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，并认识到需要人道主义解决办法，不仅向难民提供紧急救济，而且解决他们的长期需要。因此，它呼吁对人道主义援助采取新的“基于社区的方法”，通过福利计划和基础设施支持，让邻国的难民融入社会。然而，叙利亚难民危机给这种新方法带来了严重的疑问。平民流离失所的规模之大，目前已达430万人，这让邻国叙利亚的融合变得极其困难。随着难民的大规模外逃，现在至关重要的是了解避难国如何管理难民危机。这个项目培训一名研究生如何进行严格的、有经验的科学实地考察，探索人道主义组织如何应对以社区为基础的援助计划的挑战，以应对难民危机。在布朗大学凯瑟琳·卢茨博士的监督下，马来人菲洛兹将研究人道主义组织如何在约旦和黎巴嫩实施基于社区的援助计划。作为发展中国家的小国，约旦和黎巴嫩都在努力应对突然涌入的难民，两国政府急于阻止难民融入社会。然而，尽管相对稳定的约旦政府严格管理边境，并将难民安置在难民营中，但黎巴嫩国内的动荡阻止了黎巴嫩政府采取同样的做法。因此，这两个国家为比较人道主义组织在不同政治背景下如何确定其官方作用和责任、实地援助人员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提供了理想的地点。为了探索这些问题，研究人员将在安曼和贝鲁特进行为期12个月的人种学田野调查。他将采取混合方法，包括对政策声明和机构章程进行文本分析，对联合国官员、援助人员和难民进行半结构化采访，以及在人道主义外地办事处和难民营进行参与者观察。这项研究的比较结果将为在大规模流离失所的情况下以社区为基础的援助计划的有效性提供洞察，并帮助人道主义政策制定者设计专门适合不同情况的计划。

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.