Local Community Experiences of Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey
The Refugee Hosts project recently launched a new co-authored report titled “Religion and Social Justice for Refugees: Insights from Cameroon, Greece, Jordan, Lebanon, Malaysia and Mexico”. This report identifies and examines the roles that faith plays in supporting social justice for refugees, situating the Refugee Hosts research in Lebanon and Jordan into conversation with research…
Making localisation work is about much more than ensuring local actors receive a greater share of the funding pie, argues Tina Mason (founder of re:viewed). In fact, the disconnect between the 'local' and the 'international' pervades all aspects of the humanitarian response: addressing this, and learning from the local, is therefore essential if localisation is to be meaningful…
In light of the limited hospitality offered to refugees and asylum seekers by European states, local communities, volunteers, faith groups and activists have often acted as key providers of support and solidarity. In this piece, Zareena Grewal (Yale University) demonstrates the important role such local initiatives are playing in Athens and Lesbos, including in spaces such…
Reflecting on her voluntary/volunteering work with refugees in Greece, in this piece Sarah El Sheikh highlights how people affected by displacement respond to and resist different narratives and policies developed about (and against) refugees. Echoing other contributions to our Representations of Displacement Series [ie. see here and here], Sarah argues that, in response to narratives that demonise…
This soundscape of Athens, Greece, offers an evocative and immersive insight into sounds of everyday life in the city. Athens has become home to many refugees from Syria and elsewhere, who have brought with them new sounds documented in this piece. Engaging with spaces of refuge through sound is a method that can help us…
In this piece, Tahir Zaman reflects on how new models of citizenship are up-ending the myopia of state-centric responses to displacement. In Athens, a 'mobile commons' is opening up, defined by sharing, solidarity and resistance to a state whose priorities reflect more the interests of international capital than the needs of both refugees and hosts…
Kavita Ramakrishnan and Ludek Stavinoha offer a critical insight into the politics of refugee-volunteer solidarity. These arguments are of interest to the Refugee Hosts project for they illuminate the diverse and complex ways in which often spontaneous, voluntary and local-level initiatives (whether they are in Europe or the Middle East) have been instrumental in challenging the perceived…
In this piece, Ufuk Ozturk offers some personal reflections on his experiences working with refugees as a volunteer in Turkey. The following account touches on the roles that language and translation play in enabling not only conversations between cultures, but also insights into one's own personal identity, assumptions and beliefs. Examining such themes, and how…
Taken during the summer of 2016, these photographs capture the dual processes of mobility and immobility experienced by thousands of refugees as they have sought safety in, from, and through a range of spaces in Turkey and Greece. From the makeshift camps near Adana, to individual, familial and collective preparations to cross the Aegean Sea…
Refugee Hosts 
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