DI Analysts Bring Comparative Perspectives on Forced Displacement to American University

A five-speaker presentation connected research and lived experience from different regions to central concepts in comparative politics.

By Staff Writer

WASHINGTON, D.C., September 17, 2026 — Displaced International (DI) research and advocacy analysts joined more than 40 students in a Comparative Politics class at American University’s Department of Government for a virtual presentation examining forced displacement and migration across different regional and political contexts.

Ambassador Ashraf Haidari, DI’s president and founder and the professor teaching the course, opened the session by connecting the presentations to the first three chapters of the students’ comparative-politics curriculum. Eleez Omar coordinated and moderated the presentation, which featured research and analysis by Ameera Saba, Omar, Luisa Sinisterra, Joshua Marsh, and Donya Sultani.

Professor Haidari explained that comparative politics helps students move beyond describing events and ask why similar pressures produce different outcomes. Forced displacement is particularly useful for comparison because people may face conflict, political repression, ethnic exclusion, climate change, or economic insecurity, while the scale and consequences of their displacement vary widely.

He also connected the presentations to the course’s examination of the state, sovereignty, capacity, and legitimacy. States are expected to protect their populations and provide security and essential services. Forced displacement can reveal where states are weak, absent, discriminatory, or themselves responsible for violence.

Conflict or a climate-related hazard does not produce the same outcome everywhere. State capacity, public institutions, political leadership, and access to protection can determine whether people remain safely at home, cross an international border, or remain displaced for years.

Professor Haidari further noted that nationalism, ethnicity, ideology, and political culture can strengthen belonging but can also contribute to exclusion, discrimination, and ethnic conflict. These forces influence who receives protection, how refugees and migrants are portrayed, and whether displaced people are accepted and able to rebuild their lives.

He asked students to consider three comparative questions as they listened:

“What directly triggered displacement? What deeper political or social conditions made it worse? Why did institutions and communities respond differently across cases?”

Climate Pressures and Unequal Mobility

Ameera Saba opened the analysts’ presentations by discussing climate displacement and forced migration. She compared wildfires in Chile with flooding, mudslides, and other environmental hazards across the Himalayan region, including flooding affecting Nepal and Tibet.

Saba emphasized the responsibilities of governments in responding to climate-related emergencies. She called for a shift from reactive responses toward prevention, greater international cooperation, stronger policy, and more public advocacy. Her presentation drew on research she co-authored on climate disasters and displacement in the Himalayan region.

Omar continued the climate discussion by examining climate change, displacement, and human mobility in South Asia. She explained how climate pressures can undermine agriculture, employment, and economic security, including in Sri Lanka’s tea-dependent communities.

Her presentation also considered how geography influences both vulnerability and mobility. In the Maldives, limited land constrains options for internal relocation. Across the Himalayas, glaciers, floods, landslides, and environmental degradation place communities and livelihoods at risk.

Omar stressed that displacement can involve more than the loss of homes and infrastructure. Communities may also lose livelihoods, cultural identity, social cohesion, and their connection to place. Drawing on her report, “Brewing Change: Climate Displacement in Sri Lanka’s Tea Highlands,” she called for stronger adaptation, disaster preparedness, climate financing, and regional cooperation.

As Professor Haidari noted in his opening remarks, climate change connects questions of the state, institutions, nations, and society. Environmental hazards become political crises when they interact with weak institutions, inequality, vulnerable livelihoods, and limited government capacity.

Advocacy, Political Narratives, and Local Capacity

Luisa Sinisterra presented DI’s work on migration advocacy and strategic communications in Colombia, Latin America, and the Rohingya context.

She discussed DI’s partnership with Fundación Alianzas Solidarias, including her role in leading communications, drafting the memorandum of understanding, and coordinating DI’s first international NGO partnership in the region.

Sinisterra highlighted three conclusions from this work. First, displacement in Colombia is largely internal and interregional rather than exclusively cross-border. Second, gender significantly shapes the risks and experiences of displacement. Third, strengthening organizations that already have community trust and relationships can be more sustainable than relying only on outside assistance.

“Durable solutions to displacement come from centering the displaced population’s specific identity and context, not applying a one-size-fits-all.” — Luisa Sinisterra

Sinisterra also discussed her work supporting DI’s ninth Rohingya Genocide Remembrance Day webinar. She explained that protracted statelessness limits conventional pathways to citizenship and local integration, increasing the importance of international recognition, legal advocacy, remembrance, and sustained attention.

Joshua Marsh examined the politicization of displacement and the role of cultural resilience. His presentation considered Ukrainian displacement through the lens of Hungarian domestic politics and emphasized the importance of sustained, long-term refugee support.

Marsh also discussed food insecurity, economic opportunity, and gender-based violence in Ukraine; civic participation and historical justice in Colombia; and historical displacement and cultural resilience among the Circassian diaspora in Türkiye.

Together, the cases connected displacement to domestic politics, political representation, historical memory, cultural identity, and the ways refugees are portrayed in public debate.

Rebuilding After Displacement

Donya Sultani shifted the discussion to Afghan women, refugee integration, and self-reliance in the United States.

Drawing on research and lived experience, Sultani described barriers involving English-language access, missing or unrecognized educational documents, the cost of higher education, employment, housing, childcare, transportation, and unfamiliar legal and social systems.

She called for legal processes that are easier to understand and for stronger practical support in English-language learning, education, employment, childcare, transportation, and daily life. Such assistance, she explained, can help Afghan women connect with their communities, become more independent, and rebuild their lives.

Her presentation reflected themes explored in DI’s feature, “Displaced, but Not Defeated: Five Years of Afghan Women Rebuilding in the United States.”

“Afghan women may have left their homes, but they did not leave their hope behind.” — Donya Sultani

Comparative Lessons Across the Presentations

In her comparative synthesis, Omar identified several themes connecting the presentations.

First, displacement is multidimensional. It is shaped not only by physical movement but also by climate, conflict, politics, economics, and historical trauma. Its effects extend to livelihoods, political participation, cultural identity, and access to rights.

Second, context shapes the response. Geography, legal status, political conditions, and local capacity determine which forms of advocacy and assistance are possible. There is no single model for responding to every displacement crisis.

Third, voice and representation matter. Advocacy, journalism, partnerships, and remembrance can help displaced communities remain visible and participate in the political and social processes affecting their lives.

“Displaced people shouldn’t only be viewed as recipients of assistance. They are also political actors, community members, and people with their own knowledge and agency.” — Eleez Omar

The presentations concluded with a comparative discussion and questions from students. Professor Haidari returned the cases to the concepts covered in the course, including state capacity, legitimacy, identity, political culture, institutions, and the different outcomes produced by similar pressures.

The session also reflected DI’s central principle: displaced people should be recognized as knowledgeable political actors whose research, lived experience, and recommendations deserve policymakers’ attention.