholarly Kitchen described a small but very interesting case study on research into the situation of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. Specifically, the author, Dr. Haseeb Irfanullah, posed these questions:
"As we are now in the 32nd month of the Rohingya refugee crisis in Bangladesh, I am wondering — what is the overall situation of academic research and publishing on this refugee crisis? I particularly want to know, who is conducting and publishing research, if any; where they are from; what subjects they are researching; where do they publish their results; if these are accessible; and where Bangladeshi researchers and journals stand in all this."
To answer these questions, the author conducted a search in Google Scholar using the keywords "Rohingya refugee*" and "Bangladesh" to locate journal articles published as of 2018. He identified 47 that met his criteria; 39 were open access.
When I first read this, I thought the total number sounded quite low. However, when I went through my Asia posts as of 2018, I found that in fact most of my Rohingya-related references were for blog posts and reports. During that time period, I highlighted just nine individual journal articles and one special issue that featured 23 articles - all open access.
Regarding author affiliations, Dr. Irfanullah found the following:
"Out of 47 papers [which were a mix of both paywall and open access articles], 25 papers had Bangladesh-affiliated authors as the first or sole author. In terms of author composition in a paper, 38% of the papers have all authors from Bangladesh-affiliated organizations. Around 19% papers have more than half and 11% have less than half Bangladesh-affiliated authors. Authors of 15 papers (32%) show no Bangladeshi connection."
As a comparison, my recent study on the geographic representation
found that only 18% of 257 open access articles (on a wider range of topics) had a first or solo author from the Global South.
While Dr. Irfanullah used Google Scholar for his exercise, I also like to see what I can access via the Directory of Open Access Journals (
DOAJ), as it provides access to high quality journal titles all of which are OA, and its search engine offers more filters than Scholar does. So for example, today, I searched on "rohingya and bangladesh" and got 63 results. I then expanded the + next to "year of publication" to view how many of these articles were published when. It was immediately clear that most were published in the last three years: 9 in 2018, 15 in 2019 and 21 in 2020. I can also expand the + next to "subject" and "journal titles" to get a general sense of the main focus of the articles.
As with Dr. Irfanullah's set of articles, the DOAJ articles I retrieved are predominantly health-related. As of August last year, I discontinued posting references on this topic, since PubMed provides better and more comprehensive access (that said, I am currently making an exception for the impact of COVID-19 on displaced populations). So if I exclude these along with a few others that do not involve research on the situation of the Rohingya in Bangladesh, my resulting subset of 17 published in 2018-2020 is as follows:
"
Application of Geospatial Technologies in Developing a Dynamic Landslide Early Warning System in a Humanitarian Context: The Rohingya Refugee Crisis in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh,"
Geomatics, Natural Hazards & Risk. 2020;11(1):446-468 [5 authors; the lead is based in the UK, while the co-authors are based in US/Bangladesh, the UK, Bangladesh and Nepal]
"
Artificial Neural Network and Machine Learning Based Methods for Population Estimation of Rohingya Refugees: Comparing Data-Driven and Satellite Image-Driven Approaches,"
Vietnam Journal of Computer Science. 2019;6(4):439-455 [all 7 authors are based in Bangladesh]
"
Breastfeeding Support through Wet Nursing during Nutritional Emergency: A Cross Sectional Study from Rohingya Refugee Camps in Bangladesh,"
PLoS ONE. 2019;14(10):e0222980 [all 4 authors are based in Bangladesh]
"
Child Marriage Practices among the Rohingya in Bangladesh,"
Conflict and Health. 2020;14(1):1-12 [5 authors; the lead is based in the US, while 3 co-authors are based in Bangladesh and 1 in the US]
"
Documentation of Human Rights Abuses among Rohingya Refugees from Myanmar,"
Conflict and Health. 2019;13(1):1-14 [all 8 authors are US-based]
"
Ecological Impact of Rohingya Refugees on Forest Resources: Remote Sensing Analysis of Vegetation Cover Change in Teknaf Peninsula in Bangladesh,"
Ecocycles. 2018;4(1):16-19 [author is based in Bangladesh]
"
Extended-Spectrum Beta-Lactamase-Producing Escherichia Coli in Drinking Water Samples from a Forcibly Displaced, Densely Populated Community Setting in Bangladesh,"
Frontiers in Public Health. 2020;8 [all 13 authors are based in Bangladesh]
"
Food Transfers, Electronic Food Vouchers and Child Nutritional Status among Rohingya Children Living in Bangladesh,"
PLoS ONE. 2020;15(4):e0230457 [all 5 authors are US-based]
"
Gender-based Vulnerability: Combining Pareto Ranking and Spatial Statistics to Model Gender-based Vulnerability in Rohingya Refugee Settlements in Bangladesh,"
International Journal of Health Geographics. 2020;19(1):1-14 [all 3 authors are US-based]
"
Identity, Social Mobility, and Trauma: Post-Conflict Educational Realities for Survivors of the Rohingya Genocide,"
Religions. 2020;11(241):241 [2 authors; the lead is based in the UAE and the co-author in Canada]
"
Machine Learning for Predicting Landslide Risk of Rohingya Refugee Camp Infrastructure,"
Journal of Information and Telecommunication. 2020;4(2):175-198 [all 3 authors are based in Bangladesh]
"
Occurrence of Escherichia Coli and Faecal Coliforms in Drinking Water at Source and Household Point-of-use in Rohingya camps, Bangladesh,"
Gut Pathogens. 2019;11(1):1-11 [all 12 authors are based in Bangladesh]
"
The Potential Impact of COVID-19 in Refugee Camps in Bangladesh and Beyond: A Modeling Study,"
PLoS Medicine. 2020;17(6):e1003144 [all 7 authors are US-based]
"
Refugee Camp Monitoring and Environmental Change Assessment of Kutupalong, Bangladesh, Based on Radar Imagery of Sentinel-1 and ALOS-2,"
Remote Sensing. 2019;11(17):2047 [3 authors based in Germany]
"
Rohingya Refugee Crisis and Forest Cover Change in Teknaf, Bangladesh,"
Remote Sensing. 2018;10(5):689 [all 5 authors are US-based]
"
Rohingya Refugee Crisis and Human vs. Elephant (Elephas maximus) Conflicts in Cox’s Bazar District of Bangladesh, "
Journal of Wildlife and Biodiversity. 2019;3(3):10-21 [author is based in Japan]
"
Understanding the Political Ecology of Forced Migration and Deforestation through a Multi-algorithm Classification Approach: The Case of Rohingya Displacement in the Southeastern Border Region of Bangladesh,"
Geology, Ecology, and Landscapes. 2019;3(4):282-294 [all 5 authors are based in Bangladesh]
Seven of the 17 articles (or 41%) were written by Bangladesh-based authors, while an additional two articles included Bangladesh-based authors as part of a North-South collaboration (although they were not listed as lead authors). The remaining eight articles were written by authors based elsewhere.
*UPDATED
Related post:
-
Regional Focus: Asia Pacific (12 June 2020)
Access of Stateless Persons to Medical Care during the COVID-19 and Assessment of the Economic and Social Impact of the Lockdown Measures (UNHCR, May 2020) [text via ReliefWeb]
