Books by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
Refuge, 2021
In Refuge in a Moving World, Elena FiddianQasmiyeh brings together over thirty authors from diffe... more In Refuge in a Moving World, Elena FiddianQasmiyeh brings together over thirty authors from different disciplines to discuss the idea of refuge. Originating from the academic network called Refuge in a Moving World
at University College London, this edited volume challenges the monolithic representations of refugees and displacement and proposes a more nuanced understanding of the history, causes, experiences, and responses to refugeehood. Set against the notion of “crisis”, this book challenges representations that have dominated the public humanitarian narrative in the past decades. Indeed, to counteract widespread xenophobic responses to migrants and refugees around the world, humanitarian actors have often created “pro-refugee” narratives that have “securitized” displaced people (p. 2) and limited their agency. They have portrayed refugees as victims and passive recipients of aid, as “ideal refugees” “worthy” of humanitarian assistance, or placed them into categories of exceptionalism—such as what
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh calls the “super refugee”. These narratives generate inclusion and exclusion and keep displaced people “in their place” within a framework of epistemic violence (p. 3). To challenge these representations, this volume presents displacement and forced migration not as something that people simply experience, but as experiences to which people respond.
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International Journal of Refugee Law, 2019
Refuge in a Moving World, edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, is an open access book that can be re... more Refuge in a Moving World, edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, is an open access book that can be read in several different ways. One important reading is the book’s display of the diversity and interdisciplinarity in the field of forced migration studies. The book is also a testament to the exciting development of innovative methods and approaches demonstrating a potential to move our field forward by expanding how knowledge is
produced, particularly through creative methods and approaches. With this diversity and innovation, a third reading is that the book’s contributions form a more nuanced way of representing the experience of displacement away from the stereotyped and dichotomized figures of victim or hero (the ‘super-refugee’) (see Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s introduction, pp 1–19). Finally, an important lens through which to read the book is that it illustrates the need for always contextualizing the knowledge of displacement away from homogenizing and reductive descriptions. As contributor Nerea Amorós
Elorduy writes: ‘I argue that detailed, specific information adds complexity and nuance to refugee-encampment studies, depicting a more realistic image of the varied situations of encamped refugees and underscoring the powerful agency of refugees and their direct local hosts’ (p 364).
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This ground-breaking book is one of the first to analyse the important phenomenon of South-South ... more This ground-breaking book is one of the first to analyse the important phenomenon of South-South educational migration for refugees. It focuses particularly on South-South scholarship programmes in Cuba and Libya, which have granted free education to children, adolescents and young adults from two of the world’s most protracted refugee situations: Sahrawis and Palestinians.
Through in-depth multi-sited fieldwork conducted with and about Sahrawi and Palestinian refugee students in Cuba and Libya, and following their return to the desert-based Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and the urban Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, this highly pertinent study brings refugees’ views and voices to the forefront and sheds a unique light on their understandings of self-sufficiency, humanitarianism and hospitality. It critically assesses the impact of diverse policies designed to maximise self-sufficiency and to reduce both brain drain and ongoing dependency upon Northern aid providers, exploring the extent to which South-South scholarship systems have challenged the power imbalances that typically characterise North to South development models. Finally, this very timely study discusses the impact of the Arab Spring on Libya’s support mechanisms for Sahrawi and Palestinian refugees, and considers the changing nature of Cuba’s educational model in light of major ongoing political, ideological and economic shifts in the island state, asking whether there is a future for such alternative programmes and initiatives.
This book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners in the areas of migration studies, refugee studies, comparative education, development and humanitarian studies, international relations, and regional studies (Latin America, Middle East, and North Africa).
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Refugee camps are typically perceived as militarized and patriarchal spaces, and yet the Sahrawi ... more Refugee camps are typically perceived as militarized and patriarchal spaces, and yet the Sahrawi refugee camps and their inhabitants have consistently been represented as ideal in nature: uniquely secular and democratic spaces, and characterized by gender equality. Drawing on extensive research with and about Sahrawi refugees in Algeria, Cuba, Spain, South Africa, and Syria, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh explores how, why, and to what effect such idealized depictions have been projected onto the international arena.
In The Ideal Refugees, the author argues that secularism and the empowerment of Sahrawi refugee women have been strategically invoked to secure the humanitarian and political support of Western state and non-state actors who ensure the continued survival of the camps and their inhabitants. This book challenges the reader to reflect critically on who benefits from assertions of good, bad, and ideal refugees, and whose interests are advanced by interwoven discourses about the empowerment of women and secularism in contexts of war and peace.
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Population, Space and Place, Aug 2016
South–South cooperation – collaboration among states and non-state actors in the global South in ... more South–South cooperation – collaboration among states and non-state actors in the global South in economic, political, cultural, and technical domains – is gaining growing attention from states, policy-makers, and academics. A recent Human Development Report titled The Rise of the South notes that: ‘The South has risen at an unprecedented speed and scale... countries of the South are collectively bolstering world economic growth, lifting other developing economies, reducing poverty and increasing wealth on a grand scale’ (2013, p.1).
While much of the discussion on South–South collaboration focuses on economic and trade benefits stemming from such partnerships, cooperation among Southern actors can also create important opportunities for people to build human capital, especially through the provision of education (Bakewell, 2009, p.55). However, the literature on South–South cooperation around education remains limited, and in particular few studies have explored South–South cooperation in the context of refugees’ education.
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s book is a major contribution that seeks to address this gap. The author investigates Cuban and Libyan scholarship programmes for students from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including refugees from Palestine and Sahrawi refugee camps, and explores the experiences of the refugee beneficiaries during and after their study....
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Book review of 'South-South Educational Migration, Humanitarianism and Development', by Thomas Mu... more Book review of 'South-South Educational Migration, Humanitarianism and Development', by Thomas Muhr, in Journal of Education Policy, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2015.1100816
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Review of "The Ideal Refugees" written by Prof. S. R. Silverburg for Choice:
"This is an outsta... more Review of "The Ideal Refugees" written by Prof. S. R. Silverburg for Choice:
"This is an outstanding contribution to the understanding of gender roles, particularly in an Islamic setting, women’s studies, and the Sahrawis. Summing Up: Highly recommended. *** "
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Review of The Ideal Refugees, published by J.Z. Elliot in the International Journal of Middle Eas... more Review of The Ideal Refugees, published by J.Z. Elliot in the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies in 2015.
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This is a review, written by Dr. Miriyam Aouragh, of the book 'The Ideal Refugees: Gender, Islam ... more This is a review, written by Dr. Miriyam Aouragh, of the book 'The Ideal Refugees: Gender, Islam and the Sahrawi Politics of Survival' (2014, Syracuse University Press).
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Edited Books by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
Refuge in a Moving World: Refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines, 2020
2020 UCL Press book edited by E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
This book draws together over 30 contribution... more 2020 UCL Press book edited by E. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
This book draws together over 30 contributions written from multiple disciplines and fields of research and practice - including the social sciences, the humanities and the arts, and with and through art, advocacy and activism -, to open up informed conversations around different ways of engaging with and responding to migration and displacement. It combines critical reflections on the complexities of conducting research into, and conceptualising, processes and experiences of (forced) migration, with detailed analyses of experiences and representations of, and responses to contemporary and historical processes of (forced) migration around the world. Through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies – including participatory research, poetic and spatial interventions, ethnography, theatre, discourse analysis and visual methods – the book carefully, and creatively, documents the complexities of refugees’ and migrants’ journeys. This includes a particular focus on how people inhabit and negotiate everyday life in cities, towns, camps and informal settlements across the Middle East and North Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and Europe. A key dynamic documented throughout the book is the multiple ways that responses to displacement are enacted by people with personal or family experiences of forced migration, including in their capacity as researchers, writers and artists, teachers, solidarians, first responders, NGO practitioners, neighbours, and/or friends. Through the application of historically- and spatially-sensitive, intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses, the book examines the ways that different people - including across axes of religion, sexuality, gender and age - experience and respond to their own situations (and that of other people), in the context of diverse power structures and structural inequalities on the local, national and international level. Ultimately, the book argues that working collaboratively through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies has the potential to develop nuanced understandings of processes of migration and displacement, and, in turn, more sustainable modes of responding to our moving world.
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Handbook of South-South Relations, 2018
South-South cooperation is becoming ever more important to states, policy-makers and academics. M... more South-South cooperation is becoming ever more important to states, policy-makers and academics. Many Northern states, international agencies and NGOs are promoting South-South partnerships as a means of ‘sharing the burden’ in funding and undertaking development, assistance and protection activities, often in response to increased political and financial pressures on their own aid budgets. However, the mainstreaming of Southern-led initiatives by UN agencies and Northern states is paradoxical in many ways, especially because the development of a South-South cooperation paradigm was originally conceptualized as a necessary way to overcome the exploitative nature of North-South relations in the era of decolonisation.
This Handbook critically explores diverse ways of defining ‘the South’ and of conceptualising and engaging with ‘South-South relations.’ Through 30 state-of-the art reviews of key academic and policy debates, the Handbook evaluates past, present and future opportunities and challenges of South-South cooperation, and lays out research agendas for the next 5-10 years. The book covers key models of cooperation (including internationalism, Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism), diverse modes of South-South connection, exchange and support (including South-South aid, transnational activism, and migration), and responses to displacement, violence and conflict (including Southern-led humanitarianism, peace-building and conflict resolution). In so doing, the Handbook reflects on decolonial, postcolonial and anticolonial theories and methodologies, exploring urgent questions regarding the nature and implications of conducting research in and about the global South, and of applying a ‘Southern lens’ to a wide range of encounters, processes and dynamics across the global South and global North alike.
This Handbook will be of great interest to scholars and post-graduate students in Anthropology, Area Studies, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, History, Geography, International Relations, Politics, Postcolonial Studies, and Sociology.
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Scholars of religion and theology on the one hand, and academics in the broad field of migration ... more Scholars of religion and theology on the one hand, and academics in the broad field of migration studies on the other, have been examining the intersections between religion and migration from disparate theoretical, methodological, and religious perspectives during the past decade. This groundbreaking multi-authored volume seeks to bring these multiple points of view together both by elucidating each approach and then bringing them into conversation with each other. As the anchor volume in the Palgrave Religion and Global Migrations series, Intersections of Religion and Migration will provide state-of-the-art reviews of academic debates in the field and also suggest productive ways in which scholars may enhance their study of religion and migration by engaging with and employing a variety of approaches to the topic, which will set out a research agenda for the coming decade and beyond.
Edited by Jennifer Saunders, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Susanna Snyder.
Contributions include:
Jennifer Saunders, Susie Snyder and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh: Introduction
Holly Straut Eppsteiner and Jacqueline Hagan: Religion as Psychological, Spiritual and Cultural Support in the Migration Undertaking
Kim Knott: Living Religious Practices
Zayn Kassam: Muslims in America: The Challenges of Migration and the Construction of Religious Identities
Khayti Y. Joshi: The Racialization of Religions in Migration
Hugo Cordova-Quero: Embodied (Dis)Placements - The Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in Migration Studies
Ellen Posman: Home and Away: Exile and Diaspora as Religious Concepts
Stephen M. Cherry: Exploring the Contours of Transnational Religious Spaces and Networks
Daniel Groody: Migration - A Theological Vision
Benjamin Schewel: Ethics, Transcendence and Borders
Alastair Ager and Joey Ager: Religion, Forced Migration and Humanitarian Response
Erin K. Wilson and Luca Mavelli: Taking Responsibility: Sociodicy, Solidarity, and Religious-Sensitive Policy-Making in the Global Politics of Migration
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Susie Snyder and Jennifer Saunders: Tracing The Ways Ahead
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Refugee and Forced Migration Studies has grown from being a concern of a relatively small number ... more Refugee and Forced Migration Studies has grown from being a concern of a relatively small number of scholars and policy researchers in the 1980s to a global field of interest with thousands of students worldwide studying displacement either from traditional disciplinary perspectives or as a core component of newer programmes across the Humanities and Social and Political Sciences. Today the field encompasses both rigorous academic research which may or may not ultimately inform policy and practice, as well as action-research focused on advocating in favour of refugees' needs and rights.
This authoritative Handbook critically evaluates the birth and development of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and analyses the key contemporary and future challenges faced by academics and practitioners working with and for forcibly displaced populations around the world. The 52 state-of-the-art chapters, written by leading academics, practitioners, and policymakers working in universities, research centres, think tanks, NGOs and international organizations, provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the key intellectual, political, social and institutional challenges arising from mass displacement in the world today. The chapters vividly illustrate the vibrant and engaging debates that characterize this rapidly expanding field of research and practice.
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The OHB of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies - edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher,... more The OHB of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies - edited by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long and Nando Sigona - has now been published in paperback and is available to purchase with a 30% discount with the code on this flyer. 53 excellent chapters by leading academics, policy makers and practitioners.
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Journal Special Issues by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
Migration and Society, 2020
It has become increasingly mainstream to argue that redressing the Eurocentrism of migration stud... more It has become increasingly mainstream to argue that redressing the Eurocentrism of migration studies requires a commitment to decentering global North knowledge. However, it is less clear whether this necessarily means "recentering the South. " Against this backdrop, this introduction starts by highlighting diverse ways that scholars, including the contributors to this special issue, have sought to redress Eurocentrism in migration studies: (1) examining the applicability of classical concepts and frameworks in the South; (2) fi lling blind spots by studying migration in the South and South-South migration; and (3) engaging critically with the geopolitics of knowledge production. Th e remainder of the introduction examines questions on decentering and recentering, diff erent ways of conceptualizing the South, and-as a pressing concern with regard to knowledge production-the politics of citation. In so doing, the introduction critically delineates the contours of these debates, provides a frame for this volume, and sets out a number of key thematic and editorial priorities for Migration and Society moving forward.
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Despite an overall paucity of literature, the relationship between religious identity, belief and... more Despite an overall paucity of literature, the relationship between religious identity, belief and practice on the one hand, and processes of forced migration on the other, has received increasing attention in the 2000s.1 Over the past decade, a number of journals have convened Special Issues which focus on particular dimensions of this relationship. The introductions and contributions to such volumes note the extent to which religion may play a significant role as a potential cause of forced migration (i.e. examining asylum claims based on the grounds of religious persecution, see Mayer’s 2007 Special Issue of Refugee Survey Quarterly (RSQ)), and within forced migrants’ experiences of internal and international displacement, asylum-seeking, protracted refugeedom, and the quest for effective durable solutions. With reference to the focus on faith and experiences, Goździak and Shandy’s 2002 Special Issue of the Journal of Refugee Studies, entitled ‘Religion and Spirituality in Forced Migration,’ is a particularly noteworthy collection, whose articles engage with diverse ways of negotiating and coping with displacement which variously draw on, and/or result in changes in, personal, familial and collective religious beliefs and practices.2 While the above-mentioned collections draw together case-studies from a diversity of religious traditions, other Special Issues have more concretely explored the history of asylum and contemporary experiences of seeking refuge and protection in relation to specific monotheistic religions, such as Türk’s 2008 Special Issue of RSQ on ‘Asylum and Islam’.
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Journal Articles by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
International Migration, 2021
The 70th anniversary of the 1951 Geneva Convention has been marked by a flurry of powerful academ... more The 70th anniversary of the 1951 Geneva Convention has been marked by a flurry of powerful academic critiques of the Convention's colonial and Eurocentric roots, and its “intentional” exclusion (Mayblin, 2014) of certain refugees and regions (i.e. see Krause, 2021; White, 2021; longer-standing critiques include Chimni, 1998). Equally, the Convention's anniversary has been characterized by the ongoing flagrant violation of its fundamental legal principles by states across the global North and global South alike. At a time when refugees’ rights to protection continue to be undermined, it becomes urgent to ask: what is the role of critique? Does critique risk undermining the existing framework, thereby potentially leaving people with fewer rights? Or, to the contrary, does it provide an avenue to bring into fruition more equitable and meaningful practices, and a more hopeful vision of protection in the 21st century?
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Journal of Humanitarian Affairs, 2019
Open access: https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/journals/jha/1/1/article-p28.xml
This artic... more Open access: https://www.manchesteropenhive.com/view/journals/jha/1/1/article-p28.xml
This article explores the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees’ (UNRWA) responses to the US Government’s decision to dramatically cut its financial contributions to the Agency in 2018. Acknowledging the complexities of the fast-moving changes and dilemmas faced by UNRWA and Palestinian refugees, this article focuses specifically on the events that unfolded in the first six months of 2018. Through a multiscalar analysis, I start by situating UNRWA’s key responses as they have played out on the international stage through a high-profile fundraising campaign (#DignityIsPriceless). I then develop a close reading of three regional-level UNRWA circulars disseminated to UNRWA staff pertaining to the provision of maternal and neonatal health services, and to Palestinian UNRWA staff members’ employment and pension rights. Against the backdrop of the impact of UNRWA’s responses across the region, I subsequently examine how these operational changes have been experienced and conceptualised by Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon, noting that those experiences must be analysed within the broader context of protracted displacement, enforced immobility and overlapping displacement.
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Migration and Society, 2020
ABSTRACT: It has become increasingly mainstream to argue that redressing the Euro- centrism of mi... more ABSTRACT: It has become increasingly mainstream to argue that redressing the Euro- centrism of migration studies requires a commitment to decentering global North knowledge. However, it is less clear whether this necessarily means “recentering the South.” Against this backdrop, this introduction starts by highlighting diverse ways that scholars, including the contributors to this special issue, have sought to redress Euro- centrism in migration studies: (1) examining the applicability of classical concepts and frameworks in the South; (2) filling blind spots by studying migration in the South and South-South migration; and (3) engaging critically with the geopolitics of knowledge production. The remainder of the introduction examines questions on decentering and recentering, different ways of conceptualizing the South, and—as a pressing concern with regard to knowledge production —the politics of citation. In so doing, the intro- duction critically delineates the contours of these debates, provides a frame for this volume, and sets out a number of key thematic and editorial priorities for Migration and Society moving forward.
KEYWORDS: coloniality of knowledge, decentering, decolonial thought, feminism, geopolitics of knowledge, recentering, relationality, South-South migration
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Books by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
at University College London, this edited volume challenges the monolithic representations of refugees and displacement and proposes a more nuanced understanding of the history, causes, experiences, and responses to refugeehood. Set against the notion of “crisis”, this book challenges representations that have dominated the public humanitarian narrative in the past decades. Indeed, to counteract widespread xenophobic responses to migrants and refugees around the world, humanitarian actors have often created “pro-refugee” narratives that have “securitized” displaced people (p. 2) and limited their agency. They have portrayed refugees as victims and passive recipients of aid, as “ideal refugees” “worthy” of humanitarian assistance, or placed them into categories of exceptionalism—such as what
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh calls the “super refugee”. These narratives generate inclusion and exclusion and keep displaced people “in their place” within a framework of epistemic violence (p. 3). To challenge these representations, this volume presents displacement and forced migration not as something that people simply experience, but as experiences to which people respond.
produced, particularly through creative methods and approaches. With this diversity and innovation, a third reading is that the book’s contributions form a more nuanced way of representing the experience of displacement away from the stereotyped and dichotomized figures of victim or hero (the ‘super-refugee’) (see Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s introduction, pp 1–19). Finally, an important lens through which to read the book is that it illustrates the need for always contextualizing the knowledge of displacement away from homogenizing and reductive descriptions. As contributor Nerea Amorós
Elorduy writes: ‘I argue that detailed, specific information adds complexity and nuance to refugee-encampment studies, depicting a more realistic image of the varied situations of encamped refugees and underscoring the powerful agency of refugees and their direct local hosts’ (p 364).
Through in-depth multi-sited fieldwork conducted with and about Sahrawi and Palestinian refugee students in Cuba and Libya, and following their return to the desert-based Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and the urban Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, this highly pertinent study brings refugees’ views and voices to the forefront and sheds a unique light on their understandings of self-sufficiency, humanitarianism and hospitality. It critically assesses the impact of diverse policies designed to maximise self-sufficiency and to reduce both brain drain and ongoing dependency upon Northern aid providers, exploring the extent to which South-South scholarship systems have challenged the power imbalances that typically characterise North to South development models. Finally, this very timely study discusses the impact of the Arab Spring on Libya’s support mechanisms for Sahrawi and Palestinian refugees, and considers the changing nature of Cuba’s educational model in light of major ongoing political, ideological and economic shifts in the island state, asking whether there is a future for such alternative programmes and initiatives.
This book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners in the areas of migration studies, refugee studies, comparative education, development and humanitarian studies, international relations, and regional studies (Latin America, Middle East, and North Africa).
In The Ideal Refugees, the author argues that secularism and the empowerment of Sahrawi refugee women have been strategically invoked to secure the humanitarian and political support of Western state and non-state actors who ensure the continued survival of the camps and their inhabitants. This book challenges the reader to reflect critically on who benefits from assertions of good, bad, and ideal refugees, and whose interests are advanced by interwoven discourses about the empowerment of women and secularism in contexts of war and peace.
While much of the discussion on South–South collaboration focuses on economic and trade benefits stemming from such partnerships, cooperation among Southern actors can also create important opportunities for people to build human capital, especially through the provision of education (Bakewell, 2009, p.55). However, the literature on South–South cooperation around education remains limited, and in particular few studies have explored South–South cooperation in the context of refugees’ education.
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s book is a major contribution that seeks to address this gap. The author investigates Cuban and Libyan scholarship programmes for students from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including refugees from Palestine and Sahrawi refugee camps, and explores the experiences of the refugee beneficiaries during and after their study....
"This is an outstanding contribution to the understanding of gender roles, particularly in an Islamic setting, women’s studies, and the Sahrawis. Summing Up: Highly recommended. *** "
Edited Books by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
This book draws together over 30 contributions written from multiple disciplines and fields of research and practice - including the social sciences, the humanities and the arts, and with and through art, advocacy and activism -, to open up informed conversations around different ways of engaging with and responding to migration and displacement. It combines critical reflections on the complexities of conducting research into, and conceptualising, processes and experiences of (forced) migration, with detailed analyses of experiences and representations of, and responses to contemporary and historical processes of (forced) migration around the world. Through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies – including participatory research, poetic and spatial interventions, ethnography, theatre, discourse analysis and visual methods – the book carefully, and creatively, documents the complexities of refugees’ and migrants’ journeys. This includes a particular focus on how people inhabit and negotiate everyday life in cities, towns, camps and informal settlements across the Middle East and North Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and Europe. A key dynamic documented throughout the book is the multiple ways that responses to displacement are enacted by people with personal or family experiences of forced migration, including in their capacity as researchers, writers and artists, teachers, solidarians, first responders, NGO practitioners, neighbours, and/or friends. Through the application of historically- and spatially-sensitive, intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses, the book examines the ways that different people - including across axes of religion, sexuality, gender and age - experience and respond to their own situations (and that of other people), in the context of diverse power structures and structural inequalities on the local, national and international level. Ultimately, the book argues that working collaboratively through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies has the potential to develop nuanced understandings of processes of migration and displacement, and, in turn, more sustainable modes of responding to our moving world.
This Handbook critically explores diverse ways of defining ‘the South’ and of conceptualising and engaging with ‘South-South relations.’ Through 30 state-of-the art reviews of key academic and policy debates, the Handbook evaluates past, present and future opportunities and challenges of South-South cooperation, and lays out research agendas for the next 5-10 years. The book covers key models of cooperation (including internationalism, Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism), diverse modes of South-South connection, exchange and support (including South-South aid, transnational activism, and migration), and responses to displacement, violence and conflict (including Southern-led humanitarianism, peace-building and conflict resolution). In so doing, the Handbook reflects on decolonial, postcolonial and anticolonial theories and methodologies, exploring urgent questions regarding the nature and implications of conducting research in and about the global South, and of applying a ‘Southern lens’ to a wide range of encounters, processes and dynamics across the global South and global North alike.
This Handbook will be of great interest to scholars and post-graduate students in Anthropology, Area Studies, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, History, Geography, International Relations, Politics, Postcolonial Studies, and Sociology.
Edited by Jennifer Saunders, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Susanna Snyder.
Contributions include:
Jennifer Saunders, Susie Snyder and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh: Introduction
Holly Straut Eppsteiner and Jacqueline Hagan: Religion as Psychological, Spiritual and Cultural Support in the Migration Undertaking
Kim Knott: Living Religious Practices
Zayn Kassam: Muslims in America: The Challenges of Migration and the Construction of Religious Identities
Khayti Y. Joshi: The Racialization of Religions in Migration
Hugo Cordova-Quero: Embodied (Dis)Placements - The Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in Migration Studies
Ellen Posman: Home and Away: Exile and Diaspora as Religious Concepts
Stephen M. Cherry: Exploring the Contours of Transnational Religious Spaces and Networks
Daniel Groody: Migration - A Theological Vision
Benjamin Schewel: Ethics, Transcendence and Borders
Alastair Ager and Joey Ager: Religion, Forced Migration and Humanitarian Response
Erin K. Wilson and Luca Mavelli: Taking Responsibility: Sociodicy, Solidarity, and Religious-Sensitive Policy-Making in the Global Politics of Migration
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Susie Snyder and Jennifer Saunders: Tracing The Ways Ahead
This authoritative Handbook critically evaluates the birth and development of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and analyses the key contemporary and future challenges faced by academics and practitioners working with and for forcibly displaced populations around the world. The 52 state-of-the-art chapters, written by leading academics, practitioners, and policymakers working in universities, research centres, think tanks, NGOs and international organizations, provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the key intellectual, political, social and institutional challenges arising from mass displacement in the world today. The chapters vividly illustrate the vibrant and engaging debates that characterize this rapidly expanding field of research and practice.
Journal Special Issues by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
Journal Articles by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
This article explores the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees’ (UNRWA) responses to the US Government’s decision to dramatically cut its financial contributions to the Agency in 2018. Acknowledging the complexities of the fast-moving changes and dilemmas faced by UNRWA and Palestinian refugees, this article focuses specifically on the events that unfolded in the first six months of 2018. Through a multiscalar analysis, I start by situating UNRWA’s key responses as they have played out on the international stage through a high-profile fundraising campaign (#DignityIsPriceless). I then develop a close reading of three regional-level UNRWA circulars disseminated to UNRWA staff pertaining to the provision of maternal and neonatal health services, and to Palestinian UNRWA staff members’ employment and pension rights. Against the backdrop of the impact of UNRWA’s responses across the region, I subsequently examine how these operational changes have been experienced and conceptualised by Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon, noting that those experiences must be analysed within the broader context of protracted displacement, enforced immobility and overlapping displacement.
KEYWORDS: coloniality of knowledge, decentering, decolonial thought, feminism, geopolitics of knowledge, recentering, relationality, South-South migration
at University College London, this edited volume challenges the monolithic representations of refugees and displacement and proposes a more nuanced understanding of the history, causes, experiences, and responses to refugeehood. Set against the notion of “crisis”, this book challenges representations that have dominated the public humanitarian narrative in the past decades. Indeed, to counteract widespread xenophobic responses to migrants and refugees around the world, humanitarian actors have often created “pro-refugee” narratives that have “securitized” displaced people (p. 2) and limited their agency. They have portrayed refugees as victims and passive recipients of aid, as “ideal refugees” “worthy” of humanitarian assistance, or placed them into categories of exceptionalism—such as what
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh calls the “super refugee”. These narratives generate inclusion and exclusion and keep displaced people “in their place” within a framework of epistemic violence (p. 3). To challenge these representations, this volume presents displacement and forced migration not as something that people simply experience, but as experiences to which people respond.
produced, particularly through creative methods and approaches. With this diversity and innovation, a third reading is that the book’s contributions form a more nuanced way of representing the experience of displacement away from the stereotyped and dichotomized figures of victim or hero (the ‘super-refugee’) (see Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s introduction, pp 1–19). Finally, an important lens through which to read the book is that it illustrates the need for always contextualizing the knowledge of displacement away from homogenizing and reductive descriptions. As contributor Nerea Amorós
Elorduy writes: ‘I argue that detailed, specific information adds complexity and nuance to refugee-encampment studies, depicting a more realistic image of the varied situations of encamped refugees and underscoring the powerful agency of refugees and their direct local hosts’ (p 364).
Through in-depth multi-sited fieldwork conducted with and about Sahrawi and Palestinian refugee students in Cuba and Libya, and following their return to the desert-based Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria and the urban Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, this highly pertinent study brings refugees’ views and voices to the forefront and sheds a unique light on their understandings of self-sufficiency, humanitarianism and hospitality. It critically assesses the impact of diverse policies designed to maximise self-sufficiency and to reduce both brain drain and ongoing dependency upon Northern aid providers, exploring the extent to which South-South scholarship systems have challenged the power imbalances that typically characterise North to South development models. Finally, this very timely study discusses the impact of the Arab Spring on Libya’s support mechanisms for Sahrawi and Palestinian refugees, and considers the changing nature of Cuba’s educational model in light of major ongoing political, ideological and economic shifts in the island state, asking whether there is a future for such alternative programmes and initiatives.
This book will be a valuable resource for students, researchers and practitioners in the areas of migration studies, refugee studies, comparative education, development and humanitarian studies, international relations, and regional studies (Latin America, Middle East, and North Africa).
In The Ideal Refugees, the author argues that secularism and the empowerment of Sahrawi refugee women have been strategically invoked to secure the humanitarian and political support of Western state and non-state actors who ensure the continued survival of the camps and their inhabitants. This book challenges the reader to reflect critically on who benefits from assertions of good, bad, and ideal refugees, and whose interests are advanced by interwoven discourses about the empowerment of women and secularism in contexts of war and peace.
While much of the discussion on South–South collaboration focuses on economic and trade benefits stemming from such partnerships, cooperation among Southern actors can also create important opportunities for people to build human capital, especially through the provision of education (Bakewell, 2009, p.55). However, the literature on South–South cooperation around education remains limited, and in particular few studies have explored South–South cooperation in the context of refugees’ education.
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s book is a major contribution that seeks to address this gap. The author investigates Cuban and Libyan scholarship programmes for students from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), including refugees from Palestine and Sahrawi refugee camps, and explores the experiences of the refugee beneficiaries during and after their study....
"This is an outstanding contribution to the understanding of gender roles, particularly in an Islamic setting, women’s studies, and the Sahrawis. Summing Up: Highly recommended. *** "
This book draws together over 30 contributions written from multiple disciplines and fields of research and practice - including the social sciences, the humanities and the arts, and with and through art, advocacy and activism -, to open up informed conversations around different ways of engaging with and responding to migration and displacement. It combines critical reflections on the complexities of conducting research into, and conceptualising, processes and experiences of (forced) migration, with detailed analyses of experiences and representations of, and responses to contemporary and historical processes of (forced) migration around the world. Through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies – including participatory research, poetic and spatial interventions, ethnography, theatre, discourse analysis and visual methods – the book carefully, and creatively, documents the complexities of refugees’ and migrants’ journeys. This includes a particular focus on how people inhabit and negotiate everyday life in cities, towns, camps and informal settlements across the Middle East and North Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and Europe. A key dynamic documented throughout the book is the multiple ways that responses to displacement are enacted by people with personal or family experiences of forced migration, including in their capacity as researchers, writers and artists, teachers, solidarians, first responders, NGO practitioners, neighbours, and/or friends. Through the application of historically- and spatially-sensitive, intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses, the book examines the ways that different people - including across axes of religion, sexuality, gender and age - experience and respond to their own situations (and that of other people), in the context of diverse power structures and structural inequalities on the local, national and international level. Ultimately, the book argues that working collaboratively through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies has the potential to develop nuanced understandings of processes of migration and displacement, and, in turn, more sustainable modes of responding to our moving world.
This Handbook critically explores diverse ways of defining ‘the South’ and of conceptualising and engaging with ‘South-South relations.’ Through 30 state-of-the art reviews of key academic and policy debates, the Handbook evaluates past, present and future opportunities and challenges of South-South cooperation, and lays out research agendas for the next 5-10 years. The book covers key models of cooperation (including internationalism, Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism), diverse modes of South-South connection, exchange and support (including South-South aid, transnational activism, and migration), and responses to displacement, violence and conflict (including Southern-led humanitarianism, peace-building and conflict resolution). In so doing, the Handbook reflects on decolonial, postcolonial and anticolonial theories and methodologies, exploring urgent questions regarding the nature and implications of conducting research in and about the global South, and of applying a ‘Southern lens’ to a wide range of encounters, processes and dynamics across the global South and global North alike.
This Handbook will be of great interest to scholars and post-graduate students in Anthropology, Area Studies, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, History, Geography, International Relations, Politics, Postcolonial Studies, and Sociology.
Edited by Jennifer Saunders, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Susanna Snyder.
Contributions include:
Jennifer Saunders, Susie Snyder and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh: Introduction
Holly Straut Eppsteiner and Jacqueline Hagan: Religion as Psychological, Spiritual and Cultural Support in the Migration Undertaking
Kim Knott: Living Religious Practices
Zayn Kassam: Muslims in America: The Challenges of Migration and the Construction of Religious Identities
Khayti Y. Joshi: The Racialization of Religions in Migration
Hugo Cordova-Quero: Embodied (Dis)Placements - The Intersections of Gender, Sexuality, and Religion in Migration Studies
Ellen Posman: Home and Away: Exile and Diaspora as Religious Concepts
Stephen M. Cherry: Exploring the Contours of Transnational Religious Spaces and Networks
Daniel Groody: Migration - A Theological Vision
Benjamin Schewel: Ethics, Transcendence and Borders
Alastair Ager and Joey Ager: Religion, Forced Migration and Humanitarian Response
Erin K. Wilson and Luca Mavelli: Taking Responsibility: Sociodicy, Solidarity, and Religious-Sensitive Policy-Making in the Global Politics of Migration
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Susie Snyder and Jennifer Saunders: Tracing The Ways Ahead
This authoritative Handbook critically evaluates the birth and development of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies, and analyses the key contemporary and future challenges faced by academics and practitioners working with and for forcibly displaced populations around the world. The 52 state-of-the-art chapters, written by leading academics, practitioners, and policymakers working in universities, research centres, think tanks, NGOs and international organizations, provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge overview of the key intellectual, political, social and institutional challenges arising from mass displacement in the world today. The chapters vividly illustrate the vibrant and engaging debates that characterize this rapidly expanding field of research and practice.
This article explores the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees’ (UNRWA) responses to the US Government’s decision to dramatically cut its financial contributions to the Agency in 2018. Acknowledging the complexities of the fast-moving changes and dilemmas faced by UNRWA and Palestinian refugees, this article focuses specifically on the events that unfolded in the first six months of 2018. Through a multiscalar analysis, I start by situating UNRWA’s key responses as they have played out on the international stage through a high-profile fundraising campaign (#DignityIsPriceless). I then develop a close reading of three regional-level UNRWA circulars disseminated to UNRWA staff pertaining to the provision of maternal and neonatal health services, and to Palestinian UNRWA staff members’ employment and pension rights. Against the backdrop of the impact of UNRWA’s responses across the region, I subsequently examine how these operational changes have been experienced and conceptualised by Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon, noting that those experiences must be analysed within the broader context of protracted displacement, enforced immobility and overlapping displacement.
KEYWORDS: coloniality of knowledge, decentering, decolonial thought, feminism, geopolitics of knowledge, recentering, relationality, South-South migration
Accounting for the roles of local communities is a key aim of our RefugeeHosts project, and of the ‘Localisation of Aid’ agenda more broadly. However, as a result of the mainstream narratives that pervade the literature on conflict-induced displacement, efforts to properly engage with the local have been held back by a failure to fully recognise the role(s) of established refugee communities in responding to the needs of displaced peoples. In this piece, which was originally published in The Critique, the Refugee Hosts PI Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, and our Writer in Residence Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, introduce a key concept for our project, what Fiddian-Qasmiyeh denominates ‘refugee-refugee humanitarianism’. In order to do so they also examine the meanings of hospitality and neighbourliness in the context of displacement from Syria, with particular attention to the meanings of these terms in Arabic. In addition to our ongoing attention to translation and language, the Refugee Hosts team will be gathering evidence about the roles played by established refugee communities so as to a) disrupt humanitarian narratives that frame refugees as passive recipients of aid, and b) to better inform policy, practice and further research into displacement, both in the Middle East and beyond. If you find this article of interest, please also see the suggested readings at the end of this piece.
Read the piece here: https://refugeehosts.org/2018/03/20/refugee-neighbours-hostipitality/
The current hypervisibility of Middle Eastern refugees in media and political discourses is, on many levels, understandable given the sheer number of refugees fleeing from diverse, intersecting crises and conflicts across the Middle East and farther afield and also in light of the challenges faced by Northern states and Northern-led organizations attempting to respond to these processes of forced migration. However, hypervisibility is itself regionally governed; it is arguably not the “humanitarian crisis” evolving in the Middle East but rather Europe’s (self-)position(ing) as a space overwhelmed by the arrival of an estimated 1 million refugees in 2015 that is at the core of this process of hypervisibilization in the European public sphere. In contrast, forced migrants across the global South remain invisible precisely because they are of no consequence to Europe. Ultimately, processes of (hyper)visibility have themselves also simultaneously been characterized by the reinscription of diverse forms of invisibility and marginalization.
This article draws on my research with and about refugees from the Middle East and North Africa both to historicize and to contextualize what I refer to as intersecting processes of repressentation and footnoting (following Jacques Derrida) in the study of, and diverse responses to, forced migration (Fiddian- Qasmiyeh 2010, 2014a, 2016a). In particular, I evoke the concept of repressentation to examine the extent to which certain groups of forced migrants and certain identity markers (real, imagined, and imposed), on the one hand, and certain modes of “humanitarian” response to forced migration, on the other, are centralized and heralded while others are concealed from public view for diverse reasons and with different effects. The deconstructive framework underpinning my work as a whole leads me purposefully to centralize what has previously been assigned a peripheral position throughout the ever-expanding “archive of knowledge” (Foucault 1989: 25) vis-à-vis particular refugee situations and simultane- ously to critically interrogate how, why, and with what effect only certain bodies, identity markers, and models of humanitarian response become hypervisible in the public sphere. I start by tracing the roles of visibility and invisibility in constituting the “ideal refugee” (and the concomitant figure of the “a-refugee”), before turning to my ongoing research into refugee-refugee humanitarianism as an invisible form of Southern-led (rather than Northern-led or Northern-dominated) responses to displacement from Syria.
This article examines the ways in which Palestinians have been affected by the Arab Uprisings and their aftermath, especially in light of their statelessness and protracted refugeedom. It does so by analysing the narratives of 49 Palestinians who were based in France, Sweden, and the UK at the time of interview between 2012 and 2014. We show that the forms of mobilisation and/or identifications that Palestinians in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and beyond engaged in with regard to the Arab Uprisings, transcended the link between the host state and the homeland. They extended to a plurality of in-between spaces such as Palestinian refugee camps, Arab host states, and Arab countries experiencing the uprisings. We argue that these in-between spaces became salient to broader conceptions of Palestinian identity and activism because Palestinian-ness is shaped not only through attachment to place, but also through particular experiences that are associated with Palestinian identity.
In the run up to the Lebanese elections on 6 May 2018, national and international media and human rights organisations have denounced the appearance of anti-Syrian banners across Beirut.
Reading “The day will come when we tell the Syrians: gather your things and everything you stole, and leave,” the words on the banner below are presented as originating from the mouth of the late-Lebanese President, General Bashir Gemayel, the politician pictured to the right and named on the left of the banner...
https://refugeehosts.org/2018/04/27/anti-syrian-banners-and-graffiti-in-context-racism-counter-racism-and-solidarity-for-refugees-in-lebanon/
Such camps are outside Lebanese jurisdiction, and have commonly been referred to as “islands of insecurity”. Nonetheless, the established residents of Baddawi camp have offered protection and assistance to tens of thousands of new arrivals from Syria since 2011.
These recent arrivals include Syrian nationals who have fled violence and persecution in their country, but also displaced Syrian-Palestinians and Iraqis. While they are new to Lebanon and Jordan when compared with “established” refugee communities, refugees from Syria are now officially categorised as “protracted” refugees. And for many hundreds of thousands of Palestinian and Iraqi refugees, this is the second, third or fourth time that they have been displaced by conflict.
Baddawi is a stark reminder of the urgent reality of this crisis. We’ve been saturated with stories and images about the refugee crisis (really a protection crisis) in Europe – and yet the vast majority of refugees from Syria are still hosted by Syria’s neighbouring countries. At the end of August 2015, there were 1,114,000 in Lebanon, 630,000 in Jordan and 1,939,000 in Turkey.
European states and political parties are still debating how to respond to this crisis and where, with the UK threatening to redirect foreign aid to provide resources for local councils to house refugees in Britain. Meanwhile, since the very outbreak of the Syrian conflict, vital support has been given in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey by local communities and civil society groups.
These local communities include Lebanese, Jordanian and Turkish citizens, but also protracted refugees who sought sanctuary in Lebanon and Jordan long before the outbreak of the Syrian conflict or the violence that has engulfed the region since 2010.
These refugees have been offering key forms of support and protection to “new refugees” from Syria through what I call “refugee-refugee humanitarianism”. By helping each other, refugees are defying the widely held assumption that refugees are passive victims who need outsiders to care for them.
But these responses shouldn’t be idealised. However much they help each other, these refugees are still contending with terrible power imbalances, exclusion, and outright hostility. With established refugees already living precarious lives, we must ask how sustainable refugee-to-refugee assistance can really be.
Explaining his understanding of statelessness, Laith - a 21-year-old man born in Nablus and interviewed in London – presented two interconnected meanings: firstly, having no home in the world and being unable to enjoy basic rights, and, secondly, having no state to ‘project’ your voice. This is not to say that individuals cannot speak, but rather that the support of a state is needed for this voice to be ‘projected’ and heard by Others; having a voice, Laith asserted, ultimately means not only expressing an opinion, but “Being able to enact change”, to change “something that I do not think is fair.”
This article draws on the narratives of Palestinians interviewed in France, Sweden and the UK, to explore their understandings of, and resistance to, the political and legal processes which have led to their being constituted as stateless people.
In contrast with the historical and geographical exceptionalism perpetuated throughout discursive and policy frames related to so-called ‘migration crisis’, including most recently in Europe and North America, most displacement situations both have long histories and are characterised by people seeking refuge in countries of the Global South. Unlike the hypervisibility of situations interpellated as ‘crises’, protracted displacement situations are rarely the subject of Western media, or of political or policy attention. Inter alia, this is because the geographies and directionality of movement renders South–South migration largely inconsequential to European and North American audiences. Simultaneously, this is because ‘crises’ are typically framed as temporally delimited: as only existing in the early days and months of forced migration, while people’s precarity and needs are assumed to decrease as time passes. This raises questions explored in this piece: how can ‘crises’ be understood in the context of, and from the perspective of, people living in situations of protracted displacement? How do practices of care, and caring for children and youth born into displacement and long-term refugee camps, relate to different conceptualisations of crisis and non- crisis? In this chapter, which revolves around a conversation between Lehdía Mohamed Dafa, Sahrawi medical doctor and PhD researcher at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, and Spanish-British academic Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, we explore these questions in relation to the protracted Sahrawi refugee situation.
Against this backdrop, and based on long-standing research vis-à-vis local, national and international responses to displacement from Syria within Lebanon, this chapter examines the diverse roles that faith and secularism play in the initiatives developed by Syrian diaspora organisations based in Lebanon, exploring how and with what effect faith, religion, secularism (and secularist frameworks) relate to Syrian DOs’ relationships with different local, national and international actors, including Syrian refugees, members of host populations and diverse UN Agencies, NGOs and INGOs.
Syrian DOs in Lebanon include organisations established and led by activists, ex-protesters, established Syrian migrant workers, and religious leaders who have ‘become’ relief providers since the crisis broke out. On the one hand, by drawing on interviews with members of a range of Syrian DOs in Lebanon, this chapter explores the personal and collective reasons behind the act of establishing these organisations. On the other hand, it will investigate the social roles played by secular and faith-based DO members who engage in relief work, and their contextual relationship with their international and secular counterparts. This is particularly important in light of the strong financial and political support that a core group of popular secular(ist) Syrian DOs have received from international donors/agencies. In contrast, faith-based diaspora organisations have often been viewed by members of the international community (both in the context of Syria and more broadly) as exiled communities that do not fulfil key international humanitarian principles such as neutrality, impartiality or universality as they are assumed to prioritise political or sectarian dimensions through providing assistance (only or primarily) to their co-nationals/co-ethnics. This secular-centric interpretation of the partialist nature of faith-motivated assistance remains particularly biased towards diaspora groups that mobilise within the global South, where the source of crisis supposedly lies.
By providing examples from Beirut and from northern Lebanon, this chapter will show how DOs’ configuration and engagement with specific international and local communities have been changing since the outbreak of the crisis in Syria in 2011. By analysing the organisational configuration (including partnership models) and the forms of provision of these secular and faith-based DOs, we are particularly interested in examining how intra-community solidarity is (or is not) built within southern host societies through Syrian DOs’ initiatives – this is a dynamic that has received hardly any attention from scholars examining diaspora transnational endeavours.
With the purpose of investigating the human and social geographies of such secular and faith-based DOs, our chapter aims to draw on lessons from anthropological, sociological, and IR studies, in a bid to construct a deeper understanding of secular and faith-based DO-led aid provision and their social impacts in settings of the global South which geographically (and geopolitically) neighbour new and ongoing crises.
Contents
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Gender, Violence, Refugees. An Introduction
Susanne Buckley-Zistel and Ulrike Krause
SECTION I: CONCEPTUALISING GENDER, VIOLENCE, REFUGEES
Chapter 1. UNHCR Policy on Refugee Women: A 25-Year Retrospective
Susan F. Martin
Chapter 2. Victims of Chaos and Subaltern Sexualities? Some Reflections on Common Assumptions about Displacement and the Prevalence of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence
Simon Turner
Chapter 3. Refugees, Global Governance and the Local Politics of Violence against Women
Elisabeth Olivius
Chapter 4. ‘Solidarity’ and ‘Gender Equality’ as a Discourse of Violence in Sweden: Exclusion of Refugees by the Decent Citizen
Emma Mc Cluskey
Chapter 5. Spatializing Inequalities: The Situation of Women in Refugee Centres in Germany
Melanie Hartmann
Chapter 6. ‘Faithing’ Gender and Responses to Violence in Refugee Communities: Insights from the Sahrawi Refugee Camps and the Democratic Republic of Congo
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Chloé Lewis and Georgia Cole
Chapter 7. Formidable Intersections: Forced Migration, Gender and Livelihoods
Dale Buscher
SECTION II: EXPERIENCING GENDER, VIOLENCE, REFUGE
Chapter 8. Escaping Conflicts and Being Safe? Post-conflict Refugee Camps and the Continuum of Violence
Ulrike Krause
Chapter 9. Lost Boys, Invisible Girls: Children, Gendered Violence in Wartime and Displacement in South Sudan
Marisa O. Ensor
Chapter 10. Military Recruitment of Sudanese Refugee Men in Uganda: a Tale of National Patronage and International Failure
Maja Janmyr
Chapter 11. Gender, Violence, and Deportation: Angola’s Forced Return of Congolese Migrant Workers
Alexander Betts
Chapter 12. The Romance of Return: Post-exile Lives and Interpersonal Violence Over Land in Burundi
Barbra Lukunka
overview of diaspora studies, we wanted to capture the vitality
and variety of research being carried out in this field. Different
epistemological standpoints inform the ways in which contributors use the term ‘diaspora’. They fall along a spectrum between emphasising group identity as the bounded object of institutional intervention, to understanding diasporic belonging and mobilisation in more fluid, dynamic and performative ways.
Drawing on examples of Southern faith-based actors’ responses to recent and ongoing processes of displacement, including case-studies of Myanmar and Syria, we address these gaps in knowledge and re-engage with popular debates around religion/secularism, politics and humanitarianism. In doing so, we argue that ideology and politics pervade not just humanitarian practice, but the ‘humanitarian’ epithet itself, and it is this politics that has for so long footnoted the Other in the study of humanitarianism. Through these contemporary case-studies, we demonstrate the significance of faith-based responses to complex emergencies in the twenty-first century, arguing that ignoring or a priori demonizing these as a result of the abovementioned bias undermines the ability for policy makers or academics to develop rigorous understandings of, and appropriate responses to, displacement.
Further, we engage with the notions of solidarity that resonate throughout the case studies presented, including those expressed between co-religionists and members of different faiths (or none), to argue for an expansion of the field of Humanitarian Studies to incorporate these multiple and overlapping solidarities. This expansion does not reject the existence or legitimacy of notions of global citizenship that inform some humanitarian action. However, by considering how global society is only one of a myriad of potential spheres of solidarity held by individuals and communities, it rejects the contention that this is the only legitimate form of humanitarianism, advocating for more academic inquiry into the humanitarianisms of the global South, including South-South faith-based humanitarianisms.
diverse spaces develop in relation to one another, enables a deeper understanding of and appreciation for the dynamics and processes that shape local responses to displacement.
Equally, there is a tendency to view hosts as citizens that provide support to refugees. However, “shifting the gaze” towards a more relational approach recognises the significant role that refugees themselves play as providers of support and assistance, including through processes that can be conceptualised as ‘refugee-refugee humanitarianism’. In contexts of protracted displacement, newly arrived refugees will be hosted by established refugee communities displaced from ongoing protracted conflict, as is the case of people arriving from Syria and being hosted by Palestinian refugees in Baddawi refugee camp in North Lebanon. ‘Refugees’ and ‘hosts’ are not always distinct categories of people; refugees may previously have been hosts; and citizens in host countries may have past experiences of both displacement and of hosting.
These shared histories of displacement and hosting inform local responses in ways that are under appreciated. Accounting for these relational processes, including through a recognition of ‘refugee-refugee relationality’, ‘overlapping displacement’ and intersecting structural barriers, is vital. This Research Brief offers recommendations to this effect.
As the research findings attest, the promotion of social justice for refugees can range from offering humanitarian assistance, to diverse acts of advocacy, activism, and solidarity, all within political and social contexts that are often compromised and precarious. The findings also evidence a disconnect between what policy makers and practitioners assume that ‘refugees need’ and what different groups of refugees themselves consider to be essential requirements, as prerequisites to dignity and justice. The report presents and analyses these findings, tracing the implications of this project for future research in this field, and laying the foundations for a Policy Brief that will be published in 2020.
a permitir a los refugiados saharauis la integración en la ciudad militar argelina de Tinduf, la posición dominante adoptada por la comunidad internacional es la de que los campamentos continúen siendo, en un futuro previsible, la única opción viable para los refugiados. No obstante, esta presuposición no tiene en cuenta una variedad de soluciones alternativas que han sido propuestas y desarrolladas hasta la fecha.
Desde la década de los setenta, el Polisario ha demostrado oficialmente su capacidad de organizar los campamentos internamente, desarrollando estructuras políticas, educativas y sociales, así como servicios para atender a las necesidades de sus ‘ciudadanos-refugiados’. Durante este periodo prolongado, sin embargo, las condiciones en los campamentos
han cambiado considerablemente, en parte debido al desarrollo de una considerable diferenciación socio-económica entre los residentes, en la que ha influido el dinero llegado a través de remesas procedentes de individuos o familias saharauis con trabajo en España, pensiones pagadas por el gobierno español a los refugiados que fueron antiguos empleados coloniales, empleos ofertados por las ONG, y ‘regalos’ enviados por las familias españolas que apadrinan a alrededor de 10,000 niños saharauis cada año.
En efecto, mientras los campamentos de refugiados son presentados continuamente ante los observadores humanitarios como ‘ideales’ en su autosuficiencia y cumplimiento de las prioridades de ‘buena gobernanza’ de los donantes, este informe subraya la urgente necesidad de cuestionar los presupuestos establecidos sobre las condiciones y el funcionamiento de los campamentos de refugiados saharauis, así como la de desarrollar respuestas políticas y programar soluciones consecuentemente. Esto es particularmente importante, dado que la visión idealizada de la vida en dichos campamentos supone
el riesgo de que el status quo se establezca como norma, escondiendo así la anómala situación del prolongado desplazamiento saharaui y evitando la debida consideración de las causas políticas, el impacto y las posibles soluciones al conflicto.
Asimismo, este informe cuestiona la opinión dominante según la cual los campamentos son necesariamente ‘el escenario más probable’ para este dilatado conflicto, tal como han afirmado observadores internacionales. A este propósito el informe analiza los retos y
las oportunidades de los refugiados saharauis, sus representantes políticos y los actores internacionales. Así, sostenemos que se debe realizar un cuidadoso análisis de las diversas soluciones alternativas que las familias saharauis y sus representantes políticos, el Frente Polisario, han adoptado o propuesto recientemente. La viabilidad de estas soluciones, y, específicamente, los posibles riesgos que pudieran asociarse a estas diversas estrategias individuales, familiares o colectivos, requieren atención urgente aunque, hasta la fecha, no han sido tenidas en cuenta por los responsables políticos.
Basado en una investigación de campo realizada sobre los campamentos saharauis entre 2001 y 2010 en Argelia, Cuba, Suráfrica, España y Siria, el informe presenta una serie de propuestas dignas de consideración por parte de las agencias humanitarias, gobiernos donantes, organizaciones ciudadanas, el Frente Polisario y los propios refugiados saharauis. Si bien en la conclusión se presentan recomendaciones concretas para cada uno de los interesados, tres cuestiones entrecruzadas surgen a lo largo de este informe:
1. Ya que los campamentos de refugiados saharauis son ahora más accesibles que nunca
a los responsables políticos y a los investigadores académicos, hay una urgente necesidad de examinar detalladamente los derechos y las necesidades de su población. Más allá
de estudios cuantitativos y de la evaluación de proyectos con subvención internacional, deberían utilizarse análisis cuantitativos y cualitativos realizados tanto por investigadores académicos refugiados saharauis como no saharauis para revisar las ideas establecidas sobre la situación de los campamentos, así como las posibles soluciones al conflicto.
2. De acuerdo con tales investigaciones, las diversas experiencias, necesidades, prioridades y derechos de niñas y niños, jóvenes, mujeres y hombres adultos, viejos y discapacitados, deben ser reconocidos, atendidos y apoyados. En concreto, deben abordarse problemas como el de los decrecientes niveles de escolarización y el de las familias que sacan prematuramente de la escuela a sus hijas mayores. Además, a medida que la juventud formada abandona los campamentos en mayor número para trabajar en España, se hace necesaria una valoración de hasta qué punto esta ‘fuga de cerebros’ no lleva al pueblo saharaui a una renovada dependencia de las ONG europeas.
3. Dadas las dificultades para garantizar una de las tres tradicionales soluciones duraderas en el caso de la prolongada situación de los refugiados saharauis (integración local, repatriación o reasentamiento en un tercer país), y la falta de voluntad política
para encontrar una solución adecuada al conflicto del Sahara Occidental, es necesario determinar la viabilidad de un serie de posibles soluciones, desarrolladas y preferidas por los refugiados saharauis y el Polisario. Estas soluciones alternativas incluyen:
a. el desarrollo de redes transnacionales de atención a los niños y a las familias saharauis;
b. el auto-asentamiento de las familias en el bādiya (desierto abierto);
c. la propuesta de la reubicación de parte de la población de los campamentos en la
localidad de Tifariti, situada dentro de las fronteras internacionalmente reconocidas del Sahara Occidental.
Cada una de estas soluciones conlleva una serie de consecuencias claras en cuanto a la protección de las necesidades de los individuos implicados.
En primer lugar, dado que los refugiados saharauis dependen cada vez mas de las redes de solidaridad y apoyo civil para sostener las estrategias familiares, es fundamental cuestionar las consecuencias a corto, medio y largo plazo de la creciente dependencia de la ‘ayuda íntima’, proporcionada directamente por familias europeas y miembros de organizaciones civiles a los refugiados saharauis.
En segundo lugar, mientras en la actualidad el ACNUR reconoce a los saharauis como refugiados, el asentamiento de familias en el bādiya y la reubicación de refugiados en Tifariti convertiría a los saharauis, en efecto, en ‘desplazados internos’. El cambio podría tener serias consecuencias jurídicas y humanitarias que las partes implicadas deberían considerar detenidamente.
En tercer lugar, tanto en la coyuntura de un continuado campamento en Argelia como a la luz de las soluciones ‘populares’ arriba esbozadas, es necesario aclarar quién es el responsable de la cobertura legal y la ayuda a los individuos y las familias saharauis desplazados, así como del desarrollo de mecanismos efectivos para supervisar la implementación de programas y proyectos relevantes en los varios contextos.
Indeed, a large proportion of studies of urban refugees focus on one particular refugee group in one city (i.e. Lyytinen 2015; Bartolomei 2015), while multisited, comparative studies often focus on one group dispersed across a number of cities or divided across a city and a camp setting (i.e. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2012, 2013; and Malkki 1995 respectively), or compare the conditions and dynamics of one group of refugees in one city with another group in another city (i.e. Sanyal 2014). In contrast, only a small number of studies explicitly examine the experiences of different refugees in the same city (i.e. Brown et al 2004; Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and Qasmiyeh 2010). Of particular relevance to the argument I make below vis-à-vis the ‘relationality’ of refugees in shared spaces of refuge, Buscher (2011: 21- 22) analyses the relative strength of social ties and networks within Somali, Congolese and Burundian refugee communities in the city of Kampala. While Buscher’s article thus recognizes the overlapping presence of refugees from different countries of origin in Kampala, it seemingly highlights both the relative isolation of Somalis and Congolese refugees from other refugee communities, and the extent to which fractures and mistrust characterize relations within the Burundi refugee community. This may helpfully demonstrate that segregation, rather than social integration via cohabitation, can maximize livelihood strategies for certain refugees (in this case, Burundian refugees), and yet this focus on nationality-based social networks continues to render invisible the relationality of refugees in spaces inhabited by multiple, and often overlapping, groups of refugees in urban contexts.
Following Peter Gatrell's call to pay attention to the ways refugees present their own history, here forced migration specialist, Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh discusses the importance of interconnecting refugee histories in Baddawi camp, Lebanon, home to Palestinian refugees since the 1950s and now also host to Syrian refugees. As the photo-essay shows, this refugee history is also an architectural history: as more refugees arrive, Baddawi's buildings are squeezed upward. Navigating the small alleys under an evermore crowded skyline, this concentrated multi-generational history is part of every day life in the camp. Yousif M. Qasmiyeh's poem gives eloquent voice to this singular way of being.
Read here:
http://refugeehistory.org/blog/2016/12/22/palestinian-and-syrian-refugees-in-lebanon-sharing-space-electricity-and-the-sky
(Exhibited as part of the Tunisian Pavillion, 2017 Venice Biennale)
This reflection, and the photographs that accompany it, are part of a 4-year research project [www.RefugeeHosts.org] funded by the UK’s AHRC and ESRC examining diverse spaces of encounter between refugees from Syria and host communities in camps and cities across Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. In the context of an overwhelming focus on tensions and/or acts of hospitality between the living, here we shift our attention to solidarity in death and dying, with the cemetery taking centre stage for both the living and dead, becoming the camp’s only fixity. Different refugees enter the camp, with the camp becoming both a gathering and a gatherer. The cemetery, too, echoes this duality.
*
Which is older: the camp or the cemetery?
At the core of Baddawi refugee camp, from its very birth, the cemetery has hosted the living and the dead. The arrival of the living to the camp, was traced by the arrival of the dead. From that core, the camp has grown, and so too have its residents. As time has passed, and as wars have led to new arrivals – Palestinians from other camps, Syrians, Kurds, Iraqis… – , the cemetery has outgrown its original space. The camp is denser, higher, narrower. And a second, a third,… now a fifth cemetery in Baddawi, for Baddawi and beyond.
Read the full piece here: https://refugeehosts.org/2017/05/23/refugee-refugee-solidarity-in-death-and-dying/
Existence, as it is, happens in the intentions of things.
A sign or signs piled on top of one another, barely separated by air and the narrowest of voids: white on blue or blue on white. There is a background – an undercoat – and then the words. But which is which? On the sign are arrows pointing to places, including to Baddawi camp. Names of old and new places neatly and orderly enclosed in this rectangular space. Positioned then adjusted to be made more visible to passers by and cars alike.
It is the Baddawi slope. The road that leads to everywhere and nowhere. The exact road which gave us and my mother trepidations as she stopped taxis on the main road going to Nahr Al-Bared camp. We would, upon my mother’s prodding, hide behind her. Most of the time seven little bodies clutching her dress, looking for a handful of cloth, most of the time ending up inadvertently clutching each others’ hands. The taxi driver would normally drive off the moment my mother would start asking him for a discounted fee: ‘They are little, treat them as one. All of them on one seat and myself on another.’
My mother, to secure a ride that does not go beyond our limited financial means, would contract us into one: one body made of seven heads like a mythical creature who only grows in the camp. Many self-subtracted to one.
The sign is new or at least it previously was not there. The first sign to point to “Baddawi camp” alongside other places. The first sign to have the word ‘camp’ within its folds – a piece of evidence to the existence of the camp. To the presence of a place whose name is validated by a correspondence, a genitive one, between the proper “Baddawi” and the noun “camp” and yet it is the latter which is always remembered. It is a camp despite the name.
READ THE ORIGINAL PIECE HERE: https://wordpress.com/post/refugeehosts.org/8287
Which is more intimate: the body in its absolute nakedness – concealed temporarily perhaps – or the nakedness in the thing, exposed or otherwise?
The place is a garage or a ground-floor room, a singular room with a small toilet, on the outskirts of Baddawi camp, occupied by some people, likely to be a young family, likely Syrian, likely present when the picture was taken.
But where were they exactly? What were they doing or not doing as the shutter induced the closure of the scene?
The weight of the two pairs of jeans, of different sizes, hung to dry against the black gate is palpable in the slight indentation or slope on the rope.
A red sheet, dotted with the outlines of white roses and leaves, guards the door – a sign of semi-normality and a marker of privacy to some extent.
A pair of slippers left obliquely on the threshold to separate, or so to claim, the public from the private hints at the presence of at least one person at the time.
The white wall, ceiling, and the makeshift washing-line, the black gates, the faded blue of the trousers, the red and white of the sheet, the brown-black slippers, the colours of things, people’s things, stillness and life – colours which are being borne horizontally, vertically and sideways in an attempt to sustain a daily rhythm inside which time can grow.
Read the original here: https://refugeehosts.org/2018/04/25/a-daily-rhythm-inside-which-time-can-grow/
It is a photograph of a coffee vendor in motion; of somebody who is familiar enough with the routes of the camp to roam them with relative ease.
The clanking of the cups, emanating from the collision of two porcelain cups – fragile but not too fragile – in the vendor’s hand, can still be heard or seen from beyond the picture.
But what is the clanking for? What does it signify amongst other signifiers, in a noisy context such as the camp where sounds continually fight for a space to be(come) sounds.
The truly inaudible clanking is nothing but a testimony of arrival into a place, a shibboleth, a different dialect.
The vendor will soon escape the picture or be pushed away by another.
However, somewhere, there will always be a vendor before or after the picture, or more precisely inside of it, boiling his coffee in silence.
Read the Original Here: https://refugeehosts.org/2018/05/08/there-will-always-be-a-vendor-before-and-after-the-picture/
https://refugeehosts.org/2018/06/05/to-the-plants-is-her-face/
The plants which appear in this picture hinge partly on a short wall and partly on a used wooden chest of drawers primarily staged to encircle the entrance to the house and protect it from the curious eyes of passers-by. Or to ‘privatise’ part of the public space by appropriating it.
Underneath some of the pots, to the woman’s left, a recycled banner made of fabric, likely nylon, from a previous event that still bears the Arabic: … Palestine, Baddawi Camp, 8pm, All Welcome.
It is clear that the woman tending to the plants is the owner of the house. She waters the plants through a yellow hose that enables her to reach the other end without substantially altering her position.
Dressed in kohl-like blue, contrasted with a headscarf of a lighter shade of blue, she leans towards the first row of the plants with her back to the main road.
She looks engrossed in what she is doing, with her right hand almost touching a pale leaf – perhaps to snap it off its mother plant.
The non-ordinariness of this scene does not lie in the co-presence between the canonical grey of the camp and the green exception, but precisely in its interruptive nature as an anomaly whose sole value is to overpower the norm in/of the camp to make it more visible and ‘normal’.
It is the “beauty” “at the expense” and never “in conjunction with” or “in accordance to” that matters in this photograph – a photograph whose meaning is that of the place.
Read the Original here:
https://refugeehosts.org/2018/06/05/to-the-plants-is-her-face/
https://refugeehosts.org/2018/05/22/the-wall/
According to my father, this is the original wall of our old house which was erected in Baddawi camp in the mid-50s.
The wall is now an additional barrier between our neighbours and us. A distance that has been multiply plastered over time.
The subdued pink, contaminated by the white undercoat, was the colour my father used to paint the wall for the last time.
To my mother’s disappointment, whenever we leant on the wall some of the paint powder came off – as though everything were disintegrating then and now and for this act of disintegration to complete its course it had to travel with us.
The rusty colander and grill grate on the wall look deserted save from time.
Their only purpose is to occupy the wall.
The plastic clothes hanger suspended from the washing-line is a new addition to hold the damp cloths my mother uses daily.
From the rusty utensils to the hanger there lies a genre that can neither be crossed nor reconstituted.
In other words, it is only the shape of narrowness, as in genres, that is capable of redefining itself by itself.
Read the Original here:
https://refugeehosts.org/2018/05/22/the-wall/
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