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Humanitarianism and the Migration Crisis

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Humanitarianism and the Migration Crisis has been made temporarily freely available and can be found online on Oxford Academic.

"Humanitarianism and the Migration Crisis" is a collection of articles reflecting on the experiences of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) as we grapple with the implications of the global refugee ‘crisis’. 

The articles are published in Refugee Survey Quarterly (OUP), Volume 35 Issue, June 2016.

The articles are authored by Tom Scott-Smith, Hernan del Valle, Ioanna Kotsioni, Sean Healy and Sandrine Tiller, Hakim Chkam, Aurélie Ponthieu and Andrea Incerti, Ali Hassan and Linn Biörklund.

Summary

Over the past years hundreds of thousands of people have moved from Africa and the Middle East to Europe, generating widespread media attention and considerable political wrangling. For aid workers, this situation raises questions that get to the very heart of humanitarianism and its purpose in the contemporary world. How does an organisation like MSF, the pioneer of “sans-frontierism”, engage with the shifting politics of borders and migration? What does it mean to be a “borderless” organisation in a world where migration controls through borders are such a big political issue? What are the implications of the refugee crisis for humanitarian principles and medical care?