Geography
Date of this Version
11-1988
Abstract
The mass movement of humans takes on considerable geographic importance because of the associated changes in the source area, in the region of destination, and in the people who leave a home territory for a foreign environment. These repercussions are often accentuated when people are forced to flee their homeland and to beg for asylum in a strange setting. With the number of contemporary refugees in the world greatly exceeding the volume of voluntary international migration, the need among geographers for information about refugees is great. Refugees: A Third World Dilemma, a collection of thirty papers about various aspects of refugee experiences, only partially fills this information gap.
Informational limitations result from: I) the multitude of authors, 2) the organization by region, and 3) the lack of a consistent geographical emphasis. Unless an editor demands considerable alterations, the first limitation is common. As frequently occurs in the publication of conference proceedings or a collection of articles from diverse sources, the chapters are not well integrated. This results in a lack of cross-referencing, in somewhat contradictory statements, and in the repetition of several basic ideas.
Comments
Published in JOURNAL OF GEOGRAPHY 87:6 (November/December 1988), pp. 239-240. Copyright 1988 National Council for Geographic Education