Disasters journal 40th anniversary conference

Disasters journal has been providing a rigorous analysis of relief work for 40 years and has been instrumental in changing attitudes to disasters and their response, based on good evidence and research. Charles Parrack represented CENDEP at the journal's prestigious 40th anniversary conference and writes that it was great to see former CENDEP staff and associates presenting:

Professor Ian Davis at the Disasters conference

CENDEP visiting professor Ian Davis gave the keynote address. Ian published a paper in the first issue of Disasters and is still writing and publishing on shelter after disaster today. Ian also continues to teach at CENDEP in the Shelter after Disaster module.

John Twigg, CENDEP external examiner, is currently one of the editors of Disasters, and chaired a panel discussion on what has changed in policy and practice of disaster risk management.

Dr Hugo Slim, former CENDEP director, now Head of Policy and Humanitarian Diplomacy at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, presented on the policy landscape in conflict.

Yasemin Aysan presented on the development of humanitarian practice. Yasemin was formerly director of the Oxford Disaster Management Centre (a precursor to CENDEP). She went on to join the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and became Under Secretary General for Disaster Response and Recovery.

Ian Davis reviewed what had changed in 40 years of disasters. He mentioned that urbanisation is colossal and the large numbers of migrants are contributing to the complexity and scale of disasters. Climate change has had a significant influence. Mobile phones have had a significant impact in less developed countries in tracking people and providing warnings of impending disasters, which has contributed to significantly fewer deaths from tropical storms in South Asia. Mega events are more common, even in developed countries such as Japan and the USA.

Ian commented on how some concepts and the words we use to describe them have changed over 40 years. Disaster prevention was a term that was first used in discussing disaster response, then mitigation and then disaster risk reduction, then adaptation. Now the discussion is more framed in terms of resilience, a term taken from the engineering sector, which is useful because it can mean different things to different groups. Even this concept of resilience is under discussion with commentators now talking about  'building a safety culture'.

There is still much donor-driven work in housing, which is poured into areas of emergency shelter and transitional housing, but little focus is placed on the important aspect of permanent housing. Urban risk is growing at a phenomenal rate and it is a complex area. Cultural barriers to progress remain an issue.

Yasemin Aysan discussed pilot work and how there are great pilots that are not scaled up. In disaster risk reduction work there is only a short time scale, of 3-4 years, but building up institutions to have the capacity to scale up these initiatives would take a much longer time, more related to developmental approaches.

Hugo Slim reflected that Disasters journal had a great influence on conflict studies, placing a much greater emphasis on conflict economy and conflict analysis. One of the changes Hugo has seen over time is how the humanitarian community of practice has embraced rights-based programmes and protection approaches. The second change is the politicisation of humanitarian action and the affected population. In terms of ICRC, the change Hugo has seen is the rise of urban warfare and there is much work to be done on urban protection and rights in conflict. Hugo concluded by saying that recent research has been more biased towards political theorists, and he would like to see more of an emphasis on research practice-oriented issues.

Identity: Oxford Human Rights Festival 2018

Angela Hatherell writes:

Students from across the University are invited to join the organizing committee for the 16th Oxford Human Rights Festival. The Festival will take place here at Oxford Brookes 12-17 March 2018 and we start planning from the beginning of semester one. The Festival is free and open to everyone.

The Festival is an initiative of CENDEP students and the aim is to raise awareness of human rights issues, through the arts. Students will produce a programme of films, performance, workshops, and talks around this year’s theme of Identity according to their own particular interests.

In 2017 we opened with a packed screening of Ken Loach’s hard hitting film I, Daniel Blake, with a Q&A with the director, and we hope that the 2018 Festival will build on that success. Other high profile speakers in recent years have included Ziaddiun Yousafzai, diplomat and father of Malala, Professors Barbara Harrell-Bond and Alexander Betts of the Oxford University Refugee Studies Centre, and Sarah Gavron, director of the highly acclaimed film Suffragette.

The Festival has recently become a part of the British Arts Festivals Association and also an international network of human rights arts festivals organised by the International Human Rights Art Festival in New York.

If you are interested in getting involved or finding out more email us on OxHRF@brookes.ac.uk, follow us on Twitter and Instagram @OxHRF, like our page on Facebook at facebook.com/oxfordhumanrightsfestival and check out our website www.oxfordhumanrightsfestival.net 

The 2016 festival organizing committee

Further reading on the Oxford Human Rights Festival on the CENDEP blog:

Reflecting on the Oxford Human Rights Festival II

Reflecting on the Oxford Human Rights Festival I

Human rights festival focuses on Home

From homeland to hostland: understanding adversity through art

A visit to Syrian refugee settlements in Lebanon

Abeer Al-Mutawakel (DEP 2016-17) writes:

In May 2017, I went on my first field trip with Oxford Brookes University to Lebanon. The field trip aimed to study the impact of displacement on Lebanon, particularly on the city of Saida and its surroundings, given the existing Palestinian and Syrian refugees in the country. Field trips are part of CENDEP’s program offered to students, which complement the academic side of research, and offer a practical side. During our stay in Saida we visited multiple Syrian refugee shelters and conducted many interviews. Visiting a shelter, and getting a chance to talk with people was a completely different experience compared to reading about it. Talking with Syrian refugees helped me to connect with them, feel their suffering, and learn about their journeys and the changes in their lives before and during the war in Syria. It made me feel the impact of a conflict in reality, and not just on paper.

Shheem informal camp

The first camp we visited was in Shheem. The camp has 380 people in it according to the Lebanese owner of the land who allowed them to stay there for free. They came from the different parts of Syria. They built their own shelters using donated materials. They were simple rooms, but Syrian women proudly referred to them as ‘my house’ when talking about them.

We all gathered in one place with the women in the camp for a group discussion. They welcomed us, offering us tea although we knew that they are short of basic commodities. During our gathering, the first noticeable thing was the care given to their looks, having make up on and nice outfits. It showed that women care about their appearance and dignity despite their hard living conditions.

Group discussion with women at Shheem camp

The second noticeable thing is the pregnancy rate among young women. Most young women in that camp were pregnant and had babies and toddlers at the same time. This concerned me about the opportunities for the coming generation.

During our group conversation, the Syrian women were open to discuss their situation, how their husbands are finding it hard to find jobs, and if they do, they are not paid fairly. They expressed their dissatisfaction about the relevance of aid being received both in terms of services (such as teaching them how to wash their hands or babies, which they found insulting) or in-kind contributions (such as clothes that do not fit their kids). This reflects the importance of understanding the context and conducting needs assessment, which was always emphasised on DEP students during multiple modules in its program.

Inside a house at Shheem camp

 

After our group discussion, I had a chance to have a side conversation with one of the refugee women who was one of the first comers to Shheem camp. She has been living there for six years. She has two girls and two boys. She invited me to her house; I was amazed how tidy and organised her house is, how she decorated the fridge and TV to make it feel like home for them. Although these are simple things, they made me feel her resilience and adaptability. Before leaving her house, she whispered to me excitedly that she has been offered to travel with her family to a foreign country, but did not know where yet. After six years in Shheem camp, she hopes that her and her family’s life will change. 

Pepsi shelter in Saida

We visited another shelter in Saida known as Pepsi. It was an old abandoned factory, which had three upper levels consisting of multiple apartments and two separated basements consisting of over 40 rooms for storage which were now all rented to Syrian refugees. There were 130 to 150 families living in this shelter with at least 800 kids. The interesting thing about this shelter is that all the refugees living in it are from the same town in Syria. When the war first started, families sent away youth between the age of 14-26 to avoid them being recruited by fighting groups, and youth later started calling for their families to come and join them. 

The basement rooms being rented in this shelter were not in proper liveable condition. Rooms looked like a garage and most of them did not have windows and therefore no air or sunlight. The basement was damp and dark.

Basement of Pepsi shelter

Some rooms would house a family of seven, and some even more (one of the rooms I visited was split into two, having the first wife and her five daughters in one half, and the other wife with her five kids in the other). Most rooms have a small kitchen built within the room and they all have shared toilets except for few. These conditions encourage the spread of diseases and impacts the growth of children living there. Some rooms are under the main road, and are at risk of having their ceiling collapse as happened with one of the rooms we visited. On top of these poor conditions, Syrian refugees pay rent of around $100 - $160 per room depending on the size. The apartments being rented in upper levels were much better and more expensive ($350/month).

Room in Pepsi shelter basement

A family we interviewed living in an apartment said that if they had a chance to live in the basement they would go for it, but they came late and there was no room for them, so they have to pay the higher rent. They can rent a better apartment outside the shelter with the same amount, but they’d rather stay with their ‘community’. Moreover, most kids living in shelters are not going to school. Parents worry about getting the basic needs such as food, shelter and health. In Pepsi shelter only a third of the children go to school and numbers keep dropping down because kids are expected to help in supporting their families.

Children pose for the camera in Pepsi shelter basement

Exploring refugee hosting in Jordan

After a long summer hiatus, the CENDEP blog is resuming with the new semester just a couple of weeks away. First, PhD student Zoe Jordan is embarking on her fieldwork in Jordan:

I’ve recently arrived in Jordan to begin fieldwork for my PhD research, looking at hosting practices for refugees in urban Amman, and how humanitarian assistance influences these relationships during situations of long-term displacement.

Jordan has received one of the highest numbers of refugees from the on-going Syrian conflict. According to UNHCR, Jordan is the second largest host of refugees per capita in the world. In addition to the Syrian refugee population, Jordan also hosts refugees from Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen, as well as smaller populations from many other countries. While refugees continue to arrive in Jordan many people are in long-term displacement situations, having been in Jordan for years. These features make Jordan an interesting context in which to understand the changing nature of relationships between refugees and their hosts as displacement becomes increasingly protracted. Given the strength of familial and tribal ties between Jordan and its Arab neighbours, it is also interesting to explore potential differences in hosting arrangements between refugees and hosts from different national groups.

While media attention and much of the humanitarian response remains focused on the large refugee camps of Zaatari and Azraq, up to ninety per cent of refugees live outside of camps. The situation for many families in Amman is critical – up to ninety-three percent of Syrian refugees outside of camps live in extreme poverty, and there is only limited assistance available for non-Syrian refugees. The presence of refugees in urban areas and the importance of their host families has been recognised by the Jordanian authorities and humanitarian actors. Important lessons on how to provide humanitarian assistance in urban settings are emerging from Jordan, and there is an increasing awareness of the vital role of hosts in supporting refugee families. Despite this recognition, there is little understanding of the personal relationships and household-level dynamics between refugees and their hosts.

Jordan is not a party to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees, nor its 1967 Protocol. Many Jordanians are proud of their reputation for hospitality, and the influence of Arabic and Islamic traditions of hospitality are evident in day-to-day and policy discourse regarding refugees in Jordan. At the everyday level, this hospitality can be seen in the relations between refugees and their hosts. Host families may provide material, financial, or social and emotional support for refugees, and often continue this support well past the moment of crisis, facilitating refugees to integrate with the host community, and to become independent while in displacement. For many, “host family” conjures an image of a refugee family and a host family sharing a space, acting a household, who identify themselves to be in a hosting relationship. This understanding does not capture the full range of supportive relationships between hosts and refugees in Jordan, and does not respond to the shifting dynamics of refugee-host relations as displacement becomes protracted. A broader perspective on hosting practices allows us to consider the range of social relations which may be engaged in by refugees and hosts, and the potential for strategies to overlap.

Hosting relationships are not easily characterizable nor perceived in the same way by all participants. Existing research has focused on community level relations, but seems to be little in-depth research into the different types of relationship between hosts and refugees, nor the experience of being a hosted or of hosting a displaced family. Situating my research in Jordan allows me to understand how hosting practices are maintained and developed in contexts of protracted displacement, and provides an opportunity to explore local traditions and practices of humanitarian assistance and hospitality and their impact on refugee hosting practices.

In my first few weeks in Amman, I will be meeting with staff from international organisations and local NGOs, asking them to share their knowledge on the current state of humanitarian engagement with urban refugees and host families in situations of protracted displacement in Amman, and to provide their feedback on my research design. In the following months, I will continue working with humanitarian organisations and community centres to speak to refugees and hosts about their current living arrangements, their experiences of living in Amman, and their interaction with humanitarian actors. From this, I hope to be able to identify common patterns and experiences in different people’s hosting arrangements, as well as beginning to explore the differences between people’s experiences, and some of the reasons behind this.