Obituary: Barbara Harrell-Bond

Extract

Barbara Harrell-Bond died in July 2018, coincidentally almost exactly 30 years after the first issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies was published in spring 1988.

In so many ways the genesis and ultimate success of JRS was a microcosm of Barbara’s personality, her mission, and also those pioneering early years in which she founded the Refugee Studies Centre.

The late 1980s were not a good time to start a new journal. A then obscure subject with a limited market was hardly an attractive proposition to a publisher. Moreover, university libraries were an easy target for the first phases of what is now the norm of endless financial retrenchment – journals, which require open-ended subscription, were particularly vulnerable. Oxford University Press were unwilling to accept her proposal for a refugee studies books series – her then preferred option - but did show interest in a journal. As we know, Barbara never turned down an opportunity that fitted her strategic vision for the field of studies and the Centre. With her usual tenacity, irrepressible energy and unwavering conviction in what she was doing she convinced the then head of the journals division of Oxford University Press in 1986 to commence publication of JRS. Two years later JRS appeared. I was entrusted by Barbara to be the founding editor, another risk for a new journal as my own association with the field of refugee studies, at that time, barely extended beyond five years.