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Refugee Homes And The Right To Property: Sunk Costs And Networked Mobility, Jordan Hayes
Refugee Homes And The Right To Property: Sunk Costs And Networked Mobility, Jordan Hayes
Biennial Conference: The Social Practice of Human Rights
For refugees outside their state of origin, access to humanitarian protection can come at the cost of the right to own a home. Following Anneke Smit’s scholarship on the possible contradictions between humanitarian protection and property rights, this paper explores the case of refugee homes built in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) by Syrian asylum seekers. Interviews with Syrian refugees collected in Iraq from 2018-2019 reveal the paradoxical situation faced by refugees who invest time, expertise, memory, hope, and money in a house—yet do not own it. While non-citizens in the KRI rarely have the chance to secure legal …