REFUGEE INTEGRATION CONFERENCE and Arts Festival
October 2-3, 2020
Recordings of the Conference and Arts Festival are available at the links below. Enjoy!
Manarola, Italy, Jack Ward
The Refugee Integration Arts Festival
The Refugee Integration Conference
The Refugee Integration Arts Festival was a one of a kind event that brought together artists, researchers, and the broader public to explore the integration experiences of refugees and communities. Artists had the power to express and represent experiences when words fail to do so. Rather than just showing all the ways in which refugees and immigrants contribute to society, the RIT Arts Festival explored how immigration and the integration experiences are embodied in the process of art-making itself.
The Refugee Integration Conference paired researchers with practitioners or policymakers from the same urban area to give presentations showcasing how their city/town/neighborhood is supporting migrant integration, and also how they are struggling with exclusion. Researchers included our RIT refugee and host researchers, plus others new to the RIT project. Practitioners and policymakers included resettlement coordinators, municipal government representatives, and aid workers, among others.
Vietnam, Thijs Degenkamp
OUR GOAL
The RIT Conference had urban areas represented from around the world, mostly within the U.S., but also several international cities to help U.S. participants learn from the decades—if not centuries—of experience from places with long and complicated histories with forced migrant integration.
During the course of the RIT project, we have found surprising commonalities in the successes and struggles with integration experienced in geographically disparate cities, and believed bringing representatives of these diverse areas together would produce positive sharing of ideas to support integration in their own localities. The Conference also produced a white paper to share best practices and lessons beyond the Conference’s participants.
The Conference took place on October 2, allowing speakers and participants to collaborate and engage in dialogue to further develop the ideas presented. Interspersed throughout the day were opportunities for participants and presenters to network and discuss their experiences.
Through a series of interactive workshops and facilitated conversations with artists themselves, guests at the RIT Arts Festival had an opportunity to engage with different forms of art while also learning about the artist’s process, intention, and the meaning of art-making for the immigration experience and integration process.
The Arts Festival began in the evening of October 2 and continued through October 3, with a series of workshops led by local artists where community guests actively engaged with different forms of art (dance, graphic art, theater, music) while also learning about the artists’ process, intention, and the meaning of art-making for the immigrant experience and integration.
Many thanks to our event sponsors
Arts Festival & Conference Organizers
Stéphanie Khoury — Organizing Co-Chair
Stephanie is a Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at Tufts University’s Music Department & Asian American Studies Program. She is also the Co-Chair of the Crossroads Section on Difference and Representation at the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) - Term 2019-2022.
Marina Lazetic — Organizing Co-Chair
Marina is a MALD graduate from Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She has worked with the Belgrade Center for Security Policy, Boston University, Doctors Without Borders, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and Children’s Health Fund. She also brings her experiences as an accomplished playwright and performer to the RIT Arts Festival.
Kelsey Rowe — RIT Events Operations Manager
Kelsey is a MALD 2021 candidate at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She is a returned Peace Corps Volunteer with years of advocacy and leadership experience in Armenia and a professional legal background in New York. She received her BA in Linguistics from NYU.
Chloe Pan — RIT Events Design & Marketing
Chloe is a MALD 2021 candidate at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She has a background in economic development and disaster management in California, but has most recently supported conflict early warning and response field operations in West Africa with ECOWAS and Fund for Peace. Chloe received her BA’s in Global Studies and French from University of California, Santa Barbara.
Ameerah Siddiqi — RIT Events Content Editor
Ameerah is a MALD 2021 candidate at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. She has several years of experience in media and communications, working with a variety of organizations including Save the Children US, charity: water, Council on Foreign Relations, and the Center for Global Policy. She has a BA in Journalism and International Studies from Indiana University Bloomington.