Paper details

Paper authors	Maria Neto
In panel on	Residential trajectories of refugees, migrants and asylum seekers: vulnerabilities, assistance and policies
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

This paper focuses on the refugee condition and the spatial repercussion of this status - more specifically in refugee camps in protracted situations - of its mechanisms of creation and maintenance and the potential of the technique and design tools at the disposal of the architect to intervene in these spaces. Through the refugee as an informant, we were able to cross the experience of those who lived in these spaces of refuge and those who made long trips to Europe seeking asylum. We have concluded that contrary to the evidence of the lack of shelter conditions in most refugee camps, as or more dramatic than the harsh living conditions that refugees are confronted with, it is the citizenship hiatus that makes these spaces truly inhuman. Aware of the problems and limitations that exist in refugee camps but also aware of the challenges and complexities of the refuge in the city, we question whether the refugee camp or the traditional city will be able to give an effective answer to the refugee issues or will it be necessary to think in a ´third way´?
We argue that refugee freedom allows us to go further, recognizing the world that refugees made, not just the world that was made for them. Within this context, we launched the following hypothesis: what if the camp could be the contemporary figure of the ´city of refuge´, and be used as an engine of urbanity? "Would the City, a right of the cities, a new sovereignty of the cities, open here an original space that interstate-national law was unable to open?"1

1 Derrida, J., 2001. Cosmopolitas de todos os países, mais um esforço!. Coimbra:Minerva., p.25. (loose translation)

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