This nine-month master’s degree places forced migration in an academic framework, preparing you for doctoral study or for work relevant to human rights, refugees and migration.
Overview
Structure
Careers
Photo: Professor Alexander Betts
Outside the Kakuma refugee camp
The degree offers an intellectually demanding, interdisciplinary route to understanding forced migration in contexts of conflict, repression, natural disasters, environmental change and development policy-making.
The course aims to offer you an understanding of the complex and varied nature of forced migration and refugee populations, of their centrality to global, regional and national processes of political, social and economic change, and of the needs and aspirations of forcibly displaced people themselves. The course will also enable students to acquire a broad understanding of academic research related to forced migration and refugees, to develop their critical thinking abilities and to provide them with a range of sound evaluative tools.
Applicants to this degree who are interested in progressing onto migration-related doctoral study are eligible to apply for an ESRC 1+3 Studentship which could provide them with four years of full funding. These studentships, previously only available for UK and EU students, are now also available to non-EU students. See the Fees and Funding page for more information.
You will gain the ability to plan, organise and carry out research into aspects of forced migration and refugee studies. You will also gain the skills necessary to convey theoretical knowledge of forced migration to a variety of different audiences.
The degree and its courses are taught using a range of different teaching methods, including lectures, small-group seminars, workshops and supervisions. Students’ active participation is encouraged throughout to enable students to learn from each other.
The Course Director for 2024/25 is Dr Catherine Briddick.
In the first and second terms you will follow core courses which introduce the subject of forced migration from a range of perspectives, including anthropological, political and legal. There is also a two-term course dedicated to research methods relevant to the study of forced migration.
In the second term, you will take two options courses chosen from a list which changes from year to year.
In the third term, you will write a 10,000- to 15,000-word thesis.
Although you may attend other options courses, you will only be examined on your two chosen option courses, the core courses, and the thesis.
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Core Courses
The following courses will run in 2024-25:
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The Anthropology of Forced Migration
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International Human Rights and Refugee Law I
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The Politics of Forced Migration
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Movement and Morality
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Research Methods I and II
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Options
Option courses on the degree change from year to year and we cannot guarantee that they will be available in the current year. Below is a list of courses that have run in previous years:
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International Human Rights and Refugee Law II
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Refugee Economies
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Education in Uncertainty
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History and Politics of Humanitarian Aid
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Postcolonial Borders and Forced Migration
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Graduates of the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies have gone on to doctoral degrees, law school, and work relevant to human rights, refugees, and migration. Graduates of the course are now employed in organisations such as the UNHCR, the International Organisation for Migration, UNDP, Save the Children, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Brookings and MacArthur Foundations, as well as national governments and universities around the world.
Overview
Structure
Careers
Please refer to the course webpage on the University's Graduate Admissions pages for full information on selection criteria, application deadlines and English language requirements.
Contact us
Enquiries about the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies should be addressed to the Graduate Student Administrator, admissions@qeh.ox.ac.uk.