Living on the move, dwelling between temporality and permanence in Syria
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Living on the move, dwelling between temporality and permanence in Syria M. Wesam Al Asali1 · Elizabeth Wagemann2 · Michael H. Ramage1 Received: 26 September 2017 / Accepted: 26 May 2019 © The Author(s) 2019
Abstract Although the international displacement of people caused by the Syrian conflict has dominated the media for the past several years, an inside story that is less visible requires more attention: that of internal displacement. More than half of the population of Syria has been forced to flee their houses. Internally displaced persons (IDPs) in December 2017 accounted for more than six and a half million, more than a third of the total of population of Syria in 2011 (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC), 2012. http://www. internal-displacement.org/middle-east-and-north-africa/syria/). Displaced Syrians have experienced constraints in getting adequate housing for the short- and mid-term inside and outside the country. However, internal displacement, in particular, adds a dimension to the complex notion of mass sheltering. Sheltering policies, or lack thereof, as well as the shelter itself as a design and construction product all express the power of those who govern more than the aspirations of those who inhabit. Affected groups find solutions by themselves, via national or international organisations, or a combination of both. However, such solutions function under the influence of authorities controlling the area in which IDPs are received. Among the alternatives available to displaced communities, this paper reviews two cases of internally displaced families in Syria: a collective centre in government-controlled Damascus (schools) and a planned camp in Afes village in a rebel-held area near Idlib. Keywords Internally displaces persons · Temporary housing · Mud villages · Post-disaster housing · Shelter · Syrian conflict
* M. Wesam Al Asali [email protected] Elizabeth Wagemann [email protected] Michael H. Ramage [email protected] 1
University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
2
Facultad de Humanidades, Escuela de Arquitectura, Universidad Mayor, Santiago, Chile
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1 Introduction: home away from home Adequate housing is recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25) as part of the right to an adequate standard of living (United Nations 1948). Nevertheless, over a billion people worldwide are not adequately housed (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) 2014). Housing is more than a shelter. Houses provide human dignity, personal safety, security, cultural identity and protection from the climate and diseases (Ferrer et al. 2009). The loss of one’s house implies more than the absence of shelter; it also implies the lack of home, in the broader sense. Somerville defines seven dimensions of home: shelter, hearth, heart, privacy, roots, abode and paradise (Somerville 1992, p. 532). If home encompasses these complex dimensions, homelessness can be understood as the lack of them, wh
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