ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a theoretical perspective on how Za’atri refugee camp environment in Jordan is ‘governmentalized’ (Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991) by humanitarian nongovernmental technologies, but at the same time ‘environmentalized’(Agrawal, 2005) by refugees’ subjectivities. I approach and develop the argument of the refugee camp environment by a critical analysis of what ‘environment’ means in the Arabic linguistic context. By doing so, I aim at challenging the Humanitarian NGOs current responsive frameworks. While such organisations are structured upon the definition of the ‘human’, they usually bring the western construct of basic definitions to other contexts without any accountability to the actual settings, such as culture and language. Thus, for a framework to be responsive and a technology to be ‘governmentalized’ and ‘environmentalized’, I suggest that they should speak the language of its subjects and the discourse of their culture.
While my exploration incorporates a number of qualitative methods such as walking, conducting interviews and mapping in one district in Za’atri camp, my analysis is based upon concepts of governmentality and the art of government (Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991). As I encounter refugees’ “environmental subjectivities” (Agrawal, 2005) through their spatial agencies, and by analysing such agencies, I suggest these as nodes that facilitate artistic technologies of governing. In conclusion, this suggests a reinvention of the normative humanitarian construct from what a refugee camp environment is to what it can actually become.
