TY - JOUR
T1 - The Syrian humanitarian disaster
T2 - Disparities in perceptions, aspirations, and behaviour in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey
AU - Chatty, Dawn
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 The Authors and Institute of Development Studies.
PY - 2016
Y1 - 2016
N2 - Humanitarian assistance coupled with an unsustainable policy of regional containment have only created greater poverty and misery for Syrians fleeing civil war. How this has been allowed to happen on the southern shores of the Mediterranean - where extraordinary social linkages and networks have existed for centuries - lies mainly in the disparities between perceptions, aspirations and behaviour among refugees, practitioners and policymakers in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. This article highlights in particular three such disconnects: the ahistorical approach to engaging with displaced people in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, which has led to the implementation of international blueprints of humanitarian support that are disconnected from people’s needs; the imposition of an encampment policy at odds with displaced people’s need for temporary settlement enabled through their own social networks; the redundancy of humanitarian practitioners’ background and experience in dealing with the particularities of displaced populations in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the failure to build on practices that work.
AB - Humanitarian assistance coupled with an unsustainable policy of regional containment have only created greater poverty and misery for Syrians fleeing civil war. How this has been allowed to happen on the southern shores of the Mediterranean - where extraordinary social linkages and networks have existed for centuries - lies mainly in the disparities between perceptions, aspirations and behaviour among refugees, practitioners and policymakers in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. This article highlights in particular three such disconnects: the ahistorical approach to engaging with displaced people in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, which has led to the implementation of international blueprints of humanitarian support that are disconnected from people’s needs; the imposition of an encampment policy at odds with displaced people’s need for temporary settlement enabled through their own social networks; the redundancy of humanitarian practitioners’ background and experience in dealing with the particularities of displaced populations in the Eastern Mediterranean, and the failure to build on practices that work.
KW - Disasters
KW - Middle east
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85013865554&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85013865554&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.19088/1968-2016.142
DO - 10.19088/1968-2016.142
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85013865554
VL - 47
SP - 19
EP - 34
JO - Institute of Development Studies, Bulletin
JF - Institute of Development Studies, Bulletin
SN - 0265-5012
IS - 3
ER -