Dwelling in Possibilities: Reflections on Refugee Policies and Practices Through Narrating Syrian Women’s Journey from Displacement to Resettlement in the US

Dwelling in Possibilities presents an ethnographic and analytical focus on the intersection of immigration policies, refugee rights, and humanitarian operations from a feminist perspective. It emphasizes the lives of Syrian women refugees who have been resettled in the United States. It delves into the fragmented lives and experiences of the liminality of Syrian women since their displacement due to the 2011 civil war in Syria. It explores their long and arduous journey out of Syria to being accepted as legible bodies and recognized as refugees in the United States.The project critically examines inconsistencies and contradictions within the international norms and the US national legal discourses and practices on “refugee protection'. From the definition of the term refugee to humanitarian operations to managing refugee populations, to admission processes within the UN and the U.S. immigration laws and resettlement policies, I investigate how refugees' stories, sensibilities, and experiences are filtered through an interlinked politics of compassion and suspicion, embedded in humanitarian actions and legal discourses. Simultaneously, I explore how Syrian women navigate and make sense of their gender, sexual, and religious identity in complex times and spaces, creating new forms of life, new homes, and communities.