Women as hybrid hosts: Challenging the myth of host communities

The term 'host' is widely used but often unquestioned in relation to it's meaning in displacement and migration discourse and practice. 'Hosts' are often assumed to be the long established communities in to which refugees arrive, and yet, as we have been exploring in Refugee Hosts, this is not always the case. In this blog,…

Refugee Hosts at ‘History of Refugees’ Conference

On the 23rd November 2020 Refugee Hosts' Co-ordinator, Aydan Greatrick and Co. I. Prof. Lyndsey Stonebridge took part in the 'History of Refugees' conference hosted by SolidariTee. Diverse motivations shape contemporary responses to refugees, yet the role of history is often overlooked. Aydan Greatrick's and Prof. Lyndsey Stonebridge's talk, 'Refugee Hosting Across Time,' sought to…

Refugee Hosts International Conference – Archive Now Available

On 24 and 25 October 2019 Refugee Hosts hosted and live-streamed our Refugee Hosts International Conference, Without Exception: The Politics and Poetics of Local Responses to Displacement.  The conference included a series of keynote lectures, panels, roundtables, and artistic interventions exploring themes that are key to our project. All key notes, panel presentations and round…

Rights in context: exploring (faith-based) humanitarianism through the lens of refugee hosting

This presentation was given by Anna Rowlands at the Refugee Hosts International Conference and reflects on her contributions to the Refugee Hosts project. In listening and critically engaging with the ways that humanitarian actors, especially faith based actors, have conceptualised their roles vis-à-vis practices and conceptualisations of membership in response to rightlessness, Rowlands draws on the works of Arendt…

‘A Refugee Pastor in a Refugee Church’: Refugee-Refugee Hosting in a Faith-Based Context

This presentation was given by Karen Lauterbach at the Refugee Hosts International Conference. The paper is about refugee-refugee hosting in a faith-based context and examined how refugee churches hosting refugees invoke ideas of compassion and sacrifice in these hybrid forms of hosting. 'A Refugee Pastor in a Refugee Church': Refugee-Refugee Hosting in a Faith-Based Context by…

Sharing stories and the quiet politics of welcome

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…

‘Random Acts of Kindness’: Reflections on Everyday Responses to Displacement in Hamra

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…

‘A Refugee Pastor in a Refugee Church’ – Hybrid Forms of Faith-Based Hosting in Kampala, Uganda

What insights into ideology, relationality and hierarchy can we gain by examining the role of faith in displacement, and in the acts of hosting and being hosted? In this post, Karen Lauterbach (University of Copenhagen) discusses hybrid forms of faith-based hosting and draws on her research with Congolese refugee churches in Kampala, Uganda. Lauterbach examines…

The Poetics of Undisclosed Care

Throughout our research in Lebanon and Jordan, the Refugee Hosts project has been tracing how, why and with what effect the residents of diverse neighbourhoods have been responding to the arrival and presence of refugees from Syria. In her latest contribution to our Reflections from the Field Series, Refugee Hosts PI Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh draws…

Migration and the Digital City – Prof. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh at LSE Symposium

This one day event will explore the relationship between migration and the city in the context of their intense mediation. Refugee Hosts PI, Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, will present the paper:  'Creating spaces of refuge:  perspectives on refugee hosting in Lebanon.' This presentation will draw on Refugee Hosts research vis-a-vis refugee hosting in and around the urban Baddawi refugee-camp…