scholarly journals When Do the Dispossessed Protest? Informal Leadership and Mobilization in Syrian Refugee Camps

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 617-633 ◽  
Author(s):  
Killian Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Primary Source ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Informal Leadership ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Event Data ◽  
Structural Barriers ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Management Regime

Refugees are often considered to be among the world’s most powerless groups; they face significant structural barriers to political mobilization, often including extreme poverty and exposure to repression. Yet despite these odds refugee groups do occasionally mobilize to demand better services and greater rights. In this paper I examine varying levels of mobilization among Syrian refugees living in camps and informal settlements in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan in order to explain how marginalized and dispossessed groups manage to develop autonomous political strength. I explain the surprisingly high levels of mobilization in Jordan’s Za’atari Camp compared to the relative quiescence of refugees in Turkish camps and Lebanese informal settlements as the product of a set of strong informal leadership networks. These networks emerged due to two unique facets of the refugee management regime in Jordan: the concentration of refugees in the camp, and a fragmented governance system. In Turkey and Lebanon, where these two conditions were absent, refugees did not develop the strong leadership networks necessary to support mobilization. I develop this argument through structured comparison of three cases and within-case process tracing, using primary source documents from humanitarian agencies, contentious event data, and 87 original interviews conducted in the summer of 2015.

scholarly journals Trafficking and Syrian Refugee Smuggling: Evidence from the Balkan Route

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danilo Mandic
Keyword(s):  
Civil War ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Human Smuggling ◽  
Syrian Refugee ◽  
Depth Interviews

As of March 2016, 4.8 million Syrian refugees were scattered in two dozen countries by the civil war. Refugee smuggling has been a major catalyst of human trafficking in the Middle East and Europe migrant crises. Data on the extent to which smuggling devolved into trafficking in this refugee wave is, however, scarce. This article investigates how Syrian refugees interact with smugglers, shedding light on how human smuggling and human trafficking interrelated on the Balkan Route. I rely on original evidence from in-depth interviews (n = 123) and surveys (n = 100) with Syrian refugees in Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Serbia, and Germany; as well as ethnographic observations in thirty-five refugee camps or other sites in these countries. I argue that most smugglers functioned as guides, informants, and allies in understudied ways—thus refugee perceptions diverge dramatically from government policy assumptions. I conclude with a recommendation for a targeted advice policy that would acknowledge the reality of migrant-smuggler relations, and more effectively curb trafficking instead of endangering refugees.

scholarly journals Syrian Refugees, Water Scarcity, and Dynamic Policies: How Do the New Refugee Discourses Impact Water Governance Debates in Lebanon and Jordan?

Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hussam Hussein ◽  
Alberto Natta ◽  
Abed Al Kareem Yehya ◽  
Baha Hamadna
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Water Scarcity ◽  
Water Governance ◽  
Development Projects ◽  
Water Crisis ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
Humanitarian Interventions ◽  
The Impact

Since the Syrian crisis and the so-called “Arab Spring”, new discourses have been created, sparking the discursive water governance debates around water scarcity and hydropolitics. In Lebanon and Jordan—where most water resources are transboundary, and where most Syrian refugees have flown in—new discourses of climate change and especially of Syrian refugees as exacerbating water scarcity are emerging, shaping water governance debates. The aim of this paper is to engage in comparative discourse analysis about narratives of water crises and refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. This study is novel because of the focus on the new discourse of refugees in relation to water governance debates in both Lebanon and Jordan. This paper finds that in both countries the new discourses of refugees do not replace previous and existing discourses of water crisis and scarcity, but rather they build on and reinforce them. This paper finds that the impact these discourses had on the governance debates is that in Lebanon the resources mobilized focused on humanitarian interventions, while Jordan focused on development projects to strengthen the resilience of its water infrastructure and its overall water governance system.

scholarly journals MANIFESTATIONS OF LIFEWORLD CRISIS AMONG SYRIAN MALE YOUTH IN JORDANIAN REFUGEE CAMPS

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4.1) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abdel Karim Al-Hourani ◽  
Abdel Baset Azzam ◽  
Rania Jaber
Keyword(s):  
Quality Of Life ◽  
Health Care ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Social Stability ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Male Youth ◽  
God's Will ◽  
Falling Asleep

This study explores manifestations of lifeworld crisis among a sample of 362 Syrian refugee male youth in the Za’atari camp in Jordan. It fills a gap in research about the conditions of Syrian refugees in the camps. The findings reveal that the first-rank manifestation of the crisis was psychological stress: participants reported feeling fearful, distrustful, absent-minded, threatened, and worried, and having difficulty falling asleep. Second, the youth suffered a lack of gratification with regard to food, money, comfortable accommodation, water for drinking and cleaning, health care, and clothes. Third, they had a loss of meaning in their lives, including loss of interest in surrounding events, of hope about the future, of motivation to do things, of quality of life, of friendships, and of freedom. Fourth, they suffered from anomie, which implies loss of respect for moral rules, rights, and regulations, and the loss of physical security, social stability, and human dignity. Coping strategies used by participants to overcome these circumstances included religiosity, belief in returning home, accepting the situation as representing God’s will, regarding the camp as the best alternative, and controlling their feelings.

scholarly journals GRASS-ROOTS COMMEMORATIONS: REMEMBERING THE LAND IN THE CAMPS OF LEBANON

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laleh Khalili
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
The Political ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Palestinian Refugees ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Right Of Return ◽  
The Right

The Oslo negotiations——and the specter of a Palestinian renunciation of the right of return——greatly increased the insecurities of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The new uncertainties in turn triggered the emergence in the refugee camps of commemorative practices different from those previously sponsored by the Palestinian leadership. The new forms of commemoration, centered on the villages left behind in Palestine in 1948 and including popular ethnographies, memory museums, naming practices, and history-telling using new technologies, have become implicit vehicles of opposition and a means of asserting the refugees' membership in the Palestinian polity. Beyond reflecting nostalgia for a lost world, the practices have become the basis of the political identity of the younger generations and the motivation for their political mobilization.

scholarly journals Introduction

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4.1) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Mohammed Abdel Karim Al-Hourani
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Harassment ◽  
Youth Unemployment ◽  
Children And Youth ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Cultural Environment ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Research Topics ◽  
Male And Female

I am thankful for the opportunity to produce this special issue on refugees in Jordan, and grateful to Professor Sybille Artz, Editor of the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies, who motivated and encouraged me. The issue includes four articles that focus in general on the problems and challenges that are encountered by Syrian youth and children who reside in Jordan either inside or outside the refugee camps there. Focusing on children and youth, both male and female, is important to the literature on Syrian refugees in Jordan because this age group has been neglected and overlooked by scholars since Syrian refugees first fled to Jordan in 2011. Furthermore, the challenges and problems of children are both culturally critical and morally sensitive, and that is why this special issue has extra importance. In Jordan’s conservative social and cultural environment, certain research topics relevant to the refugee camps are regarded as unlawful and prohibited: sexual harassment, underage marriage, child employment and exploitation, youth unemployment and deprivation, and other violations against children and youth.

Hosting Syrian Refugees in Saida (Lebanon) Under Protracted Displacement: Unfolding Spatial and Social Exclusion

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 413-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howayda Al-Harithy ◽  
Abir Eltayeb ◽  
Ali Khodr
Keyword(s):  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Urban Landscape ◽  
Informal Settlements ◽  
Internal Displacement ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Syrian Crisis ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
Service Provisions

Lebanon has witnessed multiple waves of displaced peoples throughout its recent history, including the displacement of Palestinians to Lebanon after the occupation of Palestine in 1948, the internal displacement of families from occupied Southern Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of 1978, and the influx of Syrian refugees after the outbreak of the Syrian crisis in 2011. Many Syrian families had to reconstitute their lives in Lebanon because of the crisis in their country, often in tented and informal settlements or in overpopulated or even abandoned buildings. This article focuses on the process of hosting Syrian refugees in Saida in Southern Lebanon after 2011. It explores service provisions and the two dominant types of housing for Syrian refugees: collective shelters and single apartments within local neighbourhoods. The article argues that mechanisms of exclusion emerge with intensity in cities like Saida that have received and accommodated multiple waves of displacement. Such mechanisms of exclusion in Saida are politically attuned to the historical depth of the hosting experience and emerge at multiple levels, both social and spatial. This is despite Saida’s mobilization to provide aid, and its departure from housing refugees in camps, which is based on a model of containment, and its move toward housing refugees across the urban landscape, which is based on a model of disbursement.

Transitional Justice in Syria: The Role and Contribution of Syrian Refugees and Displaced Persons

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-359 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rania Al Jazairi
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
Syrian Refugees ◽  
Displaced Persons ◽  
Cultural Issues ◽  
Governance System ◽  
Host Countries ◽  
Internally Displaced ◽  
Sustainable Peace ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Views And Perceptions

To date, an estimated 9 million Syrians have fled their homes since the beginning of the conflict in 2011. While over 3 million have fled to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, 6.5 million are internally displaced within Syria. Whereas most research has focused on examining Syrian refugees’ status and living conditions in host countries; few studies aimed to document their views and perceptions about transitional justice processes, including reparation issues and how they perceived a durable and sustainable peace in Syria. This paper focuses on Syrian refugees and displaced persons’ role and contribution to transitional justice processes. It explores their views and perceptions about a wide range of political, civil, social, economic and cultural issues, including accountability, reparation, the nature of the future governance system, Syria’s cultural identity, the rights of minorities and women, reconstruction and development priorities and Demilitarization, Demobilization and Reintegration (ddr) issues.

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