Mobilising home for protracted displacement

This week's Work in Progress seminar will be given by Anita H. Fábos, Department of International Development, Community, and Environment, Clark University and Cathrine Brun, CENDEP, Oxford Brookes University. They explain the topic:

 

Despite the contemporary rise of long-term refugee displacement, policies in place to manage it are based on remarkably static notions of home. In our talk, we use a feminist analysis of ‘home’ to critique binary policies of “home” and “not-home.” Instead, we propose that refugees themselves link different temporal and spatial dimentions of home into fluid constellations of home, and maintain these constellations through their mobile homekeeping practices. The multi-dimensional homes that refugees make through their daily house-keeping activities, networking and memory-work, and navigation through the international humanitarian system are recognizable as the shared human experience of home and a basis for improved and inclusive policies.

The seminar will be at 17.00 in the Abercrombie Building, Headington Campus, Third Floor, Stdent Hub, White Space. All welcome. See here for details of all the seminars.

Work in Progress: Rethinking domicide

Dr Mel Nowicki is a Lecturer in Geography at Oxford Brookes. She introduces her research, which she will present at the Work in Progress seminar on Thursday 29 November at 4.30pm:

I'll be discussing the concept of domicide, or the intentional destruction of home. Reflecting on research conducted in London and Dublin with a range of people, from squatters to formerly homeless families, the talk will focus on the ways in which domicide is enacted not solely through the physical destruction of or displacement from the dwelling, but socio-symbolically through the delegitimisation of particular groups' rights to home. I do so through examining the ways in which the idealisation of homeownership in particular justifies stigmatisation of those unable, or unwilling, to confirm to these idealised constructions of home. 

The seminar will be in Abercrombie, third floor, Student Hub/White Space. This is the last Work in Progress session this semester. All are welcome.

Why host refugees?

Zoe Jordan writes:

Many refugees around the world do not live in refugee camps, but in towns and cities, alongside citizens and residents of the host nation, and other migrants and refugees. In urban neighbourhoods across the globe, refugees are hosted by others. They are invited to share a house and resources with another family – who may be from the host country, or may also be refugees.

Refugees who are hosted gain access to shelter, most obviously, but may also be able to share other resources – sharing food, using electricity and water supplies, support in the costs of education for their children, and any healthcare costs. Hosting relationships can also provide access to less tangible resources – connections to jobs and social groups, important emotional and psychosocial support, and can help refugees to define their identity within a new community. This might all sound quite nice, but there are concerns about exploitation within the hosting relationship – for example enforced labour and child labour, physical and verbal violence, particularly towards women, overcrowding, poor hygiene, and unequal treatment of different households involved, with effects on the 'inferior' family's well-being. The arrangements underpinning these relationships change over time, based on the length of time spent living together, participants' expectations of themselves and others, and in response to external influences – for example, legal status, wider community acceptance or discrimination, humanitarian assistance, and the perceived welfare of refugees and host nationals. For those refugees who are hosted, it’s not just an economic or material calculation, but is also quite closely bound with how people see themselves and others, how they relate to those around them, and their expectations and plans for their lives while displaced.

Less commonly considered is the perspective of the hosts. Why do individuals and their families decide to share space and resources with refugees?

As Ibrahim (not his real name) told me:

“I live with one friend and my brothers. I met my friend here in Jordan. Before he came, I was living with my brothers, and we had five or six others with us. But they were all deported – I am a survivor with my brothers too…So we are just 3, and then I found my friend, he is alone. So I was sure with him, I said “You have to come with us. First, because you live alone, and second your home is unallowable or unacceptable to us because you are a member of our community.” “Yes”, he told us “ok no problem” and he came...When I met him, the first thing for me is that all the Sudanese here are from Darfur, and the second thing is about our environment, or community - with Sudanese, the first time I see you, I will know if you are from Sudan or not, and if you are from Sudan of course it is my pleasure to try to know you…Another reason to live together, a good strong reason, is because I can defend them and they can defend me.

Currently, there are three dominant images of host relationships. Firstly, that the majority of hosting takes place between extended family members, secondly that refugees are an economic burden on the host family, and finally that refugees are exploited by hosts. While all of these are undoubtedly true for certain people at certain times, they do not account for the whole picture. Instead, as Ibrahim’s account shows, we also need to consider social motivations, including solidarity, compassion, and obligation. This isn't to do away with the recognition of personal gain from participating – either as a host or refugee – in the relationship, but to recognise that the social motivations for hosting are perhaps as important as the economic ones, and we need to better understand how these different interests intersect.

Current understanding of hosting fails to explain why both hosts and hosted refugees choose to engage in hosting relationships, relying un-nuanced understandings of kinships relations and economic costs and benefits, rather than social explanations. Drawing on these additional concepts isn't to accept them unquestioningly – we need to make sure that we avoid romanticising them, recognise the power dynamics contained within them, and consider who they apply to and who they exclude, and how and when the different concepts feature more strongly in people's accounts of their actions.  We also need to consider how our understanding of these concepts may be challenged or expanded by thinking about their relevance in long-term displacement, urban environments, in relation to refugees, and in non-Western settings. We need to incorporate all of these explanations into our understanding of why people engage in hosting relationships, if we want to understand how community support mechanisms work and the impact of external actions, including the unintended consequences of humanitarian assistance.

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

Reflecting on the Oxford Human Rights Festival II

In our second reflection on the Oxford Human Rights Film Festival, Alexandria Norris-Moore, a DEP Masters student (2016/17) who was one of the organisers, discusses the session that had the greatest impact on her.

(l-r) Jonathan Mazower, Regina Lim, Peter Kilroy, and Alexandria Norris-Moore

Being on the Oxford Human Rights Festival Committee was a great experience. The one night I would draw light on was the screening of Utopia. This film is a documentary on the extraordinary story about white Australia and its deeply dysfunctional relationship with the Indigenous Australian community. Following the viewing we held a panel discussion with three guests who were from very interesting backgrounds, all looking at this issue of land rights for aboriginals and indigenous peoples across the world: Peter Kilroy, Jonathan Mazower and Dr Regina Lim.

Peter Kilroy is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies and the Department of Film Studies at King’s College London. Jonathan Mazower is Advocacy and Media Director at Survival International, an organisation that helps tribal peoples defend their lives, protect their lands and determine their own futures. Dr Regina Lim of Oxford Brookes University did her PhD research in Philippine Cultural Identity and Traditional Settlements in Development: Coming to terms with cultural diversity in a nation-state.

This powerful film by John Pilger looks at the awful truth behind white Australia's

dysfunctional relationship with Indigenous Australians. In 2007, the Australian Prime Minister claimed to have 'profound' evidence of high child abuse rates within rural aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory of Australia. Based on this information the Australian army went into these townships and took control of the operation of the towns. This included quarantining a proportion of the welfare benefits to all community members and controlling the access to and from these aboriginal communities. This was called the 'Northern Territory Intervention'. However, no prosecution for the reported 'child abuse' ever resulted from the intervention and studies appear to conclude that the situation within these communities were no better or worse then in other communities across all of Australia. No apology was made to these communities on their treatment during this time. 

The panel looked at this through the question around providing other examples of political interference within the field of land rights for tribal people across the world.

The awful truth is that Indigenous communities are often on mineral-rich lands that cause mouths to water in mining corporation boardrooms. It has been stated that even if the ‘intervention’ wasn't a straightforward land grab, then it suited powerful people who have a vested interest in keeping indigenous Australians second-class. The panel looked at this tackling the question of land being taken away for benefits of the government economically.

The panel then focused on the film itself looking at what challenges a film maker may have in trying to get involvement from Australian aboriginals to be a part of something like the documentary Utopia.

It was a very educational and insightful evening that took us from work with Bushmen of Botswana with Survival International to indigenous Australians having remained itinerant and stateless citizens in their own state, to the struggles of land rights for tribes within the Philippines.  

Pictures show the art exhibition at Oxford Brookes's Glass Tank space that ran throughout the Human Rights Festival.

Human Rights Festival focuses on Home

Clare Dickson writes:

Oxford Brookes University will next month play host to the 15^th annual Oxford Human Rights Festival, around the central theme of Home. The festival highlights issues such as the refugee crisis, housing crisis, indigenous rights, and homelessness to answer the question “What does Home mean to you?”

This year our opening night sees BAFTA winning Director Ken Loach presenting I, Daniel Blake (2016), a hard hitting insight into homelessness in the UK. Other highlights include our partnership screening with the Oxford Brookes Documentary Club, which this year is Queens of Syria (2014) followed by a Q&A with producer Georgina Paget. A screening of Rent Rebels, highlighting problems and resistance in the rental sector in Berlin, Germany, is followed by a talk by the filmmakers. Freedom from Torture will give a performance of their Write to Life: Lost and Found project which gives a voice to refugees who have arrived in this country and invites them to share their stories of fleeing terror and creating new homes here. On closing night we will be screening Jake Gavin's acclaimed film Hector (2015), which tells the heartbreaking and inspiring story of a homeless man's journey to reconnect with his family, and also have an audience Q&A with the director. 

The centre piece of the festival is the HOME exhibition, showcasing an emergency shelter provided by humanitarian organisation ShelterBox. The exhibition is also set to include photographs by Sea of Humanity, who have worked in Europe with refugees and now run the Khora project in Athens. There will also be original artwork by Iranian Mani Darjazi and Afghani Said Habib Sadat, who have fled their homelands to find a safe haven in London, and Manchester based Syrian artist Jo Scorah, who all interpret the theme of home through their paintings and sculptures. 

As a student on the MA Development and Emergency Practice programme myself, the themes and messages of the festival are particularly relevant to me, with the majority of the committee coming from the same course. We have worked alongside students in Film Studies, International Relations, and Marketing Management undergraduate courses, as well as the MArchD Architecture course, to bring the festival together. We believe human rights concern everyone and together we aim to raise awareness of human rights issues through storytelling and arts.

Harry Tuke, an MArchD student and member of the 2017 festival committee, put it perfectly when describing what this year's theme means to him personally:

I got involved with the Human Rights Festival as I was interested to see how film and arts could be used to communicate important issues to the Oxford community. The theme ‘Home’ is particularly relevant now looking at homelessness, the refugee crisis and housing crisis that are such huge issues right now. Equally it was a very interesting question of what is ‘Home’ and the right to a home, especially as I’m studying architecture and Social/Humanitarian studies.

Another member of the committee Barbara Dirrheimer, an undergraduate in Marketing Management, said:

I have always been interested in human rights and spreading awareness for issues like inequality. In the situation the world is in right now I feel even more strongly that everyone needs to speak up about their beliefs which is why I'm so excited to be a part of OXHRF 2017. Spreading awareness especially in such an international and diverse environment like Oxford Brookes University feels like the perfect setting. It is amazing to help give the chance to organisations to talk about their daily work in trying to provide people with homes, whether it's in the UK, Europe or in refugee camps around the world. Everyone should listen to those stories!

The Festival has provided an opportunity for us to explore artistic representations of the theme of Home in many different forms. We are looking forward to seeing how the choices we have made come together and sharing these key messages with the Oxford community during the Festival.

The Oxford Human Rights Festival will take place from Tuesday 14th to Saturday 18th March at the Oxford Brookes Headington campus. The programme will feature screenings along with Q&A sessions with the directors and producers, performances and an exhibition in the Glass Tank. To guarantee your place please book your free tickets at http://oxfordhumanrightsfestival.eventbrite.com/. More information and full programme of events can be found at www.oxfordhumanrightsfestival.net and www.facebook.com/oxfordhumanrightsfestival