Dans le cadre des séminaires de recherche des laboratoires, le LACS et l'ISSR ont le plaisir d'accueillir Madame Ann-Christin Zuntz de l'Université d'Edinburgh.
Abstract:
Syrian refugees resort to a rich ecosystem of brokers who facilitate not only border crossings, but also move remittances, jobs, knowledge, wives, and more. How are refugees’ circulations made possible, and by whom? Drawing on fieldwork with Syrian brokers in the Middle East and the United Kingdom, I put forward the novel concepts of a Syrian “infrastructure of displacement” and of refugee brokers as a particular infrastructural component: as “human routers”. Like routers, brokers manage, direct, and control resource flows. Revisiting Elyachar (2010)’s concept of “communicative channels”, I contend that refugee brokers and their clients rely on such pre-existing connections, built on shared experiences of migration, brokerage, and hospitality. Reactivated in exile through brokers’ performances of “Syrianness”, these channels facilitate a shared sense of belonging needed for their business transactions. How refugee brokers slip seamlessly between business, charitable deeds, and exploitation, challenges abstract ideas of disinterested solidarity that underpin mainstream humanitarianism.
This conference can also be followed online here : https://unil.zoom.us/j/5293044991?omn=94870937818.