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This seminar starts with a core question that lies at the heart of contemporary debates on displacement: what becomes of “protection” when its legal form fails to secure safety, dignity, or a sense of belonging in practice? Through the experiences of Sudanese refugees in France and Syrian refugees in Turkey, the course dives into the persistent gap between the formal architecture of asylum and the lived realities it is meant to address. Despite the differences between the two political contexts, both groups confront a similar contradiction: legal protection is formally granted, yet remains tenuous, delayed, or inaccessible in everyday life. Throughout the seminar, this tension is captured in the notion of refuge without refuge. Rather than treating asylum systems or humanitarian programs as neutral administrative mechanisms, the course approaches them as moral and political fields that shape how displaced people are categorized, evaluated, and compelled to navigate their lives. These institutions influence not only material conditions but also how refugees understand themselves and how they are understood by others.
Presented by The New University in Exile Consortium at The New School for Social Research.
By joining this online event, you will be prompted to accept Zoom Terms of Service. If the session is recorded, you acknowledge that by participating, your name, phone number, and profile picture might be visible to the public. You can customize your personal information when creating your Zoom account. The New School may use any recorded material from the event.
Mawahib Khalil M. Hassan is a Columbia Global Emerging Scholar at the Columbia Global Center in Amman and a lecturer in Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Khartoum. Her research focuses on forced migration and gender-based violence, including how social and economic capital have supported displaced Sudanese communities in Turkey since the 2023 war, building on her research on Syrian refugee women’s experiences with intimate partner violence.
Hisham Bilal is a sociologist and social anthropologist with over 20 years of experience researching forced migration, legal precarity, and social integration in conflict-affected contexts. Currently hosted as a scholar in exile under France’s PAUSE Program, he is a Ph.D. candidate in Sociology at Middle East Technical University, where his research examines asylum systems, belonging, and social networks among Sudanese refugees in France.
The New University in Exile Consortium regularly offers a series of free, 10-week, co-led online seminars. The seminars are taught by two endangered scholars – one who is hosted by a Consortium member institution, and the other a colleague of their choice. The seminars are designed to reconnect endangered scholars with the academic community they have lost while in exile and reengage students from around the world with professors they have lost. They are free and open to anyone anywhere in the world with an internet connection.
To learn more and register visit our Fall 2026 Hub, Linked Here!
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