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SUMMARY:Ordering the Syrian Displacement: Dispossession and the Power of D
 ocuments - Veronica Ferreri\, PhD candidate\, SOAS
DTSTART:20161130T130000Z
DTEND:20161130T140000Z
UID:TALK69021@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Melissa Gatter
DESCRIPTION:The Cambridge Migration Society is glad to present the Michael
 mas 2016 Graduate Migration Research Seminar Series. \n\nThe GMRSS offers 
 PhD\, MPhil and Masters students currently engaged in research on migratio
 n an opportunity to present their work\, get feedback and meet other gradu
 ate colleagues working on similar issues. \n\nPresenters are from various 
 fields and disciplines\, and similarly\, and we welcome attendees from acr
 oss the University.\n\n\nFor details of presenters\, please see below:\n\n
 Title: Ordering the Syrian Displacement: Dispossession and the Power of Do
 cuments\n\nSpeaker: Veronica Ferreri\, PhD candidate\, SOAS\n\nAbstract: \
 nThis paper traces the trajectories of displacement of a Qusayri Syrian co
 mmunity living in an informal camp\, whose members define themselves as mu
 tasharrid [dispossessed]. I explore the making of al-tasharrud [dispossess
 ion] as central to this community’s experience of citizenship/subjection
  after the expulsion of its members from their homes in Rif Qusayr to Leba
 non in the aftermath of a counterinsurgency campaign compounded by al-Assa
 d regime and Hezbollah in the spring of 2013. I investigate how this commu
 nity reconstructs its social and political order through the creation of a
 n informal camp and a school\, as well as the meanings the community membe
 rs attribute to these institutions. \n\nBy looking at these social process
 es\, the paper scrutinizes how Qusayri Syrians' construction of the self i
 s tied to al-Assad regime’s modes of order-making in times of crisis whi
 ch divide citizens into different categories: fully-recognized citizens\, 
 wanted citizens\, and unwanted subjects. The paper shows how these categor
 ies are produced through citizens' encounters with state authorities\, suc
 h as check-points\, border posts\, and bureaucratic apparatuses. These cat
 egories are in turn reproduced by the Lebanese authorities through officia
 l documents\, which become material manifestations of the boundaries betwe
 en legality and illegality. The analysis of these encounters with state au
 thorities both in Syria and Lebanon offers a comparison with the life of t
 he community and the tactics it develops in order to overcome the legal pr
 ecariousness its members inhabit that is characterized by informality and 
 illegality. In this context\, I focus on the production of (unofficial) do
 cuments\, such as school certificates\, civilian records\, and school eval
 uations within the camp in order to demonstrate how these tactics become a
  medium for ordering and making the lives of the members of the community 
 accountable. \n\nAbout Veronica: \nVeronica Ferreri is a PhD candidate and
  teaching assistant in the department of Politics and International Studie
 s at SOAS\, University of London. She was a Bucerius PhD fellow for the pr
 ogramme Trajectories of Change and junior research fellow at the Orient-In
 stitut Beirut. Her research investigates entangled experiences of displace
 ment and citizenship amongst Syrians in Lebanon focusing on legal identiti
 es\, bureaucratic practices and official documents between Lebanon and Syr
 ia. Veronica holds a Master’s degree in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studie
 s from the Venice’s University Ca’ Foscari and an MA in Migration and 
 Diaspora Studies from SOAS.
LOCATION: Room S3\, Alison Richard Building\, Sidgwick Site\, 7 West Road\
 , Cambridge\, CB3 9DT
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