Forced Migration Current Awareness was launched on 1 November 2005! Twenty years and 9100+ posts later, I have decided that it is time to start winding things down. My original objective was fairly simple -- to keep researchers updated on freely-available resources online -- and at the time, this was a manageable task. I even wrote an article for Refugee Survey Quarterly in 2007 that documented my tips and strategies for doing so. Since that time, however, the forced migration information corpus has grown exponentially and many of the tools described in that article no longer exist.
The reality is that the information discovery landscape has also dramatically changed, and I have not been able to keep up with it. The end result is that as a solo operator, it is no longer feasible for me to provide this service in an efficient and useful way. What was once a more or less part-time activity has become all-consuming enough that I can no longer meet my original objective nor can I devote attention to other projects.
So over the course of the next 12 months, my plan is to slowly wind down my main blog by dropping certain types of references (news, reports, events, etc.) from my thematic and regional listings and suggesting other sources to replace them. I will also share my info-gathering tips and strategies (for what they're worth!) as well as begin experimenting with AI's information discovery abilities. And we'll see where we end up!
This has been a labor of love for me over the years - my small attempt to contribute to a better understanding of, and a search for solutions to, the challenges of human displacement in the world today. I hope it has been a useful resource for you, and please know that I will continue to be involved in forced migration-related endeavors that promote and support the essential work of researchers in this field.
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