Spatial Behavior and Self-perception in a State of Permanent Temporariness: The Gazan Refugees in Jordan and the bidūn in Kuwait
On Monday, December 13, 2021 – 6:00-8:00 pm in Amman / 5:00-7:00 pm CET
By Odetta Pizzingrilli & Zaid Awamleh
The narratives that endlessly build and and re-build the “national” in Jordan, in turn modifying also the urban structure of its capital, and delimitation of the borders alongside the rise of a Western-like centralized rule in Kuwait, created hybrid antinomic entities that live in what Innab (2016) describes as a “state of permanent temporariness” 1.
The conference discusses how both space and time mold the actual status of the stateless persons within Jordan and Kuwait nation-building processes. By presenting two exemplary and particularly interesting case studies, the Gazan refugees in Jordan and bidūn in Kuwait, we will try to answer to the following question: How do the space where these two social categories live – specifically its architectural, legal, and social boundaries – and the condition of permanent temporariness that they experience, shape their behavior, self-perception and (national) identity?
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No. 822806
(1) Innab, S. (2016), Reading the Modern Narrative of Amman: Between the Nation and the National, in The Arab City in Representation, A. Amale, N., Akawi (eds.), Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, Chicago, p. 119.
Zaid Awamleh is a Humanitarian Architect specializing in the psychology of space / Environment and Behavior Sciences. He is a researcher at ifpo assigned by The French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) on the MAGYC project (Migration Governance and Asylum Crises). Simultaneously, Zaid is the Vice-Chairman of SAIB Humanitarian NGO and the project manager of a rehabilitation program with international development agencies. His work focuses on developing behavioral change methodologies relating to sense and placemaking, resilience, and gender roles with vulnerable communities and refugees. Zaid is a Ph.D. candidate at Leeds Beckett University- UK, holds a Master’s degree in Environment-Behavior Sciences from IEU, and a B.Sc. in Architecture and Interior Architecture from GJU.
Odetta Pizzingrilli is a Research Fellow in History of Islamic Countries at the Department of Political Science at LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome and Adjunct Professor of Arabic Culture and Literature at the Humanities Department of the University of Macerata and of Arabic Language at the Political Sciences Department of Federico II University (Naples). Her research focuses on nation/state building-process of the Arab states, national identity formation, minorities, and minoritization processes. She gained research experiences in Syria, Jordan, and Kuwait while working on her Ph.D. project “State and Legitimacy within an Arab-Muslim context. Understanding the identity criteria in Jordan and Kuwait”. Among her publications: Pizzingrilli, O. “Circassians: An Identity in Exile. The Case of Jordan, a Minority at the Royal Palace”, 159-186. Studi Magrebini, XVI:2018. (02/2019); Pizzingrilli, O. “Transnational identity and Circassians in contemporary Jordan (1991-2018)” in Maggiolini, P. & Ouahes, I. (ed.) Minorities and State-Building in the Middle East: The Case of Jordan. Palgrave Mcmillan, London (2020); Pizzingrilli, O. Translation of the novel Shajarat al-bu’s (1944) by Taha Husayn, Istituto per l’Oriente Carlo Alfonso Nallino (2021).
Program
On Monday, December 13, 2021 – 6:00-8:00 pm in Amman / 5:00-7:00 pm CET
At the Institut français de Jordanie (Amman)
and online via this link :https://cnrs.zoom.us/j/
