Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Southern Responses to Displacement Principal Investigator, offered the keynote lecture, ‘Shifting the Gaze: beyond inclusion and social cohesion, towards refugee-refugee relationality’ at the Exploring the Dimensions of Refugee Inclusion: Social Structures, Institutions and Strategies Conference, at the The Istanbul Policy Centre – Sabanci University in Turkey, convened on the 28th and 29th of November 2019.
In her paper, Prof. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh proposed the importance of analysing experiences of, and responses to, displacement with attention to what she refers to as ‘refugee-refugee relationality’. Drawing on insights from broader research examining Southern actors’ responses to displacement from Syria, as we have explored in our mini-blog series, her paper explored the dynamics, and limitations, that underpin processes of ‘refugees-hosting-refugees’ and/or forms of refugee-refugee humanitarianism.’ (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh 2016a, 2016b). In so doing, this exploration problematizes studies of and responses to displacement which either view refugees ‘in isolation’, or solely ‘in relation’ to ‘hosts’, where the host is conceptualised at the citizen-qua-host, hosting-the-non-citizen. These representations of refugees and displacement are explored in more detail in Prof. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s AHRC ESRC funded PaCCS project, Refugee Hosts, and in particular, the Representations of Displacement blog series. Focusing on the nature and implications of refugee-refugee relationality, Prof. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh argues, thus entails shifting our gaze away from relationships that have become archetypal in the field of refugee studies and refugee response, and concurrently requires us to disrupt mainstream policy and programmatic concepts, aims and interventions such as the promotion of ‘refugee integration’ into and ‘social cohesion’ with ‘local host communities.’
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For more on these themes and to read more publications and pieces by Prof. Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh on the topic of refugee-refugee relationality please access the recommended reading list below:
Carpi, E. (2018) Empires of Inclusion
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2019) Thinking through ‘the global South’ and ‘Southern-responses to displacement’: An introduction
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) Refugee-refugee humanitarianism
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) Histories and spaces of Southern-led responses to displacement
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. & Daley, P. (2018) Conceptualising the global South and South–South encounters
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2018) Histories and spaces of Southern-led responses to displacement
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016) Refugees Hosting Refugees
Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, E. (2016). Refugee-refugee relations in contexts of overlapping displacement. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research.
Omata, N. 2019 South-South Cooperation in International Organizations: Its Conceptualization and Implementation within UNDP and UNHCR
Southern Responses to Displacement 
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