Understanding Diaspora Development

Melissa Phillips is a lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at Western Sydney University, Australia. Her research focuses on migration, diaspora, migrant and refugee settlement, and multiculturalism. Melissa has a background in working for international NGOs in East Africa and the Middle East/North Africa on migration programs.Louise Olliff works as a senior policy advisor for the Refugee Council of Australia and is an adjunct fellow with Western Sydney University’s Humanitarian and Development Research Initiative (HADRI). Her research and work in policy advocacy focuses on how the knowledge and networks borne of lived experience of forced displacement can be drivers of transformative change.

• 1. Introduction – Louise Olliff (University of Melbourne) and Melissa Phillips (Western Sydney University).- 2. Policy responses to diasporas: the case of Australia - Melissa Phillips (Western Sydney University).- 3. Bosnian digital diaspora in Australia: recreating places in real and cyber spaces - Hariz Halilovich (RMIT University).- 4.The politics of diaspora: Africans in Australia - Farida Fozdar, David Mickler, Sarah Prout Quicke, Mary Setrana, Muhammad dan Suleiman and Dominic Dabganjan (University of Western Australia).- 5.Doing peace through inter-ethnic harmony: The South Sudanese and Sri Lankan diasporas in Australia - Denise Cauchi and Jennifer Balint (University of Melbourne).- 6.South Sudanese-Australian transnational kinship during conflict and economic crisis - Sara Maher (Monash University), Santino Atem Deng, Freddie Carver and Nicki Kindersley (Rift Valley Institute).- 7.Fromresettled refugee to humanitarian actor: Australia’s Humanitarian Program and the   (trans)formation of diaspora networks of care - Louise Olliff  (University of Melbourne).- 8.The role of Diaspora in Pacific Disaster Recovery: A Case Study of Samoa - Karen Medica (Monash University).- 9.The missing piece of ‘diaspora in development’- the local perspectives - Jeevika Vivekananthan (Deakin University).- 10. Diaspora humanitarianism: Pacific diaspora in humanitarian response to disasters in Pacific Island countries - Jeevika Vivekananthan and Phil Connors (Deakin University).- 11.Interrogating Diaspora and Cross-Border Politics in Eastern European Migration to Australia - Olga Oleinikova (University of Technology, Sydney).