Local Community Experiences of Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey
This presentation was given by Bayan Itani at the Refugee Hosts International Conference. The presentation addressed empathy as a common motivation for supporting Syrian refugees. In so doing, it questions the ‘borderlines’ of empathy, and the reasons behind its decline, within the context of people from Syria seeking refuge in Lebanon. The borderlines of empathy by…
This presentation was given by Tom Western at the Refugee Hosts International Conference as part of Panel 1: Disrupting Humanitarian Narratives. The presentation puts sound and listening at the centre of forced migration, asking how they inform experiences of displacement and practices of emplacement. Sound is an access point to the agency of people who have crossed borders:…
‘Have I been “staring too hard” at my participants’ displacement, neglecting other aspects of their lives?’ In this blog post Wen-Yu Wu reflects on some of the ethical dilemmas and feelings of guilt experienced during her research with displaced Syrian students in Lebanon and Jordan. As a recipient of a ‘Global Challenges’ Scholarship from the…
‘Why do some refugees receive huge outpourings of public support, while others do not? Why are some people allowed to stay, while others in a similar legal situation are not?’ In this post, Aukje Muller, examines the ‘construction of belonging’ within the Netherlands and its influence on decisions regarding the deportation of migrants to…
In this post, Olivia Sheringham describes the Global Story Café project in the London borough of Waltham Forest. These storytelling workshops and story sharing cafés brought together migrants, asylum seekers and refugees to share stories about universal themes with the aim of reducing ‘prejudice, fear and racism and to promote equality and tolerance (through the…
In this post Refugee Hosts Researcher, Leonie Harsch, reflects on her soundscape of Muslim and Christian spaces in Hamra, Beirut. Harsch includes insights from interviews with members of both religious and secular communities who use these spaces for both humanitarian and religious purposes, and describes how these spaces are conceptualised by local communities. The soundscape…
Refugee Hosts' writer-in-residence, Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, will participate in the 'Migrant Knowledge: Early Modern and Beyond' event at the University of Cambridge next week. This three-day public event will bring together academics, artists, and activists to 'explore alternative ways of thinking and knowing about migration – of people, things, and ideas – rooted in the…
Refugee Hosts' PI, Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh and writer-in-residence, Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, will participate in the inaugural South-South Forum, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire, which will be held over 3 days from the 13th – 15th of August 2019. This international and interdisciplinary workshop contributes to the aim of the South-South Forum to bring artists, scholars and activists into…
In this photo essay depicting areas of shared support in Hamra, Refugee Hosts’ researcher, Leonie Harsch, reflects on informal acts of charity or giving. These ‘random acts of kindness’, which enable a fluid transition between categories of refugee and host, migrant and local also explored by the Refugee Hosts project here and here, operate without…
Almost 5,000 Syrian refugee have been deported from Turkey to the Idlib area of Syria, an area still experiencing intense shelling and where 86 people were killed in just one week in July. In this piece, Diane al-Mehdi draws on her research to describe ‘horrendous detention conditions’ and the ‘humiliating’ process of deportation and traces the…
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