ABSTRACT
Social science studies of mobility in the Middle East generally focus either on labour migrations or the massive displacement and humanitarian management of vulnerable populations. In this regard, the presence of Palestinian refugees (since 1948), and the later arrival of refugees from Iraq (since 2005) and Syria (since 2012) in all countries of the region have prompted researchers to examines issues related to refugee camps, the mandates of the agencies in charge of these populations (in particular the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East [UNRWA] and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees [UNHCR]), and refugee return. Moreover, owing to the political and administrative control exercised by public authorities, foreign populations have little visibility on the public scene of the Arab world. Yet the transnational mobility of these populations affects and is affected by the political, administrative, legal, social and diplomatic countries in which they live. This, in turn, generates processes of mutual adaptation, transnational cooperation and, in some cases, unlikely socialisation. This chapter on the mobility of Sudanese refugees proposes to address these interactions and reciprocal influences.1
