TRAFIG (Transnational Figurations of Displacement) holds first Stakeholder Workshop in Irbid, Jordan

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TRAFIG holds first Stakeholder Workshop in Irbid, Jordan

On 9 February, the first interactive TRAFIG stakeholder workshop took place in Irbid, Jordan. It kicked off a series of events in the TRAFIG focus countries. This first workshop aimed to discuss viable policy options and good practices and supports the identification of possible solutions to protracted displacement.

Organised by Yarmouk University in cooperation with BICCCMI and ICMPD, it further built on the preliminary research results of the TRAFIG project and invited workshop participants to contribute to the analysis of these results. At the opening of the workshop, the vice-president for administrative affairs of Yarmouk University, Prof. Anis Khasawneh, addressed his welcome remarks to the participants. He emphasised the significance of the Syrian crisis for Jordan as a major host country and the objective of the university to promote excellence in this field of research. After a presentation of the objectives of the project by Benjamin Etzold, BICC, Fawwaz Momani, Yarmouk University, introduced the research team and presented the research methods applied in the Jordanian context, consisting of qualitative interviews, quantitative data collection and analysis, ethnographic methods as well as group consultations. Sarah Tobin, CMI, presented the preliminary research findings in four of the TRAFIG themes, namely “Navigating through Governance Regimes”, “Living in Limbo”, “Following the Networks” and “Building Alliances”. The results were drawn based on more than 100 interviews with Syrian refugees in Irbid, hosting about 30% of the country’s urban refugees; Mafraq which was one of the earliest sites for Syrian refugees to congregate in Jordan; and Zaatari, one of the largest refugee camps in the world.