Refugee's agency and coping strategies in refugee camps during the coronavirus pandemic: ethnographic perspectives.

The global spread of the coronavirus pandemic has particularly dramatic consequences for the lives of migrants and refugees living in already marginalised and restricted conditions, whose ongoing crisis is at risk of being overlooked. But refugees are not only extremely vulnerable and at risk of infection, as several reports show, quickly develop their own protection measures like the production of hygienic products, the publication of their situation and calls for action and help. Therefore, this paper aims to research the effects of the coronavirus crisis on refugees in camp settings with a special ethnographic focus on how refugees actively deal with this crisis and if they, through already developed resilience, are capable of adapting to the restrictions as well as inventing strategies to cope with the difficult situation. To account for the variety of refugee camps as well as the different living conditions due to their locality, history and national asylum politics, we will look at three different locations, namely refugee asylum homes in Germany, hotspots on the Greek islands as well as one refugee camp in Kenya. The main questions will be how, under structurally and institutionally framed conditions of power and victimisation in refugee camps, forms of agency are established, made possible or limited. The goal is to show which strategies refugees apply to cope with the enhanced restrictions and exclusion, how they act to protect themselves and others from the virus and how they present and reflect their situation during the coronavirus pandemic. Finally, this discussion offers a new perspective to consider refugees not only as vulnerable victims, but also as actively engaged individuals.

Evaluating the social added value of LEADER: Evidence from a marginalised rural region

One of the most significant challenges in rebuilding Europe after COVID-19 is stimulating the marginalised, rural areas of the European Union (EU). Amid a social distancing environment, it is quite important to re-evaluate policy instruments that have recorded successes in rural development with an emphasis on the infrastructure of local dialogue;the Liaisons Entre Actions de Developpement de l'Economie Rurale (LEADER) has been such a programme. The current article introduces a qualitatively-integrated Social Return on Investment tool to evaluate the social added value of LEADER. The evaluation method was applied on the rural island of Lesvos in Greece. The evaluation results indicated that LEADER becomes a worthwhile investment when a wide range of its social outflows are taken into account. Additionally, in order to enhance its social value, a level of maturity and a solid economic basis must be first achieved. In this context, continuous monitoring and evaluation become crucial. © 2022 Elsevier Ltd