Syrian refugee men as objects of humanitarian care

Critical feminist scholars of conflict and displacement have demonstrated that “womenandchildren” (Enloe 1993) have become an uncontroversial object of humanitarian concern in these contexts (Carpenter 2003; Hyndman and Giles 2011). Yet very little scholarly work has attempted to understand the position of refugee men as a demographic within humanitarianism. Through an analysis of the Syria refugee response in Jordan, this article investigates how humanitarian workers relate to refugee men and think about refugee masculinities. It argues that refugee men have an uncertain position as objects of humanitarian care. Seeing refugee men as objects of humanitarian care would disrupt prevailing humanitarian understandings of refugeehood as a feminized subject position and of gender work as work that “helps women” (Cornwall 2007; Johnson 2011). It would furthermore challenge prevailing binary visions of refugee men as agential, political actors, and refugee women as in need of “empowerment” through the implementation of technocratic programming. In the context of the Syria refugee response, these gendered and racialized understandings of refugee men and masculinities are mediated by particular conceptions of “Arabness.” This research is based on ethnographic fieldwork and qualitative interviews with humanitarian workers and Syrian refugees, which was undertaken in Jordan in 2015–2016.     

Ethnicity's Shadows: Race,Religion, and Nationality as Alternative Identities among Recent United States Arrivals

This article reviews the creation of Somali Bantu ethnicity as an object of humanitarian intervention during Somalia's civil war. A variety of local, regional and international actors combined to create the ethnonym Somali Bantu for a group of refugees identified as a persecuted minority by the UNHCR and the US government and selected for resettlement in the United States. I track the emergence of the name and its affective dimensions for those who embrace Somali Bantu identity and assess criticisms of its authenticity and legitimacy. The creation of Somali Bantu identity reveals critical dimensions of how race is translated across time and space. Since a fundamental dimension of Somali Bantu identity is based on presumptions of racial difference, the article traces the salience of constructed difference for social hierarchies within Somalia, colonial projects in Somalia, refugee camp life in Kenya, US resettlement policy and diaspora politics in the United States.     

Constructing Humanitarian Selves and Refugee Others

Contributing to ongoing debates about what happens when feminism is institutionalized in global governance, this article examines how gender equality is given meaning and applied in humanitarian aid to refugees, and what the implications are with regard to the production of subjectivities and their positioning in relations of power. Drawing on Foucauldian and postcolonial feminist perspectives, the analysis identifies two main representations of what it means to promote gender equality in refugee situations. Gender equality is represented as a means to aid effectiveness through the strategic mobilization of refugee women's participation, and as a project of development, involving the transformation of “traditional” or “backward” refugee cultures into modern societies. The subject positions that are produced categorically cast refugees as either passive or problematic subjects who need to be rescued, protected, assisted, activated, controlled and reformed through humanitarian interventions, while humanitarian workers are positioned as rational administrators and progressive agents of social transformation. In effect, gender equality is used to sustain power asymmetries in refugee situations and to reproduce global hierarchies.     

Rethinking the origins of transnational humanitarian organizations: the curious case of the International Shipwreck Society

This exploration of the evolution of the International Shipwreck Society (ISS) – a previously neglected transnational humanitarian organization that by the late 1830s had branches in every continent – casts new light on three key aspects of the development of global humanitarianism. First, that there was a secular humanitarian association with a global organizational structure in the 1830s challenges widespread assumptions about the timing of internationally organized humanitarian action. Second, the influence of Chinese precedents on the ISS points to the importance of long forgotten Eastern origins of transnational humanitarianism. And third, the evaluation of the role of individuals in the development of the ISS reveals that early transnational humanitarian organizations faced leadership problems that scholars had previously neglected. In each of these respects, this article provides a new perspective on the origins of global networks.     

Report on the Workshop on Practical Protection in Humanitarian Crises

With a global crisis of approximately 15 million refugees and an estimated 20 to 25 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in need of protection, the current protection regime is under increased scrutiny. "Practical Protection" is a fairly new concept. Those pursuing it aim to expand understanding and responsibilities for protection beyond those institutions with a specific protection mandate. "The Workshop on Practical Protection in Humanitarian Crises" was organized to bring the practical protection concept to representatives from a wide range of international agencies, governmental agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), who discussed its implications for their work in humanitarian crises.
Organizations with specific protection mandates, primarily the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), work to protect uprooted groups through legal tools and recognized principles, often in the context of assistance programmes that provide shelter, food, water, medical care, education and other forms of humanitarian assistance. They work in collaboration with NGOs and other international organizations that focus primarily on assisting forced migrants. These latter agencies have traditionally avoided overt involvement in protection activities. When UNHCR and ICRC are not present or are over-extended, gaps in the protection regime emerge. The gap is particularly evident with regard to internally displaced and other war-affected populations, but it is present in most refugee situations as well.     

Refugee Hospitality in Lebanon and Turkey. On Making ‘The Other’

This paper examines the hospitality provided to Syrian refugees during the refugee crisis spanning from 2011 to 2016 in the border areas of Gaziantep (southeastern Turkey) and the Akkar region (northern Lebanon). Hospitality, apart from a cultural value and societal response to the protracted refugee influx, is a discursive strategy of socio‐spatial control used by humanitarian agencies, local and national authorities. This paper, first, argues against hospitality as an assessment to ethically compare host countries (i.e. more welcoming versus less welcoming states). Second, drawing on Walters’ notion of “humanitarian border”, it shows how the governmental, humanitarian, and everyday workings of hospitality exercise an assertive politics of sovereignty over the social encounter between locals and refugees. We examine the state‐centered hospitality in the Turkish case and a humanitarian‐promoted hospitality in the Lebanese case. We also show how the hospitality discourse shapes the spaces that refugees, citizens, and earlier migrants partake in.     

Promoting positive development among refugee adolescents

Of the estimated 35.3 million refugees around the world (UNHCR, Figures at a Glance, 2022), approximately 50% are children under the age of 18. Refugee adolescents represent a unique group as they navigate developmental tasks in an unstable and often threatening environment or in resettlement contexts in which they often face marginalization. In addition to physiological, social, and psychological changes that mark adolescence, refugee youth often face traumatic experiences, acculturative stress, discrimination, and a lack of basic resources. In this consensus statement, we examine research on refugee adolescents' developmental tasks, acculturative tasks, and psychological adjustment using Suárez-Orozco and colleague's integrative risk and resilience model for immigrant-origin children and youth proposed by Suárez-Orozco et al. Finally, we discuss recommendations—moving from proximal to more distal contexts.     

Enjoy Poverty: humanitarianism and the testimonial function of images

The overlap between production of humanitarian images and interventions in contexts of natural and man-made catastrophes is growing on a global scale. An increasingly close relationship exists between image production, news production and humanitarian industry. In this article, we argue that this process is transforming the meaning of the social, political and ethical act of bearing witness. We analyse the epistemic and political implications of visual humanitarian testimony through the documentary film Enjoy Poverty (2008), shot in Congo by the Dutch artist Renzo Martens. Examining some of the key scenes of the film, we undertake an analysis of the visual culture of humanitarianism within which the contemporary production of sensational images of strong emotional impact is inscribed and justified. We maintain that rethinking testimonial debt in light of contemporary visual humanitarianism fundamentally means to acknowledge and explore the hierarchical relationship that visual humanitarianism creates between the witnesses, the victims and the spectators. We conclude by arguing that Enjoy Poverty constitutes an attempt to generate a new visual, discursive and political horizon within which one can prevent the transformation of the testimonial relationship into a relationship of power.     

Why Refugees Rebel: Towards a Comprehensive Theory of Refugee Militarization

Militarization by refugees can have problematic outcomes. It can undermine the sovereignty and stability of the host state, perpetuate a transnational conflict and obstruct international efforts to resolve it, and present difficulties in the provision of humanitarian assistance to needy populations. Existing literature privileges structural explanations for militarization while neglecting the agency, interests and internal politics of refugee groups. In this paper, I offer a comprehensive theory of refugee militarization that emphasizes the importance of endogenous factors, including political and economic motivations, in the context of broader structural factors, including political opportunities and resource mobilization, mediated by the presence of militancy entrepreneurs. This theory helps integrate the motivation of refugees, and the discursive framing used by militancy entrepreneurs to mobilize them, with capacity for militant activity. The need for case studies and specific policy recommendations for host states, non‐governmental organizations and international stakeholders are discussed.     

Relationships in a new country: A qualitative study of the social connections of refugee youth resettled in South Australia

Australia's approach to immigration, as internationally, is largely concerned with state sovereignty, border protection and restrictionism towards asylum seekers. However, with just under a million refugees currently residing in Australia, and with 13,750 more added to this number each year, there is also an interest in ensuring that those who are granted humanitarian protection are socially integrated. This article reports on a qualitative investigation of the integration experiences of 85 refugee adolescents aged 13–17 years resettled in Adelaide, South Australia. It explores, in particular, the role of social connectedness in the integration process. Relationships with family, ethnic group and host country are believed to affect multiple and interrelated integration outcomes including language acquisition, cultural knowledge, belonging, identity, civic engagement, social and economic participation, and access to public services. This research found that young people must negotiate the integration process with variable, and in many cases limited, support from the network of social connections surrounding them. We suggest that policy and programmes which strengthen the relationships young people have with others have the potential to enhance integration outcomes.     

Mind the Gap! UNHCR,Humanitarian Assistance and the Development Process

This article provides a historical critique of the initiatives taken by UNHCR to link its refugee and returnee assistance programs with longer‐term development efforts in low‐income countries. Such initiatives include the integrated zonal development approach of the 1960s; the refugee aid and development strategy of the 1970s and 1980s; the returnee aid and development strategy of the 1990s; and, most recently, the Brookings process. The article concludes that these initiatives have generally been flawed in their conceptualization and implementation and have consequently failed to meet their intended objectives.     

From Refugees to Forced Migration: The UNHCR and Human Security1

Within UNHCR, there has been a shift in the emphasis on the meaning of protection. Protection of refugees is now primarily defined as security of refugees and refugee operations rather than in terms of the legal asylum process. The article examines the significance of UNHCR placing the refugee issue within both the larger context of forced migration as well as within the context of human security. The paper clarifies and documents a current and general focus of forced migration that includes the internally displaced as well as refugees and offers a framework for comprehending and dealing with the refugee problem that has shifted focus to the security dimension.     

Refugee protection in the region: A survey and evaluation of current trends

Protection in the region has rapidly become a favoured durable solution to refugee situations and the hallmark of all current policies. These initiatives reflect changes in humanitarian approaches that have taken place over the past decades as the focus has shifted towards the resilience of crisis-affected communities and the need to enable their self-reliance. Despite the strong logic that this change will bring about more dignified solutions, the approach is easily instrumentalized. This instrumentalization is particularly evident where resilience humanitarianism meets security-migration politics. This paper focuses on the efforts of the European Union and a number of its member states to advance so-called protection in the region. The paper reviews the characteristics of these policies, highlights a number of risks and defines some known and lesser known implications of this approach.     

International law and human rights: trends concerning international migrants and refugees

Not with standing human rights linkages, migrants and refugees are often on the periphery of effective international protection. State sovereignty and self-regarding notions of community are used to deny or dilute substantive and procedural guarantees. Recently, even non- discrimination as a fundamental principle has been questioned, as has the system of refugee protection. This article located both migrants and refugees squarely within the human rights context, contrasting both inalienable rights with the demands of sovereignty, and juxtaposing the 2 in a context of existing and developing international standards. Migration and refugee flows will go on, and the developed world, in particular, must address the consequences - legal, humanitarian, socioeconomic, and cultural. Racism and institutional denials of basic rights daily challenge the common interest. This article shows how the law must evolve, responding coherently to contemporary problems, if the structure of rights and freedoms is to be maintained.     

Rights Spaces: An Exploration of Feminist Approaches to Refugee Law

The exigent needs of refugee women necessitate feminist attempts to use legal mechanisms, however imperfect, to their benefit. However, the temptation to overestimate the importance of feminist gains in this realm must be avoided due to current constraints within the international refugee regime. Most forcibly displaced persons never reach the borders of western countries to claim asylum. Moreover, western 'refugee-receiving' countries are effectively closing their borders to migration claimed on strictly humanitarian grounds. Therefore, while feminists have successfully claimed a place for refugee women within protective rights mechanisms, they have been granted only a small portion of what is already extremely finite territory. Given this troubling state of affairs, I suggest that although proven avenues within refugee law must not be abandoned, the time is right for the sustained exploration of new and creative modes of engagement within refugee rights discourse. In this vein, the second half of the paper draws extensively upon the work of feminist legal theorist Jennifer Nedelsky to suggestively consider some possible alternatives for feminist theory and praxis.     

Reconfiguring Sovereignty in Foucauldian Genealogies of Power: The Case of English Master and Servant Law and the Dispersion and the Exercise of Sovereignty in the Modern Age

This paper is a critique and partial reconfiguration of the Foucauldian genealogy of sovereignty. Sovereignty is largely conceptualized as the antithesis of governmentality and disciplinary power in the modern age; presented as a negative case as a juridical and centralized power of interdiction and containment in the classical age. I argue that we can genealogically examine how sovereignty in the modern age underwent transformation and dispersion. My empirical focus is on how master and servant law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, along with the development and transformations of local courts, led to the increasingly dispersal of sovereign power as it as practiced in specific industrial sites and regions.     

The Protection‐Neutrality Dilemma in Humanitarian Emergencies: Why the Need for Military Intervention?

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Red Cross Society in Imperial China, 1904–1912: A Historical Analysis

The Red Cross Society was introduced to China in the 1900s, when the nation was under the authoritarian reign of Qing dynasty. Famines and rebellions, along with the invasion of foreign military forces, created tremendous humanitarian crises that the corrupted imperial government was incapable to address. The Red Cross model was found to be a pragmatic solution by Chinese philanthropists. Using archived press releases, correspondences, and government statements, the study reconstructs the founding process of the first Chinese Red Cross organization from 1904 to 1912. The analysis reveals that the organization reflected the congruent interest of the imperial court and social elites in preserving the sovereignty and was therefore promoted by key players from both political and civil spheres. The trajectory of Red Cross movement in imperial China supports the synergism perspective of institutional theories. It demonstrates how micro-level factors such as leadership ties and alliances contribute to the interdependence of public and private sectors and facilitate the transformation of traditional charity to modern philanthropy.     

Negotiating Boundaries of Refugee Resettlement: A Study of Settlement Patterns and Social Support*

This article analyses aspects of the bureaucratie process of negotiating placement and social support by and for resettled refugees in Canada. Theoretical issues addressed include refugee resilience and effects of power structures on migrant networks. The article describes a qualitative study of underlying reasons for government‐assisted refugee secondary migration to Ontario. The study demonstrates that refugees seek social support by moving from initial settlement sites to join extended family and analyses how the resettlement bureaucracy, driven by political as well as humanitarian interests, attempts to control the process, in contradiction to refugees' preferences. The negotiation of placement and definitions of relevant social supports by bureaucrats and refugees are discussed. In conclusion, greater attention to refugee self‐determination is suggested to improve settlement outcomes.