South-South Educational Migration, Humanitarianism and Development

In a field where decentralised and historically-grounded studies remain rare, Fiddian-Qasmiyeh questions common assumptions about the nature, foundations, and lived experiences of humanitarian action. By documenting refugees’ perceptions and pathways, she demonstrates that ‘alternative’ models of support originating in the global South are neither utopias of solidarity nor mere political instruments. A challenging yet accessible insight into the complex identities, conflicting opportunities and paradoxical outcomes of humanitarian action.

Eleanor Davey, University of Manchester, UK

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh’s excellent research opens our eyes to an important and neglected phenomenon: the transnational movement of refugees from one Southern state to another for educational purposes. Based on in-depth fieldwork, the author explains the politics underlying such movements and their social consequences, and unpacks the implications for how we think about humanitarianism and development. The book is accessible, well-written, and highly original.

Alexander Betts, University of Oxford, UK

This book draws attention to some of the most significant experiences of international migration today, those of Palestinian and Sahrawi refugee-migrant-students, as they exercise agency over their own lives pursuing ambitious education and employment goals in their camps in the MENA region and beyond. Their trials, tribulations and achievements are traced in minute detail from the perspective of individuals, families and (stateless) nations. This indispensible book also investigates the transnational education systems that have welcomed thousands of these and other refugees in Cuba and Libya. These modes of South-South co-operation and solidarity are largely unknown in the global North, and they are analysed here on the basis of extensive fieldwork in three continents. This book is a remarkable achievement, and it will remain an essential reference in the field.

Alfredo Saad-Filho, University of London, UK

Challenging canonical studies of Western-centric humanitarianism, this book unearths the neglected history of Southern-led interventions developed as a response to and in solidarity with Palestinian and Sahrawi refugees. Fiddian-Qasmiyeh carefully analyses the intersecting case-studies of Palestinians and Sahrawis educated in Libya and Cuba, and traces their personal, professional and political experiences of returning as refugee-graduates to their home-camps in Lebanon and Algeria. Her thorough and critical assessment of Derrida and Agamben provides the critical foundations to centralise the agency of these refugees, and to further problematise the complex relationship between hospitality and hostility in these encounters.

Sari Hanafi, American University of Beirut, Lebanon