Refugees and Migrants within the Middle East – serie

WINNER OF THE 2023 ALIXA NAFF PRIZE IN MIGRATION STUDIESThe politics and governance of Jordan’s Azraq camp for Syrian refugeesAzraq refugee camp, built in 2014 and host to forty thousand refugees, is one of two official humanitarian refugee camps for Syrian refugees in Jordan. Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp investigates the relationship between time and power in Azraq, asking how a politics of time shapes, limits, or enables everyday life for the displaced and for aid workers.Based on ethnographic fieldwork, carried out during 2017–2018, the book challenges the perceptions of Azraq as the ‘ideal’ refugee camp. Melissa Gatter argues that the camp operates as a ‘nine-to-five emergency’ where mundane bureaucratic procedures serve to sustain a power system in which refugees are socialized to endure a cynical wait—both for everyday services and for their return—without expectations for a better outcome.Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp also explores how refugees navigate this system, both in the day-to-day and over years, by evaluating various layers of waiting as they affect refugee perceptions of time in the camp—not only in the present, but the past, near future, and far future. Far from an ‘ideal’ camp, Azraq and its politics of time constitute a cruel reality in which a power system meant to aid refugees is one that suppresses, foreclosing futures that it is supposed to preserve.

A historical and contemporary study of Palestinian musicianship in exile in the Middle East, spanning half a century in disparate locationsPalestinian Music in Exile is a historical and contemporary study of Palestinian musicianship in exile in the Middle East, spanning half a century in disparate locations, including Gaza, Turkey, Kuwait, and Egypt. Grassroots musicians emerge here as powerful actors, their stories taking center stage, offering critiques of existing conditions, and new perspectives on displacement and the transmission of Palestinian narratives, and presenting alternative visions for the future.Louis Brehony argues that, under conditions of colonial relations and repeated displacement, the reclaiming of public space has gone hand in hand with aesthetic revolution, both broadening and traditionalizing the sounds of Palestine, and carrying messages of sumud (steadfastness) and resistance. Based on a decade’s research in Europe and the Middle East, this timely and inspiring collection of musical ethnographies provides a rich oral history of contemporary Palestinian musicianship and encompasses a broad range of experiences of the ghurba, or state of exile.

A rich interdisciplinary study of the diversity and dynamics of the migrations of displaced peoples across the Global South By the end of 2022, the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached a record high of 100 million, the highest figure since the Second World War. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Taliban political takeover in Afghanistan exacerbated an already protracted global refugee situation, but climate-related events also played a part in forcing millions of people to leave their homes in search of more habitable living areas.Making Routes: Mobility and Politics of Migrant in the Global South provides fresh understandings of mobility flows, transnational linkages, and the politics of migration across the Global South, in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Moving away from North–South, East–West binaries and challenging the conception that migratory movements are primarily unidirectional—from South to North—it explores how state policies, migrants’ trajectories, nationalism and discrimination, and art and knowledge production unfold in places as widespread as Egypt, Turkey, Myanmar, Nicaragua, and Haiti.Seventeen academics, activists, and artists from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, and international relations reveal the diverse narratives, migration patterns, forms of agency, and laws that make up the complex reality of South–South migration, offering vital new pathways for research in migration studies today.Contributors:- Chowdhury R. Abrar, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU), Dhaka, Bangladesh- David Bolanos, Independent photographer, Costa Rica- Danyel M. Ferrari, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, United States- Leander Kandilige, University of Ghana, Accra- Mélanie V. Léger-Montinard, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil- Duduzile S. Ndlovu, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa- Evrim Hikmet Öğüt, Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Istanbul, Turkey- Sara Sadek, The American University in Cairo, Egypt- Tasneem Siddiqui, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh- Sally Souraya, Independent artist, London United Kingdom- Allison B. Wolf, Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia- Kudakwashe Vanyoro, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa- Thomas Yeboah, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

An intimate portrayal of protest through images during the Syrian warNever before in history has a conflict been so extensively filmed by its own warring parties, generating a wealth of sound and image. From the start of the Syrian revolt in 2011, several million videos were posted online by demonstrators, activists, and militant fighters. Their prime objective was to work around the media blackout imposed by the regime of Bashar al-Assad, as well as its calling into question the size and scope of activism and repression on the ground, by filming the demonstrations, the repression, and the funerals. Use of video quickly diversified to include protest action, testimonies, military defections, combat training, tributes to “martyrs,” and live combat.Syria, Revolt and War in the Digital Age explores this vast territory of images and sounds, offering a new approach to understanding the conflict in Syria and, more broadly, it analyzes the new use of images in contemporary conflicts. Based on both digital ethnography and interviews with video-takers on the ground, the contributors identify gestures, grammars, and textures specific to this audiovisual footage that has emerged from different spaces of the conflict rarely studied as a continuum. The contributors to this volume look at images from opposing camps from inside Syria and in the diaspora in order to delve into the specificities of each side’s audiovisual practices and cultures, the way these images relate to one another, and how they might render the Syrian revolt and conflict more intelligible.With the world awash in images from conflict zones, this book opens readers’ eyes to understanding heretofore neglected aspects of revolt and conflict and proposes new ways of thinking about them.Contributors:Hatem A., Independent worker, Malmo, SwedenEmma Aubin-Boltanski, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, FranceF.B., Independent worker, Strasbourg, FranceErminia Chiara Calabrese, French Institute in the Near East (Ifpo), Beirut, LebanonGiulia Galluccio, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) Paris, FranceLucile Irigoyen, Independent worker and filmmaker, Mauleon, FranceShahriar Khonsari, Independent photographer, Tehran, IranCédric Labrousse, The School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris, FranceAnna Poujeau, National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris, FranceChamsy Sarkis, Independent worker, Paris, France