Education as future-making : the dual experience of displaced Syrians -

Abstract

Common language in the humanitarian field alludes to notions of future-making through participation amongst local refugees; the idea that by working in humanitarian systems, refugees will find a way out of the boundaries of their displacement. In this research, I follow the story of one Syrian family’s experience in transcending these assumptions through revealing the locuses of control which these notions of future-making conceal. I combine literature on refugee education systems with literature on futurity in education and that on humanitarian systems in the neoliberal era to reveal how these overlapping modes of control inform action while extemporalizing the displaced. Following the work of Malkin (2015) and Kothari (2006), I examine the blurred lines of subjects and actors of humanitarian interventions in Lebanon. What kinds of conflicts arise between the notions of aid-giver and aid-receiver when those who are distributing aid are also refugees? How does that influence an aid givers subjectivity? How do these subjects, aid givers and aid receivers negotiate the liminal space between refugee and aid distributor? How does this binary further produce new forms of hierarchy in the provision of aid? This thesis is based on ethnographic research methodologies including participant observation and informal interviews at a non-formal education center in Jeb Janine, a town in the Bekaa Valley where the Syrian non-profit, Quloob opened an education center for Syrian refugees in 2014. I spent November 2015 to March 2016 as a teacher at the center, living with the principal and her family. In fall of 2017, I began visiting the center again, conducting fieldwork on education, future-making, and the dual-experience. I use anecdotes from my time in Jeb Janine to reinforce that such participatory approaches to development further blur the lines between recipient and agent, refugee and savior. I locate these approaches within larger frameworks to highlight the intricacies of refugee lives.