Doctoral Dissertation Research: Community-Based Aid Responses to Refugee Crises

自1990年代以来，联合国日益认识到难民危机的长期性，认识到需要人道主义解决办法，不仅向难民提供紧急救济，而且还要解决他们的长期需要。因此，它呼吁对人道主义援助采取一种新的“以社区为基础的方法”，即通过福利项目和基础设施支持将难民融入邻国。然而，叙利亚难民危机使这种新方法受到严重质疑。平民流离失所的规模之大，目前已达到430万人，这让叙利亚邻国难以融入社会。随着难民大规模外流，现在了解庇护国如何处理难民危机至关重要。该项目训练研究生如何进行严格的实证科学实地考察，探讨人道主义组织如何在应对难民危机的社区援助项目中应对挑战。在布朗大学的凯瑟琳·卢茨博士的指导下，马拉伊·菲罗兹将研究人道主义组织如何在约旦和黎巴嫩实施以社区为基础的援助项目。作为发展中小国，约旦和黎巴嫩都在努力应对突然涌入的难民，两国政府都急于阻止难民融入社会。然而，虽然相对稳定的约旦政府严格管理其边界并将难民收容在难民营中，但国内动乱使黎巴嫩政府无法做同样的事情。因此，这两个国家提供了理想的地点，可以比较人道主义组织如何在不同的政治背景下构建其官方角色和责任，实地援助工作者如何在日常援助工作中采用或改变这些框架，以及难民对人道主义组织的期望。为了研究这些问题，研究人员将在安曼和贝鲁特进行为期12个月的人种学实地调查。他将采用混合方法，包括对政策声明和机构章程的文本分析，对联合国官员、援助工作者和难民的半结构化访谈，以及对人道主义外地办事处和难民营的参与观察。本研究的比较结果将有助于深入了解大规模流离失所情况下社区援助项目的有效性，并帮助人道主义政策制定者设计适合不同情况的项目。

Since the 1990s, the United Nations has increasingly acknowledged the prolonged nature of refugee crises, and the need for humanitarian solutions that not only offer emergency relief to refugees but also address their long-term needs. Accordingly, it has called for a new "Community-Based Approach" to humanitarian aid, which integrates refugees in their neighboring countries through welfare programs and infrastructural support. The Syrian refugee crisis, however, throws this new approach in grave doubt. The sheer scale of civilian displacement, now reaching 4.3 million people, makes integration immeasurably difficult for countries neighboring Syria. With the mass exodus of refugees, it is now vital to understand how the refugee crisis is being managed in asylum countries. This project, which trains a graduate student in how to conduct rigorous empirically-grounded scientific fieldwork, explores how humanitarian organizations negotiate the challenges of community-based aid programs in response to refugee crises. Malay Firoz, under the supervision of Dr. Catherine Lutz of Brown University, will examine how humanitarian organizations implement community-based aid programs in Jordan and Lebanon. As small developing countries, both Jordan and Lebanon are struggling to cope with the sudden influx of refugees, and their governments are anxious to prevent refugees from integrating. However, while the relatively stable Jordanian government has strictly regulated its borders and contained refugees in camps, domestic turmoil has prevented the Lebanese government from doing the same. The two countries therefore provide ideal locations for comparing how humanitarian organizations frame their official roles and responsibilities in different political contexts, how aid workers on the ground adopt or transform these framings in the course of everyday aid work, and what refugees expect from humanitarian organizations. In order to pursue these questions, the researcher will conduct twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork based in Amman and Beirut. He will employ a mixed-methods approach, including textual analysis of policy statements and institutional charters, semi-structured interviews with UN officials, aid workers and refugees, as well as participant observation in humanitarian field offices and refugee camps. The comparative findings from this research will provide insight into the effectiveness of community-based aid programs amidst large-scale displacement, and help humanitarian policy-makers design programs specifically suited to different contexts.