Mapping Refugee Protection and Human Rights Scholarship: A Bibliometric Review

Abstract

The increasing complexity of forced displacement has intensified scholarly attention on the intersection between refugee protection and human rights, yet the field remains conceptually fragmented and insufficiently mapped. This study aims to analyze the intellectual structure, thematic evolution, and research intensity of scholarship on refugee protection and human rights using a bibliometric approach. Data were retrieved from the OpenAlex database, comprising approximately 400 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2000 and 2024, and analyzed using VOSviewer. A triangulated analytical framework integrating co-occurrence, overlay, and density visualizations was employed to provide a multidimensional understanding of the field. The findings indicate that refugee protection scholarship remains strongly anchored in a legal-human rights paradigm, with core concepts such as law, human rights, refugees, and protection forming the central intellectual structure. At the same time, the field is evolving toward more interdisciplinary perspectives, including climate change, geopolitics, and migration governance. The analysis also reveals an uneven distribution of research attention, with strong concentration on normative legal frameworks and persistent gaps in intersectional and context-specific studies. Importantly, the study identifies a conceptual limitation in the fragmented understanding of “protection,” which constrains theoretical integration. This study contributes by providing a systematic mapping of the field and highlighting the need for a more integrative framework of refugee protection.