Annual Winter Course on Forced Migration, 2006
Short Term Visiting Fellowship
Priyanka Mathur Velath and Nanda Kishor
,
Their Visiting Report
We both also presented papers on our ongoing doctoral researches on the
rights of development-induced displaced persons in India and on displacement
of Urban settlers by development projects respectively. We received valuable
comments and suggestions by all the members of TAPRI and would particularly
like to thank Helena Rytuvuori-Apunen, Unto Vesa, Tuomo Melasuo for engaging
in discussions with us and widening our perspectives and particularly Eeva
Puumala, our local host. The experience of not just living in a European
country but also witnessing and analyzing Refugee Laws and policies firsthand
has been indispensable and most memorable for us.
PhD. Students in
Jwaharlal Nehru University and Hyderabad Central University respectively.
They won the Junior Research Fellowships designated for South Asian
candidates and traveled to Tampere, where they were hosted in TAPRI for a
week.
Our short term Junior Research
Fellowship was part of the Indo-Finnish exchange segment in the Winter
Course on Forced Migration 2006 and co-operation between the Department of
political science and International Relations of the University of Tampere,
Tampere Peace Research Institute (TAPRI) and the Mahanirban Calcutta
Research Group. We visited Tampere, Finland for a week to gain an insight
into migration issues in Finland and would like to first thank all the
members of TAPRI for their warm hospitality specially Prof Tarja Vyrynen.
Our special thanks also to Prof. Jyrki Kakonen, at the Department of
International Relations for not just facilitating our stay but also for
spending his valuable time engaging in a discussion with us on globalisation
and its impact on migration and refugee laws at large. We visited the
Reception Centre for Asylum Seekers at Pohjolankatu in Tampere which
provides services to around 200 asylum seekers and is one of the 13
reception centres in Finland. Along with discussions with other staff
members we also conducted a detailed interview of the senior counselor
there, a man of Sri Lankan origin who himself had been an asylum seeker in
Finland 13 years ago and had just been granted Finnish citizenship. The
talks enriched our understanding of not just the state of asylum policies in
Finland but also illuminated a whole range of issues like, from where the
whole process of asylum seeking begins, who is directly responsible for it,
different countries people seeking asylum, the official data, the mechanism
in giving asylum and security issues involving refugees. A tour of the
building also showed us first hand how some Somalian asylum-seeking families
were living.