The advent of internationalist refugee aid has long been told as an inspirational story of humanitarians fighting tirelessly for a system for that would recognize and guarantee the rights of displaced and dispossessed people. But thinking historically about the genesis of modern refugee policy tells us that has long had a different goal: to make use of refugees as cheap workers in an emerging system of global industrial capitalism. This talk traces the century-long history of the ways in which modern refugee regimes have sought not to protect refugee rights but to remake refugees as migrant labor, serving the interests of states and capital rather than the interests of displaced people themselves.

This is brought to you in partnership with the NMC International Affairs Forum. Registration is required. Livestreaming is available.

LAURA ROBSON, Elihu Professor of Global Affairs and History at Yale University, is a scholar of international and Middle Eastern history, with a special interest in questions of refugeedom, forced migration, and statelessness. She has published extensively on the topics of refugee and minority rights, forced migration, ethnic cleansing, and the emergence of international legal regimes around resettlement and asylum. She received her PhD from Yale in 2009 and holds additional degrees from Tulane University, the Royal Academy of Music, and Oxford University.