Chercheuse associée

Associate research fellow

Ifpo – Amman, Jordanie

Personal page

Biography

Valentina Napolitano is an associate researcher at IFPO, where she was formerly a doctoral fellow (2010-2012). She taught at the Institute of Political Science in Aix-en-Provence (2014-2016) and obtained a Phd in Political Studies from the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris. Her dissertation “Engaging in Yarmuk : the sociology of Palestinian activism in Syria” is based on fieldwork carried out between 2008 and 2011 in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk in the southern suburbs of Damascus. It examines the evolution of political engagement among different generations of Palestinians in Syria (between 1960 and 2014). Her current researches deal with the issue of mobilizations among refugee populations and more generally in context of violence and uncertainty.

Research project

In the frame of the ANR Lajeh, she explores political and social mobilization of refugees issued from the Syrian conflict (both Syrians and Palestinians) and actually resident in Turkey and Lebanon. This research follows the axes 2 and 3, and focus more precisely on the role of “militant networks” in both migratory trajectories and the reconstruction of a Syrian society in exile. This research will outline how the militant networks formed during the Syrian uprising, and even before for Palestinians engaged for their national issue, impacted or not the migratory choices and provided refugees with a first network of relationship in exile. For this research she will carry out fieldwork in the Turkish town of Gaziantep, which become one of the main centre for the Syrian activism; and in Beyrouth, which host many Palestinians refugees coming from Syria and would allow to observe the role of political ties with Palestinians community in Lebanon.

Keywords

Engagements, Mobilizations, Violence, Uncertainty, Militant networks, Militant trajectories

Associate Research Fellow, Contemporary Studies Department, Ifpo, Jordan and Iraq

Personal pages

Academia https://ifporient.academia.edu/GéraldineChatelard

Ifpo http://www.ifporient.org/node/1510

Biography

Géraldine Chatelard earned a doctorate in History from the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris (2000). Her disciplinary approach lies at the intersection of historiography, social anthropology, and political sociology. Since 2000, from an academic and policy perspective, she has been looking at various aspects of Iraqi mobilities, migration, and displacement. Initially, her focus was on the reception of the pre- and post-2003 Iraqi refugees in Jordan, and on the social and geographical trajectories of Iraqi (forced-)migrants in the Middle East and beyond. In recent years, her focus has shifted towards the politics of mobility in Iraq. She now conducts field work mostly in southern Iraq, and amongst Iraqi communities in Jordan and California.

Research project

Years of research engagement with Iraqi refugees and other migrants have led me to realise that the Iraqi state has been central to their experience not only as a cause of emigration, but throughout their displacement/migratory experience. My current project examines how Iraqi public policies on emigration and emigrants have evolved since the 1970s, how they have been enforced and experienced at home and in countries with large numbers of Iraqi emigrants near and far from Iraq, and if the presence of numerous refugees and exiles in the diaspora has influenced policy-making and the way policies have been received by emigrants. Furthermore, in relations with the questions Axis 3 of the LAJEH project proposes to explore, my research examines the role of Iraq as a sending/origin country in shaping the politics and context of (forced-)migrant reception, particularly in Jordan.

Key words

Emigration policies, reception policies, bilateral relations, state transnationalism, refugee diaspora