Encounters with a humanitarian agency
During my field trip to Amman, Jordan, I had the chance to participate in a workshop, titled “Data justice for refugees”. I met many refugees from various backgrounds. The workshop aimed to collect the needs and demands of the refugees, to then develop policy recommendations, and address policymakers and humanitarian actors on international and national levels. But it also highlighted the underlying tensions between the refugees and host community, and within various refugee groups. Frustration and competition for limited resources are reflected in the complaints and blame directed at authorities and international actors, exacerbating spatial conflicts within the refugee communities. Furthermore, struggles around racial and tribal hierarchization and access to health care were shared during all the sessions. The workshop was conducted on five consecutive occasions over a period of five weeks. At each session, the organizers extended invitations to diverse participants. The team made an effort to invite individuals of diverse nationalities who are seeking asylum in Jordan, and the number of participants at each workshop ranged from 8 to 14. During the workshop, the participants were assigned the initial task of capturing the challenges and difficulties they encounter and relating them to personal experiences or stories. Despite their lack of acquaintance, the stories they had heard from one another did not come as a surprise to them. For the second task, the participants were required to work in teams and identify common issues and obstacles, subsequently transferring them onto sticky notes to be later affixed to a pyramid, with the most challenging one at the top.
In my research I use these complaints, negotiations, and the related conflicts as a conceptual framework for understanding the alteration taking place in the urban fabric. The research in Amman indicates that the emergence and development of migration policies within the country is entangled with the urban planning and architecture of the city. That’s why many scholars describe Amman as a living example of a city shaped by migration and refugee movements.
While taking notes at the workshop, I started sketching some stories the participants had shared. I have no doubt that doing this strengthened my emotional engagement with the people and enhanced my memory of numerous details. This comic—inspired by the stories of the refugees—represents a small fraction of the many unjust moments in their daily lives. One of the principal common narratives was the encounter of the refugees with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and its diverse policies, which vary according to the changing political climate globally and the political agenda of the donor nations. All refugees, except Palestinians who have their own agency, must register through the UNHCR in order to receive support. However, the reality is different, since many refugees choose not to register as it restricts their freedom of movement and fields of work. Throughout the entirety of the five sessions, there was no singular mention of a positive encounter with the UNHCR. As one of the interviewees (male, 40s) said, “They take away your dignity. They give you support with the right hand and take your dignity with the left one.” In all instances, the agency was portrayed as a part of the problem, not as a solution.
The following comic shows a couple of the described interactions.
The initial illustration shows an imagined scenario involving a person employed by UNHCR who receives an email regarding policy changes due to the global crises. The refugees shared this experience in the workshop, after being asked why their funds were being reduced or stopped completely.
One of the Somali participants shared a story of the struggle of newly arrived friends who do not speak Arabic or English to communicate with the UNHCR. Adding that they do not even try to understand what is going on.
Two people were courageous enough to share a story of bribery that had happened to many of their friends. Since Jordan is considered a transit country, every refugee has the right to register for resettlement to a third country. Most of the people I met had been waiting for years for this to happen.
A Yemeni woman told us the story of her Syrian neighbor who had been working day and night to support her family. But:
Jordan hosts the second highest share of refugees per capita in the world. Adding to this information, the last drawing emerges from the rumor that Jordan also hosts the highest number of humanitarian aid workers in the world, who come from all around the globe. This is not an attempt to undermine the work of thousands of workers, who aim to help, but rather a critical reflection on their position and my own. As a researcher, I hung out in mostly the same bars and restaurants where I met many of these workers. This is a reflection on the parallel realities we live in and the paradoxical nature of humanitarian aid work and profiting.
The author would like to thank Mudar O. Dabbous for his support in developing the illustrations.
Author Biography: Qusay Amer is an architect and a research assistant in the CRC 1265‘s subproject C08 “Architectures of Asylum” and a doctoral candidate at TU Berlin, Faculty VI Planning Building Environment. His research interests sit at the intersection of the planning and production of physical spaces for and by migration, refugees’ urban agency, and translocal structures of (urban) spatial governance.