Policy and Time

The Lebanon case “Policy and Time” of the Rights for Time Project explores how historical legacies, accumulated practices, and recurrent policy cycles have informed the crafting of Lebanon’s politics of reception towards refugees, the international politics of humanitarian funding in the small polity as well as the multi-level governance of Lebanon’s cumulative and cyclical “crises”. The case analysis aims to understand how policy-making cycles interact with broader social and cultural settings, and how such policies are constructed along a continuum of perceptions and communal imaginaries that accumulated over time.

Lebanon is a unique and valuable case for analysis of how historical dynamics continually re-emerge, interact, and affect contemporary policies and decisions. Therefore, Policy and Time pays specific attention to policy-making cycles, conflict phases and developments in Lebanon in light of the codification of country politics and governance before and during its independence; various periods of internal upheaval, transformation, and conflict; and external events and impacts on the country from regional and global sources.

Abstract:

This brief “Tangled Crises and Temporalities: The 1958 Crisis in Lebanon” by Stella Peisch focuses on this seminal year in Lebanese history to explore the interplay between crisis, temporality, and politics. As one of the project’s objectives is to use case studies as exploratory tools for understanding the nexus between time and policy, this brief puts forward both analysis and recommendations to inform multiple stakeholders as to how national, regional, and international policies and temporalities can combine into moments of crises. It therefore promotes engagement with context-based temporalities to encourage policy solutions that are more attuned to on-the-ground realities and experiences.

Abstract:

This Rights for Time “Policy and Time Strand, Lebanon” working paper examines how some temporal concepts are manifested in the narratives of Armenians in Lebanon – for many of them, decades after their ancestors arrived in Lebanon as refugees; or, for others, following their or their parents’ more recent move to Lebanon from other countries in the region that have experienced wars or other types of tension, mainly Iraq and Syria. More specifically, the paper argues that temporality manifests in these narratives mainly through references to past events, the memory of or experiences of actual journeys to ancestral lands, and a sense of uncertainty related to the present and future. By focusing on the Armenian case, the paper diverges from many recent studies on displacement in Lebanon dealing with the topic of temporality, which focus mostly on Syrian and Palestinian refugees. While these displacement cases provide valuable insights on time in refugee studies in Lebanon, this paper advocates for a more historicized focus, taking the case of a diasporic group whose refugee origins largely go back more than a century. The case of Armenians in Lebanon is also interesting because despite the long presence of many of them in the country, the community has also received newer refugee waves from Iraq and mainly Syria in more recent years, thus helping inform some comparative analysis. Such historicization of temporality analysis could provide valuable lessons for scholarly researchers, policymakers, humanitarian actors, and refugee/community organizations or leaders regarding more recent refugee waves. This is especially relevant in the case of Lebanon, given the multiple waves of displacement cases the country has experienced and taking into consideration the protracted nature of some of them. The paper relies on interviews with Armenians of different backgrounds residing in Lebanon conducted as part of the Armenian Diaspora Survey (ADS)’s qualitative component in 2019.

Abstract:

This briefing, titled “Resettlement Aspirations Versus Realities: Exploring the Expectations of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon,” delves into the significant gap between the pervasive “feeling of stuckness” and the “hope of resettlement” among Syrian refugees in Lebanon. It examines these refugees’ lived experiences of vulnerability and highlights resettlement as their foremost aspiration. However, this aspiration is tempered by the harsh reality that resettlement opportunities are becoming increasingly scarce, making the prospect feel distant and, at times, unlikely.

Further, this briefing analyses that although resettlement in third countries often brings significant life improvements for Syrian refugees, such as new homes and resettlement assistance, they also encounter numerous challenges in their host countries. These challenges highlight the complex reality of resettlement, where initial hopes for stability frequently clash with new obstacles and uncertainties.

By shedding light on these dynamics, the briefing aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the resettlement aspirations of Syrian refugees in Lebanon, juxtaposed with the practical realities they face.