{"id":3540,"date":"2021-03-24T19:52:26","date_gmt":"2021-03-24T23:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lerrn\/?p=3540"},"modified":"2026-04-07T14:06:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T18:06:12","slug":"who-publishes-in-refuge-reflection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/lerrn\/2021\/who-publishes-in-refuge-reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"Who publishes in Refuge: Canada\u2019s Journal on Refugees? A reflection on author affiliation, knowledge production and geographic representation"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rachel McNally and Nadeea Rahim<\/em><\/p>\n

See also the recording and event report from LERRN\u2019s recent webinar involving <\/em>Refuge editor Dr. Dagmar Soennecken (<\/em>LERRN\u2019s Analysis of Refuge and RSQ: Knowledge, Access and Representation<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

Read the response to this webinar published by Refuge in their April 2021 Newsletter.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In 2019, the editors of the journal\u00a0Migration Studies<\/em>\u00a0embarked on a self-reflection process about the geography of submissions to the journal, resulting in a blog post asking the critical question:\u00a0Does the gap in migration research between high-income countries and the rest of the world matter?<\/a>\u00a0They concluded that the \u201cvast majority of migration research seems to be originating in high-income countries.\u201d\u00a0Inspired by this blog post, LERRN began to publish analyses of some of the most-cited journals in forced migration studies, including a blog post on the Journal of Refugee Studies<\/em><\/a> and a blog post on Refugee Survey Quarterly<\/em><\/a>. [1]<\/a><\/p>\n

This blog post analyzes\u00a0Refuge: Canada\u2019s Journal on Refugees<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0Refuge<\/em> is \u201ca non-profit, open access, peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of forced migration\u201d that has published interdisciplinary work in both English and French since 1981. Over the 6-year period between 2015 and 2020 analyzed for this blog post, Refuge<\/em> published 55 single-authored articles and 48 co-authored articles, for a total of 103 articles.<\/p>\n

With 85% of the world\u2019s 26 million refugees and 3.6 million Venezuelans displaced abroad currently hosted in the Global South, and 73% hosted in neighbouring countries to their countries of origin, this blog post considers the geographic focus and authorship of the published articles. All the refugee and displaced persons population figures in this blog post come from UNHCR\u2019s 2019 Global Trends report<\/a> and reflect the numbers of forcibly displaced persons at the end of 2019.\u00a0 Using the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) classification of countries<\/a> (\u201cdeveloped regions\u201d as Global North and \u201cdeveloping regions\u201d as Global South),\u00a0we analyze Global North and Global South participation through categorizing the articles based on the authors\u2019 institutional affiliations at the time of publication and the countries where these institutions are located. This approach is limited as it does not consider other forms of geographic identification (such as nationality data, which was not available for this research) or connections within the region that it is the focus of the research. Instead, this analysis considers the question of whether scholars from the Global South require either a co-author from the Global North or an institutional affiliation in the Global North to be published in some of the most-cited journals in the field. Evidently, the Global North\/South classification is a vast simplification that obscures significant differences within these categories, but it is a useful shorthand to examine questions of geographic representation and to represent some of the dynamics involved in the political economy of knowledge production (such as access to research funding).<\/p>\n

Canada and beyond<\/h3>\n

Refuge: Canada\u2019s Journal on Refugees<\/em><\/a> was established as a Canadian journal in 1981 at a time of significant growth in research relating to the resettlement and integration of Indo-Chinese refugees in Canada. Since the beginning, it has continued to publish important and critical analysis of Canada\u2019s resettlement programs and Canada\u2019s refugee determination (asylum) system. The journal is based at York University in Toronto, Canada and receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). As a result, it is not surprising that nearly half (47%) of articles include at least one author based at a Canadian institution: 23 single-authored articles are written by authors based in Canada, while 25 co-authored articles include at least one author based in Canada. In addition, of the 90 articles with a regional focus, 40% of them focus on refugees, asylum seekers, or other groups of migrants in Canada. Although the journal is Canadian focused \u2013 with an emphasis on Canada\u2019s Journal on Refugees<\/em> in the title \u2013 the reach of Refuge<\/em> has extended well beyond Canada, both in terms of authorship and in terms of the geographic focus of the articles. Authors were based in 21 different countries, with the largest numbers based in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. For 12 of the countries, there was only one article written by an author or co-authors based in that country (Israel, Qatar, Portugal, Iceland, Slovakia, South Africa, Uganda, Mexico, Croatia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore and Switzerland).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Global North and Global South authorship<\/h3>\n

For the purposes of this analysis, countries in the Global North are those designated as \u201cdeveloped regions\u201d by the United Nations Statistics Division, while countries in the Global South are those designated as \u201cdeveloping regions.\u201d Given that 85% of the world\u2019s 26 million refugees and 3.6 million Venezuelans displaced abroad are currently hosted in the Global South, it is important to consider the representation of Global South voices in the forced migration academic literature. As these countries host large numbers of displaced persons, they have significant first-hand experience responding to displacement, and this experience is important to include in the global conversation around forced migration. Of the countries where Refuge<\/em> authors are based, 13 are in the Global North and 8 are in the Global South. While voices from the Global South are clearly included in the journal, the vast majority of articles (89%) do not include a Global South-based author.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Most co-authorships (85%) also take place within the Global North, either within one country or across countries. Only six co-authored articles (13%) involved collaborations between authors based in the Global North and the Global South.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Geographic focus of articles<\/h3>\n

The articles published cover issues related to displacement in every region of the world. However, when compared to the percentage of refugees hosted in specific countries and regions, as well as to the percentage of UNHCR\u2019s population of concern hosted in that country or region, some regions are under-represented while others are over-represented. As mentioned above, of the 90 articles with a regional focus, 40% of them focus on refugees, asylum seekers, or other groups of migrants located in Canada, but less than 1% of the world\u2019s refugees are located in Canada. Other countries in the Global North are also over-represented compared to the percentage of displaced persons they currently host. In contrast, looking to a region in the Global South, Sub-Saharan Africa is under-represented, since 5% of the articles are about displaced persons in this region, but it hosts 31% of the world\u2019s refugees and 39% of UNHCR\u2019s population of concern. A similar pattern of under-representation is evident with the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Asia and Pacific regions.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Population of concern<\/h3>\n

Each article was coded according to the population of concern to UNHCR: refugee, asylum seeker, internally displaced persons (IDP) or \u201cother\u201d to capture groups of (forced) migrants who fall outside UNHCR\u2019s population of concern, with some articles covering multiple groups. As expected, most of the articles (77%) focus on refugees and 16% of the articles focus on asylum seekers. Only four articles look at internally displaced persons (IDPs), reflective of a broader gap in the field<\/a> of research related to internal displacement. Reflecting the expansion of refugee studies to include other groups of (forced) migrants, 27% of articles look at migrants who are not refugees, asylum seekers, or IDPs, including forms of migration that sometimes overlap with asylum-seeking.<\/p>\n

Bilingualism<\/h3>\n

Refuge<\/em> is a bilingual (English\/French) journal given that those are the two official languages in Canada. Thus, it is notable that all abstracts are available in both languages. However, in practice the journal is mostly in English. Only 5 out of 103 articles published in the last six years were in French. Except for one author based in Switzerland, all the authors writing in French were based in Canada. Given that there are many other French-speaking countries that also host significant numbers of refugees, particularly in Africa, there may be potential to expand the journal\u2019s French content to feature some of these perspectives.<\/p>\n

Open Access<\/h3>\n

Unlike Journal of Refugee Studies<\/em><\/a> or Refugee Survey Quarterly<\/em><\/a>, where only a few articles are open access, Refuge<\/em> is an entirely open access journal. An open access journal would certainly increase access for readers, particularly those from practitioner communities, people with displacement experience, or readers in the Global South who do not have access to institutional journal subscriptions. However, it is not clear what effect open access may have on the decisions of authors to submit to the journal or on the patterns identified above.<\/p>\n

Conclusions and future directions<\/h3>\n

The purpose of LERRN\u2019s series of journal analyses is to provide a starting point for conversation within the journals and in the forced migration studies field more broadly on questions related to knowledge production, access, and representation. There remain many unanswered questions, including whether the published articles reflect the same patterns as submissions, what patterns might be revealed by additional demographic data about authors (such as nationality), and why authors choose to submit to specific journals. Refuge<\/em> is clearly aware of the questions raised in this analysis. It is notable that the most recent issue in 2020 was co-edited by LERRN partner Dr. Maha Shuayb from Lebanon and featured both Global North and Global South perspectives. It is also notable that the recent call for papers<\/a> on the theme of \u201cRefuge in the Time of Pandemic\u201d explicitly invited \u201ccontributions of authors from the Global South as well as both refugee support workers and other frontline practitioners (e.g., health workers).\u201d For several decades, Refuge<\/em> has served as a critical publication outlet for Canada\u2019s vibrant forced migration studies community and as a platform for critical analysis of issues related to refugees and asylum seekers in Canada. It has since expanded beyond Canada, but it has great potential to expand even further into a more global journal featuring a wider diversity of perspectives.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0We would like to thank the additional authors from the blog post on\u00a0Refugee Survey Quarterly<\/em>\u00a0for their contributions to the methodology that guides this post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rachel McNally and Nadeea Rahim See also the recording and event report from LERRN\u2019s recent webinar involving Refuge editor Dr. Dagmar Soennecken (LERRN\u2019s Analysis of Refuge and RSQ: Knowledge, Access and Representation) Read the response to this webinar published by Refuge in their April 2021 Newsletter. In 2019, the editors of the journal\u00a0Migration Studies\u00a0embarked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[189,1],"tags":[561],"yoast_head":"\nWho publishes in Refuge: Canada\u2019s Journal on Refugees? 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