Beyond Borders and Binaries: 70 Years of the Refugee Convention

Olivia Brimhall, Trevor Riedmann, and Emma Wells
Directed by Dr. Lara-Zuzan Golesorkhi

Our project “Beyond Borders and Binaries: 70 Years of the Refugee Convention” aims to communicate gaps between international protection frameworks and lived experiences, particularly in terms of gender. We developed three main areas of focus: research, education, and advocacy. One of our primary outcomes was an interactive timeline that traces the evolution of the Refugee Convention and related frameworks, handbooks, and guidelines from 1951 until the present. With each entry, we analyzed the document for its inclusion of gender, highlighted important ­articles or points, and included gendered analyses and gendered experiences; as a public research project, we wanted to include both scholarly work and lived experiences. We hope that our timeline is an accessible and easily navigable way for the public to engage with these complex documents, their historical significance, and their impact on people’s lives in both the past and present. Additionally, we also created a social media explainer series to supplement the timeline, explaining key concepts and terms for each event in ‘Timeline Tuesdays’ (we publish one explainer per week); these posts aim to educate even further about significant topics in an easily digestible and publicly shared format.

Finally, the last core component of our project was advocacy, which culminated in an event at the NGO United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Here, each of our group members co-facilitated a working group on a specific topic relevant to our theme. Together in these working groups, participants identified gaps between lived experiences and international protection frameworks. We are currently working on writing up the findings from this event into a Guidance Note.