ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we explore the forms of knowledge that people with a refugee background bring to what are known as refugee and humanitarian regimes, namely the assemblages of international laws, institutions and apparatuses that are tasked with providing protection and assistance to refugees. Such apparatuses, we argue, are reproduced by the racialized and localized knowledges and labour of “refugees caring for refugees”. The chapter draws on interviews with Syrian aid workers employed by international aid organizations and their local partners during the conflict between 2012 and 2019. Theorizing the intimate relation between refugee knowledges and humanitarianism, and examining some of the overlaps between academic research and humanitarian policy practices, we offer an understanding of the international aid regime as founded on the knowledges of refugees that this regime has all too often officially denied.
