Rawan Arar
Biographic Data
| ID | 139229 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Rawan Arar |
| GIVEN NAMES | Rawan |
| FAMILY NAME | Arar |
| SIGNATURE | ARAR R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California San Diego |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 266 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 9 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Humanitarian Fiction
I interrogate the ‘host’ label within refugee studies, taking into consideration multiple scales of analysis from international rankings of states to individuals and communities. Critically examining who counts as a host – and who counts the hosts – has important implications for practitioners and scholars. Critiques of big picture assessments of ‘host state’ rankings invite scholars to consider how geopolitics shape recognition and erasure, in t…
Refugee resettlement as an institution
Contrasting Trajectories of Incorporation
While the challenges of making a home in a foreign country are not unique to refugees in the Global South, their trajectories of integration in Southern host states often diverge from descriptions in the canonical literature on immigrant integration. What constitutes integration when newcomers share a language, cultural similarities, religious practices, and family ties with the receiving society? Drawing on ethnographic and interview data with S…
Can you become one of us? A historical comparison of legal selection of ‘assimilable’ immigrants in Europe and the Americas
Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in ‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of per…
The Sociology of Refugee Migration
Theorization in the sociology of migration and the field of refugee studies has been retarded by a path-dependent division that we argue should be broken down by greater mutual engagement. Excavating the construction of the refugee category reveals how unwarranted assumptions shape contemporary disputes about the scale of refugee crises, appropriate policy responses, and suitable research tools. Empirical studies of how violence interacts with ec…
International solidarity and ethnic boundaries
While scholars have described vertical nation‐building narratives that genealogically anchor a specific group to a specific territory (Smith 1981; Eriksen 2002), I argue that, in addition to vertical strategies, expressions of international solidarity constitute horizontal nation‐building strategies. Expressions of international solidarity can be used to maintain local ethnic boundaries and reinforce local divisions. By adopting an ally, expressi…
The New Grand Compromise
The influx of asylum seekers in Europe in 2015 and 2016 changed the incentive structure of the “grand compromise” – the system of global refugee management in which states in the Global South host most of the world’s refugees and states in the Global North finance refugee hosting abroad. Asylum seekers interrupted the established status quo, and in doing so, created new opportunities for states in the Global South. I argue that a “new grand compr…
How political migrants' networks differ from those of economic migrants
The study of migrant networks has led scholars to believe that political migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, utilise social networks in similar ways to economic migrants. This assumption is based on empirical investigations of South–North migration in which the Western receiving context is held constant. I argue that the utility of social networks is influenced by the reason for displacement and regional geopolitical frameworks. Like…
A shadow over Palestine
The Sociology of Refugee Migration
Theorization in the sociology of migration and the field of refugee studies has been retarded by a path-dependent division that we argue should be broken down by greater mutual engagement. Excavating the construction of the refugee category reveals how unwarranted assumptions shape contemporary disputes about the scale of refugee crises, appropriate policy responses, and suitable research tools. Empirical studies of how violence interacts with ec…
The New Grand Compromise
The influx of asylum seekers in Europe in 2015 and 2016 changed the incentive structure of the “grand compromise” – the system of global refugee management in which states in the Global South host most of the world’s refugees and states in the Global North finance refugee hosting abroad. Asylum seekers interrupted the established status quo, and in doing so, created new opportunities for states in the Global South. I argue that a “new grand compr…
Can you become one of us? A historical comparison of legal selection of ‘assimilable’ immigrants in Europe and the Americas
Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in ‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of per…
Refugee resettlement as an institution
How political migrants' networks differ from those of economic migrants
The study of migrant networks has led scholars to believe that political migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, utilise social networks in similar ways to economic migrants. This assumption is based on empirical investigations of South–North migration in which the Western receiving context is held constant. I argue that the utility of social networks is influenced by the reason for displacement and regional geopolitical frameworks. Like…
International solidarity and ethnic boundaries
While scholars have described vertical nation‐building narratives that genealogically anchor a specific group to a specific territory (Smith 1981; Eriksen 2002), I argue that, in addition to vertical strategies, expressions of international solidarity constitute horizontal nation‐building strategies. Expressions of international solidarity can be used to maintain local ethnic boundaries and reinforce local divisions. By adopting an ally, expressi…
Contrasting Trajectories of Incorporation
While the challenges of making a home in a foreign country are not unique to refugees in the Global South, their trajectories of integration in Southern host states often diverge from descriptions in the canonical literature on immigrant integration. What constitutes integration when newcomers share a language, cultural similarities, religious practices, and family ties with the receiving society? Drawing on ethnographic and interview data with S…
A shadow over Palestine
How political migrants' networks differ from those of economic migrants
The study of migrant networks has led scholars to believe that political migrants, including refugees and asylum seekers, utilise social networks in similar ways to economic migrants. This assumption is based on empirical investigations of South–North migration in which the Western receiving context is held constant. I argue that the utility of social networks is influenced by the reason for displacement and regional geopolitical frameworks. Like…
A shadow over Palestine
International solidarity and ethnic boundaries
While scholars have described vertical nation‐building narratives that genealogically anchor a specific group to a specific territory (Smith 1981; Eriksen 2002), I argue that, in addition to vertical strategies, expressions of international solidarity constitute horizontal nation‐building strategies. Expressions of international solidarity can be used to maintain local ethnic boundaries and reinforce local divisions. By adopting an ally, expressi…
The New Grand Compromise
The influx of asylum seekers in Europe in 2015 and 2016 changed the incentive structure of the “grand compromise” – the system of global refugee management in which states in the Global South host most of the world’s refugees and states in the Global North finance refugee hosting abroad. Asylum seekers interrupted the established status quo, and in doing so, created new opportunities for states in the Global South. I argue that a “new grand compr…
Can you become one of us? A historical comparison of legal selection of ‘assimilable’ immigrants in Europe and the Americas
Pre-arrival integration tests used by European countries suggest discriminatory measures subtly persist in immigration laws. This paper draws on a comparison across the Americas and Europe to identify and explain historical continuities and discontinuities in ‘assimilability’ admissions requirements. We attribute legal shifts at the turn of the twenty-first century to the institutionalised delegitimisation of biological racism and the rise of per…
The Sociology of Refugee Migration
Theorization in the sociology of migration and the field of refugee studies has been retarded by a path-dependent division that we argue should be broken down by greater mutual engagement. Excavating the construction of the refugee category reveals how unwarranted assumptions shape contemporary disputes about the scale of refugee crises, appropriate policy responses, and suitable research tools. Empirical studies of how violence interacts with ec…
Contrasting Trajectories of Incorporation
While the challenges of making a home in a foreign country are not unique to refugees in the Global South, their trajectories of integration in Southern host states often diverge from descriptions in the canonical literature on immigrant integration. What constitutes integration when newcomers share a language, cultural similarities, religious practices, and family ties with the receiving society? Drawing on ethnographic and interview data with S…
Humanitarian Fiction
I interrogate the ‘host’ label within refugee studies, taking into consideration multiple scales of analysis from international rankings of states to individuals and communities. Critically examining who counts as a host – and who counts the hosts – has important implications for practitioners and scholars. Critiques of big picture assessments of ‘host state’ rankings invite scholars to consider how geopolitics shape recognition and erasure, in t…
Refugee resettlement as an institution
Migration, Refugees, and Integration (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Political science (7 works) · Refugee (5 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (4 works) · Political economy (4 works) · Gender Studies (3 works) · Law (3 works) · Migration, Health and Trauma (3 works)