Half of the world’s 21.3 million refugees are aged under 18. An increasing number of children are being forced to flee their homes alone. Since 2008, nearly 200,000 unaccompanied minors have applied for asylum in Europe, including 96,000 in 2015 alone (Save the Children, 2016).

As part of the wider initiative ‘Refugees Welcome at QMUL,’ the project will bring together cross-disciplinary and cross-faculty researchers working on children, home and refugees at the Centre for Studies of Home (a partnership with the Geffrye Museum of the Home), the Centre for Childhood Cultures (a partnership with the V&A Museum of Childhood), the Centre for the Study of Migration, and ULIP. It will develop links with other colleagues at QMUL working on refugees, including in Law, School of Business and Management and School of Politics and International Relations. 

The project focuses on (i) lost homes, home in transit, homes in refugee camps, institutional homes and homes after resettlement for refugee children; (ii) the materialities of home and the consequences of dispossession and displacement alongside wider meanings of home, belonging and (in)security for refugee children; and (iii) home for refugee children in the past and present, within and beyond Europe. One key aim of the project is to develop links between research at QMUL and ULIP given the significance of home for refugee children in France and the UK.

The project develops connections between researchers at QMUL, ULIP and beyond as well as with a wider public audience including NGOs, practitioners and policy makers through a series of events, activities and outputs from January to July 2017. For more information see our section Events and activities.