Local Community Experiences of Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey
Accounting for the roles of local communities is a key aim of our 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…
How does UNHCR narrate refugee stories through its official media? In this piece, Leonie Harsch adopts a critical approach, and builds on a number of important arguments put forward by researchers, to argue that the telling of 'refugee stories' by humanitarian organisations can sometimes result in exclusionary outcomes - this is especially the case when individual…
Representations of the 'refugee crisis' have ranged from the spectacular to the devastating. In an attempt to engage with this spectacle, some organisations have developed virtual reality 'experiences' that aim to encourage audiences to 'walk in the shoes' of displaced people: to feel compassion for their plight, and to gain an understanding of their everyday…
How can poetry, creative writing and translation unearth and represent experiences of displacement? In this poem - the first of two pieces by Giulia Balestra of REFUNITE which will feature on Refugee Hosts' Representations of Displacement series - Giulia offers a reflection on belonging and positionality, with an English translation sitting alongside the original Italian. Through reflecting…
In this piece, Katharine T. Weatherhead reflects on the discursive implications of the term 'welcoming' when used in refugee-related research. In particular, she asks: does the term enable nuanced engagement with displacement as a series of overlapping, relational encounters, in turn disrupting traditional representations that depict refugees as a vulnerable 'burdens', and hosts as active…
Our Summer newsletter is now available to view online. This issue highlights our activities over the summer, as well as our recent Faith and Displacement series, which you can read in full on our website. Please follow the link below for important project updates, including blog highlights and information on recent and forthcoming events: Newsletter…
by Dr. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, UCL and PI of Refugee Hosts Invisible (at) night: space, time and photography in a refugee camp If our perceptions of refugees’ experiences of displacement were based on photographs produced and disseminated by the UN, NGOs and the media, we could be forgiven for assuming that refugees’ daytimes are either seemingly…
We are pleased to announce that Migration and Society - a new interdisciplinary journal committed to critical research that situates migration in a wider societal, historical and geographical context - has just been launched by Dr. Mette Berg (UCL) and Refugee Hosts' PI, Dr. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh. For the journal's inaugural issue in 2018, the key theme will be 'Hospitality…
On Wednesday 15 March 2017, Samar Maqusi, Prof. Murray Fraser (both of UCL-Bartlett School of Architecture) and Dr Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (UCL-Geography and Refugee Hosts PI) convened a symposium on Space of Refuge. The symposium drew heavily on Maqusi's PhD research in Jordan and Lebanon, enabling a conversation around the roles that space and scale play in determining the opportunities and…
Our Spring newsletter is now available to view online. Please follow the link below for information on the project, including blog highlights, updates and information on how you can get involved: 2017 01 Spring If you have any questions, or would like to get involved in the project, please get in touch by visiting our…
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