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EPISODE · Nov 25, 2025 · 59 MIN

How Refugees Transform Cities

from Spare a Thought · host Be the change. Media Network and Tom Spare

In today's episode, Tom interviews Karen Jacobsen, the Henry J. Leir Professor of Global Migration at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University to discuss how refugees transform the cities in which they are hosted in. Karen discusses how she progressed a career in forced migration, the history of refugees, how city governments often diverge from national governments and the role of policy in shaping the treatment of refugees. Tom and Karen also discuss her new book Host Cities - how refugees are transforming the world's urban setting. The book uses Cairo and Tripoli, Lebanon as case studies. You can purchase Karen's book from: Yale University Press https://yalebooks.co.uk/book/9780300254693/host-cities/ Amazon UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/Host-Cities-Refugees-Transforming-Settings/dp/0300254695 TG Jones https://www.tgjonesonline.co.uk/Product/Karen-Jacobsen/Host-Cities--How-Refugees-Are-Transforming-the-Worlds-Urban-Settings/15685618 You can follow Tom’s work via his Substack: https://tomspare.substack.com/ Keep up to date with Spare a Thought via Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spareathoughtmedia/ You can listen to all previous episodes of the show wherever you get your podcasts or head to https://spareathought.podbean.com/ Spare a Thought is a Be the change. Media Network production.

Episode metadata supplied by the publisher feed · Published Nov 25, 2025

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Tom interviews Karen Jacobsen, the Henry J. Leir Professor of Global Migration at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts University to discuss how refugees transform the cities in which they are hosted in.

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How Refugees Transform Cities

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