The Refugee Camp as Urban Housing

Housing Studies

This paper is a call to examine refugee camps and urban housing as interlinked phenomena. By comparatively examining the spatial-material arrangements of three Syrian refugee camps in Jordan, it suggests that the ‘how’ question (or how to plan refugee camps) has invited the housing agenda to appear spatially. In the Jordanian case, this has led to the production of three distinctive models of camps-housing namely a ghetto, a gated community and a mass housing project. In the German context, it has led to the production of camps phased into permanent and hybrid models of housing. Finally, and by underlying that the camp is first and foremost a form of urban housing, it suggests that the concepts, themes and analytical tools developed in housing studies has the potential to unpack the complexity of the camp and how it interlinks with our cities and urban realities today.

2020
Housing Studies