The adoption and ratification of the African Union's Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa: an analysis of the dicourse of states and the international humanitarian aid community
Date
2012-10-17
Authors
Johnson, Hilton William Eric
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Abstract
The phenomenon of internal displacement dwarfs the refugee crisis world-wide. Forced
migration, and more specifically internal displacement, looms as one of the largest and most poorly
understood humanitarian challenges currently facing states and the international humanitarian aid
community in Africa. This research project aims to increase our understanding of internal displacement
by factoring in the discourse of states and the international humanitarian aid community as a key
contributing factor to our conceptualization of this phenomenon in Africa. Discourse analysis may
demonstrate various “sites of struggle” as important messages and ideas from the various actors
compete. The well-established notion of discourse framing and containing the responses of certain
actors and institutions is at the heart of this research project. The international humanitarian aid
community and Africa states have been described in various documents related to the 2009 Kampala
Convention as playing leading roles in the provision of protection and assistance to internally displacedConvention as its discursive locus, analyzing selected texts
(documents) that are related to the production, adoption and ratification processes of the Convention.
This research report will include diachronic and synchronic analyses of the ID discourse, in the form of
documents, for the purpose of exploring the key messages and ideas, which will then be contextualized
with the incorporation of academic literature and information related to the phenomenon of internal and
forced displacement in Africa. This research report will attempt to demonstrate the various ways in
which the limits of the internal displacement discourse are constructed and negotiated by states and the
international humanitarian aid community, in order for us gain a better understanding of the role that is
played by this growing platform for international deliberation.
persons. This paper uses the Kampala
Description
M.A. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, Forced Migration Studies, 2012