Sum-up of week 3

Congratulations! You have completed week 3 of the course.

In week 3 we moved away from Europe and the Middle East region to consider some case studies in other parts of the world. In the first case study, we learned about Mexican and Central American migration to the United States and the different political responses to both border crossings and undocumented migrants within the US itself. In the second case study, we introduced the dimension of gender by looking at the role of South American women in regional and south-north migration. In the third case study, we discussed the Rohingya refugee crisis, how it has evolved and the limited responses from the international community. In the fourth case study, we looked at Australia’s so-called Pacific Solution, as a particularly hard-line approach to dealing with undocumented maritime arrivals and we assessed not only its effectiveness but the extent to which it breached Australia’s obligations to the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees.

We hope this final week has given you a truly global perspective on contemporary migration and that it has encouraged you to rethink cases that you were already familiar with by comparing them with situations in other parts of the world.