The Chaos of Forced Migration: a Means of Modeling Complexity for Humanitarian Ends

The challenge in early warning of displacement crises comes not in predicting individual behavior, but in predicting the collective behavior of thousands of people fleeing from violence, oppression, and disaster, while each retains individual autonomy and social identity. This book is intended to reorient understanding of displacement with the complexity that characterizes real-world episodes of forced migration. In doing so, it details an important step towards using computational models as a tool in addressing the devastating consequences of displacement. Armed with such forcecasting models of flight, we may find great benefit for the world's most vulnerable people. Observing displacement crises in the news gives the impression of Chaos--of the breakdown of order and recognizable patterns that frame our interaction with the world. In fact, Chaos is not what we witness, but rather the word is our way of describing the awful truth that governs the lives of so many. In fact, the Chaos we witness is ordered and predictable. And anything that may be predicted may be prevented.