Program Overview
Program Overview
The ongoing conflict in Syria has resulted in a refugee crisis of gross proportions. No strangers to such humanitarian crises, Jordan and Turkey are receiving most of Syria’s externally displaced persons. With them comes the bulk of relief efforts, a significant impact on their societies, and a constant anxiety about the warring country with which they both share a border. During this seminar, we’ll look at the conflict in Syria through the lens of the refugee crisis and its effects on Jordan and Turkey. We’ll examine the shared historical context of borders, identity, and migration among these countries and in the contemporary context of calls for reform and resistance throughout the region. Additionally, we’ll explore the socioeconomic and political aspects of responses to the humanitarian crisis, particularly in terms of gender, childhood, and activism in comparison with previous refugee crises in both Jordan and Turkey, including those involving Palestinians, Iraqis, and Kurds.
Program Activities
Program Activities
Lectures by specialists will help participants contextualize the Syrian conflict and its refugee crisis in terms of historical and contemporary events in Jordan, Turkey, and the region at large.
Panels featuring specialists will enable participants to hear from actors and agents involved in official and grassroots relief efforts, policy, and broader issues of social, economic, and political import related to the crisis. The focus here will be on particularly vulnerable populations including women and children.
Site visits will give participants an on-the-ground and comparative perspective on the refugee crisis and its many consequences and implications.
Guided discussion and reflection will encourage participants away from simplifying the Syrian issue, but rather to examine its complexities in an intellectually productive way.
Program Objectives
Program Objectives
During this seminar, participants will:
- Acquire knowledge on the historical formation and geopolitical dynamics of the region’s borders and national/ethnic identities.
- Develop a complex and nuanced understanding of the Syrian conflict.
- Observe firsthand responses to the conflict’s humanitarian crisis and the resulting living circumstances for refugee populations.
- Formulate connections between the current refugee crisis and past conflict-induced crises within the particular socio-political context of the region.
Seminar Locations
Seminar Locations
Based in Amman, Jordan and Istanbul, Turkey, with excursions to Mafraq or Za’atari in Jordan and Ankara, Gaziantep, or Hatay in Turkey; participants fly into Amman and out of Istanbul.