Seeking Educational Spaces: Syrian Refugees and the Landscape of Amman, Jordan

PI: Kelley Gourley, PhD Student, Department of Anthropology, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences
Co-PI: Ayşe Parla, Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, College of Arts & Sciences

This dissertation research project centers how Syrian refugee youth and families, as well as their Jordanian peers, conceptualize the educational spaces they are able to access in light of the serious barriers they face in accessing such spaces in a foreign urban context. Amman presents a unique setting in which to study the issues an urban context creates for refugees, as it has been home to several displaced groups in its short existence, including Palestinians and Iraqis, some of whom have integrated their livelihoods and their original isolated refugee camps into the geography of the city. Using long-term ethnographic fieldwork and participant observation in non-formal educational spaces, this research deeply engages with Syrian and Jordanian youth to understand their aspirations, the challenges they face, and the strategies they employ. Youth and their families must navigate the landscape of the city before even reaching educational spaces—making the experience of the city and the classroom not so easily separated. For this reason, a mapping of the current formal and non-formal educational spaces in the city will also be conducted, and the final analysis of the data will connect the experiences of youth to their spatial maneuverings throughout the city. Centering education is a crucial stance to further our understanding not only of educational inequities for Syrian refugees in particular, but also reveals the processes of exclusion marked onto the landscape of Amman that constrain Jordanians as well.  Conceptualizing these processes will also inform our understanding of the roles organizations and governmental institutions might fill in supporting Syrian aspirations as well as those of other displaced populations.

See more of our 2021 Early Stage Urban Research Award recipients