Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Elena; Stonebridge, Lyndsey; Greatrick, Aydan; (2021) Engaging with Histories and Narratives of Displacement. (Refugee Hosts Project – Recommendations for Research and Practice 2). Refugee Hosts: London, UK.

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Abstract

In humanitarian contexts, poetry and creative approaches are often side-lined or presented as superfluous to the pressing needs that arise in emergency situations. A short-term emphasis on immediate needs has also led to creative approaches being side-lined, with such approaches often addressing narrative, memory, and history. However, as shown by the Refugee Hosts project’s research with nine local communities responding to displacement in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, creative approaches, such as poetry and writing workshops with communities, enable people to share past and ongoing experiences, and to build and sustain different forms of solidarity in the present and future. Creative approaches can develop insights into historical, political, religious, and communal ways of being that provide important counterweights to short-term decision making. Finding ways to engage with communities through creative approaches helps to make space for the articulation of memories and narratives that better inform interventions in the short and long-term. Creative writing, historical narratives and the arts allow practitioners to better acknowledge the multi-layered, historical, and emotional complexity that exists in displacement contexts and offers approaches that support community dialogue. This Research Brief calls for humanitarian practitioners to meaningfully engage with creative writing, history and the arts when working in displacement-affected contexts.

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