Center on Forced Displacement Will Address the Global Refugee Crisis

For millions of people, the definition of home is complicated. According to UN estimates, more than 100 million people globally have been pushed from their homes due to war, disaster, violence, discrimination or other circumstances, the highest level of displacement ever recorded. Some remain displaced in their home countries and many others, in lands foreign to them

“Forcibly displaced people often are very vulnerable and have no way of getting their voices heard,” says Professor Muhammad Zaman (BME, MSE), who studies refugee and migrant health.

As the global refugee crisis worsens, crossing borders has been met with increasing hostility and stigma, often putting displaced people in perilous positions after they’ve already experienced difficult journeys.

Tackling the global crisis head-on, Zaman and CAS Professor Carrie Preston founded the new University-wide Center on Forced Displacement (CFD) to improve the lives of—and give voice to—displaced people around the world.

The center will study the impact of border policies on countries with high numbers of migrants (like Mexico and Serbia); risk factors on health in refugee camps and settlements; and the impacts of climate change on displaced communities, health and medicine, and voice and identity.

“This problem is truly universal and we need ideas that really span the disciplines on campus,” says Zaman.

The CFD founders make a dynamic, if unlikely, duo. With Zaman’s expertise in antimicrobial resistance and global health and Preston’s in theater, performance and gender studies, their partnership brings a multidimensional perspective to the issue of forced displacement—and that is exactly their aim. Under their direction, the work of the center will span disciplines to make the quality of life for refugees and asylum seekers better.

“Displacement is a risk that can bind us across identities,” says Preston, who is also director of Kilachand Honors College. “One of the binding features of being human is we all long for something we think of as home—and at the same time, we are all at risk of being displaced.”

Zaman came to the US in 1996 after growing up in Pakistan. Witnessing xenophobia and discrimination against Afghan refugees in Pakistan, and against Muslim communities in the United States, motivated him to specialize in refugee medicine and health. Since starting his lab at BU in 2009, he has written dozens of articles and three books on the subject, including Migration and Health (University of Chicago Press, 2022), coedited with SPH Dean Sandro Galea.

Zaman is particularly enthusiastic about offering more opportunities for research in engineering, math and medicine, fields that are not typically included in displacement and refugee studies. His lab looks into improving medications and testing pharmaceuticals available in refugee camps and he developed a portable device that detects counterfeit medications called PharmaChk. Now, he continues to investigate medical supply chains in forcibly displaced communities, which often lack adequate capacity to diagnose, manage and treat illnesses. CFD research will look at how antibiotics are distributed by mapping the supply chain in refugee settlements and identifying ways to supply high-quality medicines, limiting unnecessary antibiotic use, and reducing the threat of antibiotic-resistant infections.

“We need new technology, we need ethical guidelines for new technologies, we need new solutions across the board,” Zaman says. “Hopefully, we can really make an impact in the lives of people.”

One group of displaced people that is not clearly recognized under the law are climate refugees, people leaving their homelands due to climate change who are escaping their inability to grow crops and fleeing disasters like drought, flood and storms. To add to emerging research about climate change and migration, CFD leadership plans to explore how communities themselves react and respond to environmental displacement.

“Right where we’re sitting can eventually be underwater because of climate change,” Preston says from her office in the Back Bay—a neighborhood projected to be susceptible to sea level rise if fossil fuel emissions remain at their current rate. The UN’s refugee agency has released guidance recognizing that climate change will make the lives of displaced populations worse, especially in poorer regions.

Zaman and Preston will bring in experts from research areas across the University as well as from neighboring and international institutions. The center will also offer students hands-on experience through class trips and research opportunities, and, with the help of student researchers, seeks to complete an oral history project that amplifies the voices of displaced people and indigenous communities in the US.

“We really think about how we can make a positive impact and a difference in the lives of people,” says Zaman, “by turning research into tangible solutions, actions and policies.” —

JESSICA COLAROSSI