Lebanon

Since 2012, over 4 million people have fled Syria in ‘the most dramatic humanitarian crisis that we have ever faced’ (UNHCR). By November 2015 there were 1,078,338 refugees from Syria in Lebanon, 630,776 in Jordan and 2,181,293 in Turkey. Humanitarian agencies and donor states from both the global North and the global South have funded and implemented aid programmes, and yet commentators have argued that civil society groups from the global South are the most significant actors supporting refugees in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. Whilst they are highly significant responses, however, major gaps in knowledge remain regarding the motivations, nature and implications of Southern-led responses to conflict-induced displacement. This project draws on multi-sited ethnographic and participatory research with refugees from Syria and their aid providers in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey to critically examine why, how and with what effect actors from the South have responded to the displacement of refugees from Syria. The main research aims are: 1. identifying diverse models of Southern-led responses to conflict-induced displacement, 2. examining the (un)official motivations, nature and implications of Southern-led responses, 3. examining refugees’ experiences and perceptions of Southern-led responses, 4. exploring diverse Southern and Northern actors’ perceptions of Southern-led responses, 5. tracing the implications of Southern-led initiatives for humanitarian theory and practice. Based on a critical theoretical framework inspired by post-colonial and feminist approaches, the project contributes to theories of humanitarianism and debates regarding donor-recipient relations and refugees’ agency in displacement situations. It will also inform the development of policies to most appropriately address refugees’ needs and rights. This highly topical and innovative project thus has far-reaching implications for refugees and local communities, academics, policy-makers and practitioners.

'This research aims at mapping inter-ethnic relations in contested cities in the Eastern Mediterranean by comparing urban dynamics in Lebanon, Israel and Palestine. While most of the geopolitical scholarship on ethnonational conflicts in the region has focused on the territorial struggles between rival nation-states and other regional actors, this project proposes a historical anthropology of intra-urban borderlands consisting of ethnic groups sharing the same city. Political adversaries, Lebanon and Israel share nevertheless a fundamental commonality: they both politicized the Ottoman legacy of communal autonomy and religious sectarianism. Rescaling ethnic conflicts from the regional to the urban arena, this project proposes a “bottom up” analysis of the political mobilization of territoriality, identity, religion and nation. To this end, the research examines how urban space, violent conflict and national identities have been both represented and produced in contested cities since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Against the background of a century-long conflict between the Jewish and Palestinian national movements in Israel/Palestine and the sectarian struggles over political power between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon, this project studies the relations between opposing community-building efforts in war-torn urban settings. Focusing on cities like Beirut, Sidon, Jerusalem, Jaffa and Haifa, I historicize the problematic place they occupy in the popular, political and sociological imagination. Through ethnographic and historical analysis I show how Jewish, Muslim and Christian citizens, implicated in relations of interdependence, strive to define their respective collective identity in relation to the nation. These processes serve as a lens through which the research engages a wider set of questions in political sociology and urban anthropology regarding ethnic violence, citizenship, and identity-making as embedded in practices of “making place.”'

"Theoretical Background and objectives In the context of the combination of escalated sectarian conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and home-grown conflicts around real and perceived attacks on Islam and its symbols in the West (from Rushdie to Charlie Hebdo), increased numbers of Muslim youth in Western countries have embraced radical forms of Islam and have sometimes become actively involved in violence, both at home and abroad. Beyond impressionistic evidence on a few active radicals, extremely little is known about the incidence among countries’ Muslim populations of adherence to radical versions of Islam and support for religiously-motivated violence. To answer these questions, cross-national surveys across Muslim populations in different countries are necessary, but apart from the very descriptive surveys by the US American Pew Research Institute, which are moreover not publicly accessible for secondary analysis, no such information is available. Existing research also leaves another major question unanswered, namely to what extent religious radicalism is specific to current Islam or whether it is comparable to what we find in other contemporary religions, particularly within Christianity. This project wants to fill these voids. A first step was an analysis based on the SCIICS survey. This was the first representative survey study to compare religious fundamentalism and outgroup hostility between Muslims and Christians (Koopmans 2015), and as such it attracted worldwide media attention. While the study revealed large differences between the two religious groups even when controlled for a range of socio-economic and demographic variables, the limitation of the study to two Muslim ethnic groups as well as the fact that it compared Muslims of immigrant origin to autochthonous Christians limits the generalizability of its findings. Moreover, the SCIICS survey did not include questions about support for religiously-motivated violence and extremist religious organizations. Research design To overcome these shortcomings, we are conducting two studies: Religious Fundamentalism and Radicalization Survey and Jihadi Radicalization in Europe Database. The first project is a representative survey study of Muslims, Christians, Jews, and non-believers in 2017 in the following 8 countries: Germany, the United States, Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon and Kenya. The choice of countries allows for a broad range of cross-national and cross-sectional comparisons. For instance, all three of the world’s Abrahamic religions are represented in our sample, allowing us to investigate similarities and differences between these three religious groups. In addition to comparisons across religious groups, we are also interested in examining variances within the religious groups. Therefore we sampled across different branches of Islam, i.e. Sunni Muslims (Turkey, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Kenya, and Cyprus), Shia Muslims (Lebanon) and Alevites (Turkey, Cyprus); of Christianity, i.e. Catholic and Protestant Christians (Germany, and the USA), Greek Orthodox Christians (Cyprus, Lebanon), Maronite Catholics (Lebanon) and the generally more conservative Christianity of Sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya); and of Judaism, i.e. both Orthodox and Reformist branches (Israel and the USA). Our research design also allows us to investigate the role of immigration and integration experiences in religious radicalization. The study not only includes two Western immigration countries with strongly divergent immigrant integration policies (Germany and the United States), but also three countries with autochthonous Muslim and Christian populations (Kenya, Cyprus, and Lebanon). Furthermore, both in Germany and the United States, we oversample Christians of immigrant origin, thus extending the range of comparisons to a variety of immigrant and native groups and augmenting the possibility of isolating the role of immigration. Apart from the usual socio-economic and demographic control variables, the surveys included questions on religiosity, religious knowledge, fundamentalism, out-group hostility, intergroup contacts, discrimination, adherence to conspiracy theories, violence legitimation, and support for extremist groups. Moreover we employed a survey experiment to test the effect of religious scripture on religious violence legitimation. The broad range of variables and the experiment included in the surveys will enable rigorous hypotheses testing, which will help us uncover causal mechanisms behind religious fundamentalism and radicalization. In the second project Jihadi Radicalization in Europe Database, we aggregate profiles of Jihadist individuals from publicly available information. The main units of analysis of this database are people from four European countries (Germany, France, the Netherlands and the UK) who fit in any of the following characteristics: People (including their partners and children from the age of 15 who accompanying them), who have traveled to Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan or other conflict regions involving Muslims, acting out of their Islamist conviction (the so-called foreign fighters); people who have actively recruited others as foreign fighters or motivated others to join through propaganda activities; people who were involved in the aiding, planning or conducting of Islamist terrorist activity in Europe or were suspected thereof; people who supported, justified or glorified the use of violence in the name of Islam through propaganda activities; people who are members of jihadi-Salafist and Islamist organizations, which support the use of violence. The database will primarily consist of biographical and sociodemographic information on individuals, with the aim of identifying common characteristics. Using the sociodemographic data, we aim to investigate, what kind of people are more susceptible to radicalization, whereas we will use the biographic data to gain insights into contexts of radicalization. In addition to these characteristics, social contacts and networks of the individuals will also be registered, in order to analyze the social network structures. This information will be used to explore group-specific radicalization processes as well as to identify central influential figures within the networks. The relevant data will be gathered through an online and media research. A variety of sources of data will be used to collect relevant information such as newspaper articles, interviews, online-blogs, biographies, news databases such as LexisNexis®, and court proceedings, in order to gather as much data as possible on the individuals. The database can be understood as an aggregation of publicly available data on European Islamists."

STRENGTHS aims to provide effective community-based health care implementation strategies to scale-up the delivery and uptake of effective mental health interventions in different country contexts. The current refugee crisis across Europe and the Middle East effects both individual refugees’ psychological well-being, as they face extreme stressors in their flight from their home country, but also has large effects on the healthcare systems of countries housing refugees. In reponse to this crisis, the STRENGTHS project aims to provide a framework for scaling-up the delivery and uptake of effective community-based mental health strategies to address the specific needs of refugees within and outside Europe’s borders. STRENGTHS will outline necessary steps needed to integrate evidence based low-intensity psychological interventions for common mental disorders into health systems in Syria’s surrounding countries taking up the majority of refugees (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan), a LMIC (Egypt) and European countries (Germany, Switzerland the Netherlands and Sweden). The consortium is a unique partnership between academics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international agencies and local partners with the responsibility to provide and scale-up evidence-based mental health and psychosocial support interventions for refugees. Key preparatory steps in the local political, regulatory and governance processes for uptake and scaling-up of the intervention and key contextual and system-related factors for integration will be validated for the real-life impact on the responsiveness of the system. The low-intensity interventions and training materials will be adapted and implemented in Syrian refugees within Syria’s surrounding countries taking up the majority of refugees (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan), a LMIC (Egypt) and European countries (Germany, Switzerland the Netherlands and Sweden). STRENGTHS will disseminate and promote ‘buy-in’ of a validated framework for large-scale implementation of the low intensity interventions to providers of health and social services, policy makers and funding agencies.

Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts begann eine kontinuierliche Auswanderung aus dem Gebiet des heutigen Libanons, die bis heute anhält. Die Migrationsströme änderten mehrfach ihre Richtung, wobei die libanesischen Migranten in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten verstärkt nach Australien, in die USA und nach Deutschland wandern. Durch die Änderung der Migrationsrichtung bildeten sich Gemeinschaften, deren Mitglieder weltweit verstreut leben, wobei sie ihren Zusammenhalt mit der Herkunft der ausgewanderten Vorfahren aus dem gleichen Herkunftsort (-dorf) begründen. Es entstanden somit globale Dorfgemeinschaften. Ausgehend von den libanesischen Dörfern Aitou, Hadchit und Ehden untersuchen die Projektmitarbeiter die globalen Gemeinschaften und ihre Verbindungen in die Länder Australien, die USA und Deutschland. Die Projektmitarbeiter schlagen das Konzept der globalen Dorfgemeinschaft als neues theoretisches Modell vor, um Prozesse der Vergemeinschaftung und Verräumlichung in der globalisierten Welt zu untersuchen und zu verstehen. Die Ergebnisse der Untersuchung zeigen auch die Möglichkeiten auf, die Mitglieder der globalen Gemeinschaften an der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung ihrer Lebensländer partizipieren zu lassen. Die Zunahme des digitalen Austauschs von Informationen und der Vergemeinschaftung im Web 2.0, die unkomplizierte Möglichkeit des Ortswechsels und die allgemeine politische Liberalisierung in der globalisierten Welt führen in arabischsprachigen Ländern dazu, dass die weltweit verbundene Dorfgemeinschaften zunehmend an wirtschaftlichem und politischem Einfluss gewinnen. Diese Gemeinschaften sind durch ein globales Geflecht enger kommunikativer und emotionaler Beziehungen unter ihren Mitgliedern gekennzeichnet, die ihr Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl über den gemeinsamen Herkunftsort konstruieren und daher als Diasporas bezeichnet werden. Die Projektmitarbeiter definieren Diaspora als soziale Ordnung die nationalstaatliche Ordnungen durchbricht. In ihrer Studien stellen sie den Begriff Diaspora in den Kontext der globalisierten Welt. Hierfür entwickeln die Projektmitarbeiter die neue Theorie der globalen Dorfgemeinschaft, die das Konzept Gemeinschaft von TÖNNIES (1887) weiterentwickelt sowie mit der Theorie der sozialen Praktik nach SCHATZKI (2002) und dem Begriff Diaspora verbindet. Um die Wechselwirkungen zwischen modernen Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien (IKT) und den Prozessen der Vergemeinschaftung zu verstehen, entwerfen die Projektmitarbeiter neue Forschungsmethoden. Diese führen die methodologischen Gedanken der szientistischen Sozialwissenschaft mit denen der Ethnomethodologie zusammen.

STRENGTHS aims to provide effective community-based health care implementation strategies to scale-up the delivery and uptake of effective mental health interventions in different country contexts. The current refugee crisis across Europe and the Middle East effects both individual refugees’ psychological well-being, as they face extreme stressors in their flight from their home country, but also has large effects on the healthcare systems of countries housing refugees. In reponse to this crisis, the STRENGTHS project aims to provide a framework for scaling-up the delivery and uptake of effective community-based mental health strategies to address the specific needs of refugees within and outside Europe’s borders. STRENGTHS will outline necessary steps needed to integrate evidence based low-intensity psychological interventions for common mental disorders into health systems in Syria’s surrounding countries taking up the majority of refugees (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan), a LMIC (Egypt) and European countries (Germany, Switzerland the Netherlands and Sweden). The consortium is a unique partnership between academics, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international agencies and local partners with the responsibility to provide and scale-up evidence-based mental health and psychosocial support interventions for refugees. Key preparatory steps in the local political, regulatory and governance processes for uptake and scaling-up of the intervention and key contextual and system-related factors for integration will be validated for the real-life impact on the responsiveness of the system. The low-intensity interventions and training materials will be adapted and implemented in Syrian refugees within Syria’s surrounding countries taking up the majority of refugees (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan), a LMIC (Egypt) and European countries (Germany, Switzerland the Netherlands and Sweden). STRENGTHS will disseminate and promote ‘buy-in’ of a validated framework for large-scale implementation of the low intensity interventions to providers of health and social services, policy makers and funding agencies.

Die palästinensischen Flüchtlingslager im Libanon bilden einen kaum in den libanesischen Staat integrierten „Sonderraum“. Ziel des Forschungsprojektes ist es, die spezifischen Governance-Strukturen in den Lagern unter den Bedingungen eines „weak state“ zu untersuchen. Dabei soll der „Doppelcharakter“ der Lager als eines einerseits von UNRWA garantierten Schutzraumes und eines andererseits von vielfältigen Akteursgruppen und deren (politischen) Interessen bestimmten Raumes „of cultural and political otherness“ herausgearbeitet werden. Im Zentrum des Projektes steht die Frage, welche Akteure in den Lagern welche Aufgaben übernehmen. Neben den Akteursnetzwerken, deren Interessen und Machtressourcen liegt ein zweiter Fokus auf der „Identität“ der Lagerbevölkerung und der damit in Beziehung stehenden Wahrnehmung ihrer Handlungsoptionen und Abgrenzungsmechanismen. Diese sind v.a. im Hinblick auf ihre Politisierung bzw. Instrumentalisierung durch einzelne Akteure relevant, welche sich diese im Sinne ihrer Interessen zu Nutze machen. Zur Bearbeitung der Fragen soll auf einen Mix verschiedener qualitativer Methoden zurückgegriffen werden.