Introduction
In the short story Before the Law, Franz Kafka writes about a man from the country who attempts to access the law. At the gate to the law stands a guard who denies the man access but does so with the mysterious non-promise that it is possible that the man will be allowed to enter later. The man ends up waiting. He waits until he grows old and dies. He is never granted access to the law.
Kafka’s story about the man from the country shows us that law’s promise to be a means through which we can achieve certain goals can be illusory as the law can work on us while not working for us. Nevertheless, law’s promise can appear so compelling or inescapable that it can seem impossible to abandon it. In this interpretation, Kafka’s tale brings to mind the predicament faced by most refugees. As people are displaced by war or individual persecution, they leave behind one order of law and can find it difficult (or impossible) to start new lives before they are included in another. This relates to the modern state system where a person’s opportunities depend on the status they hold in relation to the legal order of the state in which they reside (Arendt 1951, 2007 [1943]). For this reason, refugees, refugee organisations and refugee scholars are often preoccupied with questions about the processes through which refugees are admitted into the legal and political order of receiving countries (e.g. Betts and Milner 2019). One area of debate focuses on whether refugee governance should follow international law or local custom (e.g. Chatty 2017b). The field of refugee studies also deals explicitly with how refugees themselves navigate the question of gaining access to the law in receiver states (e.g. Lecadet 2016). Researchers ask what kinds of access different people seek? How they want to utilise this access? And, from where they draw these ideas? Thinking with Kafka’s man from the country we could also ask if refugees will wait at law’s gate until they wither and die or will find other ways of pursuing their objectives in life.
Specifically in relation to Syrian refugees in the Middle East these questions have recently been discussed in terms of the relative promises and pitfalls of the ways in which receiver states have conceptualised their welcome of Syrians and the kinds of access to the law this has entailed. As most of Syria’s neighbour states are not signatories to or have only ratified limited versions of the 1951 refugee convention and its 1967 protocol, they are not bound by international standards for how to deal with refugees. However, in response to the enormous influx of Syrians, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey have crafted and implemented new legal frameworks and categories. This has largely resulted in a reception of Syrians as “guests” rather than as “refugees” and this welcome has been conceptualised as acts of hospitality. This has entailed policies allowing Syrians to self-settle while denying them permanent or fixed term residence permits, a universal right to work and equal access to education (Ataç et.al. 2017; Lenner and Turner 2019). In examinations of this situation, some scholars argue that traditional customs of hospitality go a long way towards offering Syrians access to opportunities and networks that allow them to build new lives in displacement in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey (Alkan 2021; Chatty 2017a; Hanafi 2022). Others posit that state claims of hospitality effectively constitute Syrians as strangers to the land who occupy an inferior position as indebted to their hosts (e.g. Carpi and Şenoğuz 2018; Dağtas 2017). One aspect of the discussion is the question of whether hospitality or (refugee) rights is the better option for Syrians. Some argue that a rights-based approach would put Syrians on a more equal footing with the host population (e.g. Al-Khalili 2023). Others argue that a rights-based approach holds the same dangers of exclusion and hostility as does hospitality (e.g. Chatty 2017b). More than anything else the debate reflects the challenges entailed in finding adequate ways of accommodating millions of Syrians seeking refuge in neighbouring states whose populations are themselves already struggling economically, socially and/or politically.
Among these youths the question of rights versus hospitality was tackled not as a matter of either/or but rather of balancing both–and.
In this essay, I engage with the debate to argue that we should take a cue from the nuanced and pragmatic ways in which the young Syrians and Jordanians I encountered during research in Jordan in 2021–23 approached the issue. Among these youths the question of rights versus hospitality was tackled not as a matter of either/or but rather of balancing both–and. In fact, the young men and women with whom I worked invoked a range of different ideas about how to claim a place in Jordan that mixed together notions of human rights, knowledge drawn from pre-uprising Syria and responses to their current situation in Jordan. As their multifaceted perspectives on their situation involved locally anchored arguments for rights, the youth moreover implicitly challenged any neat distinction between hospitality as a local tradition and rights as related to an international refugee regime. As such they combined rights thinking and hospitality thinking in locally oriented forms to chart out an alternative approach to refugee reception in the quite specific Jordanian context. Heeding the perspectives of these youth therefore offers a way into navigating the ongoing mass displacement of Syrians just as it provides valuable insights for similar situations elsewhere. Significantly, although the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria in December 2024 has set many Syrians in neighbouring countries on a path towards return, most hope to stay on where they are at least until conditions in Syria improve considerably. Finding ways to allow them to do so remains vital.
Taking a walk in the Jordanian countryside around 20 kilometres from the border to Syria, 2023. © The author.
Entrepreneurial Syrian youth in Jordan
The empirical material on which this essay builds was collected through the research project Viable Futures. This project investigated how Syrian youth in Jordan perceived their social, economic and political conditions and what roads they saw to the future. The research brought together 38 Syrian and Jordanian research assistants, two Jordanian project managers, three Danish researchers and five Danish students. Over two years (2021-22) we worked together to collect testimonies from Syrians aged 16 to 30 and living in the Jordanian cities of Amman, Irbid, and Salt (on methodological questions see Holst et.al. 2023). Some testimonies were collected by the students who each did several months of fieldwork with various groups of young Syrian men and women. 360 testimonies were collected by the 27 female and 11 male research assistants who conducted qualitative interviews with their peers. These research assistants who came from a variety of socio-economic backgrounds but were often pursuing university or other forms of education, first received training in interview techniques and participant observation from the project managers. During the training, the whole group moreover discussed a tentative interview guide that had been proposed by the Danish researchers. Changes were made when research assistants, students or project managers made objections or had different suggestions. At intervals during interview periods, we would convene for three-day workshops to discuss the collected material. At these workshops everyone put forward their analysis of the data and research assistants often discussed it with and against their own experiences as youths in Jordan. Especially for the 26 Syrian research assistants, the analyses they proposed were also a way for them to think through their own situation in light of what a larger group of young Syrians had to say. This sometimes led them to reevaluate their own perspective on their individual life. At other times it led them to reflect on the differences in how people experienced circumstances in Jordan. The result was nuanced analyses parts of which were later published in a separate volume (Bandak et.al. 2023). In this essay, I draw on these analyses as well as the interview and fieldwork material.
Notes for discussions at workshop in Irbid, Jordan, 2022. © The author.
Syrians’ perspectives: hospitality, reciprocity and rights in Jordan
Jordan’s welcome of Syrians since 2011 has been cloaked in the language of hospitality to guests. This rhetoric evokes traditional Arab as well as Islamic idioms of honourable behaviour and mirrors the kind of language the previous King used about Palestinian refugees (Kelberer 2017; Shryock 2012). The rhetoric appeared to be doing two things for the Jordanian state. First, it allowed them to designate Syrians as temporary visitors and thus avoid any intimation that Syrians would challenge the demographic balance in Jordan (see Lenner 2020). Second, it provided them with a moral platform from which to argue for more assistance from the international community. For instance, in speeches to the UN and in interviews, Queen Rania talked about Jordan’s profound wish to support Syrians but also the heavy economic and security-related burden this placed on the country. She thus used the language of hospitality to appeal for assistance to Jordan.
Jordan’s claim that they were offering hospitality to Syrians was not unfounded. Until the influx of Syrians became too overwhelming during 2012, Jordan allowed Syrians to freely enter the country and self-settle in whatever town or rural area they saw fit. As many tribes and families cut across the border, most Syrians could moreover draw on tribal or kinship ties to find help to get settled (Chatty 2017a, 2017b). As such the state opened its territory to Syrians and tribes/families offered practical and emotional support. Significantly, none of the young Syrians I encountered through the research rejected Jordanian hospitality. On the contrary, several research assistants expressed gratitude at the ‘open border welcome’ extended to them by Jordan at the beginning of the war in Syria. Hospitality was also implicitly embraced as interlocutors preferred to live where they could self-settle rather than going to camps where they would be provided for by the UNHCR. Syrian and Jordanian interlocutors moreover unanimously explained that Syrians and Jordanians ‘are one people’ and Syrians talked about Jordanians as their friends, neighbours and brothers. There was a widespread sentiment that the welcome and social relationships Jordanians extended to Syrians made Jordan feel like home. In this way hospitality worked at both the national/state level and the interpersonal level. On the national level it was a rhetoric that gave Syrians access to Jordan and to self-settlement. On the interpersonal level it was a practice that allowed Syrians to establish friendships and work relationships with Jordanians. Together the two levels entailed circumscribed routes through which Syrians could forge new existences in Jordan.
Just as the state invoked an abstract notion of hospitality to justify its policies, several young Syrians invoked an abstract notion of reciprocity to justify their request to become a more integral part of Jordanian society.
Appreciation of the hospitality extended to Syrians from Jordan and Jordanians notwithstanding, the role of ‘guest’ also entailed limitations. One issue was that Syrians’ status implied that they would not become permanent or fully included members of Jordanian society (see also Carpi and Şenoğuz 2018). Although a few interlocutors accepted this position, most wanted to become part of Jordanian society as they saw no options of going back to Syria (in 2021–23). They argued for such inclusion in two distinct ways that existed alongside each other rather than as one coherent suggestion. One invoked a different use of the principle of reciprocity which is entailed in host-guest relationships (see Shryock 2012). In relation to the rhetoric of Jordanian authorities who spoke of Syrians as guests who were also a burden, several interlocutors (of both genders) underlined that they were eager to contribute to society in whatever way they could. One research assistant wrote that integration into Jordanian society “[would allow] refugees [to] contribute to the development and production of the host country, as well as boosting the economy. Thus, the refugee will be transformed from a burden to an active member of society” (Bandak et.al. 2023, 50). Another research assistant stated that “Syrians have a lot to offer” (ibid., 19). As such, many interlocutors saw an opportunity to utilise the idea of reciprocity to expand the terms of their inclusion in Jordan/Jordanian society. Just as the state invoked an abstract notion of hospitality to justify its policies, several young Syrians invoked an abstract notion of reciprocity to justify their request to become a more integral part of Jordanian society. They were thus arguing for inclusion (in the sense of having opportunities equal to those of Jordanians) not only based on their background as refugees from war but also in relation to a wish to be useful rather than a burden.
The other argument targeted specific rights and opportunities that many interlocutors deemed necessary for their ability to forge stable existences in Jordan. Interlocutors specifically highlighted access to education and health care, work in skilled professions and permission to buy property as necessary to build decent lives. Especially the young men complained that they often had to accept work without a contract and with low wages and that they could not invest the money they had in something more permanent like a house. They were thus forced to live from hand to mouth on a day-to-day basis (see Hastrup et.al. 2023). In addition to simply stating that these specific opportunities were necessary to forge stable existences, interlocutors invoked two justifications explaining why they should have these rights. A few referred to education as a “human right” (Bandak et.al. 2023, 5). Several explained that Syrians were used to having free access to education and health care in (pre-uprising) Syria and therefore were struggling to suddenly be expected to pay for this. One research assistant wrote that “[c]ompared to Syria, where higher education was fully free” (ibid., 33), conditions in Jordan presented an obstacle for youth. To be sure, interlocutors were not making a claim that pre-uprising Syria was a rights-based order. Rather, by contrasting the provisions provided in the relatively welfarist Syrian system to the more neo-liberal Jordanian system, they were able to pinpoint some of the challenges they faced in Jordan as well as the kinds of rights they would need to overcome these challenges.
Although Jordan has only granted Syrians limited rights in the name of hospitality, agreements like the 2016 Jordan Compact brokered with the EU show that the government has been willing to allow Syrians more opportunities if it can see a viable path towards this. The Jordan Compact secured the possibility of accessing work permits for 200,000 Syrians in exchange for Jordanian access to EU markets. The deal alerts us to the malleable character of Jordanian state hospitality to Syrians as it illustrates that hospitality is a placeholder that can be filled with various content. However, the deal was not very successful because the work opportunities offered were not versatile enough to provide real options for Syrians (see Lenner and Turner 2019). Heeding the rights-related as well as the reciprocity-related advice of young Syrians and Jordanians like the ones I worked with in 2021-23 would be one aspect of securing a more successful outcome. As young Syrians exhibited a remarkable pragmatism and a profound wish to work with Jordanian agendas rather than only their own, they charted out locally anchored rights-based approaches to hospitality that would allow them to claim a place in Jordan. As most of them prefer to stay in Jordan for the foreseeable future, listening to their concerns and ideas is as relevant as ever despite recent, joyous events in Syria.
Acknowledgements
This essay has grown out of ongoing conversations with other participants in the research network The Legal Afterlives of War and Revolution. It has moreover benefited from generous feedback on the ideas presented in it from Marika Sosnowski, Samantha Balaton-Chrimes, André Dao, Veronica Ferreri and the editors at Allegra. I am grateful to everyone for their time and input.
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Featured image courtesy of the author.
Abstract: Based on qualitative research with Syrian and Jordanian youth in Jordan in 2021-23, this essay unfolds the pragmatic ways in which young Syrians knocked on the gate of the Jordanian state. As Jordan (like most neighbouring states) has presented its welcome of Syrians as an act of hospitality to guests, Syrians have been given very few rights but have largely been allowed to self-settle. While hospitality as an approach to refugee governance has been criticised by researchers and international aid agencies, the young Syrians with whom I worked neither rejected nor fully embraced hospitality. Rather they responded to the situation by balancing their gratefulness for hospitality with various arguments for rights that heeded the specificity of circumstances in Jordan. In this way they charted out locally anchored ways to improve their situation. The article argues that efforts to aid Syrians could benefit significantly from taking such pragmatic youth perspectives into account and suggests that this would be true for other refugee situations as well. As most of the youths I worked with prefer to stay in Jordan at least until the situation in Syria improves considerably, their perspectives are also still relevant to their own predicament.
