The refugee camp: Political solution and/or social problem?

Abstract

The international refugee regime is based on the principle that refugees should enjoy a most-favoured-foreigner status. Ideally, their rights and obligations approximate those of citizens, at least in countries which are signatories to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. Those who are forced to leave their homes live in refugee camps all over the world. However, the social role of these camps is not without contradictions. It should be emphasized that refugee accommodation and care are a complex political, economic, social, infrastructural and administrative challenge for the host country. Serious conflicts may result between the actors: international organisations (IGOs and NGOs involved), the states (sending and receiving) and the individuals (refugees).

The Middle East is where the 2015 refugee crisis began. The countries of the region have responded differently to the flood of refugees caused by the Syrian civil war. All countries involved cooperate with the international community in some way and accept the help of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Jordan is the single country in the Middle East where refugee camps (maintained by the UNHCR) were established in 2012–2013 accepting hundreds of thousands of refugees since then. The bases of our case study are the Syrian crisis triggering the 21st-century refugee crisis and the refugee camps in Jordan. The study explores how society perceives people in a refugee camp and reveals the wide gap between the needs of refugees and what refugee camps offer. It aims to describe which factors governments and international organisations consider when establishing a refugee camp. Seen as spaces, these camps – part of the solution as well as part of the problem – complement local, informal institutions and customs, and universal principles interact with local circumstances.

Basic concepts and recent statistics are introduced to show the magnitude of the problem. Social customs in the Middle East are analysed to explain the contradictory role of refugee camps. Migration, in general, is not a new phenomenon in the region, but a unique socio-cultural mechanism accompanies the management of the current refugee crisis. A chapter focuses on the camps proper, analysing advantages and disadvantages of a particular solution which serves the interests of both the international community and Jordan.