Refugee Narratives: World University Service's Ethiopian and Eritrean Scholarship Programmes in the Light of Current Practice

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The West perceives itself to be confronting a 'refugee crisis' where refugees are viewed as victimslacking agency, as risks to the host society and as resource burdens (Angouri et al, 2018). Refugeeexperience is often construed as static, and the refugee the pawn of external forces and legalframeworks. As Malkki noted (1996: 378), 'humanitarian practices tend to silence refugees', renderingthem passive recipients of others' aid efforts. Refugee research also frequently adopts a structural,governmental, or legal focus which elides the long-term experiences of individual refugees themselves.This project enriches existing work by adopiting a cultural-linguistic approach that, allied to rigoroushistorical study of an earlier refugee context, seeks to address this gap and draw out lessons for bestpractice today.The project focuses on a UK-based programme, World University Service's training scholarships forEthiopians and Eritreans following conflict in these countries (examining the latter half of the 1970sthrough to the 1990s). Through collaboration with ReConnect, it aims to compare this historicalperspective to the experience of refugees from Sub-Saharan Africa in the UK today. The research willgive refugees a voice, analysing the process of their integration into the host society and culture.Specifically, given the educational character of the WUS programme, paralleled by ReConnect's work,3the research will study the qualitative value of intercultural awareness and professional developmentas part of refugees' engagement with a host society.