ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the key issues we address in the book: families and friendships, humanitarian caregiving, racism, discrimination and everyday decencies and civilities. It contextualises our attempt to explore the stuff of the ordinary, everyday encounters found in what we conceive as “refugeedom,” giving shape to both its sharper edges and its more quietly political ones. We outline what we take to be the key empirical, contextual and methodological stakes involved in trying to offer a textured portrait of a small social world, and most especially one that draws into itself wider realities and politicisations. The chapter begins by describing what we intend by “navigations,” the predicate for crafting an account of the places and people with whom the young refugees interact every day in their homes, schools, football pitches, humanitarian spaces and neighbourhoods and refugee camps. Then, taking as point of departure an account of how their everyday lives as refugees – but also as Syrians and Iraqis – are firmly embedded within the struggles of Beirut's complex ethnic, sectarian and migrant diversities, this chapter outlines the key arguments and the structure of the book.
