SOAS University of London, School of History, Religions and Philosophies, Project Manager, Project dldl/ድልድል, a research and innovation project dedicated to the development and strengthening of religio-culturally sensitive domestic violence alleviation systems in East Africa and the UK.
I completed BA (2001) and MA (2004) degrees in Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan, Poland. My work as an undergraduate student was focussed on the construction of Black British cultural identity in the context of politics of multiculturalism in the UK, whilst my postgraduate thesis investigated the intersection of gender and ethnicity in Black diaspora(s) with a case study of Jamaican dancehall culture in London.
For my second MA in Refugee Studies at the University of East London (2006) I carried out ethnographic study of Iranian asylum seekers’ experience of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS). Michel Foucault’s interpretation of Bentham’s Panopticon provided theoretical basis for a critical examination of surveillance and social exclusion regimes that I discussed in the thesis.
In 2011 I defended my doctoral dissertation in Social Policy at the University of Brighton. The study explored UK asylum policy and statutory social care services responses to forced migrants. This included three levels of investigation: discursive analysis of social policy documents, vignette-based interviews with social care practitioners and semi-structured interviews with asylum seekers and refugees.
The Common European Asylum System aims to establish common standards for refugee status determina... more The Common European Asylum System aims to establish common standards for refugee status determination among EU Member States. Combining insights from legal and political geography we bring the depth and scale of this challenge into sharp relief. Drawing on interviews and a detailed ethnography of asylum adjudication involving over 850 in-person asylum appeal observations, we point towards practical differences in the spatio-temporality, materiality and logistics of asylum appeal processes as they are operationalised in seven European countries. Our analysis achieves three things. Firstly, we identify a key zone of differences at the level of concrete, everyday implementation that has largely escaped academic attention, which allows us to critically assess the notion of harmonisation of asylum policies in new ways. Secondly, drawing on legal-and political-geographical concepts, we offer a way to conceptualise this zone by paying attention to the spatiotemporality, materiality and logistics it involves. Thirdly, we offer critical legal logistics as a new direction for scholarship in legal geography and beyond that promises to prise open the previously obscured mechanics of contemporary legal systems.
The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of... more The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of ‘access to’ and ‘exclusion from’ legal justice, with particular attention to legal justice in the context of refugee claims. Drawing on scholarship that resists the opposition of absence and presence and distinguishes various different types of presence, as well as extensive empirical work with asylum seekers claiming refugee status, the chapter shows that they are frequently both present and absent during important parts of the proceedings. The law’s over-emphasis on bodily presence, however, often conceals these complexities. By highlighting this effect, the authors demonstrate that thinking about the relationship between law, space and refugee migration in terms of multiple forms of absence and presence is an important way to reveal how exclusions from legal justice arise.
Debate about participatory design (PD) has focussed considerably upon process. Factors such as fa... more Debate about participatory design (PD) has focussed considerably upon process. Factors such as facilitation skills and commitment to a participatory ethos have been highlighted as factors mediating stakeholder engagement. Discussion has been driven overwhelmingly by experience of PD in the global North with citizens who enjoy full rights. This article considers engagement with encamped refugees in the global South. Here context has a significant impact upon engagement. Drawing on a four-year research project concerning shelter design we discuss dimensions of context that bear particularly upon PD efforts. As we illustrate, despite contextual constraint, it is possible to produce valuable knowledge about design together with residents. Moreover, attention to context can help achieve a more nuanced approach to the evaluation of PD initiatives.
In Peru, emergency temporary housing (ETH) is currently facing environmental, social, and economi... more In Peru, emergency temporary housing (ETH) is currently facing environmental, social, and economic problems. From an environmental perspective, no studies have explored the habitability and internal comfort of these units or the impacts of the materials used. From a social perspective, this type of housing does not generally consider the population’s characteristics and socio-cultural relationships in its settlement patterns or interior design. Finally, ETHs are expensive for the government owing to the lack of planning or the difficulty in adapting the units. This enables us to assert that the current response is insufficient. By conducting a field analysis of three types of ETH units in the three major geographic regions of Peru, a diagnostic methodology is used to identify problems and possible solutions in response to each region’s habitability condition. The resulting conclusion contributes to organizing a comprehensive response plan to natural phenomena.
The aim of this research project is to critically investigate the intersection between british as... more The aim of this research project is to critically investigate the intersection between british asylum policy and social care practice. The study evaluates normative frameworks present in the policy documents related to social care provision to asylum seekers and refugees, explores how front line social care workers' practice aligns with those policies, and looks into the consequences of their assessments and interventions on the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in England.
Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration, 2019
The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of... more The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of ‘access to’ and ‘exclusion from’ legal justice, with particular attention to legal justice in the context of refugee claims. Drawing on scholarship that resists the opposition of absence and presence and distinguishes various different types of presence, as well as extensive empirical work with asylum seekers claiming refugee status, the chapter shows that they are frequently both present and absent during important parts of the proceedings. The law’s over-emphasis on bodily presence, however, often conceals these complexities. By highlighting this effect, the authors demonstrate that thinking about the relationship between law, space and refugee migration in terms of multiple forms of absence and presence is an important way to reveal how exclusions from legal justice arise.
There are currently 70.8 million forcibly displaced people, globally. Bangladesh hosts the larges... more There are currently 70.8 million forcibly displaced people, globally. Bangladesh hosts the largest refugee camp in the world. Much effort has gone into the research, design and delivery of mass-produced shelters. Yet most refugees live in self-built shelters using simple shelter materials. This paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of using a transdisciplinary approach for holistic data collection in such shelters. A total of 1594 households were surveyed in refugee camps in Bangladesh using diverse methods—e.g. surveys, semi-structured interviews, physical measurements. It was only because of the use of various methods that the reasons behind identified issues were discovered or quantified. For example, household surveys uncovered the issue of poor ventilation, but only the semi-structured interviews exposed the reasons behind it, while physical measurements assessed the implications of this—annual particulate exposure 13 times the recommended limit. Furthermore, several methods p...
Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management
PurposeUnderstanding the supply network of construction materials used to construct shelters in r... more PurposeUnderstanding the supply network of construction materials used to construct shelters in refugee camps, or during the reconstruction of communities, is important as it can reveal the intricate links between different stakeholders and the volumes and speeds of material flows to the end-user. Using social network analysis (SNA) enables another dimension to be analysed – the role of commonalities. This is likely to be particularly important when attempting to replace vernacular materials with higher-performing alternatives or when encouraging the use of non-vernacular methods. This paper aims to analyse the supply networks of four different disaster-relief situations.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from interviews with 272 displaced (or formally displaced) families in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Turkey, often in difficult conditions.FindingsThe results show that the form of the supply networks was highly influenced by the nature/cause of the initial displac...
Legal geographers have recently highlighted the importance of attending to the interaction of tim... more Legal geographers have recently highlighted the importance of attending to the interaction of time and space to understand law and its enactment. We build on these efforts to examine the spatiotemporal influences over the processes by which asylum claim determination procedures in Western industrialised countries seek to reconstruct past events for the purposes of deciding refugee claims. Two ‘common-sense’ beliefs underpin this reconstruction: that the occurrences leading to a fear of persecution can be isolated and that the veracity of an asylum claim is objectively independent from the process of uncovering it. We critically interrogate these assumptions by conceptualising the fears of people seeking asylum as Deleuzian ‘events’. Basing our argument on 41 interviews with people who have previously claimed asylum in the United Kingdom and firsthand accounts of asylum appeals, we explore the folding together of asylum ‘truths’ and the spatiotemporal processes by which they are arri...
The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevert... more The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevertheless, the establishment of camps to house people fleeing political violence is often framed as an emergency measure of limited duration. These are depicted as “temporary” spaces in which people are provided with aid and support until such time that they are able to return to their “permanent” homes. In this article, we focus on the actions and aspirations of camp residents to imbue their dwellings with a sense of home. Our empirical material has been generated by fieldwork in two camps in Jordan housing people displaced from Syria. “Homemaking” in this location calls into questions the rigid opposition between “temporary” and “permanent”: an opposition that, for diverse reasons, host states, donors, humanitarians, and camp residents may strive to maintain, at least in rhetorical terms. Attending to the creation of dedicated space for receiving guests, we consider the content of homemaking as shaped by residents’ ideals of home in combination with the constraints imposed by institutions responsible for funding, hosting, and managing the camps. While this analysis highlights the fragility and contingency of homemaking, it also reveals the agency of displaced people in acting to improve their surroundings and conduct normative social relations.
The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevert... more The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevertheless, the establishment of camps to house people fleeing political violence is often framed as an emergency measure of limited duration. These are depicted as “temporary” spaces in which people are provided with aid and support until such time that they are able to return to their “permanent” homes. In this article, we focus on the actions and aspirations of camp residents to imbue their dwellings with a sense of home. Our empirical material has been generated by fieldwork in two camps in Jordan housing people displaced from Syria. “Homemaking” in this location calls into questions the rigid opposition between “temporary” and “permanent”: an opposition that, for diverse reasons, host states, donors, humanitarians, and camp residents may strive to maintain, at least in rhetorical terms. Attending to the creation of dedicated space for receiving guests, we consider the content of homemaking as shaped by residents’ ideals of home in combination with the constraints imposed by institutions responsible for funding, hosting, and managing the camps. While this analysis highlights the fragility and contingency of homemaking, it also reveals the agency of displaced people in acting to improve their surroundings and conduct normative social relations.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2020
There is an absence of absence in legal geography and materialist studies of the law. Drawing on ... more There is an absence of absence in legal geography and materialist studies of the law. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography of European asylum appeal hearings, this paper illustrates the importance of absences for a fully-fledged materiality of legal events. We show how absent materials impact hearings, that non-attending participants profoundly influence them, and that even when participants are physically present, they are often simultaneously absent in other, psychological registers. In so doing we demonstrate the importance and productivity of thinking not only about law’s omnipresence but also the absences that shape the way law is experienced and practised. We show that attending to the distribution of absence and presence at legal hearings is a way to critically engage with legal performance.
Vulnerable groups’ direct experiences and impressions of British courts and tribunals have often ... more Vulnerable groups’ direct experiences and impressions of British courts and tribunals have often been overlooked by politicians and policy makers (JUSTICE, 2019). This paper takes a geographical, empirical approach to access to justice to respond to these concerns, paying attention to the atmosphere of First Tier Immigration and Asylum Tribunal hearings to explore the qualitative aspects of (in)access to justice during asylum appeals. It draws on 41 interviews with former appellants and 390 observations of hearings in the First tier immigration and asylum tribunal to unpack the lived experiences of tribunal users and to identify three ways in which the atmosphere in tribunals can constitute a barrier to access to justice. First, asylum appellants are frequently profoundly disorientated upon arrival at the tribunal. Second, appellants become distrustful of the courtroom when they cannot see it as independent of the state. Third they often experience the courtroom procedures and the interactions that take place as disrespectful, inhibiting their participation. These insights demonstrate how the concept of ‘atmosphere’ can illuminate legal debates in valuable ways. Additionally we argue that legal policy making must find better ways to take vulnerable litigants’ experiences into account.
The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevert... more The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevertheless, the establishment of camps to house people fleeing political violence is often framed as an emergency measure of limited duration. These are depicted as “temporary” spaces in which people are provided with aid and support until such time that they are able to return to their “permanent” homes. In this article, we focus on the actions and aspirations of camp residents to imbue their dwellings with a sense of home. Our empirical material has been generated by fieldwork in two camps in Jordan housing people displaced from Syria. “Homemaking” in this location calls into questions the rigid opposition between “temporary” and “permanent”: an opposition that, for diverse reasons, host states, donors, humanitarians, and camp residents may strive to maintain, at least in rhetorical terms. Attending to the creation of dedicated space for receiving guests, we consider the content of homemaking as shaped by residents’ ideals of home in combination with the constraints imposed by institutions responsible for funding, hosting, and managing the camps. While this analysis highlights the fragility and contingency of homemaking, it also reveals the agency of displaced people in acting to improve their surroundings and conduct normative social relations.
The purpose of this short publication is to provide supporting information to the agencies that w... more The purpose of this short publication is to provide supporting information to the agencies that work with refugee and asylum-seeking women and want to engage them in research and training projects in line with the ethos of user-led involvement. The toolkit provides an introduction to the concept of participatory research, as well as practical guidelines for facilitators wishing to engage refugee and asylum-seeking women in user-led research and training programmes.
The information provided in this manual is intended for all practitioners who work with refugee a... more The information provided in this manual is intended for all practitioners who work with refugee and asylum-seeking women. Although the main areas of concern as identified by refugee women are health and legal services, the manual may be used by other professionals as well, as it covers basic facts on gender-based violence and asylum system in the UK. Any professional can play a significant role in identifying refugee women's support needs and signposting or referring them to other services. The manual also sets out to raise awareness of the prevalence of violence against women and girls in refugee communities. Given how vast, and constantly changing, this area of practice is, professionals are provided with lists of resources for further consultation.
The Common European Asylum System aims to establish common standards for refugee status determina... more The Common European Asylum System aims to establish common standards for refugee status determination among EU Member States. Combining insights from legal and political geography we bring the depth and scale of this challenge into sharp relief. Drawing on interviews and a detailed ethnography of asylum adjudication involving over 850 in-person asylum appeal observations, we point towards practical differences in the spatio-temporality, materiality and logistics of asylum appeal processes as they are operationalised in seven European countries. Our analysis achieves three things. Firstly, we identify a key zone of differences at the level of concrete, everyday implementation that has largely escaped academic attention, which allows us to critically assess the notion of harmonisation of asylum policies in new ways. Secondly, drawing on legal-and political-geographical concepts, we offer a way to conceptualise this zone by paying attention to the spatiotemporality, materiality and logistics it involves. Thirdly, we offer critical legal logistics as a new direction for scholarship in legal geography and beyond that promises to prise open the previously obscured mechanics of contemporary legal systems.
The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of... more The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of ‘access to’ and ‘exclusion from’ legal justice, with particular attention to legal justice in the context of refugee claims. Drawing on scholarship that resists the opposition of absence and presence and distinguishes various different types of presence, as well as extensive empirical work with asylum seekers claiming refugee status, the chapter shows that they are frequently both present and absent during important parts of the proceedings. The law’s over-emphasis on bodily presence, however, often conceals these complexities. By highlighting this effect, the authors demonstrate that thinking about the relationship between law, space and refugee migration in terms of multiple forms of absence and presence is an important way to reveal how exclusions from legal justice arise.
Debate about participatory design (PD) has focussed considerably upon process. Factors such as fa... more Debate about participatory design (PD) has focussed considerably upon process. Factors such as facilitation skills and commitment to a participatory ethos have been highlighted as factors mediating stakeholder engagement. Discussion has been driven overwhelmingly by experience of PD in the global North with citizens who enjoy full rights. This article considers engagement with encamped refugees in the global South. Here context has a significant impact upon engagement. Drawing on a four-year research project concerning shelter design we discuss dimensions of context that bear particularly upon PD efforts. As we illustrate, despite contextual constraint, it is possible to produce valuable knowledge about design together with residents. Moreover, attention to context can help achieve a more nuanced approach to the evaluation of PD initiatives.
In Peru, emergency temporary housing (ETH) is currently facing environmental, social, and economi... more In Peru, emergency temporary housing (ETH) is currently facing environmental, social, and economic problems. From an environmental perspective, no studies have explored the habitability and internal comfort of these units or the impacts of the materials used. From a social perspective, this type of housing does not generally consider the population’s characteristics and socio-cultural relationships in its settlement patterns or interior design. Finally, ETHs are expensive for the government owing to the lack of planning or the difficulty in adapting the units. This enables us to assert that the current response is insufficient. By conducting a field analysis of three types of ETH units in the three major geographic regions of Peru, a diagnostic methodology is used to identify problems and possible solutions in response to each region’s habitability condition. The resulting conclusion contributes to organizing a comprehensive response plan to natural phenomena.
The aim of this research project is to critically investigate the intersection between british as... more The aim of this research project is to critically investigate the intersection between british asylum policy and social care practice. The study evaluates normative frameworks present in the policy documents related to social care provision to asylum seekers and refugees, explores how front line social care workers' practice aligns with those policies, and looks into the consequences of their assessments and interventions on the lives of asylum seekers and refugees in England.
Handbook on Critical Geographies of Migration, 2019
The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of... more The chapter sets out a set of conceptual resources with which to renew attention to the issues of ‘access to’ and ‘exclusion from’ legal justice, with particular attention to legal justice in the context of refugee claims. Drawing on scholarship that resists the opposition of absence and presence and distinguishes various different types of presence, as well as extensive empirical work with asylum seekers claiming refugee status, the chapter shows that they are frequently both present and absent during important parts of the proceedings. The law’s over-emphasis on bodily presence, however, often conceals these complexities. By highlighting this effect, the authors demonstrate that thinking about the relationship between law, space and refugee migration in terms of multiple forms of absence and presence is an important way to reveal how exclusions from legal justice arise.
There are currently 70.8 million forcibly displaced people, globally. Bangladesh hosts the larges... more There are currently 70.8 million forcibly displaced people, globally. Bangladesh hosts the largest refugee camp in the world. Much effort has gone into the research, design and delivery of mass-produced shelters. Yet most refugees live in self-built shelters using simple shelter materials. This paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of using a transdisciplinary approach for holistic data collection in such shelters. A total of 1594 households were surveyed in refugee camps in Bangladesh using diverse methods—e.g. surveys, semi-structured interviews, physical measurements. It was only because of the use of various methods that the reasons behind identified issues were discovered or quantified. For example, household surveys uncovered the issue of poor ventilation, but only the semi-structured interviews exposed the reasons behind it, while physical measurements assessed the implications of this—annual particulate exposure 13 times the recommended limit. Furthermore, several methods p...
Journal of Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Management
PurposeUnderstanding the supply network of construction materials used to construct shelters in r... more PurposeUnderstanding the supply network of construction materials used to construct shelters in refugee camps, or during the reconstruction of communities, is important as it can reveal the intricate links between different stakeholders and the volumes and speeds of material flows to the end-user. Using social network analysis (SNA) enables another dimension to be analysed – the role of commonalities. This is likely to be particularly important when attempting to replace vernacular materials with higher-performing alternatives or when encouraging the use of non-vernacular methods. This paper aims to analyse the supply networks of four different disaster-relief situations.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from interviews with 272 displaced (or formally displaced) families in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Turkey, often in difficult conditions.FindingsThe results show that the form of the supply networks was highly influenced by the nature/cause of the initial displac...
Legal geographers have recently highlighted the importance of attending to the interaction of tim... more Legal geographers have recently highlighted the importance of attending to the interaction of time and space to understand law and its enactment. We build on these efforts to examine the spatiotemporal influences over the processes by which asylum claim determination procedures in Western industrialised countries seek to reconstruct past events for the purposes of deciding refugee claims. Two ‘common-sense’ beliefs underpin this reconstruction: that the occurrences leading to a fear of persecution can be isolated and that the veracity of an asylum claim is objectively independent from the process of uncovering it. We critically interrogate these assumptions by conceptualising the fears of people seeking asylum as Deleuzian ‘events’. Basing our argument on 41 interviews with people who have previously claimed asylum in the United Kingdom and firsthand accounts of asylum appeals, we explore the folding together of asylum ‘truths’ and the spatiotemporal processes by which they are arri...
The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevert... more The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevertheless, the establishment of camps to house people fleeing political violence is often framed as an emergency measure of limited duration. These are depicted as “temporary” spaces in which people are provided with aid and support until such time that they are able to return to their “permanent” homes. In this article, we focus on the actions and aspirations of camp residents to imbue their dwellings with a sense of home. Our empirical material has been generated by fieldwork in two camps in Jordan housing people displaced from Syria. “Homemaking” in this location calls into questions the rigid opposition between “temporary” and “permanent”: an opposition that, for diverse reasons, host states, donors, humanitarians, and camp residents may strive to maintain, at least in rhetorical terms. Attending to the creation of dedicated space for receiving guests, we consider the content of homemaking as shaped by residents’ ideals of home in combination with the constraints imposed by institutions responsible for funding, hosting, and managing the camps. While this analysis highlights the fragility and contingency of homemaking, it also reveals the agency of displaced people in acting to improve their surroundings and conduct normative social relations.
The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevert... more The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevertheless, the establishment of camps to house people fleeing political violence is often framed as an emergency measure of limited duration. These are depicted as “temporary” spaces in which people are provided with aid and support until such time that they are able to return to their “permanent” homes. In this article, we focus on the actions and aspirations of camp residents to imbue their dwellings with a sense of home. Our empirical material has been generated by fieldwork in two camps in Jordan housing people displaced from Syria. “Homemaking” in this location calls into questions the rigid opposition between “temporary” and “permanent”: an opposition that, for diverse reasons, host states, donors, humanitarians, and camp residents may strive to maintain, at least in rhetorical terms. Attending to the creation of dedicated space for receiving guests, we consider the content of homemaking as shaped by residents’ ideals of home in combination with the constraints imposed by institutions responsible for funding, hosting, and managing the camps. While this analysis highlights the fragility and contingency of homemaking, it also reveals the agency of displaced people in acting to improve their surroundings and conduct normative social relations.
Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 2020
There is an absence of absence in legal geography and materialist studies of the law. Drawing on ... more There is an absence of absence in legal geography and materialist studies of the law. Drawing on a multi-sited ethnography of European asylum appeal hearings, this paper illustrates the importance of absences for a fully-fledged materiality of legal events. We show how absent materials impact hearings, that non-attending participants profoundly influence them, and that even when participants are physically present, they are often simultaneously absent in other, psychological registers. In so doing we demonstrate the importance and productivity of thinking not only about law’s omnipresence but also the absences that shape the way law is experienced and practised. We show that attending to the distribution of absence and presence at legal hearings is a way to critically engage with legal performance.
Vulnerable groups’ direct experiences and impressions of British courts and tribunals have often ... more Vulnerable groups’ direct experiences and impressions of British courts and tribunals have often been overlooked by politicians and policy makers (JUSTICE, 2019). This paper takes a geographical, empirical approach to access to justice to respond to these concerns, paying attention to the atmosphere of First Tier Immigration and Asylum Tribunal hearings to explore the qualitative aspects of (in)access to justice during asylum appeals. It draws on 41 interviews with former appellants and 390 observations of hearings in the First tier immigration and asylum tribunal to unpack the lived experiences of tribunal users and to identify three ways in which the atmosphere in tribunals can constitute a barrier to access to justice. First, asylum appellants are frequently profoundly disorientated upon arrival at the tribunal. Second, appellants become distrustful of the courtroom when they cannot see it as independent of the state. Third they often experience the courtroom procedures and the interactions that take place as disrespectful, inhibiting their participation. These insights demonstrate how the concept of ‘atmosphere’ can illuminate legal debates in valuable ways. Additionally we argue that legal policy making must find better ways to take vulnerable litigants’ experiences into account.
The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevert... more The lifespan of displacement camps around the globe is often measured in years or decades. Nevertheless, the establishment of camps to house people fleeing political violence is often framed as an emergency measure of limited duration. These are depicted as “temporary” spaces in which people are provided with aid and support until such time that they are able to return to their “permanent” homes. In this article, we focus on the actions and aspirations of camp residents to imbue their dwellings with a sense of home. Our empirical material has been generated by fieldwork in two camps in Jordan housing people displaced from Syria. “Homemaking” in this location calls into questions the rigid opposition between “temporary” and “permanent”: an opposition that, for diverse reasons, host states, donors, humanitarians, and camp residents may strive to maintain, at least in rhetorical terms. Attending to the creation of dedicated space for receiving guests, we consider the content of homemaking as shaped by residents’ ideals of home in combination with the constraints imposed by institutions responsible for funding, hosting, and managing the camps. While this analysis highlights the fragility and contingency of homemaking, it also reveals the agency of displaced people in acting to improve their surroundings and conduct normative social relations.
The purpose of this short publication is to provide supporting information to the agencies that w... more The purpose of this short publication is to provide supporting information to the agencies that work with refugee and asylum-seeking women and want to engage them in research and training projects in line with the ethos of user-led involvement. The toolkit provides an introduction to the concept of participatory research, as well as practical guidelines for facilitators wishing to engage refugee and asylum-seeking women in user-led research and training programmes.
The information provided in this manual is intended for all practitioners who work with refugee a... more The information provided in this manual is intended for all practitioners who work with refugee and asylum-seeking women. Although the main areas of concern as identified by refugee women are health and legal services, the manual may be used by other professionals as well, as it covers basic facts on gender-based violence and asylum system in the UK. Any professional can play a significant role in identifying refugee women's support needs and signposting or referring them to other services. The manual also sets out to raise awareness of the prevalence of violence against women and girls in refugee communities. Given how vast, and constantly changing, this area of practice is, professionals are provided with lists of resources for further consultation.
Debate about participatory design (PD) has focussed considerably upon process. Factors such as fa... more Debate about participatory design (PD) has focussed considerably upon process. Factors such as facilitation skills and commitment to a participatory ethos have been highlighted as factors mediating stakeholder engagement. Discussion has been driven overwhelmingly by experience of PD in the global North with citizens who enjoy full rights. This article considers engagement with encamped refugees in the global South. Here context has a significant impact upon engagement. Drawing on a four-year research project concerning shelter design we discuss dimensions of context that bear particularly upon PD efforts. As we illustrate, despite contextual constraint, it is possible to produce valuable knowledge about design together with residents. Moreover, attention to context can help achieve a more nuanced approach to the evaluation of PD initiatives.
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Papers by Natalia Paszkiewicz