Refugees in/out Arab World

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

The class will address the topic of refugees in and from the Arab World, and will include other countries in Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA, aka Middle East and North Africa) over the last eighty years. We will learn about the international refugee regime as well as specific refugee populations and the issues faced by displaced people, host communities, and state governments. The specific focus will be on refugees and their experiences and stories. The course will approach the study of refugees from an ethnographic, historical, and grounded perspective, while also engaging with more macro subjects of international law, international relations, economics, etc., and their associated politics and policies. This particular course will engage with the material with the intent to understand both information as well as methods. We will focus on what we know, how that knowledge is obtained, and how that knowledge is communicated. This “narrative analysis” will allow us to understand the basis for how world views are communicated, how tropes come into existence, how we transfer knowledge and sentiment, and how refugees see themselves. In this class in your final project, you will also produce knowledge and communicate it in a form of your choosing. Some of the questions we will develop the skills to answer ethically and knowledgeably include the following: What are the roles of assistance and aid organizations? What are the roles of the displaced people themselves? What are the roles of governments in dealing with refugees? How do different media and formats represent refugees and the issues they face? How can we better prepare ourselves with knowledge of issues and of narrative formats to engage in meaningful work around displaced people? How do we take a more holistic perspective that takes into consideration history, culture, agency, respect, security, power relations, borders, etc., in our analysis, policy, and/or advocacy? How do we do that without reifying “culture” or “tradition” or without empowering certain elements of society at the expense of others or of reducing situations to one explanatory factor (such as ethnicity, or religion, or politics, or environment)? Restrictions: graduate level only