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Refugee Transition Network

A photograph of a possible graffiti on the wall by Banksy
A photograph of a possible graffiti on the wall by Banksy
‘A possible Banksy in Bristol’ 2022 by Malé Luján Escalante

City as commons and transition to sustainable refugee futures

Project summary

Transition Design as an emerging framework proposes collaborative design-led practices as a vehicle to create new narratives and approaches needed to address complex ('wicked') problems and transitions towards more sustainable futures.

It has been developed and used with Traditional Ecological Knowledge Systems (TEK) found in indigenous and local communities to re-design visions of their own development and systemic change.

There is little evidence of its application in the context of displaced populations. Our interest is to explore how transition design can inform the creation of new, much needed, narratives about urban refugee management, that would support a shift from the focus of "what refugees lack" towards "what refugees bring".

The project aims to build an international network of stakeholders and researchers, to explore the use of Transition Design and the idea of the city as commons, as a future methodology to inform urban refugee management.

Funding

5 July 2023 - 5 July 2024

Refugee Transition Network is funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

Project team

  • Principal Investigator: Dr Malé Luján Escalante
  • Co-Investigator: Dr Chris Mortimer, Deputy Academic Dean Lancaster University Beijing Jiaotong University
  • International Principal Investigator: Dr Akino Tahir – Resilience Development Initiative Indonesia
  • Design Manager: Loretta Mao
  • Researcher: Marupa Hasudungan Sianturi

Objectives

  • To create Refugee Transition Network (RTN) with relevant academic and non-academic partners, such as researchers, stakeholders, practitioners, observers, and refugee-led organisations. Through the network, we intend to further reinforce relations, create memorandum of understanding, and assemble a steering group with relevant partners for future research projects.
  • To gather cases of good practice and successful methods in the use of Transition Design and the 'City as Commons' in the context of urban refugee management to create a bilingual (English and Bahasa) teaching resource.
  • To gather initial insights from creative workshops applying the Transition Design framework with practitioners and communities of refugees, in the UK and Indonesia.

Activities

  • A shoe rack with trainers
    Khairul Umam/RDI, 2019, Makassar. Everyday objects at a refugee accommodation in Makassar, Indonesia

    International roundtable: pluriversal borderlands

    The round table was centered around the intersections between Transition Design, City as Commons and Urban Refugee Management.

  • Wooden board with a handwritten sign and a tennis ball on a metal fence
    Khairul Umam/RDI, 2019, Makassar. Everyday objects at a refugee accommodation in Makassar, Indonesia

    Good Practice Cases – educational resources

    RTN is creating a good practice cases compilation, bilingual (English and Bahasa) methodological resource directed at students.

External partners