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Anita H . Fabos

Clark University, Sustainability and Social Justice, Faculty Member

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Anita Fábos is an anthropologist who has conducted research and outreach among refugees and other forced migrants in urban settings in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Her scholarship and practice pursues a number of interconnected themes in the area of forced migration and refugee studies: how people make and transform ethnic and racial boundaries and boundary markers, people’s experiences of displacement and challenges to gender norms, historical shifts in citizenship and nationality laws, methods and ethics of research with hidden, vulnerable and mobile populations, transcultural social networks, and refugee narratives and representations. Starting with a lengthy period of action research, NGO activism and outreach in Cairo, Fábos’ research and writing has followed the movements of Muslim Arab Sudanese—her main research participants--from their place of first exile in Egypt, to asylum in Europe and North America, and towards the formation of a diaspora straddling Islamic ‘space’ (countries in which Islam is the religion of the state) and the ‘asylum space’ of countries of resettlement in Europe and North America.

As the Director of the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies program at the American University in Cairo, and later Programme Coordinator for the graduate program in Refugee Studies at the University of East London, Fábos has been involved in developing integrated teaching, research, and outreach programs that have incorporated refugee and forced migrant perspectives into collaborative work with scholars, practitioners, refugee organizations, policy makers, and international organizations. At Clark University, students in her classes have carried out community-based projects that have investigated refugee participation in community development initiatives, refugee access to higher education, and refugee livelihoods in Worcester.

Fábos is currently conducting ethnographic research on the transnational strategies of women and men in the Muslim Arab Sudanese diaspora to promote ‘family values’ and negotiate a Sudanese diasporic identity, particularly in the context of global Islam. Other projects include an edited collection on the relevance of a ‘spiritual geography’ of Islam on forced migration within the Muslim world in a time of intensifying discourse of ‘security’; a special issue of Home Cultures that interrogates ‘home-making’ in protracted refugee situations; and an exploration of wedding singers and the performance of Sudanese music in the Muslim Arab Sudanese diaspora.
Phone: +1-508-421-3826
Address: Department of International Development, Community, and Environment
Clark University
950 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01610

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Books by Anita H . Fabos

5 HOME-KEEPING IN LONG- TERM DISPLACEMENT 1

Adger et al 2020 Sustainability and the migrant experience in the COVID 19 crisis T2S

By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on... more By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on nj ja a F Fr ra an ns se en n, , D Do om mi in ni iq qu ue e J Jo ol li iv ve et t, , A An ni it ta a F Fa ab bo os s, , M Ma ar ri ia a F Fr ra an nc co o G Ga av vo on ne el l and C Ca ar ro ol li in ne e Z Zi ic ck kg gr ra af f.

Managing Muslim Mobilities: Between spiritual geographies and the global security regime

This volume addresses forced migration and mobility in the Muslim world. It explores the tensions... more This volume addresses forced migration and mobility in the Muslim world. It explores the tensions between Muslim religious conceptions of space and place and new policies of "migration management" and secure borders. People from Muslim territories make up the majority of the world's forced movers today, but are increasingly barred from traditional routes and pathways to safety. Managing Muslim Mobilities analyzes how states in the region call on Islamic ideas of welcome, sanctuary and protection while establishing policies to prevent movement and citizenship. The volume embraces a "mobilities" perspective to critique policy assumptions about international borders and to highlight the relationship between people and places. All long-time observers of the region, the contributors draw upon original and empirically grounded research to analyze population mobility for Palestinians, Iraqis, Sudanese, Afghans, Albanians, Turks, and others, and migration management policies in Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and the Gulf states, as well as Muslim migration to Germany and the US.

'Brothers' or Others? Propriety and Gender for Muslim Arab Sudanese in Egypt

Muslim Arab Sudanese in Cairo have played a fundamental role in Egyptian history and society duri... more Muslim Arab Sudanese in Cairo have played a fundamental role in Egyptian history and society during many centuries of close relations between Egypt and Sudan. Although the government and official press describes them as "brothers" in a united Nile Valley, recent political developments in Egypt have underscored the precarious legal status of Sudanese in Cairo. Neither citizens nor foreigners, they are in an uncertain position, created in part through an unusual ethnic discourse which does not draw principally on obvious characteristics of difference. This rich ethnographic study shows instead that Sudanese ethnic identity is created from deeply held social values, especially those concerning gender and propriety, shared by Sudanese and Egyptian communities. The resulting ethnic identity is ambiguous and flexible, allowing Sudanese to voice their frustrations and make claims for their own uniqueness while acknowledging the identity that they share with the dominant Egyptian community.

Journal Articles by Anita H . Fabos

At home in the field, in the field at home? Reflections on power and fieldwork in familiar settings

Qualitative Research, 2023

Critical epistemologies and methodologies have over time challenged the static and mono-dimension... more Critical epistemologies and methodologies have over time challenged the static and mono-dimensional approaches to fieldwork, allowing researchers to contemplate and conduct their research in spaces of in-betweenness. Despite this important shift, the essentialist idea that both 'the field' and 'home' in a fieldwork setting must be actual places persists. In this article, we challenge the conceptualization and operationalization of 'home' not only as the juxtaposition to 'the field', but also as the embodiment of a place in a specific temporality. We argue that the postulation of 'home' as a constant disregards the non-predetermined and unpredictable nature of fieldwork relationships that are often complicated by implicit and explicit power dynamics, especially in places researchers identify as 'home'. We demonstrate that unequal power relations, especially (1) between the Global North and Global South, (2) between majority and minoritized groups, (3) among genders, and (4) between elites and non-elites, require us to envisage 'the field' and 'home' in relative terms. We propose the reconceptualization of fieldwork place as a hybridized space that conjoins 'the field' and 'home' as 'field-home', particularly at a time when research mobility is restricted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, we extend the literature on issues related to power, positionality and reflexivity in qualitative research, and provide practical insights for those preparing for fieldwork.

The migration-sustainability paradox: transformations in mobile worlds

by Anita H . Fabos, Maria Franco Gavonel, and Edward Carr

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2021

This review comes from a themed issue on Transformations to sustainability: critical social scien... more

Moving Stories: Methodological Challenges to Mapping Narratives and Networks of People in Diasporas

Journal of Refugee Studies, 2021

Narrative work with people displaced by conflict, and the methods we use to elicit and interpret ... more Narrative work with people displaced by conflict, and the methods we use to elicit and interpret their stories, offers the possibility to examine a common set of assumptions about place, movement and voice. Forced migration narrative inquiry has always focussed upon people's movement, but storylines have a strong tendency to resolve this movement through the narrator's return to settled, bordered life. Our 'moving stories' proposal builds on a narrative turn that features the mobile experiences of people whose association with settled life has been redefined through forced displacement. We present examples of diaspora storytelling that suggest how we might shift our lens to recognise circumstances where people's movement is a key feature of the narrative frame, rather than a temporary condition or problem to be solved. By doing so, we allow ourselves to better see the stories that emerge through and because of mobile strategies and connections.

When Consensus Falters, We Co-create: Attending to Power in a Practitioner/Scholar Partnership to Amplify Newcomer Belonging

Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 2021

This article interrogates the politics of belonging in scholar-practitioner collaborations by ana... more This article interrogates the politics of belonging in scholar-practitioner collaborations by analysing and reflecting upon a group project that advocated for a more equitable approach to newcomer belonging and integration in an urban setting in the United States. The structure of our collaboration revealed unaddressed and unspoken dynamics that collectively reinforced boundaries and hierarchies in our group, despite a level of intentionality around democratic praxis among the community-engaged scholars who initially brought participants together. The article asks: How can we work towards a notion of belonging if we haven't worked out an equitable approach within our own group where everyone, including newcomers, feels like they belong? The article relies on a methodology of critical reflexive dialogue between the four co-authors-two scholars and two practitioners-to analyse and reflect on the ways that power imbalances are bound up in questions of belonging and representation.

A refugee-centred perspective

Forced Migration Review, 2019

Part of Barbara Harrell-Bond’s legacy is the example she set of a refugee-centred approach to for... more

Commentary- Migration transforms the conditions for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

The Lancet Planetary Health, 2019

By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on... more By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on nj ja a F Fr ra an ns se en n, , D Do om mi in ni iq qu ue e J Jo ol li iv ve et t, , A An ni it ta a F Fa ab bo os s, , M Ma ar ri ia a F Fr ra an nc co o G Ga av vo on ne el l and C Ca ar ro ol li in ne e Z Zi ic ck kg gr ra af f.

Glier et al 2020 Understanding stakeholder positionalities and relationships to reimagine asylum at the US Mexico border

Human Geography, 2020

This paper draws on observational research conducted in McAllen, Texas, during the summer of 2019... more This paper draws on observational research conducted in McAllen, Texas, during the summer of 2019, of three major stakeholder groups involved in asylum management: Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center (HRC); federal government agencies; and the McAllen community. Each group holds a unique, pluralistic perspective on migration, informing intra-group relations and exposing uneven power dynamics between them. Our analysis is contextualized by a local voice, a former long-term volunteer at the HRC, who speaks of the evolution of the McAllen border in her lifetime, as well as federal authority over McAllen and the HRC to process asylees. We dissect how this power dynamic produces a highly violent, detention-dominant immigration landscape in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), antithetical to the practiced intersectional culture of voces locales. We reimagine how the US responds to asylum seekers by offering a community action-based framework, where these pluralistic perspectives are equitably valued. Based on interactions and conversations had with each group, we advocate a paradigm shift reflective of La Frontera’s (The Border’s) intersectional identity. This can be achieved by prioritizing voces locales and building capacity for the humanitarian sector, which is already doing critical work at the southern border. We look to contemporary movements like “Defund the Police” as examples, where divesting from the status-quo system of oppression can nurture reparative justice and empowerment to the RGV. In reimagining a more adaptive, asylum justice-oriented paradigm shift, we also recognize the need to abandon the government-controlled deterrence paradigm, which repeatedly causes tremendous harm.

Witnessing and Disrupting: The Ethics of Working with Testimony for Refugee

Testimonies of refugees and other forced migrants have helped stimulate and shape 10 social chang... more Testimonies of refugees and other forced migrants have helped stimulate and shape 10 social change, and have on occasion been an effective tool for policy change and social transformation. But while advocacy on behalf of forcibly displaced people often demonstrates the best of intentions, many human rights advocates grapple unsuccessfully with the power differentials at all stages of the process. Using techniques derived from drama and experiential learning, the authors of this note learned 15 to recognize narrative strategies and ethical dilemmas inherent in sharing, choosing, and representing the difficult subject matter produced by many refugees and forced migrants. By developing an embodied understanding of power relations, advocates struggling with the ethics of representation of refugee and forced migrant narratives can identify strategies for producing alternative narrative frames. Drawing from the 20 results of a series of workshops provided to a mixed group of refugee service professionals , community leaders, journalists, artists, and academics, this note reflects upon our use of these practices as a way to encourage empathetic listening and develop strategies of narrative disruption for refugee advocacy.

Mobilizing Home for Long-Term Displacement: A Critical Reflection on the Durable Solutions

With long term displacement becoming the 'new normal', the three 'durable solutions' of local int... more With long term displacement becoming the 'new normal', the three 'durable solutions' of local integration, resettlement, and return are increasingly unsuitable for offering social, economic and cultural means for refugees to rebuild their lives and livelihoods. This article retreads some common observations and critiques of the durable solutions, while attempting to find a new vocabulary to help address the conundrum of a refugee protection model that tries to integrate rights and needs. There have been other attempts to revise the durable solutions, introduce new solutions—often acknowledging refugee mobility, or revert to informality as an alternative. However, such attempts have not sufficiently taken into account the extent of what refugees do. The consequences are an 'integration lite' where people may be able to survive, but their refugee status is not ended, nor is their refugee predicament closer to being addressed. The article suggests a new framework—constellations of home—that can be a significant bridging tool for the gap between rights and needs and that incorporates the static and ahistorical notion of the durable solutions as well as the mobile strategies of refugees in long-term displacement.

Displaced Citizens and Abject Living: The categorical discomfort with subjects out of place

The authors argue that the political exclusion of displaced people living within states under a v... more The authors argue that the political exclusion of displaced people living within states under a variety of humanitarian and policy categories is simultaneously constitutive of mainstream political belonging and social belonging for those excluded. Based on long-term research engagement with displacement in Georgia, Jordan and Sudan, they analyse situations in which an initial crisis-based humanitarian status has become protracted, and in which people have been labelled both forced migrants and citizens, giving rise to tensions with the mainstream but also creating social identities that foster belonging from experiences of exclusion. By analysing these processes as abjection – forms of state control and boundary-making that exclude members from what requires their inclusion – they show that a type of ambiguous citizenship emerges from protracted situations of displacement. People 'out of place' but within a state exclude themselves from full citizenship rights by nurturing an alternative status derived from their experiences with displacement regimes. When established and enduring for a lengthy period, such displacement statuses become social categories and identities through processes of abjection. The authors conclude that citizenship itself becomes ambiguous through norms of belonging, the formation of new social categories, and because forced migrants help to constitute the political.

Urban Refugees: Introduction

by Anita H . Fabos and Gaim Kibreab

Refuge: Canada's periodical on refugees, 2007

Resisting ‘Blackness’, Embracing Rightness: How Muslim Arab Sudanese Women Negotiate Cultural Space in the Diaspora

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Feb 2012

This article considers how a Muslim cultural discourse of ‘propriety’ has influenced Muslim Arab ... more This article considers how a Muslim cultural discourse of ‘propriety’ has influenced Muslim Arab Sudanese ethnic identity in two locations and time periods in an expanding diaspora. Focusing in particular on women and their embodied practices of whitening and propriety in Egypt in the nineties and the United Kingdom a decade later, I argue that the recent turn towards Muslim expressions of Sudaneseness is a form of resistance to racial labelling. While Sudanese have rejected being labelled ‘black’ in Egypt and in the UK, their renegotiation of a Muslim religious identity in the diaspora nevertheless confirms a racialized Sudanese ethnicity. This study contributes to the rethinking of ethnicity in a transnational space where ethnic nationalism and globalized Islamic discourse intersect with local histories and hierarchies of race and gender.

Refugees in Urban Settings of the Global South: Introduction to Special Issue

Refuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees, 2007

Refugees in the Arab Middle East: Academic and Policy Perspectives

The field of Refugee Studies is relatively unfamiliar to Middle East area specialists despite the... more The field of Refugee Studies is relatively unfamiliar to Middle East area specialists despite the significance of refugees in the region. The strong policy orientation of much of the work in the field has often shaped the way refugee issues are framed by scholars as well as practitioners. Concerns and discourses about refugee-producing regions in general, and the Arab Middle East in particular, have tended to reflect Western notions of belonging, citizenship, and the state; and in recent years, have been seen through a lens of securitization in the region. This article addresses the development of the field, the subject of displacement and dispossession in the Arab Middle East from a Western perspective, the significant role that Arab cities play as sites for hosting refugees, and the challenges presented by the continued existence of Palestinian refugees.

Making Homes in Limbo? A Conceptual Framework

by Cathrine Brun and Anita H . Fabos

This article aims to conceptualize home and homemaking for people in protracted displacement. The... more This article aims to conceptualize home and homemaking for people in protracted displacement. The article serves three purposes: to present an overview of the area of inquiry; to develop an analytical framework for under- standing home and homemaking for forced migrants in protracted displacement; and to introduce the special issue . It explores how protracted displacement has been defined—from policy definitions to people’s experiences of protractedness, including “waiting” and “the permanence of temporariness .” The article identifies the ambivalence embedded in experiences and practices of homemaking in long-term displacement, demonstrating how static notions of home and displacement might be unsettled . It achieves this through examining relationships between mobility and stasis, the material and symbolic, between the past, present, and future, and multiple places and scales . The article proposes a conceptual framework—a triadic con- stellation of home—that enables an analysis of home in different contexts of protracted displacement . The frame- work helps to explore home both as an idea and a practice, distinguishing among three elements: “home” as the day- to-day practices of homemaking, “Home” as representing values, traditions, memories, and feelings of home, and the broader political and historical contexts in which “HOME” is understood in the current global order and embedded in institutions . In conclusion, the article argues that a feminist and dynamic understanding of home-Home-HOME provides a more holistic perspective of making home in protracted displacement that promotes a more extensive and more sophisticated academic work, policies, and practices .

Microbuses and Mobile Homemaking in Exile: Sudanese Visiting Strategies in Cairo

Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain net- works is an established cultural patte... more Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain net- works is an established cultural pattern in Arab countries . Northern Sudanese displaced in Cairo in the 1990s made significant efforts to continue visiting each other in their temporary homes, despite having to travel long distances to members of their widely scattered networks . The deteriora- tion of the legal and political status of Sudanese living in Egypt during the 1990s contributed to longer-term uncer- tainty for those who sought safety and security in Cairo . In this article, I argue that this long-term uncertainty consti- tutes a protracted refugee situation, and that Sudanese vis- iting practices constituted a mobile homemaking strategy that actively contributed to the negotiation of a complex ethnic identity in their protracted exile . Ranging across space and connecting people through experiences and val- ues of Sudanese “homeyness,” visiting during these fraught years connected individuals and networks into constella- tions that recreated familiar patterns of homemaking but also encouraged new meanings granted to homeland and belonging . Woven through the more familiar relationship between “ home” and “away” were the policy positions about urban refugees taken by the Egyptian government, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, International Organization for Migration, and other humanitarian aid and resettlement agencies, which produced a state-centred view of “home” for Sudanese .

5 HOME-KEEPING IN LONG- TERM DISPLACEMENT 1

Adger et al 2020 Sustainability and the migrant experience in the COVID 19 crisis T2S

By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on... more By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on nj ja a F Fr ra an ns se en n, , D Do om mi in ni iq qu ue e J Jo ol li iv ve et t, , A An ni it ta a F Fa ab bo os s, , M Ma ar ri ia a F Fr ra an nc co o G Ga av vo on ne el l and C Ca ar ro ol li in ne e Z Zi ic ck kg gr ra af f.

Managing Muslim Mobilities: Between spiritual geographies and the global security regime

This volume addresses forced migration and mobility in the Muslim world. It explores the tensions... more This volume addresses forced migration and mobility in the Muslim world. It explores the tensions between Muslim religious conceptions of space and place and new policies of "migration management" and secure borders. People from Muslim territories make up the majority of the world's forced movers today, but are increasingly barred from traditional routes and pathways to safety. Managing Muslim Mobilities analyzes how states in the region call on Islamic ideas of welcome, sanctuary and protection while establishing policies to prevent movement and citizenship. The volume embraces a "mobilities" perspective to critique policy assumptions about international borders and to highlight the relationship between people and places. All long-time observers of the region, the contributors draw upon original and empirically grounded research to analyze population mobility for Palestinians, Iraqis, Sudanese, Afghans, Albanians, Turks, and others, and migration management policies in Jordan, Iran, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and the Gulf states, as well as Muslim migration to Germany and the US.

'Brothers' or Others? Propriety and Gender for Muslim Arab Sudanese in Egypt

Muslim Arab Sudanese in Cairo have played a fundamental role in Egyptian history and society duri... more Muslim Arab Sudanese in Cairo have played a fundamental role in Egyptian history and society during many centuries of close relations between Egypt and Sudan. Although the government and official press describes them as "brothers" in a united Nile Valley, recent political developments in Egypt have underscored the precarious legal status of Sudanese in Cairo. Neither citizens nor foreigners, they are in an uncertain position, created in part through an unusual ethnic discourse which does not draw principally on obvious characteristics of difference. This rich ethnographic study shows instead that Sudanese ethnic identity is created from deeply held social values, especially those concerning gender and propriety, shared by Sudanese and Egyptian communities. The resulting ethnic identity is ambiguous and flexible, allowing Sudanese to voice their frustrations and make claims for their own uniqueness while acknowledging the identity that they share with the dominant Egyptian community.

At home in the field, in the field at home? Reflections on power and fieldwork in familiar settings

Qualitative Research, 2023

Critical epistemologies and methodologies have over time challenged the static and mono-dimension... more Critical epistemologies and methodologies have over time challenged the static and mono-dimensional approaches to fieldwork, allowing researchers to contemplate and conduct their research in spaces of in-betweenness. Despite this important shift, the essentialist idea that both 'the field' and 'home' in a fieldwork setting must be actual places persists. In this article, we challenge the conceptualization and operationalization of 'home' not only as the juxtaposition to 'the field', but also as the embodiment of a place in a specific temporality. We argue that the postulation of 'home' as a constant disregards the non-predetermined and unpredictable nature of fieldwork relationships that are often complicated by implicit and explicit power dynamics, especially in places researchers identify as 'home'. We demonstrate that unequal power relations, especially (1) between the Global North and Global South, (2) between majority and minoritized groups, (3) among genders, and (4) between elites and non-elites, require us to envisage 'the field' and 'home' in relative terms. We propose the reconceptualization of fieldwork place as a hybridized space that conjoins 'the field' and 'home' as 'field-home', particularly at a time when research mobility is restricted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, we extend the literature on issues related to power, positionality and reflexivity in qualitative research, and provide practical insights for those preparing for fieldwork.

The migration-sustainability paradox: transformations in mobile worlds

by Anita H . Fabos, Maria Franco Gavonel, and Edward Carr

Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 2021

This review comes from a themed issue on Transformations to sustainability: critical social scien... more

Moving Stories: Methodological Challenges to Mapping Narratives and Networks of People in Diasporas

Journal of Refugee Studies, 2021

Narrative work with people displaced by conflict, and the methods we use to elicit and interpret ... more Narrative work with people displaced by conflict, and the methods we use to elicit and interpret their stories, offers the possibility to examine a common set of assumptions about place, movement and voice. Forced migration narrative inquiry has always focussed upon people's movement, but storylines have a strong tendency to resolve this movement through the narrator's return to settled, bordered life. Our 'moving stories' proposal builds on a narrative turn that features the mobile experiences of people whose association with settled life has been redefined through forced displacement. We present examples of diaspora storytelling that suggest how we might shift our lens to recognise circumstances where people's movement is a key feature of the narrative frame, rather than a temporary condition or problem to be solved. By doing so, we allow ourselves to better see the stories that emerge through and because of mobile strategies and connections.

When Consensus Falters, We Co-create: Attending to Power in a Practitioner/Scholar Partnership to Amplify Newcomer Belonging

Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 2021

This article interrogates the politics of belonging in scholar-practitioner collaborations by ana... more This article interrogates the politics of belonging in scholar-practitioner collaborations by analysing and reflecting upon a group project that advocated for a more equitable approach to newcomer belonging and integration in an urban setting in the United States. The structure of our collaboration revealed unaddressed and unspoken dynamics that collectively reinforced boundaries and hierarchies in our group, despite a level of intentionality around democratic praxis among the community-engaged scholars who initially brought participants together. The article asks: How can we work towards a notion of belonging if we haven't worked out an equitable approach within our own group where everyone, including newcomers, feels like they belong? The article relies on a methodology of critical reflexive dialogue between the four co-authors-two scholars and two practitioners-to analyse and reflect on the ways that power imbalances are bound up in questions of belonging and representation.

A refugee-centred perspective

Forced Migration Review, 2019

Part of Barbara Harrell-Bond’s legacy is the example she set of a refugee-centred approach to for... more

Commentary- Migration transforms the conditions for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals

The Lancet Planetary Health, 2019

By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on... more By N Ne ei il l A Ad dg ge er r, , E Em mi il ly y B Bo oy yd d, , E Ed d C Ca ar rr r, , S So on nj ja a F Fr ra an ns se en n, , D Do om mi in ni iq qu ue e J Jo ol li iv ve et t, , A An ni it ta a F Fa ab bo os s, , M Ma ar ri ia a F Fr ra an nc co o G Ga av vo on ne el l and C Ca ar ro ol li in ne e Z Zi ic ck kg gr ra af f.

Glier et al 2020 Understanding stakeholder positionalities and relationships to reimagine asylum at the US Mexico border

Human Geography, 2020

This paper draws on observational research conducted in McAllen, Texas, during the summer of 2019... more This paper draws on observational research conducted in McAllen, Texas, during the summer of 2019, of three major stakeholder groups involved in asylum management: Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center (HRC); federal government agencies; and the McAllen community. Each group holds a unique, pluralistic perspective on migration, informing intra-group relations and exposing uneven power dynamics between them. Our analysis is contextualized by a local voice, a former long-term volunteer at the HRC, who speaks of the evolution of the McAllen border in her lifetime, as well as federal authority over McAllen and the HRC to process asylees. We dissect how this power dynamic produces a highly violent, detention-dominant immigration landscape in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV), antithetical to the practiced intersectional culture of voces locales. We reimagine how the US responds to asylum seekers by offering a community action-based framework, where these pluralistic perspectives are equitably valued. Based on interactions and conversations had with each group, we advocate a paradigm shift reflective of La Frontera’s (The Border’s) intersectional identity. This can be achieved by prioritizing voces locales and building capacity for the humanitarian sector, which is already doing critical work at the southern border. We look to contemporary movements like “Defund the Police” as examples, where divesting from the status-quo system of oppression can nurture reparative justice and empowerment to the RGV. In reimagining a more adaptive, asylum justice-oriented paradigm shift, we also recognize the need to abandon the government-controlled deterrence paradigm, which repeatedly causes tremendous harm.

Witnessing and Disrupting: The Ethics of Working with Testimony for Refugee

Testimonies of refugees and other forced migrants have helped stimulate and shape 10 social chang... more Testimonies of refugees and other forced migrants have helped stimulate and shape 10 social change, and have on occasion been an effective tool for policy change and social transformation. But while advocacy on behalf of forcibly displaced people often demonstrates the best of intentions, many human rights advocates grapple unsuccessfully with the power differentials at all stages of the process. Using techniques derived from drama and experiential learning, the authors of this note learned 15 to recognize narrative strategies and ethical dilemmas inherent in sharing, choosing, and representing the difficult subject matter produced by many refugees and forced migrants. By developing an embodied understanding of power relations, advocates struggling with the ethics of representation of refugee and forced migrant narratives can identify strategies for producing alternative narrative frames. Drawing from the 20 results of a series of workshops provided to a mixed group of refugee service professionals , community leaders, journalists, artists, and academics, this note reflects upon our use of these practices as a way to encourage empathetic listening and develop strategies of narrative disruption for refugee advocacy.

Mobilizing Home for Long-Term Displacement: A Critical Reflection on the Durable Solutions

With long term displacement becoming the 'new normal', the three 'durable solutions' of local int... more With long term displacement becoming the 'new normal', the three 'durable solutions' of local integration, resettlement, and return are increasingly unsuitable for offering social, economic and cultural means for refugees to rebuild their lives and livelihoods. This article retreads some common observations and critiques of the durable solutions, while attempting to find a new vocabulary to help address the conundrum of a refugee protection model that tries to integrate rights and needs. There have been other attempts to revise the durable solutions, introduce new solutions—often acknowledging refugee mobility, or revert to informality as an alternative. However, such attempts have not sufficiently taken into account the extent of what refugees do. The consequences are an 'integration lite' where people may be able to survive, but their refugee status is not ended, nor is their refugee predicament closer to being addressed. The article suggests a new framework—constellations of home—that can be a significant bridging tool for the gap between rights and needs and that incorporates the static and ahistorical notion of the durable solutions as well as the mobile strategies of refugees in long-term displacement.

Displaced Citizens and Abject Living: The categorical discomfort with subjects out of place

The authors argue that the political exclusion of displaced people living within states under a v... more The authors argue that the political exclusion of displaced people living within states under a variety of humanitarian and policy categories is simultaneously constitutive of mainstream political belonging and social belonging for those excluded. Based on long-term research engagement with displacement in Georgia, Jordan and Sudan, they analyse situations in which an initial crisis-based humanitarian status has become protracted, and in which people have been labelled both forced migrants and citizens, giving rise to tensions with the mainstream but also creating social identities that foster belonging from experiences of exclusion. By analysing these processes as abjection – forms of state control and boundary-making that exclude members from what requires their inclusion – they show that a type of ambiguous citizenship emerges from protracted situations of displacement. People 'out of place' but within a state exclude themselves from full citizenship rights by nurturing an alternative status derived from their experiences with displacement regimes. When established and enduring for a lengthy period, such displacement statuses become social categories and identities through processes of abjection. The authors conclude that citizenship itself becomes ambiguous through norms of belonging, the formation of new social categories, and because forced migrants help to constitute the political.

Urban Refugees: Introduction

by Anita H . Fabos and Gaim Kibreab

Refuge: Canada's periodical on refugees, 2007

Resisting ‘Blackness’, Embracing Rightness: How Muslim Arab Sudanese Women Negotiate Cultural Space in the Diaspora

Ethnic and Racial Studies, Feb 2012

This article considers how a Muslim cultural discourse of ‘propriety’ has influenced Muslim Arab ... more This article considers how a Muslim cultural discourse of ‘propriety’ has influenced Muslim Arab Sudanese ethnic identity in two locations and time periods in an expanding diaspora. Focusing in particular on women and their embodied practices of whitening and propriety in Egypt in the nineties and the United Kingdom a decade later, I argue that the recent turn towards Muslim expressions of Sudaneseness is a form of resistance to racial labelling. While Sudanese have rejected being labelled ‘black’ in Egypt and in the UK, their renegotiation of a Muslim religious identity in the diaspora nevertheless confirms a racialized Sudanese ethnicity. This study contributes to the rethinking of ethnicity in a transnational space where ethnic nationalism and globalized Islamic discourse intersect with local histories and hierarchies of race and gender.

Refugees in Urban Settings of the Global South: Introduction to Special Issue

Refuge: Canada's Periodical on Refugees, 2007

Refugees in the Arab Middle East: Academic and Policy Perspectives

The field of Refugee Studies is relatively unfamiliar to Middle East area specialists despite the... more The field of Refugee Studies is relatively unfamiliar to Middle East area specialists despite the significance of refugees in the region. The strong policy orientation of much of the work in the field has often shaped the way refugee issues are framed by scholars as well as practitioners. Concerns and discourses about refugee-producing regions in general, and the Arab Middle East in particular, have tended to reflect Western notions of belonging, citizenship, and the state; and in recent years, have been seen through a lens of securitization in the region. This article addresses the development of the field, the subject of displacement and dispossession in the Arab Middle East from a Western perspective, the significant role that Arab cities play as sites for hosting refugees, and the challenges presented by the continued existence of Palestinian refugees.

Making Homes in Limbo? A Conceptual Framework

by Cathrine Brun and Anita H . Fabos

This article aims to conceptualize home and homemaking for people in protracted displacement. The... more This article aims to conceptualize home and homemaking for people in protracted displacement. The article serves three purposes: to present an overview of the area of inquiry; to develop an analytical framework for under- standing home and homemaking for forced migrants in protracted displacement; and to introduce the special issue . It explores how protracted displacement has been defined—from policy definitions to people’s experiences of protractedness, including “waiting” and “the permanence of temporariness .” The article identifies the ambivalence embedded in experiences and practices of homemaking in long-term displacement, demonstrating how static notions of home and displacement might be unsettled . It achieves this through examining relationships between mobility and stasis, the material and symbolic, between the past, present, and future, and multiple places and scales . The article proposes a conceptual framework—a triadic con- stellation of home—that enables an analysis of home in different contexts of protracted displacement . The frame- work helps to explore home both as an idea and a practice, distinguishing among three elements: “home” as the day- to-day practices of homemaking, “Home” as representing values, traditions, memories, and feelings of home, and the broader political and historical contexts in which “HOME” is understood in the current global order and embedded in institutions . In conclusion, the article argues that a feminist and dynamic understanding of home-Home-HOME provides a more holistic perspective of making home in protracted displacement that promotes a more extensive and more sophisticated academic work, policies, and practices .

Microbuses and Mobile Homemaking in Exile: Sudanese Visiting Strategies in Cairo

Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain net- works is an established cultural patte... more Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain net- works is an established cultural pattern in Arab countries . Northern Sudanese displaced in Cairo in the 1990s made significant efforts to continue visiting each other in their temporary homes, despite having to travel long distances to members of their widely scattered networks . The deteriora- tion of the legal and political status of Sudanese living in Egypt during the 1990s contributed to longer-term uncer- tainty for those who sought safety and security in Cairo . In this article, I argue that this long-term uncertainty consti- tutes a protracted refugee situation, and that Sudanese vis- iting practices constituted a mobile homemaking strategy that actively contributed to the negotiation of a complex ethnic identity in their protracted exile . Ranging across space and connecting people through experiences and val- ues of Sudanese “homeyness,” visiting during these fraught years connected individuals and networks into constella- tions that recreated familiar patterns of homemaking but also encouraged new meanings granted to homeland and belonging . Woven through the more familiar relationship between “ home” and “away” were the policy positions about urban refugees taken by the Egyptian government, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, International Organization for Migration, and other humanitarian aid and resettlement agencies, which produced a state-centred view of “home” for Sudanese .

Towards a Feminist Analysis of ‘Impact’: Sondra Hale’s scholarship and activism in and beyond the university

by Anita H . Fabos and Emily Haddad

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, Dec 2013

Feminist activist and scholar Sondra Hale has made significant contributions to Sudan studies and... more Feminist activist and scholar Sondra Hale has made significant contributions to Sudan studies and politics through her research and her participation in Sudanese women’s rights advocacy and other progressive political movements. An analysis of Hale’s professional record as an academic shows a strong relationship between her personal commitment to social justice and her intellectual contributions to the field of gender politics in Sudan, the Middle East, and Africa. Using data from Hale’s teaching, research, and activist networks, this study presents both a narrative assessment and a visual map of her career impact. We contrast conventional academic bibliometrics with an alternative mapping of influence through an examination of her participation in Sudanese and other women’s networks. The article makes use of feminist theory to review Hale’s negotiation of a public life that interrogates power and privilege in the American academy, as well as in Sudanese society.

TOWARD A FEMINIST ANALYSIS OF “IMPACT” SONDRA HALE’S SCHOLARSHIP AND ACTIVISM IN AND BEYOND THE UNIVERSITY

by Emily Haddad and Anita H . Fabos

Feminist activist and scholar Sondra Hale has made significant contributions to Sudan studies and... more Feminist activist and scholar Sondra Hale has made significant contributions to Sudan studies and politics through her research and her participation in Sudanese women’s rights advocacy and other progressive political movements. An analysis of Hale’s professional record as an academic shows a strong relationship between her per- sonal commitment to social justice and her intellectual contributions to the field of gender politics in Sudan, the Middle East, and Africa. Using data from Hale’s teaching, research, and activist networks, this study presents both a narrative assessment and a visual map of her career impact. We contrast conventional academic bibliometrics with an alternative mapping of influence through an examination of her participation in Sudanese and other women’s networks. The article makes use of feminist theory to review Hale’s negotiation of a public life that interrogates power and privilege in the American academy, as well as in Sudanese society.

Between Citizenship and Belonging: Transnational Ethnic Strategies of Muslim Arab Sudanese in the Diaspora

Ethical Dilemmas of Research among Sudanese in Egypt: Producing Knowledge about the Public and the Private

Protracted Refugee Displacement in the Middle East: Making Home in Limbo

This essay is part of a series that explores the human costs and policy challenges associated wit... more This essay is part of a series that explores the human costs and policy challenges associated with the displacement crises in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas. The essays consider the myths or misconceptions that have pervaded discussions about these two crises, as well as the constraints or capacity deficiencies that have hampered the responses to them. See more ...

Reaching a Wider Audience with Webinars

by Anita H . Fabos, Dianna Shandy, and Brad Belbas

Anthropology News

Brad Belbas (Macalester C) Anthropologists often lament that policy makers and NGO practitioners ... more Brad Belbas (Macalester C) Anthropologists often lament that policy makers and NGO practitioners don't read, but we have evidence to suggest that they do watch. We (anthropologists Anita Fábos and Dianna Shandy) set out to form a Working Group on Refugee and Forced Migration Narratives to consider the ways in which stories are told by, for and about refugees, other forced migrants, and the institutions that shape forced migration, displacement and settlement. The purpose of the group is to enable members to connect and to share information about ideas, events, opportunities and resources related to the broad concept of narrative. Enter the webinar. Our work with migration has led to our increasing interest in the use of new technologies in crossing boundaries and creating networks across geographic space and uneven political terrain. We decided to experiment with using a webinar series on Refugee and Forced Migration Narratives as a way to reach people beyond our existing anthropology and migration social networks. While webinars are relatively ubiquitous, our sense was that the market for a webinar on our particular topic was not yet saturated. We received a small seed grant from the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM) to engage academics, policy makers and practitioners, but we also hoped to attract journalists, artists and others producing refugee and forced migration narratives. Our primary aim was to pull people into the conversation, but we also hoped to generate exposure for IASFM and its upcoming conference in Poland in July 2016. Thanks to the generosity of colleagues at York University, we even had the good fortune to piggyback on another grant that allowed a handful of us to meet for half a day before another conference. What we quickly discovered, however, was that if we hoped to engage in a sustained conversation with a sizable number of people, and if we wanted to attract more than the usual suspects who had reliable funding from some entity like a research center, then we had to get creative. In particular, we wanted to act on the premise of a participatory research ethics to create space to hear from, and speak to, people who are actively doing this kind of work, but whose institutional and geographical realities make it harder to participate in these conversations. We chose presenters from whom we wanted to hear. We also asked presenters to discuss topics that were complementary, yet different enough to help delineate the parameters of the emergent field of refugee and forced migration narratives. And, finally, we wanted to forge pathways between anthropologists and others who are working on this topic from different perspectives. Dolan who saw this initiative as a way for those who have done the actual work to be credited accordingly. We streamed our second webinar from Brazil. Independent visual artist and photographer Marie Ange Bordas' webinar was entitled From 'Displacements' to 'In Flux'— Challenging Narratives through Artistic Experimentation. Both of these first two webinars relied heavily on visual materials. While we showed some images during the session, we supplemented this 

Evaluation of UK Home Office Sudan ‘Country of Origin’ Report

Regional Paper III: Middle East and North Africa

The Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) at the University of Oxford was contracted by the Conflict and H... more The Refugee Studies Centre (RSC) at the University of Oxford was contracted by the Conflict and Humanitarian Affairs Department of the Department for International Development (DFID), UK to conduct a broad-ranging study to assist DFID in defining a coherent policy position to inform its dealings with and on behalf of refugees, internally displaced persons (IDPs) and asylum seekers.

Understanding Refugees in Worcester, MA: A demographic snapshot

by Anita H . Fabos and Joseph Krahe

The aim of this report is to synthesize and make sense of the information that is available conc... more The aim of this report is to synthesize and make sense of the information that is available concerning refugees in Worcester, Massachusetts in hopes of affording them their proper space in the statistical mural of the community. Information sharing among resettlement agencies, municipal service providers, and policy makers has enhanced our understanding of successes and struggles of recently arrived refugees, and refugee community activities play a prominent role in the city’s cultural offerings. However, despite the increasing quality, availability, and accessibility of data in the United State, which allows us to create and learn from statistical profiles of different segments of the American population, refugees as a group are at risk of being excluded from the picture. Data relating to refugees as a particular type of immigrant newcomer, especially at the municipal level, is scarce. This lack of data is concerning in light of the fact that refugees have experiences and face challenges that are distinct from those encountered by the native and non-refugee immigrant populations.

Home and Forced Migration

Handbook of Home and Migration, 2023

In this chapter, we examine the meaning of home and practice of homemaking with a spe- cific focu... more In this chapter, we examine the meaning of home and practice of homemaking with a spe- cific focus on forced migrants. The term refers to the forced movement of people in search of protection inside and across borders to include internally displaced populations, asylum seekers and refugees.2 We situate our analysis of home for forced migrants within the broader fields of migration and mobility studies, and associated fields of transnationalism and diaspora studies (Boccagni et al. 2020). Thus, we adopt an interdisciplinary approach to the understand- ing of home in forced migration research that is informed by related fields of study.
We offer a chronological overview – divided into three phases – of the concept of home in the evolving field of forced migration and refugee studies. We situate home and homemaking within changing geopolitical realities and policy responses to refugee movements. These political, social and cultural realities shape how home is conceptualised by scholars. While situating the developments of the concept of home that are located within geopolitical reali- ties, we emphasise the perspectives of people living with displacement. We conclude with an overview of the current field of study and identify new areas of research.

Subcontracting Refuge: Humanitarian Infrastructure, Privatization, and the Choice to Protect

by Madeline Otis Campbell and Anita H . Fabos

Part Two responsible for dealing with issues of refuge. The synchronization of the policies of in... more Part Two responsible for dealing with issues of refuge. The synchronization of the policies of individual countries with the European Union is itself a problem, but they note as well they way in which the management of refuge must bridge the regional and national, with the more local. In this essay, they highlight the role of cities.

New Bad Girls of Sudan: Women Singers in the Sudanese Diaspora

This chapter is part of an edited book project, edited by Nadia Yaqub and Rula Qawwas, entitled B... more

Fábos and Alsarah 2016 Navigating Musical Identities, Knowledge Production and Authenticity in the Diaspora.pdf

In this chapter, through dialogue between co-authors Alsarah and Anita Fabos, we attempt to captu... more In this chapter, through dialogue between co-authors Alsarah and Anita Fabos, we attempt to capture and explore the musical and personal identity of singer/songwriter/bandleader Alsarah—at a particular point in time. The partial transcript and analysis presented here demonstrates the opportunities but also real dilemmas inherent in navigating identity and producing knowledge as a person from, but not in, or in some ways, of Sudan.

Fabos 2014 Between Ghurba and Umma: Mapping Sudanese Muslim Moralities Across National and Islamic Space

Fabos examines the moral geography of Muslim Arab Sudanese refugees and migrants as they move amo... more Fabos examines the moral geography of Muslim Arab Sudanese refugees and migrants as they move among different countries in the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Although they can acquire citizenship in the West, some Sudanese pursue belonging in Muslim countries despite a lack of security. The chapter investigates the intersection of religious values, ethnic meaning-making, and cultural citizenship for Sudanese in the diaspora, and examines the Sudanese cultural concept of ghurba, or life away from home, in relation to the umma, or global community of Muslims. Fabos argues that the religious dimension of Muslim Arab Sudanese mobility needs to be theorized to understand the formation of networks and nodes and its relationship to Sudanese diaspora identity.

Fabos and Isotalo 2014 Managing Muslim Mobilities: A Conceptual Framework

Fabos and Isotalo present the modern Muslim world as, simultaneously, a space of flows and a spac... more Fabos and Isotalo present the modern Muslim world as, simultaneously, a space of flows and a space of religious and political order for mobile Muslims. Muslim states and Muslim movers—refugees, internally displaced persons, migrants, pilgrims, and others—both, recognize its spiritual and political geography. Tensions between Islamically sanctioned movements like pilgrimage and modern migration control shape-securitization policies in the region. Fabos and Isotalo argue that Muslim ideas of space and place add a specific dimension to regional migration management whereas Western anxieties about Islam as an alien and threatening religion underpin much Western analysis of regional migration. A mobilities perspective helps identify additional layers of spiritual meaning for Muslim movers and rulers that shape migratory decisions and policies in the region.

Isotalo and Fabos 2014 Blurry Polarization: Muslim Mobilities Reconfigured

Isotalo and Fabos demonstrate how paradoxes and contested assumptions about mobility and religion... more Isotalo and Fabos demonstrate how paradoxes and contested assumptions about mobility and religion shape the discourse of migration management and ideas about belonging in the Middle East and in the larger Muslim world. The chapter uses the concept “blurry polarization” to describe the contrast between nebulous policy terms for people on the move, and population management practices that divide along a security–development axis. It further analyzes this trend regarding new integrated crisis management approaches that translate into a politics of containment. Moreover, the chapter shows how some Muslims blur boundaries of spiritual and political belonging—an approach that limits rights-based refugee protection.

‘Muslim Immigration’ (worldwide) Encyclopedia Entry.

In Gibney, Matthew J. and Hansen, Randall (Eds.) Immigration and Asylum: From 1900 to the present. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO., 2005

Problematizing Marriage: Minding My Manners in My Husband's Community

Marriage, as an institution and a process that interacts with the fieldwork experience, deserves ... more Marriage, as an institution and a process that interacts with the fieldwork experience, deserves to be problematized for the way it produces knowledge about self and other. The topic of spouses in the field has attracted interest particularly as it relates to anthropologist couples or the balancing of professional aspirations in an age of dual career families (Fluehr-Lobban 1987). But just as the concept of the family as a universal social institution has been extensively rethought, particularly regarding alternatives to the mainstream “family values” focus of certain dominant ideologies (Kennedy/Davis 1993; Lewin 1993; Stack 1983), marriage too needs to be theorized as a historically constituted institution with a multiplicity of forms (Borneman 1996). Once marriage is conceptualized as a process, rather than a status, we can move away from rigid categorizations of “us” and “them”, per- haps creating a more fluid notion of authenticity. Doing fieldwork in any research community necessarily muddles personal and professional identities. However, when the community under study penetrates the intimacy of marriage, the anthropologist has less room for misunderstanding in the complex process of grasping community mores, values, and taboos, since both husband and com- munity may view her as someone who should know better. The com- plex dialectic that I must negotiate as a married female anthropologist – between my position as a researcher, on the one hand, and as a wom- an married to an 􏰜insider’, on the other – structures community expectations in light of the labels I wear. At the same time, negotiations within marriage structure my understanding of community ideals and demonstrate the link between various levels of power rela- tions.

Refuge, Canada's Journal on Refugees Special Issue: Making Home in Limbo

by Anita H . Fabos and Cathrine Brun

Refuge, Canada's Journal on Refugees Special Issue: Urban Refugees

by Anita H . Fabos and Gaim Kibreab

When Consensus Falters, We Co-create: Attending to Power in a Practitioner/Scholar Partnership to Amplify Newcomer Belonging

Gateways: International Journal of Community Research and Engagement, 2021

This article interrogates the politics of belonging in scholar–practitioner collaborations by ana... more This article interrogates the politics of belonging in scholar–practitioner collaborations by analysing and reflecting upon a group project that advocated for a more equitable approach to newcomer belonging and integration in an urban setting in the United States. The structure of our collaboration revealed unaddressed and unspoken dynamics that collectively reinforced boundaries and hierarchies in our group, despite a level of intentionality around democratic praxis among the community-engaged scholars who initially brought participants together. The article asks: How can we work towards a notion of belonging if we haven’t worked out an equitable approach within our own group where everyone, including newcomers, feels like they belong? The article relies on a methodology of critical reflexive dialogue between the four co-authors – two scholars and two practitioners – to analyse and reflect on the ways that power imbalances are bound up in questions of belonging and representation.

Protracted Refugee Displacement in the Middle East: Making Home in Limbo

This essay is part of a series that explores the human costs and policy challenges associated wit... more This essay is part of a series that explores the human costs and policy challenges associated with the displacement crises in the Mediterranean and Andaman Seas. The essays consider the myths or misconceptions that have pervaded discussions about these two crises, as well as the constraints or capacity deficiencies that have hampered the responses to them. See more ... The current refugee crisis in the Middle East is likely to form the next chapter of longterm urban displacement in the region, but international refugee policies are only now coming to terms with the implications that stretch beyond national security. This essay takes stock of the policy stance towards Protracted Refugee Situations through a peoplecentered lens to analyze how refugees continue to " make home " even in periods of major stress, disruption, and policy limbo. By focusing on the homemaking practices and strategies devised by displaced people in Amman, Beirut, and Cairo—the ABCs of protracted circumstances of displacement in the region—we demonstrate that revising the concept of durable solutions to include refugees' own actions is a crucial element of any longterm policy to address the circumstances of displacement. Our essay examines a key policy assumption behind the concept Protracted Refugee Situations—the notion that the refugee predicament, " limbo, " can only be resolved through going Home as defined within a nationstate framework. Our proposal—that refugees can make home without necessarily going home—offers an alternative, refugeecentered perspective of home as a " constellation " of practices, strategies, and ideas. The policy term Protracted Refugee Situations, or PRS, refers to large groups of refugees originating from the same country who have resided in another country for at least 5 years without a resolution to their displacement.[1] While PRS exist in most regions of the world, the largest and most intractable are found in the Middle East. Currently, at least 4.8 million Palestinian refugees displaced decades ago reside in a state of permanent temporariness in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, the Gulf states, and the Israeli occupied territories, and many millions more recent refugees from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, and Somalia still live in the region. Given the history of population mobility and border flux in the Middle East, many additional displaced people who do not have official refugee status are also living in chronic exile; the average period of displacement is now 17.3 years—the lifespan of a generation. The increased recognition of PRS by governments, international agencies and policy makers, while demonstrating the severity of global refugee crisis, nevertheless lays bare the disconnect between the broad political and humanitarian concern with the prolonged amount of time that refugees spend out of

Reaching a Wider Audience with Webinars

by Dianna Shandy, Anita H . Fabos, and Brad Belbas

Reaching a Wider Audience with Webinars, May 1, 2016

Anthropology News, Full text available at: http://www.anthropology-news.org/index.php/2016/01/2... more

Sudanese Constellations of Home: Refugee NGOs, Social Networks and Urban Homemaking in Cairo

Public Seminar Series, Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford University , 2019

Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain networks is an established cultural pattern... more Paying home visits to mark social events and maintain networks is an established cultural pattern in Arab countries. Northern (Arabic-speaking, largely Muslim) Sudanese displaced in Cairo in the 1990s experienced a deterioration of their legal and political status during the 1990s, but nevertheless made significant efforts to continue visiting each other in their temporary homes. This often meant having to travel long distances to and among members of their widely scattered networks. My talk proposes that Sudanese visiting practices contributed to a shifting constellation of mobile homemaking strategies that emerged during their sustained exile. Ranging across space and scale, and connecting people through experiences and values of Sudanese “homeliness,” visiting during these fraught years recreated familiar daily practices—home—but also encouraged new meanings of homeland and Sudanese belonging—Home—to take shape. Policy positions on urban refugees taken by the Egyptian government, United Nations High Commission for Refugees, International Organization for Migration, and other humanitarian aid and resettlement agencies represented a third dimension—HOME—a state-centred view woven through the more familiar relationship between home and Home. These three dimensions of home, Home, and HOME together produced a uniquely Sudanese ‘constellation of home’ that helped them navigate the sustained uncertainty of their lives in Cairo.

At home in the field, in the field at home? Reflections on power and fieldwork in familiar settings

by Arda Bilgen and Anita H . Fabos

Qualitative Research, 2023

Critical epistemologies and methodologies have over time challenged the static and mono-dimension... more Critical epistemologies and methodologies have over time challenged the static and mono-dimensional approaches to fieldwork, allowing researchers to contemplate and conduct their research in spaces of in-betweenness. Despite this important shift, the essentialist idea that both 'the field' and 'home' in a fieldwork setting must be actual places persists. In this article, we challenge the conceptualization and operationalization of 'home' not only as the juxtaposition to 'the field', but also as the embodiment of a place in a specific temporality. We argue that the postulation of 'home' as a constant disregards the non-predetermined and unpredictable nature of fieldwork relationships that are often complicated by implicit and explicit power dynamics, especially in places researchers identify as 'home'. We demonstrate that unequal power relations, especially (1) between the Global North and Global South, (2) between majority and minoritized groups, (3) among genders, and (4) between elites and non-elites, require us to envisage 'the field' and 'home' in relative terms. We propose the reconceptualization of fieldwork place as a hybridized space that conjoins 'the field' and 'home' as 'field-home', particularly at a time when research mobility is restricted by the COVID-19 pandemic. In this way, we extend the literature on issues related to power, positionality and reflexivity in qualitative research, and provide practical insights for those preparing for fieldwork.