Autumn 2023

Transformation Volume 1 Issue 2

Special Issue: Displacement

To work on issues of peace, reconciliation and human rights is to work with those who many times must engage in this work from communities outside of their homeland. Those who are directly impacted by violence and conflict oftentimes become internally displaced individuals as well as international refugees, both of which results in fractured communities. For its second issue, Transformations intends to focus on the difficult work of helping individuals and families rebuild their lives both at home and abroad. It intends to highlight efforts that work to rebuild communities. To do so, we will consider the following questions: What is the personal experience of being displaced? Seeking asylum? How does the fracturing and displacement of a community take place? How do individuals and communities rebuild? Overcome trauma? Recreate social cohesion? What is the role of civil society organizations and public policy in these efforts? Indeed, how must the very terms of “asylum,” “displaced,” and “refugee” be recast to allow new pathways forward for individuals and communities to emerge? And ultimately, can we establish a framework for human rights that will enable the world to collectively address these issues? With this issue of Transformations, then, we hope to provide a collection of materials that begin in personal experience, move outwards towards communities, then connects these experiences with the programs that provide a path forward, within a conceptual framework that recognizes the right of all to a peaceful and safe existence.