Arts Initiatives by Refugees for Refugees: Forced Displacement, Creativity, Agency Berghahn Press, 2026 Association for Migration Research (GAR) is pleased to host Prof. Lisa Gilman for a conversation on her new book, Arts Initiatives by Refugees for Refugees: Forced Displacement, Creativity, Agency. About the Book Forced migration is an international problem impacting global powers as well as smaller resource-constrained countries. The rhetoric, globally and locally is rife with a confusing tangle about war, violence, persecution, vulnerability, victimhood, thievery, welfare leaching, and economy recking. Arts Initiatives by Refugees for Refugees is a narrative-driven book based in global multi-site research about the arts and cultural dimension of refugee “crises” in discrete geographic and social-political contexts. The stories highlight agency, creativity, pleasure, celebration, entrepreneurship, friendship, and community because we typically don’t associate these things with refugees. They emphasize how refugees contribute to their own communities and their host countries, contrary to stereotypical and often xenophobic anti-refugee assumptions. About the Author Lisa Gilman is Professor of Folklore and Director of the Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University, former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of American Folklore, and former Fellow with the Refugee and Forced Displacement Initiative at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She published The Dance of Politics: Performance, Gender, and Democratization in Malawi (Temple University Press 2011), My Music, My War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan (2016), the co-authored Folklore and Ethnomusicology Fieldwork Methods Handbook (Indiana University Press 2019), and co-edited Africa Every Day: Fun, Leisure, and Expressive Culture on the Continent (Ohio University Press 2019) and UNESCO on the Ground: Local Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage (Indiana University Press 2015). She produced the documentary Grounds for Resistance and the Dzaleka Art Project. 📅 🕕 📍 Monday, 28 September 2026 18:00 GAR Office Abbasağa Mahallesi, Üzengi Sok. No: 13, 34022 Beşiktaş / İstanbul Language: English
