Deepening on What We Think We Know about Refugees

Inclusive searches & sources @FMG Library (44)

Refugeehood is the central point of next month’s UvA library installation, Vice Versa. Starting on May 22nd, 2024, it can be visited in the Oudemanhuispoort building. The installation explores multifaceted topics on refugeehood from the perspectives and voices of refugees in various places, to deepen what we think we know about refugees.

The deepening part of the installation offers a sample of literature. These readings are not only scholarly publications but also in other forms, such as fiction, poems, and documentary works.

As refugeehood is a broad subject that intersects with many other aspects, our selection in the installation highlights only a small part of the existing (academic) knowledge. All of our selections can be found at the end of this blog post.

The following is a searching guide plus several search examples on this topic to help you find further sources on and related to refugees.

Exploring the subject

If you need a lead or are confused about how to begin, exploring the subject is a simple way. Academic databases often (not all) have a section on subject heading, or subject terms, or thesaurus. Subject heading works as index terms, or simply said, it is like using specific terms to tag or label something consistently. If the term “Refugees” can be found as a subject heading, it can be used to find the literature tagged or indexed by the database with that term.

On the database, it is usually located at the top ribbon. For the multidisciplinary database, Academic Search Premier, for instance, it is called “Subject Terms” and can be found at the top ribbon as follows:

Screenshot of Academic Search Premier’s top ribbon

When you click on it, you can search in the search box whether a term is a subject heading or, if not, what other subject headings are related to that term:

We searched for refugees, and the database has refugees as a subject heading while giving other variants of the term. (Tips: You can pick up search terms from the given variants. If you want to add the subject heading terms to your search query, click add)

We then click on the term Refugees. You can read the scope note explaining the term, along with the broader and narrower terms related to refugees, as follows:

Screenshot of Academic Search Premier: Broader terms of Refugees

In the image above, two broader terms are related to refugees: persons and social problems. For the latter, it means that the term refugees is part of the broader term social problem, meaning that if you search for the term social problem, then you might find articles about refugees in the search results. What do you think about this?

Through the example above, we want to show the categorizing power of academic databases. Subject terms can be useful to simplify and aid the search, but they can also be problematic, as they give a certain meaning, association, and label. Following Sofiya Noble in her book Algorithm of Oppression, academic databases are classification systems that:

“are part of the scientific approach to understanding people and societies, and they hold the power biases of those who are able to propagate such systems. […] Search engines, like other databases of information, are equally bounded, limited to providing only information based on what is indexed within the network. Who has access to provide information in the network certainly impacts whether information can be found and surfaced to anyone looking for it.” (Noble, 2018, p.137)

Searching for a more specific topic

Let us then explore further. Instead of just searching for the general topic refugees, you might also want to find literature about a specific facet of refugeehood. In this post, we will show you how you can develop an effective search string for a specific topic, for example: searching for literature about the experience of queer refugees.

Devising search term

The first step toward developing an effective search string is devising search terms. Scholarly sources use various terms to refer to the same topic, so you want to make sure that your search query includes multiple variations of search terms:

Queer	Lgbtq, gay, lgbt, lesbian, homosexual, transgender, bisexual (not a comprehensive list of all queer identities).
Refugees	Asylum seekers, exiled, displaced.

2. Combining search terms

The next step is to combine search terms into a search string using the Boolean operators, AND, OR, and NOT. Using AND will narrow your search (both elements must be included), OR will expand your search (either element may be included), and NOT will exclude certain terms from your search results.

The combination of our search terms would look like this:

(queer OR lgbtq OR gay OR lgbt OR lesbian OR homosexual OR transgender) AND (refugees OR asylum seekers OR exiled OR displaced)

3. Searching

You can perform this search using your search string in various databases.

In the library database CataloguePlus, your search string will look like this:

(queer* OR lgbtq OR gay* OR lgbt OR lesbian* OR homosexual* OR transgender* OR bisexual*) AND (refugee* OR asylum* OR “asylum seekers” OR exile* OR displace*)

The asterisk symbol (*) retrieves word-ending variation (displace, displaced, displacement). Using quotation marks “…” allows you to search for exact phrases (“asylum seekers”).

Now click Advanced Search, as we want to search only in the title and subject fields. If you wish to search only for a specific kind of publication (articles, books, theses, etc.), you can select it by scrolling Material type on the right-hand side of the Advanced search screen.

Screenshot of Advance Search in Catalogue+

You can also perform this search in a broader scientific database, such as the Web of Science. To search, you can use the ‘Basic Search’ and type the search string in the search box. As in CataloguePlus, you can get more relevant results by searching only in the title, abstract, and subject heading. In the Web of Science database, these fields all fall under one search field: Topic.

You can further refine the results by limiting them to peer-reviewed only or using any other filter or sorting options available on the left-hand side of the screen.

If you have any questions regarding the search, please email Information Specialists Rika Theo (r.rika@uva.nl) and Femke Reniers (f.reniers@uva.nl).

Reading List

Finally, we selected various literature and other sources that tell and illustrate refugeehood.

Academic literature

Nonfiction

Fiction

Poetry

Films

And others

Curated literature by Critical Refugee Studies: Bibliography | Resources | Critical Refugee Studies Collective
Journal of Refugee Studies