CREES Noon Lecture. Resettlement or Return? Shifting IDP Attitudes in Ukraine

In 2016 the number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Ukraine reached 1.6 million, the vast majority of whom fled the conflict in the Donbas region of Eastern Ukraine, initiated in early 2014. In this paper, Cynthia Buckley focuses on how the duration of displacement, household composition, and region of resettlement among the displaced in Ukraine challenge and inform both policy and demographic approaches to internal forced migration and explore the implications of this sizable displacement for regional population trends and demands on state capacity in the long term. Employing Ukrainian government data, UNHCR reports, and a longitudinal set of surveys by the International Organization for Migration, Professor Buckley explores relationships between IDP characteristics and region of resettlement and their intentions to return to pre-displacement areas of residence. Findings extend our understanding of the challenges raised by displacement for the Ukrainian state, in addition to inviting a reconsideration of more general approaches to IDP processes and implications.

Cynthia Buckley is a CREES Visiting Scholar for the 2020-21 academic year. Professor Buckley received her Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Michigan in 1991 before joining the faculty of the University of Texas, Austin. Between 2010-12 she served as the Program Director for Eurasia at the Social Science Research Council, later moving to the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A social demographer, her research focuses on the main drivers, and implications, of demographic change across Eurasia and appears in numerous academic journals, policy briefs, assessment reports, and edited volumes. Her current research focuses on a MINERVA-funded investigation of state capacity challenges in the areas of healthcare (including COVID-19), elections, and education in the multicultural countries of Estonia, Georgia, and Ukraine (with Ralph Clem and Erik Herron), and a solo book project on population change and social stability in Central Asia.

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