On July 11, academic, refugee activist and founder of the Oxford Refugee Studies Centre, Barbara Harrel-Bond passed away. As a tribute to her work, the International Humanitarian Studies Association, screens the documentary ‘Barbara Harrel: a life not ordinary’.
The documentary ‘Barbara Harrel-Bond’ takes us on a personal journey of a not a not- so-ordinary woman. Her first-hand experience of the Saharawi refugee camps in Algeria in 1980, and the humanitarian crisis in Sudan in 1982, led her to establish the refugee studies programme in Oxford, and numerous others around the world. Far from being only an academic, the focus of Barbara’s life-long work has been on improving refugee rights in practice, and on keeping refugees at the centre of humanitarian interventions. Issues which still resonate today, in an age in which safe havens for refugees are increasingly being eroded and violations of human rights are on the rise.
The film will be introduced bij Jeff Handmaker, senior lecturer in law, human rights and development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS-EUR). He knew Barbara Harrel-Bond personally. After the film we talk further with him, and with anthropologist and writer Roanne Van Voorst.
About the speakers
- Jeff Handmaker. Jeff Handmaker is senior lecturer in law, human rights and development at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS-EUR). His academic work concerns the potential for legal mobilisation to lead to progressive structural change.
- Roanne van Voorst. Roanne van Voorst is anthropologist and writer. Recently she set up the project Safe / unsafe’. This is a traveling photo exhibition on the theme of safety, in which refugees and veterans show in their own images and words what you need, to feel at home somewhere.
- Moderator is Rodrigo Mena Fluhman. Rodrigo Mena is a socio-environmental researcher and consultant at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) of Erasmus University Rotterdam.