Offering: Intersession 2024

The current refugee crisis is becoming an evermore pressing topic, and the number of people forced into migration and asylum continues to increase day by day. This is a student-centred course about “human flow”: the massive, planetary-wide stories of relocation and resettlement in the face of extreme and violent dangers. The course seeks to understand the complex lives of refugees by listening to their voices and literary narratives. In the theoretical segment of the course, students will learn who refugees and displaced persons are (based on United Nations’ approaches), with narratives that apply to the national, international, and Hamiltonian context. Students will explore every step of the refugee journey, starting with the cause for having to flee and finishing with the recognition that their settlement in a new country is not a conclusion in itself. The goal is to engage students and promote dialogue. In the practical segment, the students will engage with interdisciplinary guest speakers such as lawyers, displaced scholars, economics professors, McMaster students, international speakers and/or community members who work with refugees – all of whom provide a well rounded window into the lives of refugees.

Pre requisites: None