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In Zaatari camp, Jordan, thousands of Syrian refugees were sheltered in tents and caravans, which they steadily appropriated and turned into dwellings that responded to their social and cultural needs. In this book, Ayham Dalal takes a closer look at this remarkable transformation. He draws on the tension between 'the shelter' and 'the dwelling' to unravel how new spaces unfold in between them, where refugees become architects and the camp is dismantled and reassembled.
From Shelters to Dwellings is the first study to uniquely combine ethnographic observations with new architectural research methods, to illustrate in detail how refugees inhabit shelters. It is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding how camps and shelters are transformed by the powerful act of dwelling.
Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
List of Acronyms 11
List of Arabic Words 13
Introduction 19
Theoretical Overview 45
Interlude. Syrians in Jordan and the Construction of Camps 61
Chapter 1 Zaatari Camp and its Planning 67
Introduction. The Social Ordering of Space 89
Chapter 2 Visual Privacy 97
Chapter 3 Family Relations 109
Chapter 4 Culture, Knowledge, Memory and Identity 121
Outro. From the Social to the Material 143
Chapter 5 The Caravan 153
Chapter 6 Tents, Zinco and Cement 175
Refugees as Architects 195
Conclusion 203
Acknowledgements 209
Bibliography 211