Un-Settling Middle Eastern Refugees - (Forced Migration) by Marcia C Inhorn & Lucia Volk (Paperback)

About the Book

Since the Iraq war, the Middle East has been in continuous upheaval, resulting in the displacement of millions of people. Arriving from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Syria in other parts of the world, the refugees show remarkable resilience and creativity amidst profound adversity. Through careful ethnography, this book vividly illustrates how refugees navigate regimes of exclusion, including cumbersome bureaucracies, financial insecurities, medical challenges, vilifying stereotypes, and threats of violence and bears witness to their struggles.

Book Synopsis

Since the Iraq war, the Middle East has been in continuous upheaval, resulting in the displacement of millions of people. Arriving from Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Syria in other parts of the world, the refugees show remarkable resilience and creativity amidst profound adversity. Through careful ethnography, this book vividly illustrates how refugees navigate regimes of exclusion, including cumbersome bureaucracies, financial insecurities, medical challenges, vilifying stereotypes, and threats of violence. The collection bears witness to their struggles, while also highlighting their aspirations for safety, settlement, and social inclusion in their host societies and new homes.

Review Quotes

"This book is especially vital for North American readers in showing the breadth and complexity of Middle Eastern refugee flows, the widely varying ways that different countries respond to them, and the limitations and options of the refuge sought and sometimes found. Though attention to Canada and the US is limited, the focus on health issues is valuable, especially for highlighting the physical and social barriers that refugee women confront. Highly Recommended." - Choice

"The book offers an important and much-needed contribution to the anthropological literature on displacement and humanitarianism, as well as to the interdisciplinary study of Middle Eastern refugees... it addresses an important gap in both academic and public debates on its subject matter in an eloquent and powerful way." - Secil Dagtas, University of Waterloo

"This book is especially vital for North American readers in showing the breadth and complexity of Middle Eastern refugee flows, the widely varying ways that different countries respond to them, and the limitations and options of the refuge sought and sometimes found. Though attention to Canada and the US is limited, the focus on health issues is valuable, especially for highlighting the physical and social barriers that refugee women confront. Highly Recommended." - Choice

"[This] is a complex and most enlightening work in which each chapter provides very important insights on refugee-related policies in different contexts. And it is here that the book is of utmost importance as it is through state policies, practices, and behaviours that displaced populations are prevented from being treated humanely and obtain stable legal statuses that recognize them as worthy of being welcomed, beyond the present reductionist labels of 'refugees' or 'displaced' persons. As such, this work is important for policy makers, graduate students, scholars, and faculty as well as the well-read citizen who seeks clarity, explanation, and solutions to a socio-political phenomenon of world-wide importance." - Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI)

"The book offers an important and much-needed contribution to the anthropological literature on displacement and humanitarianism, as well as to the interdisciplinary study of Middle Eastern refugees... it addresses an important gap in both academic and public debates on its subject matter in an eloquent and powerful way." - Secil Dagtas, University of Waterloo

About the Author

Lucia Volk is Professor of International Relations and Director of Middle East and Islamic Studies at San Francisco State University. Volk is editor of The Middle East in the World: An Introduction (Routledge, 2015) and author of Memorials and Martyrs in Modern Lebanon (Indiana University Press, 2010). In 2017, she received the Middle East Studies Association's Undergraduate Education Award.