Precarious Places: Social Cohesion, Wellbeing and Place Attachment in Refugee-Host interactions, 2017

Adams, Helen and Ghanem, Samar and Collins, Máiréad (2022). Precarious Places: Social Cohesion, Wellbeing and Place Attachment in Refugee-Host interactions, 2017. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Archive. 10.5255/UKDA-SN-853108

Lebanon has absorbed over a million people fleeing the conflict in Syria. Weak governance and limited resources threaten the wellbeing of newly arrived populations and exacerbate tensions with host populations. The protracted nature of the Syrian conflict requires consideration of long term solutions to the refugee crisis. This project uses place attachment to understand: a) wellbeing in precarious mobile populations; and b) root causes of social tensions between newly-arrived and host populations. The research does this by testing hypotheses on the role of place attachment in building resilience and the role of place identity in causing social tensions. Thus the project can inform interventions to build positive resilience and social cohesion in displaced and host populations. Ultimately, the viability and relative merits of long term solutions will depend on the nature of the place attachments of those affected.

Data description (abstract)

This collection contains English transcripts of twenty semi-structured interviews carried out in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon during July 2017. Four different groups of people were approached for interview: Syrian refugees, Palestinian Refugees from Syria, Lebanese host communities and Palestinian Refugees from Lebanon. The interviews took place with households living in informal tented settlements and privately-rented accommodation. We asked questions about sense of place, mobility and meaningful locations. We wanted to know whether and how respondents formed attachments to meaningful places, the characteristics of those places, and the feelings they evoked.

Data creators:

Creator Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Adams Helen	King's College London	https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1732-9833
Ghanem Samar	American University of Beirut
Collins Máiréad	ForumZFD/Christian Aid

Sponsors:

British Academy

Grant reference:

IC160149

Topic classification:

Social welfare policy and systems
Demography (population, vital statistics and censuses)
Society and culture
Psychology

Keywords:

REFUGEES, LEBANON, POST-CONFLICT SITUATIONS, SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC, PALESTINE, REFUGEE CAMPS, HUMAN SETTLEMENT, RESISTANCE TO CHANGE, IDENTITY, DIASPORA, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, POVERTY, ATTITUDE CHANGE, EMOTIONAL DISTURBANCES

Project title:

Precarious Places: Social cohesion, resilience and place attachment of refugees in Lebanon

Alternative title:

Same space, different place: Understanding how bonds to place affect well-being and social-cohesion in Syrian refugees and their Lebanese host communities

Grant holders:

Helen Adams

Project dates:

From	To
27 March 2017	31 August 2018

Date published:

07 Oct 2022 12:57

Last modified:

07 Oct 2022 12:58

Coverage and Methodology

Temporal coverage:

From	To
1 January 2011	21 July 2017

Collection period:

Date from:	Date to:
10 July 2017	21 July 2017

Geographical area:

Bekaa Valley

Country:

Lebanon

Spatial unit:

No Spatial Unit

Data collection method:

We carried out 45 semi-structured interviews over two weeks in July 2017 in the Bekaa Valley. This period of data collection was supplemented by two pilot visits in 2017, and follow up interviews in 2018, when research outcomes were also brought back to the respondents (in the form of a report and graphic novel in Arabic).

Half of the interviews were with refugees from Syria (defined as anybody who had come from Syria under conditions of stress or duress since 2011) living in informal tented settlements or privately rented accommodation. The remainder of the interviews were with the local host population. Within the refugee respondents, half were Palestinian refugees from Syria (PRS) and within the host respondents, half were Palestinian refugees from Lebanon (PRL).

Interviews took place in a town in the Bekaa Valley, which is close to the Syrian border and has experienced a four-fold increase in its population since the crisis began in Syria. Interviewees were identified in partnership with a local fixer, working closely with a local NGO.

Of the 45 interviews, 20 were selected for transcription in Arabic, translation into English and subsequent analysis. We chose five from each sub-group (Syrian, PRS, Lebanese and PRL) balancing across gender, type of accommodation and socio-economic status.

Observation unit:

Household

Kind of data:

Text

Type of data:

Qualitative and mixed methods data

Resource language:

English

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Website

King's College London project page

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