Project Presentation - Art Exhibition and Documentary Screening
Locating the Rural in International Aid Work
Dr Hannah Owens, University of Warwick
About the event: Locating the Rural in International Aid Work invites refugee communities in northern Jordan to creatively respond to the question: what does the rural mean to you?Formal refugee camps continue to be the main site of scholarly research and aid policy, positioning refugee communities living outside of camps as a possible threat. Refugee communities are increasingly geographically spread, and more difficult to identify, categorise and secure. Without clear categories, the rural, both as a space and form of living, has been understudied in academic literature and excluded in policy and practice in international aid, resulting in an aid policy unable to effectively respond to rural refugee needs. To the detriment of rural refugees, humanitarian action has become a system of technocratic governance, capable of their political, social and conceptual erasure. Bringing together community members and aid agency employees,
Locating the Rural investigates the consequences of removing or amalgamating specific geographic spaces in policy.
Please join us for a discussion of these themes, alongside a short documentary-film screening and art exhibition which tell alternative stories of community, protection and displacement.
About the Speaker: Dr Hannah Owens, Assistant Professor in International Relations: Conflict and Security in PAIS.
