Photos taken by muslim IDP's in Sri Lanka. Photo: CMRD/AidAccount project, PRIO
Photos taken by muslim IDP's in Sri Lanka. Photo: CMRD/AidAccount project, PRIO

This event is part of the AidAccount conference. Please read more about it here.

What do memories of protracted displacement look like through photos where people tell their own stories?

The Holding Aid Accountable: Relational Humanitarianism in Protracted Crisis (AidAccount) project enabled displaced individuals to articulate their encounters with violence, involuntary migration, and aid through visual storytelling.

Researchers from the Centre for Migration Research and Development (CMRD), the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS) worked with 45 Muslim Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), with a range of displacement, resettlement and/or local integration experiences, who were forcibly evicted from Northern Sri Lanka in 1990, currently residing in three locations.

The study of the visually impactful images captured by IDPs themselves, along with their accounts of the violent incident, unraveled the intricacies of long-term displacement, its material, social, cultural and political meanings – and the diverse roles of aid and aid actors therein. The exhibition will include 50 photographs accompanied by short texts describing why these photos were taken by the participants in the study.

Program

16:30 Welcome and introduction by Dr. Danesh Jayatilaka, Chairman of the Centre for Migration Research and Development and Dr. Mohideen Mohamed Alikhan, Senior Lecturer, University of Peradeniya

16:50 Exhibition viewing

17:30 Panel discussion with Dr. Danesh Jayatilaka, Dr. Mohideen Mohamed Alikhan, and Cathrine Brun, Professor and Deputy Director of the Center for Lebanese Studies. The conversation will be moderated by Marta Bivand Erdal, Research Professor at PRIO.

18:30 End