By Sarah Nandi, Oroub El_Abed, Megan Bradley, and Hamzah Qardan

Published: March 21, 2025 in Ethnic and Racial Studies

This timely and insightful research explores how refugees in Jordan, particularly Somali, Sudanese, Syrian, and Iraqi communities, navigate resettlement – both in pursuit and in refusal – through an intersectional lens. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork, this study reveals how gender, race, nationality, and power dynamics shape both aspirations and resistance to resettlement. The article challenges dominant narratives that frame resettlement as a universally desired solution and calls for an intersectional approach to understanding refugee agency, particularly in Global South contexts.

Key highlights:

• Unpacks how “resettlement-mindedness” and “deservedness” manifests through vocational and language training efforts in pursuit of self-reliance objectives .
• Challenges the assumption that resettlement is a universally desired solution.
• Offers a nuanced understanding of refugee agency in the Global South.

We invite scholars, policymakers, practitioners, and community members to engage with this important work.

Read the full article

Sarah Nandi, Department of Political Science, McGill University

Oroub El Abed, International Migration and Refugee Studies, Birzeit University

Megan Bradley, Department of Political Science, McGill University

Hamzah Qardan, USAID, Jordan

Executive Summary

The three durable solutions, namely resettlement to a third country, local integration, and voluntary repatriation, aim to resolve refugeehood. However, these traditional pathways are no longer feasible for the majority of refugees. How different refugees access or think about solutions for their situation, including their perceptions and pursuit of the traditional and alternative pathways, are shaped by intersecting factors such as gender, race, nationality, and class. In order to better understand how different displaced communities navigate this “meantime” period of liminality, this study draws upon interviews with refugees and humanitarian staff in Amman, Jordan to examine the paths that refugees make for themselves even under enormous risk and constraints. To do so, we propose the concept of “para-solutions”, which can be understood as the parallel pathways that refugees create for themselves to access some of the benefits associated with residency rights or limited forms of establishing a life outside of Jordan. Para-solutions include both the tangible practices that refugees use in solutions-making in the present as well as the future hope attached to the different strategies. We examine para-solutions through two sub-categories: para-residency and para-mobility. Para-residency includes solutions that are localized in the Jordanian setting, deal mainly in the temporal present, and include practices such as pursuing education, vocational training, and volunteering opportunities.

Para-mobility is often focused on the future by including a hopefulness for what may become possible outside of Jordan and operates through higher education scholarships, short-term labour contracts in other countries or online, or travel through family relationships and marriage. Together, these para-solutions offer a more complete and intersectional representation of what “solutions” look like from the perspectives of refugees and show how the traditional pathways are always situated within a much broader solutions spectrum that challenges preconceived notions of belonging while also speaking to the critical role of hope.

View the full LERRN Working Paper Series here:

DOI

Citation

Nandi, S., El Abed, O., Bradley, M., Qardan, H. (2024). In The Meantime: Gender, Race, Nationality, and “Para- Solutions” for Refugees in Amman, Jordan. Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN).Ěý