Local Community Experiences of Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey
The Throne Yousif M. Qasmiyeh, University of Oxford and Refugee Hosts Writer in Residence No one has ever seen the bereaved mother. They arrived at night bearing nothing but their cries. The father, the son, the wheelchair... In the picture, the order is merely an aesthetic thing. Or more precisely an echo of the…
The Third Voice and Third Eye in our Photo-Poetic Reflections by Yousif M. Qasmiyeh (University of Oxford) and Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (Refugee Hosts) A shared surname both reflects and itself has produced diverse forms of creative intimacies in a range of research and non-research encounters. In a series of photo-poetic reflections published as part of…
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 -…
It is a camp despite the name by Yousif M. Qasmiyeh and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Refugee Hosts 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…
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,…
The Hands are Hers Yousif M. Qasmiyeh - University of Oxford The hands are hers – fractured urns of intimacy and anticipation. They would cut, mend, darn, comb, bathe, clean, feel and above all submit themselves as seals of presence at the UNRWA distribution centres. In this photograph, the face is outside the frame but…
To the Plants is Her Face Yousif M. Qasmiyeh and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (Refugee Hosts) 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…
The Wall Yousif M. Qasmiyeh (University of Oxford) and Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (Refugee Hosts, UCL) 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…
This piece continues a series of poetic responses to photographs taken by Refugee Hosts PI Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh during a field-trip to Baddawi refugee camp and the neighbourhood of Jebel al-Baddawi in North Lebanon, and to a range of neighbourhoods in Beirut in March-April 2018. Written by Refugee Hosts Writer-in-Residence Yousif M. Qasmiyeh and PI Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh,…
Typically, photographs of and about displaced peoples focus on individual suffering victims, acts of individualised resilience, or tropes that resonate with the wider genre of humanitarian narratives. As a result, the Refugee Hosts project has adopted what Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh has termed a "Spaces and Places, Not Faces" approach to refugee-photography. As Michelle Lokot explores in…
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