Reflecting on urban resilience based on analyses of al-Zaa’tari Camp for Syrian refugees in al-Mafraq, Jordan

Considering the unprecedented and ever-growing number of refugees in the twenty-first century and the issues related to spaces of refuge, now reaching 66 million people, and a roughly estimated seventeen years as the average length of refugees’ stay in a camp, can we still manage these populations from an emergency perspective? Shall we continue to use the city as a comparison-unit to explore these spaces? This research sheds the light on the urban practices that emerge within refugee camps. In doing so, it recognizes spaces of refuge as urban agglomerations. It also acknowledges the life-producing actions of refugees which challenge equating them as mere objects of humanitarian intervention, and the treatment of camps as spaces of “exception” and emergency. The case of al-Zaa’tari Camp for Syrian Refugees in al-Mafraq, Jordan will be used to argue for the importance of spaces of refuge in the planning thought and practice as it sets a profound example of urban resilience. The study concludes with a discussion on the planners’ expected role and intervention in the development of refugee settlements.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.U.P.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Urban Planning

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2018

Author dc:creator

• Zaghloul, Tooma H.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Miraftab, Faranak
• Fawaz, Mona

• Refugee Camp
• Urban Resilience
• Cityness
• Humanitarian Aid
• Urbanization
• Planning Theory
• State of Exception
• Planning Ethics
• Urban Theory

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2018 Tooma H. Zaghloul

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/101604

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/101604