Today I’ve spoken with Mark Cummings on his breakfast radio.
I’m quite a terrible speaker in the early morning, but, dear friends in Syria and Turkey, I’ve tried to advocate for:
-UN convoys that provide an earthquake specific response, not general, standardised stuff
-The need for the UN to end its own bureaucracy, which, as seen, can literally KILL people
-The power of grassroots organisations, which, however, often have no means to dig people out of the rubble (so, advocating for aid effectiveness in over-resourced organisations is still important)
-The Syrian crossing point of Bab al-Hawa was already used for humanitarian purposes, so no substantial “humanitarian effort” had been made while it was paraded as such in the media last week
I know the current situation makes us think that we need humanitarian aid more than ever (and, at this point, YES, we do), but, with a longer-term perspective, we should think of longstanding efforts towards safe and just infrastructure, which kill people during and outside of crisis.
İnsanların yaptıklarının nedenlerine dair anlattığı kimi hikayeler, devletle pasif uzlaşmaya dair ortak duyguları ima eder ve devletin sosyal ve politik mimarisinden maddi kopuşu daha da zorlaştırır.
Bu yazı, özel-kamu, devlet-toplum, itaat-direniş arasındaki belirsiz sınırları ön plana çıkaran literatür üzerinden, Suriye’deki güncel çekişmelerin katmanlı süreçlerini anlamaya çalışıyor. Bu noktada, devlet stratejileri ile gündelik hayatın mahremiyeti arasında bağlantılar kurarak, sıradan vatandaşların hayatta kalmak, ulusal aidiyet duygularını korumak ve “aynı anda hem yurtsever, hem isyancı” olmak için mücadele ederken, devletle ilişkilerini sürekli olarak müzakere ettikleri zemini tanımlamaya girişiyor.
“Devletsiz olmaya karar verirsem, insan olmaktan çıkarım”
Suriye devletinin fiilen (de facto) ayakta kalması, Esad hükümetinin ahlaki tanınmasının bir sonucu değildi. Bunun ampirik kanıtı, Lübnan’da görüştüğümüz ve ağırlıklı olarak siyasi muhalefetin hakim olduğu bölgelerden gelen Suriyeli mültecilerdi. İki yıl boyunca görüştüğümüz bu mülteciler, Suriye hükümetinin dış güçlerin diplomatik eylemlerinden meşruiyet devşirdiğini öne sürüyorlardı. Böyle olmakla birlikte, aşağıdaki ifadelerinden de anlaşılacağı gibi bu kişiler, yaşam olanaklarını ve mesleki kazanımlarını koruma çabalarıyla ve hükümete nefretlerine rağmen yasal vatandaş olarak kalma arzularıyla devletin bekasını dile getirdiler.
Daraya’dan Dima, Suriye hükümetindeki işini bırakamadığını aktararak, “…çünkü çocuğumu büyütmek için tek gelir kaynağım bu ve bir kere işsiz kalırsam, umutsuz ve geleceksiz olurum. Gerçekleştirmem gereken bir hayalim ya da ulaşacağım bir hedefim olmayacak. Devletsiz olmaya karar verirsem, insan olmaktan çıkarım” diyor. Dima, burada devletin sadece toprağı değil, yaşamların biyolojisini de kontrol etme potansiyeline işaret ediyor. Başka bir deyişle, kendilerini devletten dışlayan sivil itaatsizlik yoluyla egemenliğine ve otoritesine karşı çıkanlar bile, toprak yönetimi ve siyasi iktidarda devlet ortodoksluğuyla karmaşık bir şekilde ilişkileniyor. Suriye muhalefetinin şimdi Lübnan’a yerleşen Afamia’lı siyasi bir üyesi “Kardeşimin aksine, ailemi görmek için istediğim zaman Suriye’ye girmeme izin verilecek” diyor. Bu ifadesi, devlete karşı siyasi bir duruş sergilerken, istenmeyen bir vatandaş olarak sınıflandırılmadığı için bir parça gurura tutunduğunu gösteriyor.
İnsanların yaptıklarını neden yaptıklarına dair anlattıkları hikayeler -zaman zaman- kişinin devletle pasif uzlaşmasına dair ortak duyguları ima eder ve devletin sosyal ve politik mimarisinden maddi olarak kopuşu daha da zorlaştırır. Vatandaşların hayatlarını kurumsallaşmış olarak düşünme konusundaki ısrarlı “arzuları”, iktidardakilerin tahakkümüne veya onlardan ayrılmaya ilişkin basit yorumlara karşı ağır basıyor. Dahası, görüşmecilerin yukarıdaki ifadeleri, Suriye’de devam eden kaos ve irrasyonel şiddete rağmen devletin nasıl hala rasyonaliteyi temsil ettiği ve vatandaşlar tarafından fetişleştirildiğini gösteriyor.
Oldukça geniş ve farklı motivasyonlara sahip muhalefeti tetikleyen ve büyük ölçüde Suriye hükümetinin neden olduğu mevcut zorluklar, kişisel deneyimlerde düzen ve uyum için bir özlem üretme eğilimindedir. Ancak, kimi vatandaşlar için ise devletle ilgili karar verme daha kolaydı. Örneğin Haldiyye’den (Humus) A., devletle ilişkilere karşı tavizsiz bir tavır sergiliyor. Askerlik görevinin feshi için Esad rejimi birliklerine ödeme yapmayı reddetmiş (toplam 5 bin ABD Doları): “Şaka mı yapıyorsun! Gerçekten isteseydim burada, Beyrut’ta bunu ödeyebilecek kadar kazanabilirdim, ama… asla. Mart 2011’de Humus sokaklarında protesto gösterisi yaparken beni öldürmek üzere olan devlet ordusunun mali kaynaklarını beslemeyeceğim.”
Esad rejiminin bakış açısına göre, vatandaşlar ve hükümet arasındaki iş imkanları, kişisel iyilikler gibi ilişkiler, mevcut yönetim sistemi içinde yaşama isteğinin olumlu kanıtıdır. Buradan bakıldığında, devletin bekası kasıtlı ve açık bir tanımlama eyleminin ürünü olmaya devam etmektedir. Bununla birlikte, konuştuğumuz Suriyeli muhaliflere göre, insanların devlet kurumlarını reddetme konusundaki isteksizliği, devlet otoritesinin gönüllü olarak tanınması anlamına gelmiyor. Görüştüğümüz kişiler, örneğin ayrımcı idari uygulamalarla vatandaşlarını kenarda tutan devletin, halktan kopuk egemenliğine sürekli vurgu yaptılar. İnsanların davranışları, aktif siyasi iradeye veya devlete sağlam bir sadakat anlamına gelmiyor. Dolayısıyla, görüşmecilerin bu çelişkiler karşısındaki motivasyonu, alternatif bir yaşam sürmenin imkansızlığıydı.
Özetle, sıradan vatandaşlar kriz anında gündelik normalliği yeniden inşa etmekten başka bir alternatif görmediler. Bu bağlamda, yurtdışında yaşayan Suriyeli bir akademisyen, vatandaşların birçok yönden merkezi devletin meşruiyetini beslediğini savunuyor: “Günün sonunda, tanıdığım bazı Suriyeli muhalifler devlet işlerindeki pozisyonlarını terk etmemişken, devrimin neden tam olarak başlamadığını anlayabiliyorum.” Gerçekten de, böylesine yaygın bir otoriter ortamda, devletteki pozisyonlarından ayrılmak, kolektif bir karaktere bürünen muhalif bir protesto eylemi olurdu. Görüşmelerimizde devrimcilerin bazı yabancı destekçileri de benzer şekilde devletle ilişkilerini kesememiş Suriyelilere sitem ettiler. Foucaultcu baskı siyaseti, Suriye devleti ile Suriye vatandaşları arasındaki bu anlaşılması zor ve dolambaçlı ilişkiyi açıklıyor: İnsanlar reddediyor, ancak paradoksal bir şekilde günlük yaşamlarının yapılarında devlet otoritesinin kötüye kullanımını yeniden üretiyor ve büyütüyorlar.
Merkezi otorite ile kesilemeyen ilişkiler
Suriye birlikleri 2012-2013 yılları arasında Suriye’deki Kürt bölgelerin çoğundan çekilirken, bu bölgelerdeki devlet çalışanları Şam’dan maaş almaya devam etti. Bu sadece bir “Kürt istisnası” değildi; “İslam Devleti” halifeliğinin gelecekteki başkenti Rakka da dahil olmak üzere diğer bazı bölgeler merkezi otorite ile ilişkileri sürdürdü; böylece öğretmenler, Suriye Telekom personeli ve diğer kalifiye çalışanlar hükümetin maaş bordrosunda yer almaya devam etti.
Serêkanî’de (Haseke) Suriyeli bir Telekom çalışanı olan Rakan’ın durumu örnek teşkil ediyor. Yekitî Partisi üyesi olmasına ve 2011’den beri hükümet karşıtı gösterilere aktif olarak katılmasına rağmen, 2014 yılına kadar devlete ait şirkette çalışmaya devam etti. Malum kritik ekonomik durumda Rakan işi bırakmayı göze alamazdı zira üç çocuğunu büyütmesi bu işe bağlıydı. Suriye istihbaratı, Batılı bir gazeteciyi ağırladığı bilgisine binaen Rakan’ı çağırdı. Rakan etik bir ikilemle karşı karşıya kaldı: Çağrılarına cevap vermek, böylece olası bir tutuklama ile karşı karşıya kalmak ya da işini kaybetme riskiyle onları görmezden gelmek. Bu ikilemi çözmesi için Batılı gazeteciden (bu makalenin ortak yazarlarından biri), Kamışlı’da PYD’nin (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat) üst düzey bir yetkilisiyle görüşüp, sahadaki Suriye devlet yetkililerinden arabuluculuk talep etmesi istendi. Ancak, PYD yetkilisi, kendisinin de potansiyel bir tutuklamaya maruz kalacağı ve merkezi devlet aygıtı üzerinde hiçbir etkiye sahip olmadığı için yapılacak bir şey olmadığı yanıtını verdi. Rakan sonunda 2014’te, Türkiye’ye göç etmeye karar verdikten sonra işini bıraktı. Bu durum, PYD yetkilisinin Rakan’ı koruma veya ona alternatif bir iş sağlama araçlarından nasıl yoksun olduğunu gösteriyor. Kürtlerin bölgeyi ele geçirmesi Esad rejiminin idari egemenliğini tam olarak aşındırmadı. Devlet, vatandaşların geçimlerini sürdürme ve kişisel güvenliklerini sağlama yeteneklerini etkilemeye devam etti. Rakan, merkezi hükümete ekonomik olarak bağımlı olmaktan ve dolayısıyla onun baskıcı kurumlarına tabi olmaktan ancak “özgürleşmiş” Rojava’dan ayrıldığında vazgeçti.
2012 ve 2013 yılları arasında Suriye birliklerinin Kürt bölgelerinden çekilmesinden bu yana, PYD kademeli olarak merkezi hükümeti asli işveren yerine koyarak, krizden sonra ortaya çıkan kitlesel göçü azaltmaya çalıştı. Kürt partisi bir yandan yerel yönetimi birçok yönden başarıyla ortaya koymuş durumda. Ancak PYD, fiili devlet olduğu topraklarda Suriye devletinin asli işveren olarak resmi rolünün yerini tam olarak alamadı. Merkezi otorite, refah sağlayan devlet gibi davranmaya devam etti.
Baasçı eğitime mecburiyet
Suriye güvenlik teşkilatlarının şiddeti ile karşılaşan ve daha sonra devlet kurumlarında çalışmaya zorlanan vatandaşların deneyimi, Suriye devletinin nasıl işlediğini ve vatandaşlarının gündelik hayatını nasıl düzenlediğini de gösteriyor. 31 yaşındaki Tawfiq’in hikayesi bu sürece örnektir. Şam’daki “Mazen Darwish Suriye Medya ve İfade Özgürlüğü Merkezi”nin aktif bir üyesi olan Tawfiq, Suriye güvenlik kurumlarında gözaltı ve işkenceye maruz kaldı. 2013 yılında memleketi Malakîya’ya döndü. Arapça ve geçmişten farklı olarak şimdi Suriye resmi okullarında izin verilen Kurmancî dilini öğretmeye hak kazanmasına rağmen, iş bulmakta zorlandı. Başka seçeneği kalmayınca Şam’a gitti ve ulusal üniversitelerde iş aradı. Eğitim Suriyeliler için, düşmanı olsalar bile, Esad rejiminin gücünü gösteren günlük yaşamın bir diğer iş kolunu oluşturuyor.
Ayrıca, çok sayıda üniversite öğrencisi, çatışmalar nedeniyle ara verdikleri derslerine dönmek istediklerinde, devlet eğitim sistemine alternatiflerin yokluğunda, ya Baasçı eğitime geri dönmek ya da mümkün olduğunda denizaşırı göç etmek zorunda kaldılar. 21 yaşındaki bir kimya öğrencisi olan Şeyhmus, savaştan önce kaydolduğu üniversitenin bulunduğu devlet kontrolündeki Lazkiye’de durumun düzeleceğini umarak bir yıl boyunca Derbasîye’de kaldı. Sonunda 2013’ün sonlarında Lazkiye’deki eğitimine devam etmeye karar verdi. “Amuda’da ailemin evinde mahsur kalmak ya da Suriyelilerin ayrımcılığa uğradığı çok daha muhafazakar bir toplum gibi görünen Irak Kürdistanı’na göç etmek istemiyorum” diyen Şeyhmus, nihayetinde Baasçı siyasi doktrinle desteklenen tipik bir eğitim deneyimi edinmiş oldu. Amuda sakinlerinin çoğu gibi, Şeyhmus da 2011 ve 2012’de hükümet karşıtı gösterilere katıldı. Rejim karşıtı olmasına rağmen, yine de bir devlet kurumunda eğitimine öncelik verdi. PYD’nin bağımsız eğitim sağlamak için devlet kurma çabalarında yeterli güce kavuşmasını bekleyemezdi. Bu yazının yazıldığı sırada, Kürt yetkililer yerel nüfus için eğitim kurumları kurmuş değildi hala. Doğrusu, lise sınavları hali hazırda Kamışlı’da yapılıyor ve bu da merkezi devletin öğrencilerin resmi sonuçlarının onaylanması konusundaki münhasır yetkisinin pratikte tanınmasına yol açıyor.
Diğer taraftan, Kendilerini Esad rejiminin siyasi muhalifleri olarak tanımlayan bir grup muhatabımız, halk direnişinin amaçlarını devlet içinden değil dışından devşirdiğini savunuyor. Devlete karşı direniş, devletin kendisinin yaydığı yapısal etki altında, devlet tarafından oluşturulan ahlaki evren ve toplumsal süreçler içinde büyüdü. Bu nedenle görüşülen birçok kişi, devleti Suriye toplumundan açıkça ayrılmış, kendi başına ayakta duran bir varlık olarak tasvir etmeyi tercih ediyor. Bu durum, Suriyelilerin mücadele teknolojilerini geliştirmede iki ana nedenden dolayı nasıl bir krizle karşı karşıya olduklarını gösteriyor: Birincisi gündelik hayatlarında, sosyal alanları üzerinde kontrol ve gözetime devam eden devlet gücünün üstesinden gelmek için mücadele ediyorlar. İkincisi, “çekişme repertuarları” hala genç olduğu için alternatif protesto biçimlerinde gezinmenin tarihsel zorluğuyla karşı karşıyalar.
Mücadele teknolojileri
Suriyeli çoğu aktivistin entelektüel anarşist lakabını taktığı aktivist Omar Aziz, 2011 yılında Şam’ın periferisindeki Barzeh ilçesinde yerel bir komite kurdu. Aziz’in düşüncesi, popüler devrimci aktivite ile insanların günlük yaşamı arasındaki sinerji eksikliğine odaklanıyor. Aziz, -“Doğu” ve “Batı” toplumlarının ötesine geçen- çağdaş protesto fenomenlerinin başarısızlıklarını belirleyerek, ortadan kalkması için mücadele edilen Suriye devletinin otoriter yapılarının içinde yerleşik kalmanın zararlarına işaret ediyor.
Suriye rejiminin Adra’daki hapishanelerinde ölen Aziz (2013), “devrim zamanı” [zaman ath–thawra] ve “iktidar zamanı”nı [zaman as–sulta] belirleme olasılığını teorileştirdi. Aziz için “devrim zamanı”, devrimin başarılı olması için insanların günlük yaşamının her alanına nüfuz etmesiydi. Kendi kendini yöneten yerel konseylerin (majalis mahalliya) kurulması, Esad aygıtına pragmatik bir alternatif doğurmak anlamına geliyordu. Bu konseyler, gıda ve malların özerk dağılımını düzenlemiş, evleri hastaneye çevirmiş ve devlet kurumlarının dışında hareket ederek sivil direnişi gerçek bir toplumsal gerçeklik haline getirmişti. Aziz ayrıca, Suriye’de tarihsel bir referansı olmadığı için, insanların varsayımsal bir devlet dışı (ve devlet karşıtı) yönetim gücünü ve temel hizmetlerin sağlanmasını benimseme konusunda isteksiz görünebileceğini de fark etti.
Yurttaşların birbirlerine güvensizlikleri, “statükoyu koruyan” bir çözümü seçmekten daha umut verici bir toplu eylem biçimi olasılığını ortadan kaldırır. İnsanların gündelik hayatlarını geçici alternatif devlet yapılarına sokmak, devletin resmi yapılarını boykot etmeyi kolaylaştırır: Örneğin, elektrik faturalarını ödemeyi reddetmek veya bir genel grev organize etmek. Hizmet sunumunu garanti edebilecek alternatif bir izleme ve koruma yapısının yokluğunda, vatandaşlar günlük yaşamda sosyal, kültürel ve politik kişiliklerini ortaya koyacak –ve hatta bazen hayatta kalmak için- başka olasılıklar tasavvur edemezler. Neticede devrim, öncelikle, sonraki geçiş aşamalarında somut değişiklikleri tetikleyecek, alternatif mekan ve alternatif zamanda işleyen bir mücadele teknolojisi gerektirir.
Sonuç
Devlet olma hali, tartışmalı süreçlerin, arzuların, uygulamaların ve politikaların iç içe geçtiği karmaşık bir mıntıkada ağ işlevi görür. Çeşitli maddi faktörler, Suriye’de insanların yaşamlarında devlet gücünün mikro yeniden üretiminin nasıl devam ettiğini açıklıyor. Ayrıca, memurlara ödeme yapabilmesi ve kontrol ettiği alanlarda ulusal okulları ve üniversiteleri açık tutabilmesi de (böylece rejim bombardımanı dışında kalan alanlar bunlar) devletin mikro üremesine katkıda bulunuyor.
PYD’nin Suriye’nin kuzeydoğusundaki siyasi deneyiminin ortaya koyduğu gibi, müzakere eden, birbiriyle örtüşen ya da çatışan çok sayıda devletleşme durumunun ortaya çıkması karmaşık bir siyasi olgudur. Yaşanabilir, alternatif günlük formların ampirik eksikliği, devlet stratejilerinin günlük yaşamın mahrem biçimlerinde istenmeyen yeniden üretimini izah ederken; bu, muhaliflerin merkezi devletin ürettiği gündeliklik biçimlerini boykot etmede başarısızlığa yol açtı.
Sonuç olarak, PYD’nin yükselen devlet olma hali, merkezi devlet ile halk direnişinin karşılıklı koşullu pratiklerinin melez alanıdır. Suriye devleti ve rakibi (ya da zaman zaman müttefik) devletçilikler ayrı varoluşlardan ziyade siyasi süreçler olarak işlev görüyorlar. Dolayısıyla halk direnişi devletle ilgili ağlar içinde gerçekleşiyor. Devletin aczine veya bekasına uluslararası odaklanma, gündelik eylemleri ortaya çıkarmak, açıklamak ve değer biçmek konusunda başarısız olmakla kalmadı, aynı zamanda Suriye’de ve dünya çapında günlük muhalefeti uygulamak için yeni yollara ışık tutuyor.
I am thrilled to announce that my first academic article in Brazilian Portuguese is out in the Revista Interdisciplinar da Mobilidade Humana. It is open access!
Ethnocracies of care and humanitarianism in Lebanon
Resumo. Neste artigo, discuto a tendência do sistema humanitário de fornecer serviços às pessoas necessitadas em áreas afetadas pela crise baseando- se na nacionalidade. Através de dados coletados em pesquisas de campo com refugiados sírios, iraquianos, sudaneses e palestinos realizadas entre os anos 2011 e 2019 no Líbano, mostrarei como a hospitalidade pode ser empregada tanto como prática quanto como discurso. Neste último caso, explicarei como isso pode se transformar, de maneira problemática, em uma força de “etnização” na prestação de ajuda humanitária. Como resultado, de um uso conservador do discurso da hospitalidade, apresentarei o conceito de “humanitarismo compensatório” que atende aos habitantes locais como uma consequência da presença de refugiados. Contra esse pano de fundo, finalmente mostrarei como o sistema humanitário atual está longe de ser intergrupal, apesar de seus esforços para tornar os programas nacionalmente mistos. Na verdade, o humanitarismo simplesmente propõe programas mistos para, presumivelmente, dissipar as tensões intergrupais, revelando, portanto, uma neo-etnização das ajudas.
Abstract. In this article, I discuss the tendency of the humanitarian system in areas affected by crisis to provide services to people in need on a national basis, by using Lebanon as a case study. Through the research I conducted with Syrian, Iraqi, Sudanese and Palestinian refugees between 2011 and 2019 in Lebanon, I will illustrate, first, how hospitality can be employed both as a practice and as a discourse. In the latter case, I will explain how it can problematically turn into an “ethnicization” force in humanitarian aid provision. As a result of a conservative use of the hospitality discourse, second, I will introduce the concept of “compensatory humanitarianism” that caters for the locals as a consequence of the refugee presence. Against this backdrop, I will finally show how the current humanitarian system is far from being inter-group despite its efforts to make programs nationally mixed. Indeed, it simply proposes mixed programs to presumably dissipate inter-group tensions, therefore revealing an actual neo-ethnicization of care.
My new article in Area discusses “professional authority” in the humanitarian field, and proposes a peculiar politics of knowledge in the case of Lebanon.
Abstract
This article examines the epistemic politics of hegemonic humanitarianism by building on agnotology theories. I unpack the idea of ‘professional authority’ with the purpose of showing how the Global North’s humanitarian agencies thrive on both a technocratic and an unpredictability approach. This epistemic politics is used to absolve humanitarianism of its failures and blame ‘Southern’ politics and technical deficiencies in the Global South.
‘Teaching local hosts the experience of war and forced displacement would help to publicly challenge hate speech and inform compassion,’ argue Southern Responses to Displacement’s researchers, Dr Estella Carpi, Amal Shaiah Istanbouli and Sara Al Helali. Drawing on research conducted during Southern Responses to Displacement’s fieldwork in Turkey, this blog notes the lack of a systematic approach to educating refugee host communities, despite evidence to suggest that it is an effective tool to reduce anti-refugee sentiment and increase understanding and empathy towards the experiences of refugees. This post presents key evidence contributing to our aims of ‘examining refugees’ experiences, perceptions and conceptualisations of Southern-led responses’ and of ‘tracing the implications of Southern-led initiatives for humanitarian theory and practice.’
If you enjoy reading this piece you can access the recommended reading list at the end of this post.
This piece was originally published by Open Democracy here.
Educating the host: It’s not just refugees who need ‘integration’ programmes.
by Dr Estella Carpi, Amal Shaiah Istanbouli and Sara Al Helali
All over the world ‘inclusion’ and ‘integration’ programmes for refugees affected by displacement proliferate. But they often remain ineffective in catalysing social cohesion. This is unsurprising when local hosts who receive refugees are not equally instructed and informed about including and integrating migrants.
In fact, inclusion and integration programmes – far from being radical in any way – are not merely ineffective, they are also politically conservative. This is because they fail to capture human mobility as an everlasting process that cuts across all social groups.
In the contemporary history of forced migration, most development and humanitarian programmes have revolved around assistance to refugees and asylum-seekers, emphasising their needs and rights. Civil society associations and activist groups, who, in general, overtly engage in political mobilisation, often end up adopting a similar strategy, focusing only on one side of the coin in advocacy campaigns and assistance programmes.
That being said, informal small-scale information sessions on forced migration and integration activities that require the involvement of local hosts can, at times, be found in cities and towns, but are not incorporated in official education programmes from early years. This lack of a systematic approach to ‘educating the host’ means information is not delivered cogently. Teaching empathy to those social groups who feel aloof from societal issues such as forced migration and from all of what refugee reception involves should be promoted.
Based on data we collected in Lebanon and Turkey over the past four years, as part of the Southern-led Responses to Displacement from Syria project led by Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh at University College London, we found that many of the refugees from Syria we interviewed highlighted the need for local ‘hosts’ to learn the experience of war and forced displacement in order to understand the reasons behind their arrival and to learn how to accept and support refugee newcomers within their societies.
“In the media, the government and local municipalities should work on delivering messages that encourage local people to support Syrians or, at least, prevent them from engaging in different forms of racism. Such messages should particularly target local students,” a Syrian refugee woman we spoke to in Hatay, Turkey, explained.
Indeed, the suicide of a nine-year-old refugee student in Turkey in October 2019 as a result of extreme racism at school was reported, while local and national media were fueling waves of xenophobia across Turkey since the beginning of the Syrian humanitarian crisis.
Likewise, a large number of refugees from Syria pointed to the misleading belief that they merely constitute a burden on ‘host economies’.
A Syrian refugee man in Gaziantep, a city in Turkey, suggested that “the governments of Arab countries should contribute to educating their people so that refugees are accepted on their lands and integration is facilitated: governments must clarify that refugees do not receive aid at the expense of the host economy”.
Another contended that his cash vouchers are not a gift from host governments, and that conveying this message publicly would ease local tensions. Educating the hosts is often mentioned as an effective tool to reduce anti-refugee resentment and stimulate informed empathy within local society.
A Lebanese student in a northern Lebanese village, confirmed this: “I don’t know much about what happened in Syria in 2011. I only see lots of Syrians here. How will I learn this history if they don’t teach these things at school?” they asked.
In our interviews and experiences in Turkey and Lebanon, international NGOs were especially mentioned as holding a potentially influential role in educating the locals on what it means to actively host refugees, since some large humanitarian and development actors have the capacity to pressure the international media and, sometimes, governments.
The considerations above, coming from refugees, raise the fundamental question of what sort of venues would be safe and suitable for the endeavour of educating the host. In most cities, refugee reception is highly politicised and regularly used as a way for local power holders to create constituencies.
One question is whether human empathy can really be ‘taught’. However, even though the response to such a question is complex, accepting the status quo is not an option.
For instance, the presence of official education programmes on forced migration for the local hosts would help to publicly challenge hate speech and inform people’s compassion with legal and historical frameworks on refugee reception.
Informal activities and events are often organised in cities that receive large numbers of forced migrants, both in the Global North and the Global South.
In Europe, some cities and towns host municipality-led events or initiatives run by collectives aimed at promoting integration through cultural activities or inter-religious dialogue.
In cities like Beirut and Istanbul, film screenings and roundtable discussions on Syria have been organised widely by local activists, with the purpose of sensitising the civil society. Yet, these initiatives quite often do not manage to become visible to all social groups and, importantly, are still missing in the official discourse on forced migration.
Instead, the responsibility and capacity to integrate and be included are exclusively ascribed to the refugees themselves. Paradoxically, the members of the societies that receive refugees are officially defined as ‘hosts’ without actively hosting.
This is not to discard the importance of ‘integration’ and ‘inclusion’ in contemporary societies, but rather to advocate for the healthy coexistence and mutual knowledge between the long-standing and new members of those societies.
The international community must shift the ‘capacity to integrate’ formula from the refugees to the local ‘hosts’, and acknowledge the need for a real plan with long-term, mandatory educational programmes.
Some might see this call for educating the host as an ideological and, thus, questionable move, but the truth is that whether we want it or not, people will keep moving, and the sustainability of everyone’s welfare cannot be but a common affair.
**
*This research has been conducted in the framework of the project “Analysing South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey,” funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation agreement no. 715582.
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Ten years on and the Syrian war remains one of the defining conflicts of our time.
Its impact has been most acutely felt by the Syrian people whose lives have been changed beyond measure.
But the events of the last decade have also had a huge effect on neighbouring countries and far beyond the Middle East.
March 15th 2011 is generally acknowledged as the date on which the war began, though of course at the time no one could have anticipated the events that lay ahead.
Destruction in Jouret al-Shayah, in Homs. The city of Homs was under rebel hands from 2011 until 2014
Syria was watching as its neighbours underwent rapid change in the form of the Arab Spring. Beginning in Tunisia and spreading to countries like Libya and Egypt, there was a series of anti-government demonstrations and protests.
One of the early slogans of the movement was “the people want to bring down the regime”.
It was a message that spread fast, and one that was soon scrawled on a wall in the southern Syrian city of Daraa by a group of 15 young people.
Leaders across the region eyed the events of the Arab Spring with increasing alarm, witnessing men like Muammar Gadaffi and Hosni Mubarak fall from power under the force of a public opposition that was taking to the streets. In Syria, President Bashar Al-Assad was also watching.
His family had ruled the country for almost five decades and when the revolution reached Daraa the reaction was swift. The teenagers who had written those words were detained and tortured.
The brutal way in which they were treated led even more people onto the streets in protest. If Daraa had lit a spark, the flames spread quickly, with protests soon taking place in cities across the country resulting in a rapid descent into civil war as hundreds of factions with an array of motivations became involved in armed conflict.
As Nada Homsi points out, while the level of violence in Syria may have fallen in the past year, conditions have worsened considerably.
“Less people are dying, but less people can afford to live also,” she says. In the government held part of the country, the effect of international sanctions and the economic crisis in nearby Lebanon has severely impacted the economy.
People struggle to make ends meet, with severe shortages of basics such as bread and fuel. UNICEF says that in the last year the price of the average basket of food has risen by over 230%, highlighting the impact this has had on Syria’s children.
Over half a million children in Syria under the age of five now suffer from chronic malnutrition. Last month the World Food Programme said the situation had never been worse.
WFP Country Director in Syria Sean O’Brien said that “after ten years of conflict, Syrian families have exhausted their savings as they face a spiralling economic crisis” in a country where basic foods now cost far more than the average salary.
With an estimated 83% of the population now living under the poverty line in Syria, the economic crisis also means that funds are not available to rebuild the infrastructure damaged in the war.
It’s estimated that Syria’s per capita budget has declined by 70% in the last decade. It is a situation described by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “a living nightmare”.
Adding to the humanitarian crisis is the displacement of people in Syria that has happened over the last ten years. Many families have been forced to flee their homes not just once, but several times, in order to avoid violence. Will Turner is the Médecins Sans Frontières Operational Manager in North East Syria.
Since the war began an estimated 13 million people, which is more than half of Syria’s pre-war population, has been displaced. Over 5.5 million Syrian refugees have registered in neighbouring countries as people leave a country ravaged by a war with no end in sight. Aid agencies working in Syria have called the protracted displacement crisis the worst since World War II.
And it has impacted the entire region. Estella Carpi is a Research Associate at University College London. As a social anthropologist her work focuses on the forced migration that has occurred in Syria, and the impact that it has on host countries across the region.
Estella Carpi says the impact on neighbouring countries that have seen a substantial influx of Syrians in the last decade is complex and layered. Local infrastructures in many are put under added strain.
This is particularly acute in countries like Lebanon where public infrastructure was already in difficulty. It is also important to remember the diversity of refugees, something that Estella Carpi says can often be forgotten in the media portrayal of the crisis.
Gender, class, ethnicity – there are a wide range of people from a wide range of circumstances who have been adversely affected by the Syrian war and have been forced to leave their homes as a result. Many have gone to cities in neighbouring countries in the hope of finding work but with severe economic crises in countries like Lebanon this has not always been easy.
For those who are living in refugee camps aid agencies like Médecins Sans Frontières say the situation is incredibly fragile.
Will Turner says the human toll of the war has been appalling, but now there is an added factor – Covid.
As the biggest global news story of the past year, the pandemic is cited by many as a reason that news from Syria has slipped from the headlines. But it is an issue with which Syrians are ill-equipped to deal. Will Turner points out that refugee camps are already incredibly difficult places to live, with overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.
Eight or nine people living in a tent are completely removed from any ability to socially distance. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who recently tested positive for Covid-19, has implemented coronavirus measures in government-controlled areas of the country, including travel restrictions and a curfew.
Official numbers suggest that Syria has had far fewer Covid cases and Covid deaths than other countries in the Middle East, leading to a lot of scepticism about the accuracy of the official statistics.
As the world battles Covid, Syria battles both Covid and a decade-long war that shows little sign of coming to an end.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last week that the path to a resolution of the conflict remained open. Security Council Resolution 2254 endorses a “road map towards a Syrian-led political transition”.
Mr Guterres was asked if the UN and the Security Council had failed the Syrian people.
“It is clear”, he said “that if a war lasts ten years the international …. governance system we have is not effective. And that is something that should be a source of reflection for everybody involved.”
During the Syrian war, which has now raged for a decade, the attention of scholars, media commentators and activists has primarily focused on human displacement. More than 60% of the world’s refugee population – over 30% of which are victims of internal displacement – reside in the Middle East, mainly due to large-scale armed conflicts. The Syrian war, which began following a popular uprising in spring 2011, has led to half a million deaths (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), nearly seven million displaced people – 70% of whom still live in the Middle East – and 14 million in need of assistance.
Due to the tragically large scale of human loss, the destiny of fauna during the war in Syria has been under-explored, and any emphasis on it has often been frowned upon in informal conversations I had throughout the years with international researchers and opinion-makers working on this geographic area. With this post, I encourage readers to reason beyond inter-species hierarchies, which instil unproductive ways of thinking, such as that a species per se is more or less important than another. The haste to set up such existential hierarchies between animals and human beings derives from a human-focused understanding of animals that share our natural habitat as well as our built environment. In this sense, animal care becomes either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in response to our personal habits, our everyday culture and, importantly, our social and economic capacity of care. Indeed, in Western societies, the care for animals – especially pets – has widely been associated with the lifestyle of global middle and upper classes, who are able and keen to feed, care and cater for animals. So to speak, the “bourgeoisization” of animal care – where the latter is frequently viewed as the care provided by wealthy people equipped with time and resources that enable them to think beyond human survival – and the critical reactions to it have ended up influencing our external gaze on human conflict and migration and have dangerously legitimated the exclusivity of human care. To look at the entirety of this multi-species ecosystem of war and forced migration reveals a complexity that goes unheeded as a result of an anthropocentric gaze.
I encourage readers to reason beyond inter-species hierarchies, which instil unproductive ways of thinking.
Animals affected by war have mainly been discussed in terms of human survival and sustainability, but with pointed exceptions. For example, in 2012, Reuters news agency dedicated a photo galleryto animals, such as turtles and cats, that were trying to survive bombings, seeking food in almost depopulated areas and, sometimes, receiving it from armed groups who lived, occupied or briefly stopped in these neighbourhoods destroyed by war. To expand on such snippet views, I focus on the animals’ fate during the Syrian conflict and the discursive and logistic use of animal-fare in war narratives.
The omission of animals’ fate in today’s journalism and academic scholarship on armed conflict has led to ignoring a fundamental element in the lives of refugees who had to leave Syria: the incurable existential harm caused by the need to abandon their pets or, for those who had a rural lifestyle, their livestock, as it has been noted in forced migration history. In many cases that I have witnessed throughout years of research on Syrian displacement in the Levantine region, the abandonment of their animals – even a cow kept for milk or poultry kept for eggs – has generated pain and emotional disorientation in the lives of the displaced. Such abandonments are experienced as an inevitable sacrifice when leaving the war-torn country and building a life elsewhere. Indeed, most of the Syrian refugees I have met in northern Lebanon’s villages – and who often work in Lebanese farms – have a rural background. They often remember the cattle they owned and how they looked after them when they lived in Syria. Many of them say they regularly ask their neighbours about the fate of these abandoned animals; most of those who were not resold died of dehydration, starvation and disease.
The abandonment of their animals has generated pain and emotional disorientation in the lives of the displaced.
Despite this, animal displacement has been approached from the angle of the survival and proliferation of humans and the importance of exhuming Syrian agricultural production, which used to rely on the export of livestock before the conflict, making up 15% of the internal agricultural workforce. But what was the fate of these animals? Domestic, pack and farm animals alike were often killed as spoils of war, smuggled into the neighbouring countries, or were stolen, displaced, bombed or sold. As a consequence, the rate of private ownership of livestock within the country has dropped to 60% since the beginning of the conflict. Many breeders have had to abandon their profession and lifestyle and leave the country or migrate to other locations in Syria in search of new livelihoods.
Animals and animal violence have been widely discussed as a soft power strategy for shaping relations between political actors, and as a tool for gaining credibility in local and international communities while morally discrediting political enemies. For example, there is some Arabic media material illustrating this trend, with videos showing the leaders of the shabbiha – thugs loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – throw a ‘thoroughbred’ Arab horse to their lions for food, as written in the Tweet of a Syrian political opponent included in an al-Quds article. Many of these videos, accessible on YouTube, show the killing of livestock by armed groups or the theft of livestock in some Syrian regions. Some accusations are not expressly aimed at either government militias or opposition groups, but they are used as such for political propaganda. Beyond the authenticity of this type of media material, which is continually the subject of journalistic debate, the treatment of animals plays a fundamental role in shaping the political rhetoric of each of the parties in conflict. The same happens with the recent government decree, No. 221, through which Bashar al-Assad assigns the Ministry of Education to the directorship of the ‘Animal Protection in Syria’ project.
Animals and animal violence have been widely discussed as a soft power strategy for shaping relations between political actors, and as a tool for gaining credibility while morally discrediting political enemies.
As I wrote with Samira Usman in the past, the humanitarian mantra of ‘human dignity’, according to which every human life must be respected and protected, has indeed shed light on the importance of ensuring legal and social protection for refugees. However slow this has been to materialise on a global level, it has emphasized the importance for refugees to have their dignity recognized. In this vein, the rhetoric of human dignity, over-used by the international community as well as by activist groups, ended up ignoring the historical fact that war causes dramatic consequences to other species too. It is emblematic that only a small number of humanitarian projects (for example, Animals Lebanon) approach human beings as part of an entire ecosystem that is being destroyed by conflict, therefore actively subverting anthropocentrism.
Animals have also long been an object of debates among Muslim communities worldwide. There is a longstanding belief that Muslim-majority societies have little respect for animals, which has led scholars to speak of Islamic environmentalism only in countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, namely, in the so-called ‘Global North’. In this regard, some fatawa (plural of fatwa) in the Sunni Muslim world have warned Syrian internally displaced people and refugees not to kill or eat cats, donkeys and dogs, even in situations of famine and hardship. Such fatawa generate extensive internet discussions focussing on the precepts of Islam and serve as a spiritual, legal and social consultation space for believers. Some religious authorities have denounced the act of killing and eating animals without a valid reason, while others have allowed the act of eating them provided that these animals have already been killed by bombing. Yet, this has at times become a practice in today’s Syria, owing to the famines and hardships that the conflict itself has caused. At the same time, the care and provision of food to animals, such as cats, is indeed praised and appreciated by God. The topic remains an element of animated discussion within the Muslim world.
Only a small number of humanitarian projects approach human beings as part of an entire ecosystem that is being destroyed by conflict.
The animals that have accompanied human beings during their flight and that have shared their conditions of forced migration are often unspoken; for instance, many refugees crossing the Syrian–Lebanese border brought along sheep, goats and cows, which had not been vaccinated due to their sudden departure to flee war, violence and the resulting poverty. Since 2011, some Syrian refugees in Wadi Khaled (north-east Lebanon) have told me that they crossed the al-Kabeer river connecting the two borders on the back of a donkey. They later had to abandon the animal because it fell ill and they did not have the means to maintain it, having paid a large amount of money to smugglers.
However, the ethical discourse underlying human displacement has sometimes been at odds with environmental and animal ethics. The areas where refugees are resettling are taken from the local fauna; human settlement and methods of mass-producing food often lead to deforestation and erosion of the surrounding habitat. As in such paradoxical situations, only either of the two vulnerable conditions can be protected within the ecosystem, the defenders of environmental and animal rights find themselves in tension with those who advocate for human rights. This was the case of one million Rwandan Hutu refugees, who, in 1994, relocated to the Virunga National Park of neighbouring Congo, where ten gorillas were killed after the territory was plundered. Similar to what is happening in Syria, in the case of Virunga National Park, the refugees who went to live in the protected area, considered a heritage site of humanity, were accused of committing violence against the territory. It is instead the refugees’ presence that becomes a favourable source of chaos, and some people take advantage of such chaos to carry out raids, using the refugees’ presence for dissimulation.*
The defenders of environmental and animal rights find themselves in tension with those who advocate for human rights.
In the context of the Syrian conflict, animal displacement is still a history yet to be written. I consider it important to highlight not only the anthropocentric and violent use of animals in conditions of forced migration but also the emotional bond that some refugees had with the animals they had to abandon, due to protracted political, economic, social and political instability. Remembering animals is often part of the stories told by refugees themselves; in some cases, animals explain refugee and internally displaced people’s attachment to their home back in Syria. In order to fully understand the effects of conflict, violence and deprivation on mobile ecosystems, it is indeed inevitable to unravel these important inter-species relationships.
Crisis discourse traditionally omits the relational history with animals in forced migration narratives, while human beings – both refugees and political actors, as mentioned above – often remember, thrive on, or instrumentalize animals in the real world. As long as the biodiversity of crisis goes unheeded, our knowledge of the ‘politics of living’ in displacement also remains maimed. In this sense, disrupting anthropocentric understandings of human-made crisis is not only an ethical issue, as animal-rights activists remind us through campaigns, but also an intellectual and epistemological one.
Remembering animals is often part of the stories told by refugees themselves.
Notes
This research has been conducted in the framework of the project “Analysing South-South Humanitarian Responses to Displacement from Syria: Views from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey,” funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation agreement no. 715582.
*Others use the presence of refugees in these territories as an instrument for political negotiation. This is also the case for some Syrian archaeological sites; the ruins of Idlib, a cultural heritage site, have become temporary shelters for local displaced people, who could not find alternative places for protection and survival. The Antiquities Center of Idlib is in charge of this issue.
While the “refugee crisis” in Europe and other western societies has often made the headlines, the vast majority of nearly seven million Syrian refugees still remain in neighboring countries including Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. The legal status and the diverse financial capacity of these refugees often determine and impacts the decision-making processes decisive of their faith. In this article, I will first discuss the living conditions of these refugees, still living in the countries neighboring Syria. I will then provide some thoughts about the legacies left by the Syrian conflict and the subsequent humanitarian crisis, now ten years old.
While refugee diversity is increasingly marked by gender, ethnicity, and religious belief, the professional, financial, and class differences of refugees still goes unheeded in humanitarian and media accounts. Due to economic, political, and legal constraints, internally displaced people (IDPs) and refugees in the Middle East are those in the greatest need, having irregular access to basic services such as healthcare and education.
Approximately 30% of the refugees remaining in the Middle East still live in official or informal camps. Most refugees live in cities, where finding employment is generally easier. Nonetheless, refugee support systems, now increasingly faced with budget shortfalls due to the length of time since the crisis outbreak, have not been able to provide adequate shelters. Extensive flooding has damaged poor-quality tented shelters in camps, which refugees are likely to have made and maintained themselves throughout their years of residence. Even as the 2016 Global Compact on Refugees was aimed at prompting the formalization of refugee labor and, consequently, the end of refugee labor exploitation, working conditions are still very bad for the few capable of accessing regular salaries by working in the cleaning, agriculture, and construction sectors. Indeed, most of the refugees who presently live in the region are from working-class backgrounds and are either financially unable to access smuggling networks to illegally reach western shores or are unlikely to be prioritized in humanitarian corridors and global resettlement programs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also raised the issue of inadequate healthcare given that humanitarian agencies only generally cover medications and healthcare up to 80% of expenses, and only in the case of non-chronic diseases. Refugees have therefore mobilized themselves to support each other and put in place safety measures to fight the pandemic across the region. The long-term timeframe of the crisis has also made the difficulty of access to education an important concern. Ten years on, providing Syrian refugees with formal, high-quality, and internationally recognized education is the focus of significant effort.
Moreover, while the spotlight has mainly been on refugees and on the daunting impact of the crisis on the infrastructure, social cohesion, and security of receiving countries, scarce attention has been paid to IDPs. Numbering more than six million, IDPs also live in poor conditions, suffering from food insecurity, unemployment, and lack of access to basic welfare, especially in the previously “liberated” areas, subsequently regained by the Syrian government. The depreciation of the Syrian pound and the current dramatic economic situation have worsened living conditions in a country devastated by a decade of war and destruction.
In this framework, the international humanitarian community has failed in providing effective protection to refugees by not preventing deportations and evictions, and return is not an acceptable scenario if minimum humane conditions are to be guaranteed: some people who did return were shortly afterwards reported detained or missing. International humanitarian agencies have too often shied away from providing advocacy since they either lack a suitable legal mandate or because they do not intend to endanger their relationship with the host government. What has gone unheeded in discussions around return to Syria is the issue of indirect forced returns. For instance, some refugees report threats to their families by the Syrian regime if they do not return and join the army. Many of the stories I have heard in Lebanon’s informal tented settlements have dangerously passed for “voluntary returns”.
It is noteworthy that Syria has been in and out of the news over the last decade, which has not enabled external spectators to grasp how things have changed on the ground during that time. The Syrian crisis, in this sense, is an example of how quickly humanitarian and forced migration history slips out of public memory. As a result, we have also lost track of other contemporary crises and how they relate to the Syrian.
The way in which media representation contributes to the sweeping away of historical information points to three main mistakes that continue to be perpetrated. First, a lack of respect for the diversity of refugees is indicated by the fact that aid, too often, is not accompanied by advocacy. Advocacy, however, cannot be enough if humanitarian assistance is not to be mistaken for a solution to politically grounded violence and injustice. Second, the lack of focus on advocacy constitutes a significant failure by international humanitarian agencies to provide refugee protection. Third, we need to shift the gaze from refugee victimhood to the civic responsibility of local citizens. Programs involving the inclusion and integration of refugees inadvertently remain politically conservative: there is an urgent need for local citizens to learn about forced migration and what refugee reception involves. Political conservativism thrives exactly on such partial views, which fail to understand human mobility as an everlasting process involving all social groups, with no need for the latter to physically move in order to learn, receive newcomers, and progress.
CALL FOR ACADEMIC LEADS ON ESTABLISHING A RESEARCH PARTNERSHIP WITH OPERAZIONE COLOMBA (APG23)
Research Proposal The Prospect of Humanitarian Zones in Syria
Who are we
Operazione Colomba is the Nonviolent Peace Corps of the Association Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII. Since 1992 our volunteers have been operating in: protecting civilians, promoting dialogue and reconciliation between the parts, supporting local nonviolent realities, doing advocacy activities.
Since 2013, Operazione Colomba volunteers have been living in a Syrian refugee camp in Northern Lebanon, sustaining a need for international protection expressed by refugee communities. These same communities drafted a Peace Proposal to answer to the growing hardships faced in Lebanon. Their request is simple and fair: to go back to their country in a safe area where they do not risk being arrested, killed or be forcibly drafted in the army.
To support their Peace Proposal, Operazione Colomba and a group of Syrian activists have created a team of experienced volunteers, to make sure this proposal is taken to the major political platforms dealing with solutions to the Syrian conflict, reaching policy-makers at both national government level as well as within international diplomacy channels.
The research group
In order to identify a humanitarian zone in Syria where Syrian refugees abroad could safely return, the Peace Proposal team needs to be supported by an organized research group, which could scientifically and systematically monitor the ongoing dynamics of the war in Syria, the demographic changes of the country and the safe areas where a normalization could be feasible, so as to provide concrete feasibility to the realization of the Peace Proposal in practice.
The Research Group will be made of international academic staff and researchers collaborating with Operazione Colomba Peace Proposal Team. Academic staff based at international Universities is welcome to join the research group on a voluntary basis, and is expected to critically engage with the Peace Proposal Team in the outline of specific areas of research. Academic staff will work as main point of contact between Operazione Colomba and MA students interested in conducting specific sections of the research.
The Research Group’s fundamental aim is to study the Syrian conflict, investigating where and how the safe humanitarian zone could be created in order to promote a safe and just repatriation of Syrian refugees.
The research group’s strategy will be based on the analysis of modern socio-economic and political trends in Syria’s recent history, so as to contextualize the transformations undergone through the last nine years of war. Adding to the situation in Syria, research will also focus on the evolving situation in different regions of the country and in Syrian refugees’ camps in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.
Moreover, past cases of humanitarian zones in other world regions will provide yet another key focus to this research, in understanding the processes and specific geo-historical causalities that brought to their formation and local/regional/international recognition. The successful case of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in Colombia, will be used a comparative study.
Organization of the research group
To operationalize this research proposal, three distinct groups are identified for collaboration: (I) Operazione Colomba Peace Proposal Team; (II) Academic leads at major international universities, and (III) Master-level students interested in carrying out their research projects on topics relevant to this research proposal.
Tasks and duties of Operazione Colomba Peace Proposal Team:
To provide overall guidance and support to academic leads about the specific areas ofresearch focus;
To coordinate the different areas of research involved in this research project so as to avoidcross-overs and guarantee that all interest areas are covered;
To provide information and access to specific data held by Operazione Colomba on thetopics of research interest.Tasks and duties of the academic leads:
To identify pertinent sub-areas of research interest to propose as assignments to MA studentsinterested to carry out research on those specific topics;
To supervise the work of MA students in line with the research requirements, ethics, andfinal purpose of Operazione Colomba’s research proposal;
To liaise with the Peace Proposal Team with regards to changing research focus, access todata, fieldwork required. HQ: Operazione Colomba – Via Mameli 5 – 47921 Rimini (RN) Tel./Fax (+39) 0541 29005 E-mail: opcol@apg23.org
Operazione Colomba
Nonviolent Peace Corps of the Comunità Papa Giovanni XXIII
To identify a specific research area of interest within the remits of this research proposal;
To liaise with the specific academic lead about the research and delivery of the research;
To produce a final report on the research conducted specifically for the use of the PeaceProposal Team, summarizing main methodologies and findings.Sub-areas of research focus
This research will be based on four macro-themes: 1) A comparative study between the Peace Proposal and the Community of San José de Apartadó;
2) Examples of humanitarian zones in international law (previous cases of both “informal” and “formally recognized” humanitarian zones;
3) Examples of restorative justice (humanitarian commissions ruling on demilitarization and peace- building between warring communities);
4) Update study and monitoring of specific geographical areas of Syria (demographic engineering during the Syrian conflict, areas of return, return flows from neighbouring countries).
Last March 1, 2021, I and Dr Chiara Diana (Universite’ Libre de Bruxelles) have presented our chapter The Right to Play versus the Right to War? Vulnerable Childhoods in Lebanon’s NGOization for the volume edited by Kristen Cheney and Aviva Sinervo (More information about the book Disadvantaged Childhoods and Humanitarian Intervention: Processes of Affective Commodification and Objectification can be found here: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030016227).
For those who would like to review the webinar or who registered and were unable to attend, here is a link to the video of the event: https://youtu.be/IM17PpE2aFE
One of the questions that came up during the webinar was regarding the ethics of doing research with children. Here is the website (as well as an attached PDF) recommended by María Claudia Duque-Páramo in response to questions about the ethics of doing research with children: ERIC Ethical Research Involving Children: https://childethics.com/ To learn more about the AAA Interest Group on NGOs and Non-Profits you can visit our website http://ngo.americananthro.org, like the IGNN on Facebook and follow @ngoanthro on Twitter.
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