Forced Migration in Jordan: Reception Policies and Settlement Strategies

Jordan currently hosts the second largest percentage of registered refugees in the
world: three million out of its eleven million inhabitants. Its experience in hosting
migrants and refugees precedes its independence in 1946, with the arrival of
Circassians, Chechens, and Armenians from the late 19th century. Jordan thus
constitutes a unique observatory for reception policies and long-term settlement of
different migrant groups.

Based on original empirical and archival material, this volume focuses on migrations
caused by conflicts, wars, and crises underscoring their articulation with longstanding
human mobility. It sheds light on the cumulative and processual dimensions
of Jordan’s reception policies and migrants’ settlement strategies. It identifies the
multiple actors involved in the management of migrants and, conversely, the latter’s
contribution to the Jordanian social, economic, political, and urban fabric.

The first part of the volume examines the policies adopted by the Jordanian
authorities and international organizations to regulate access to basic services and to
the labour market, and explores the economic and political factors underlying them.
The second part analyzes the effects of Jordan’s policies on the territorial distribution
and settlement of migrants. How have these policies, combined with the adaptation
strategies of migrants contributed to shaping new urban spaces? The third part
focuses on capacity of the migrants to activate, establish, (re)build, and intersect
different kinds of solidarity networks within the context of protracted displacement.

Jalal Al Husseini is a political scientist and associate research fellow at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo) in Amman, Jordan. He is co-editor of the book Les Palestiniens entre État et Diaspora: Le temps des incertitudes (2015).

Valentina Napolitano is a research fellow at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (Ifpo) in Amman, Jordan. She has co-edited the book Violence et militantisme: Parcours de militants dans le monde arabe, (2017).

Norig Neveu is a research fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in Paris, France. She is a member of several international programmes on refugees and migration in the Middle East, including ANR Lajeh and H2020 MAGYC.