Research involving Lancaster University Management School explores how refugees trying to rebuild their lives in new communities find simple and mundane everyday tasks - such as inviting somebody for a cup of tea - incredibly important and valuable when it comes to establishing a new sense of worth.
Academics studied Syrian refugees living in informal tented settlements in Lebanon and found the refugees struggled to secure the material means for survival - and with it, struggled to be recognised as individuals who matter. However, the researchers discovered that mundane everyday tasks and practices - whether it be inviting someone in for a cup of tea or befriending a distant relative on Facebook - play a fundamentally important role in rebuilding their lives.
The research, conducted by the House of Innovation at Stockholm School of Economics, Lancaster University Management School and the Swedish Defence University, is published in the top-ranked journal Organization Studies. It explores how displaced people living in extreme precarity engage in mundane everyday 'organising practices' in order to become recognised as 'subjects who matter'.
Through fieldwork in Lebanon in 2017, researchers found that by organising a 'home' in refugee camps, through rituals of cooking and eating, and by arranging a digital 'home' online by taking part in Whatsapp conversations with fellow refugees in similar positions for example, refugees enact practices of hospitality - despite their dire circumstances. These acts of hospitality towards others helped to give refugees a voice, a sense of dignity and self-worth, and hope that change is possible.
Distinguished Professor Lucas Introna from Lancaster University Management School was a member of the research team. He explains: "We discovered a much deeper meaning to seemingly mundane everyday activities that became a big part of life in the refugee camps in Lebanon. In any other circumstance, making a cup of tea for a camp neighbour or sending a simple 'good morning' greeting to a group of others on Whatsapp is considered trivial or mundane, but we found these practices became essential for individuals who had lost absolutely everything - including their sense of identity and belonging.
"Many people we spoke to were living in the most awful situations, but these simple activities empowered them to rediscover their voice, and made them feel like they were living in camps of 'undefeated despair'."
You can watch a video summarising the research findings here
