Local Community Experiences of Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey
Shadows and Echoes in/of Displacement: Temporalities, spatialities and materialities of displacement by Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Refugee Hosts In line with our project's Spaces and Places not Faces approach to representation, a key question arising in Refugee Hosts is how we can represent, and conceptualise, the 'field-sites' where we are conducting research. Through diverse media -…
An Update: 'Data Collection and Analysis' by Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Refugee Hosts PI In November 2018, the Refugee Hosts team is starting to 'analyse’ the transcripts of circa 400 semi-structured interviews completed since autumn 2017 by our diversely positioned research teams in the Middle East and in the UK. A final set of interviews –…
Reflections from the Field: Introduction to the Series by Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Refugee Hosts PI, UCL As part of our new Reflections from the Field blog series, we will be sharing vignettes from our team members’ ‘fieldnotes,’ extracts from interview transcripts, reflections from the participatory research workshops and creative writing workshops we have hosted in Lebanon…
This piece reflects on diverse dynamics of hospitality and hostility towards migrants around the world and across different historical contexts, reflecting many of the complex and often contradictory nature of migratory encounters we are exploring in the Refugee Hosts project. Although hospitality and hostility are often closely interlinked, Dr. Mette Berg and Refugee Hosts PI, Prof.…
Faith plays a crucial role for many displaced people, providing spiritual sanctuary in contexts of overarching insecurity. Whether this comes in the form of organised, local level faith groups - such as those that may gather in mosques or churches - or in the stories and ceremonies of faith-based practices, faith can enable spiritual resilience…
Displaced communities - whether long-time residents of camps and urban areas, or newly arrived refugees - are also often hosts, offering support to fellow refugees through community-led initiatives, or simple acts of everyday hospitality. This 'refugee-refugee humanitarianism' disrupts mainstream humanitarian narratives, which typically frame displaced peoples as passive recipients of aid. In order to challenge…
Refugee Hosts and refugee studies are currently pioneering innovative transdisciplinary approaches across the arts, humanities and social sciences. Next year sees the publication of Refugee Imaginaries: Contemporary Research Across the Humanities, edited by Refugee Hosts’ Lyndsey Stonebridge, and Agnes Woolley, Emma Cox, David Farrier and Sam Durant (EUP, forthcoming, 2018), and which includes work by Elena…
How can a focus on material culture help us better understand the ways that displaced people navigate the challenges of urban life? In this piece, William Montieth explores the (in)visibilities of refugees through the joint lenses of urban economies, and material culture. Through the wax fabric (kitenge) industry in Kampala (Uganda), Congolese refugees are rendered not…
For displacement-affected communities, ideas of return rest on a set of hopes and identities that are frustrated by geopolitical realities. In this piece, Helen Adams explores how long-term coping strategies are inhibited by frequently-obstructed relationships to place amongst refugee communities affected by the Syrian crisis in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon. These communities are left to…
Refugee Hosts local researcher, Leonie Harsch, has encountered an archive of photos during her extensive mapping of the Hamra neighbourhood in Beirut. In this piece, Leonie reflects on some of these photos, which form the archive of Mukhtar Michel Bekhazi, as a way of approaching questions of hospitality, refugee-host encounters and 'the local'. In particular,…
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