Borders and belonging: displaced Syrian youth navigating symbolic boundaries in Lebanon

Abstract

We examine the ways in which young Syrian refugees perceive and navigate the symbolic boundaries of belonging when displaced in Lebanon. Using portraiture, we identify three dimensions of belonging for refugees-safety, dignity, and relationships-and we explore the role of education in cultivating each one. We find that educational spaces, such as formal school and informal volunteering experiences, are places where refugee young people are at times able to blur bright boundaries of belonging. We also find that this belonging is tenuous and serves to reinforce boundaries of citizenship, rights, and everyday practices that exclude refugee young people. Our findings emphasize the need for the field of refugee education to address the question of how schools can actively resist and counter state-established bright boundaries of belonging to instead serve as spaces that blur and redefine those boundaries.

Does a school snack make a difference? An evaluation of the World Food Programme emergency school feeding programme in Lebanon among Lebanese and Syrian refugee children

“…As indicated in the results, the emergency SFP had significantly higher school engagement and sense of school community among Lebanese but not among Syrian children. Multiple factors including legal and safety concerns as well as everyday social practices that exclude refugees, might affect school engagement, social wellbeing, and sense of community among Syrian refugees and hinder full integration of Syrian refugees in schools (51,52) . This is reflective of the larger structural environment relating to the inclusiveness of Syrian refugees in Lebanon.…”

Beyond integration: football as a mobile, transnational sphere of belonging for refugee-background young people

“…Historical, practical, affective, embodied, and sociocultural connections are lost, ruptured, or stigmatised as people are displaced from their homes, neighbourhoods, communities, and countries (Correa-Velez et al, 2010). Subsequent movement across national borders shapes relations of (non)belonging with new places, communities, and institutions that are often hostile and precarious (Chopra & Dryden-Peterson, 2020). Thus, (re)creating and strengthening relations of belonging is a critical aspect of resettlement.…”

Toward Cognitive and Temporal Mobility: Language Considerations in Refugee Education

“…The threat of language submersion and the steep learning curve and limited perceived value of that investment can shift decision‐making for refugees as they flee. Faced with crossing a near border to Turkey or a far border to Lebanon, some Syrian young people chose the far border with the hope of continuing their studies in Arabic (Chopra & Dryden–Peterson, 2020). What these young people found, though, was that while Arabic could help them to navigate life outside of school, it did not support their school success.…”

“…Educators who decenter rigid notions of nation‐state belonging enable refugee children and young people to develop the navigational capacities that support these cognitive and temporal mobilities. While migration policies are hyperfocused on boundary management, the pedagogies of these educators in settings of migration focus on learning and relationships that blur these boundaries (Chopra & Dryden–Peterson, 2020; Dryden–Peterson, 2021; outside of education, see Hovil, 2016). Several dimensions of these pedagogies as related to language are fruitful areas of emerging theory and practice in refugee education.…”