“Employees of the Refugees”: The Improvement of Services and Governance through Refugee Protest in Zaatari Camp

Abstract:

This thesis explores how Syrian refugees living in Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan brought about improvements to services and camp governance through protest. Standard academic literature on protest links resources such as formal social movement organizations, strategy, and sustained efforts over time to successful outcomes. However, marginalized and vulnerable populations, including refugees in Zaatari camp, do not necessarily have access to these resources. I argue that refugees were successful in achieving desired protest outcomes in spite of being “resource-poor” because their disruptive tactics forced camp management to take note of their demands and, in the long term, generated new modes of interaction between refugees and aid workers. These new ways of interacting, in turn, enabled refugees to better negotiate and hold camp staff accountable to service delivery. My findings draw on sixty interviews conducted in 2016 and 2017 in Jordan, including thirty interviews with Syrian refugees and thirty interviews with aid workers and UN officials.