October 21, 2015

Starr Forum: Global Refugee Crisis

A panel discussion with Jennifer Leaning, Nahuel Arenas, Ali Aljundi, and Serena Parekh

Moderated by Anna Hardman

About the Speakers:
Jennifer Leaning is the François-Xavier Bagnoud Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights and director, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, at the Harvard School of Public Health. Her interests include public health, medical ethics, and early warning in response to war and disaster, human rights and international humanitarian law in crisis settings, and human security in the context of forced migration and conflict. She has field experience in public health assessment and human rights in crisis situations (including Afghanistan, Albania, Angola, Kosovo, the Middle East, former Soviet Union, Somalia, the Chad-Darfur border, and the African Great Lakes area) and has written widely on these issues.

Nahuel Arenas joined Oxfam in 2007 and since then has occupied several positions in the organization, leading humanitarian responses in Mozambique, Chad, Mauritania, Burkina Faso, South Sudan and supporting Oxfam’s response in Haiti. He has previously worked for Action Against Hunger and the Japan International Cooperation Agency in different countries, and consulted for UN-HABITAT. He holds a M.A. in International Politics by the School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), and degrees in crisis management and public policy. He joined Oxfam America in 2013 as deputy humanitarian director, and is now director of the humanitarian response department.

Ali Aljundi, a Syrian civil activist, has brought his diverse experience and wide knowledge of the Syrian conflict to his work at Oxfam America as a Syria project officer. He focuses on peacebuilding and empowering the Syrian civil society. He helped establish a local NGO in his home district and helped in securing funds for sustainable community empowerment projects. He contributed to launching the Syrian NGO’s platform. He worked on youth employment and career development through his profession at United Nations Relief and Work Agency. Previously, he worked in microfinance, rural development and women empowerment in his capacity as a marketing development officer at Aga Khan Foundation.

Serena Parekh is an associate professor of philosophy at Northeastern University. Her research interests are in social and political philosophy, feminist theory, continental philosophy, and the philosophy of human rights. Her recent publications include: “Hannah Arendt and Global Justice.” in Philosophy Compass (forthcoming); "Between Community and Humanity: Arendt, Judgment and Responsibility to the Global Poor.” in Philosophical Topics (2013); "Does Ordinary Injustice Make Extraordinary Injustice Possible? Gender, Structural Injustice and the Ethics of Refugee Determination.” in The Journal of Global Ethics (2012); and Hannah Arendt and the Challenge of Modernity: A Phenomenology of Human Rights. She is currently finishing a manuscript about our moral obligations to refugees that will be forthcoming with Routledge in 2016 (tentatively titled: "Refugees and the Ethics of Forced Displacement").

Moderator:
Anna Hardman has taught at Tufts University since 1995. Her research focuses on urban economics (regulation and the informal sector in housing markets in developing countries, the development and provision of services in peri-urban areas, and neighborhood income distribution) and on migration (remittances and the impact of immigration on housing markets in migrants' home and host communities).

The event is sponsored by the Center for International Studies and The Inter-University Committee on International Migration

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