Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh discusses Middle Eastern refugee responses, including hosting, to the displacement of Syrian refugees since 2011. This includes an overview of the roles played by local host communities, faith-based networks, Southern states including Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey, and refugees themselves. Full abstracts, bios, and chapter markings below.

*Recorded from live webinar January 21, 2021. Video originally posted on February 4, and has been edited for quality and reuploaded. The content remains the same.

This webinar is part of the ongoing Mellon Sawyer Seminar, an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Simpson Center for the Humanities, a speaker series entitled, "Humanitarianisms: Migrations and Care through the Global South."

*Learn more about the series:*
✔ humanitarianisms.org/humanitarianisms

*Clickable Chapter Markers*
00:00 Introduction to the Series
03:12 Introduction to Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
05:23 Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh: “Shifting the Gaze: Southern-led Humanitarian Responses to Displacement”
06:10 Displacement as Southern phenomenon and refugee-refugee relationality
07:16 Refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey responding to displacement from Syria
07:31 Refugee-hosts challenging the dichotomy of active citizen vs. passive refugees
08:50 Overlapping displacement and refugee-refugee humanitarianism
15:28 The poetics of undisclosed care vs. hyper-visible practices of international aid provision
16:52 Limitations of local humanitarian practices and differentiated care
23:01 Structural inequalities that shape refugee-refugee humanitarianism
25:26 Tensions, hostility and hierarchies created by national and international policies
25:57 Concluding remarks: What needs to be seen when we shift the gaze to the Global South?
27:28 Discussion with Prof. Rawan Arar
42:00 Q&A moderated by Gözde Burcu Ege

This video was produced and edited by Simpson Center for the Humanities Program and Event Manager Caitlin Palo, with assistance from Simpson Center Communications Manager C.R. Grimmer.

Full Webinar Credits:
Co-Convened by Professors Cabeiri Robinson and Arzoo Osanloo
Discussant: Prof. Rawan Arar
Moderated by: Predoctoral Fellow Gözde Burcu Ege
Chapter Markings by Predoctoral Fellow Mediha P. Sorma
Poster and Background Graphic Design by Ana Karina Luna
Intro/Outro Music by Lobo Loco, “Night at Sahara Dune” on Diversity of Life.
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
Video Production, Editing and Intertitles by Caitlin Palo
Video Consultant: C.R. Grimmer

*More about the webinar and Professor Fiddian Qasmiyeh’s prepared remarks:*

Displacement is primarily a ‘Southern’ and ‘South-South’ phenomenon, to which Southern actors have historically responded in ways that resist, reject and provide alternatives to the hegemonic aid regime. However, Southern-led responses to displacement have typically been rendered invisible, and are largely un-acknowledged by Northern- and Northern-based academics, policymakers and practitioners. Though scholarly study of Southern actors’ responses to displacement has recently increased, Northern academics and policy observers too frequently delegitimize the activities of Islamic faith-based organizations and “nontraditional” donor states, which are not members of the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Kuwait). In this presentation, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh focuses on responses to Syrian displacement since 2011 and develops a multiscalar analysis of the roles played by Southern states, local host communities, faith-based networks and refugees themselves. She argues that a focus on “refugee-refugee humanitarianism” can challenge dominant and exclusionary Northern humanitarianism paradigms of refugee studies.

*More about Professor Fidian-Qasmiyeh:*
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies and Co-Director of the Migration Research Unit at University College London, where she directs the Refuge in a Moving World interdisciplinary research network. She is author of several articles and books, and co-editor of Refuge in a Moving World: Tracing Refugee and Migrant Journeys Across Disciplines (UCL Press, 2020).

*Learn more about the series:*
✔ humanitarianisms.org/humanitarianisms

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*More on the Simpson Center for the Humanities*

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