Violence, vulnerability and protection on the move: interrogating the intersection of scholarship and practice on displacement

Abstract

Reflections from scholars and practitioners on violence and extreme vulnerability linked to forced displacement in humanitarian contexts has inspired this article. It challenges conventional perspectives on displacement, interrogating impacts against a shifting geopolitical and humanitarian landscape. Informed by critical feminist pedagogies, particularly those grounded in Global South approaches and combining collaborative and critical modes of engagement, we draw on insights from a workshop at the Australian National University. This workshop served as a co-creative space to test disciplinary boundaries and connect conceptual frameworks with real world engagements. We reflect on relationships to place, and on opportunities to bridge theory and praxis, connect diverse forms of expertise, and share responsibilities across disciplines, specialisations, vocations, and contexts. In a time marked by sharpening displacement pressures, severe funding restrictions, and the erosion of humanitarian norms, reimagining collective visions to protect people from extreme vulnerability is urgent and necessary. We argue that bridging the divide between academia and practice requires thoughtful engagement from different vantage points, and openness to varied ways of knowing. Collaboration is not linear but iterative, sometimes fragmented, grounded in intergenerational learning, and unlearning. It requires recognising vulnerability as political and relational, and committing to responses that uphold dignity, agency, and justice.