Publications

Research projects

  • Global governance is currently facing an unprecedented crisis. In an era of rising populism, tensions between the nation-state and internationalism are heightened as never before, chiefly over refugees’ cross-border movement. This project unpacks the international refugee regime’s historical origins. It recasts the regime as the product of a particular historical moment after the Second World War, which established a system of global governance for managing forced migration, and set the stage for internationalist tensions with the nation-state. The UK was central to this process, as two of the era’s biggest refugee crises occurred following its decolonisation of India in 1947 and Palestine in 1948.

    This project is funded by a generous grant from the British Academy. Dr Irfan is Principal Investigator and collaborates on the research with Dr Uttara Shahani of Oxford University.

    For more, see the Partition Displacements website.

  • Palestinian refugees have long employed cinema and filmmaking to create a narrative of resistance that spurs the international community into filial action. Despite this significant history of Palestinian creative resistance to political oppression, scholarship on the subject is often fragmented. This project seeks a new and original approach in examining the art of resistance through Palestinian refugee cinema across time and space, engaging with themes of resistance, protracted displacement, internationalism, and the role of art.

    Dr Irfan is Principal Investigator on this project, working in collaboration with Professor Mohammad Hamdan of An-Najah University.