Report by the Humanitarian Innovation Project at Oxford, entitled ‘Refugee Innovation: Humanitarian innovation that starts with communities’ was launched in 2015 at the Humanitarian Innovation Conference. Co-authored by Alexander Betts, Louise Bloom, and Nina Weaver, the report discusses the ways in which crisis-affected people such as refugees find ways to engage in creative problem-solving, under the most challenging constraints. The report is available here. Page 41 includes a description of refuges in Dallas, together with a reproduction of my Edible Map of Dallas.
On the website, OXHIP writes “Refugees, displaced persons, and others caught in crisis often have skills, talents, and aspirations that they draw upon to adapt to difficult circumstances. Although ‘humanitarian innovation’ has been increasingly embraced by the humanitarian world, this kind of ‘bottom-up’ innovation by crisis-affected communities is often neglected in favour of a sector-wide focus on improving the effectiveness of organisational response to crisis. This oversight disregards the capabilities and adaptive resourcefulness that people and communities affected by conflict and disaster often demonstrate. This report focuses on examples and case studies of ‘bottom-up innovation’ among different refugee populations. Whether in the immediate aftermath of displacement or in long-term protracted situations, in both urban and rural areas, refugees frequently engage in innovation.”