Description
Book Synopsis Using the example of Iraqi refugees in Jordan's capital of Amman, this book describes how information and communication technologies (ICTs) play out in the everyday experiences of urban refugees, geographically located in the Global South, and shows how interactions between online and offline spaces are key for making sense of the humanitarian regime, for carving out a sense of home and for sustaining hope. This book paints a humanizing account of making do amid legal marginalization, prolonged insecurity, and the proliferation of digital technologies.
Trade Review “…well-grounded in the complex realities and frustrations of Twigt’s interlocutors, giving the reader key insights into the understandings and expectations displaced Iraqis have of the UNHCR in Jordan... The author paints a detailed picture of the digital lives of refugees outside Europe, showing diverse forms of waiting in the digital space that go beyond the traditionally researched sites of queues, camps, and job centres in forced migration studies. In this way, the book illustrates the crucial mediation between material realities and digital geographies for refugees that should inform how we frame displaced communities in the Global South and beyond.” • Journal of Refugee Studies
“This is an excellent, innovative and urgent book detailing and theorizing the mediated sense-making practices of refugees negotiating prolonged situations of displacement.” • Koen Leurs, Utrecht University
“Tackles an important dimension of refugee experience, focusing specifically on the lives of Iraqi urban refugees in Amman. In this way, this research extends the growing body of studies of urban refugees, and their experiences especially in the cities of the Global South.” • Katarzyna Grabska, Peace Research Institute, Oslo
Table of Contents Acknowledgments
Notes on Translation and Transliteration
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: Becoming and Being a (Dis)connected Forced Migrant
Chapter 1. ‘Life is Like a Waiting Stop’ – Situating Experiences of Iraqi Refugees in Jordan’s Temporary Protection Context
Chapter 2. Hoping for Solutions in a ‘Surrogate State’
Chapter 3. Tactics to Get ‘Unstuck’ – Refugee Protests and Seeking Alternative Means to Travel
Chapter 4. Prolonged Legal Uncertainties and their Interaction with Virtual Homemaking Practices in Amman
Chapter 5. The Mediation of Hope: Digital Technologies and Affective Affordances within Iraqi Refugee Households
Chapter 6. Post-humanitarian Shifts in Jordan’s Protection Space
Chapter 7. Fast-forward to 2018: Technologies Towards Accountability for UNHCR Jordan’s Persons of Concern
Conclusion: (Dis)connectivity and the Politics of Hope
References
Index
