۱- Background and introduction

۲- Nature and challenges of displacement

۳- Analysis of the strategic role of refugee logistics and SCM

۴- Challenges to undertaking useful research

۵- Suggested future research agenda

۶- Summary and conclusion

References

Abstract

Purpose: This “thought paper” is written by the special issue editors as a part of the five papers accepted and published in response to the special issue call for papers on logistics and SCM in the context of relief for refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on “refugee logistics” and analyse the nature and challenges of displacement from a displaced person’s perspective. The paper also argues for a more critical appreciation of the role and value that research in logistics, operations and supply chain management (LOSCM) can play in the delivery of services and care for refugees and IDPs from the perspective of preparedness and logistics planning of humanitarian organisations. The paper further outlines basic challenges to undertaking innovative, boundary pushing valuable and impactful research on “refugee logistics” given the difficult ideological, political and policy context in which “refugee logistics research” will be undertaken. The paper also advocates for more critical research in humanitarian logistics (HL), that explicitly acknowledges its ontological, epistemological and methodological limitations even when ethically sound. The paper concludes by suggesting a future research agenda for this new sub-field of humanitarian logistics research.

Background and introduction

Refugee studies, as a broad multi-disciplinary field of academic inquiry, have become a major focus of scholars and policymakers around the world (Cameron, 2014). This is because refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are statistically an important ssue, and can no longer be ignored (Cameron, 2014). The United Nations High Commission for Refugees in its June 2017 report (UNHCR, 2017) stated that forced displacement of persons worldwide is at its highest in decades. UNHCR’s Annual Global Trends report indicates that an unprecedented 65.6 m people were uprooted from their homes by conflict and persecution at the end of 2016, a total bigger than the population of the UK. Various crises have uprooted more men, women and children around the world than at any time in the seven-decade history of UNHCR according to the Annual Global Trends report. Increasing forced displacement is a growing problem. For instance, in each of the past five years, annual increases in the total global displacement arising from human-induced disasters such as conflict and persecution have been in the millions (UNHCR, 2017). Within this total figure are 40.3 m IDPs. IDPs are defined as people uprooted within the borders of their own countries (UNHCR, 2017). They have fled their homes suddenly or unexpectedly in large numbers, as a result of armed conflict, internal strife, systematic violations of human rights or natural or man-made disasters (UNHCR, 2017). This figure is about 500,000 fewer than in 2015 (UNHCR, 2017).