Melissa Gatter

For those at IHSA right now, join us for a panel on 'Ethical Exits' in humanitarianism in 15 minutes - online and in Istanbul. See you there!

My review of Estella Carpi's book The Politics of Crisis-Making is out now on @antipodeonline.bsky.social! Read for my thoughts on the local vs global, Southism, and humanitarian futures 👇

Syria after Assad: why many Syrian refugees aren’t returning home Syrian refugees must be able to decide what’s next for them as pressures mount for their return.

“The dream of returning home or simply the possibility to end a decade of exile is suddenly within reach. But this dream now comes with existential, practical and legal questions.”

Charlotte Al-Khalili and @melissagatter.bsky.social for @theconversation.com.
theconversation.com/syria-after-...

Fighting Back: A Citizen’s Guide to Resistance Ordinary people have more power than they know.

"How can ordinary citizens fight back? To scout the best approaches, I canvassed activists, lawyers, scholars, politicians, and union leaders for advice."

Great resource here: newrepublic.com/article/1931...

Syria after Assad: why many Syrian refugees aren’t returning home Syrian refugees must be able to decide what’s next for them as pressures mount for their return.

Has Assad's downfall in Syrian changed anything for Syrians displaced in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey? Charlotte Al Khalili and I share the perspectives of people in all three contexts for @theconversation.com, and the situation is...complicated 👇

How a University Fights an Authoritarian Regime Viktor Orbán came for me. Donald Trump is coming for you. Here’s what to do.

On the urgent need to mobilize allies, far beyond campus, of all "who understand that the universities of America are critical to everything that is good about the country: its commitment to freedom, its devotion to excellence, its leadership in science & medicine."
www.chronicle.com/article/how-...

A deep dive into 25 years of humanitarian data The good, the bad, and the buzzwords: 25 years of humanitarian data.

Interesting to see the growth of reports on digital and data. Especially when we are still a long way from good practice in the sector.

Also are there inflation-adjusted / real costs figures on humanitarian appeals and spend? That would be interesting.

Tired of hearing about the free world but it not feeling free.

Resist List They want us to think we’re alone. We are not. The Resistance is Everywhere. Hopescroll through stories of people’s noncooperation against Trump’s coup. Jump to databases of noncooperation or trackers of ligitation and impact. Follow our social media accounts to stay updated.

THE RESIST LIST IS HERE.

Proud my team just started this @resistlist.bsky.social, which will list actions that happened and that are slated to happen.

Trump’s obsession with immigration is really an obsession with segregation | Heba Gowayed His policies are the latest instantiation of a centuries-long American tradition: laws meant to exclude people of color and privilege whiteness

Also, here's me reminding people about the white supremacist and segregationist legacy of American immigration policy and how Trump fits into it.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/comm...

Some Institutions Caved to Trump. Their Employees Are Fighting Back. "Do not obey in advance" was the slogan going into the first Trump administration. Some universities and hospitals seem to be struggling with that advice.

I was happy to speak with @melissagiragrant.com about pushing back against academic censorship in the current moment. @newrepublic.com

newrepublic.com/article/1917...

Thank you! Would love your thoughts 🤓

I urge practitioners to refrain from using 'resilient' as a label to be imposed or taken away and that is tied to understandings of worth or deservingness. Instead where we see resilience, we should be looking for power. (4/4)

Resilience as a concept is still useful for 'seeing' power. Confronting resilience head on, I found that camp residents actually resist resilience narratives. AND I warn that this resistance should not be romanticized as resilience. (3/4)

I reflect on the everyday lives of 2 residents in Azraq camp in Jordan, where an aid worker is tasked with packaging their lives into 'success stories' - feeding into humanitarian resilience narratives. Resiliency humanitarianism is a problem, I argue, BUT.. (2/4)

Resilience for Whom? Resiliency Humanitarianism and Everyday Resistance in a Carceral Camp This article pushes beyond critiques of resilience as a neoliberal object and descriptor, approaching the term as an analytical diagnostic of power to open new anthropological query around resilien...

Who is resilience for? What is the usefulness of calling refugees resilient? Should we avoid the term together? I've attempted to think through these questions in my article with Ethnos, out now and open access 👇 (1/4)

US aid freezes escalate Syria’s crisis Aid officials involved in the response say people are already suffering and predict huge problems ahead due to the abrupt end of programmes.

Trump's freeze on foreign aid will leave 100,000s in Syria without food, water & healthcare.
“In a normal situation... NGOs would have a heads-up & some time to figure out what to prioritise ..But there is no common sense...about leaving people to die.”
www.thenewhumanitarian.org/news-feature...

I have some very cool colleagues 👇

Tonight!!

Trump says US is 'committed to buying and owning Gaza' There has been global condemnation of his plan to take over the strip and move its Palestinians out.

And not to give this more thought than it deserves, but it would be worth it for some enterprising journalist in the position to do so to ask Trump just who the US would buy Gaza from.

It could get him on the record endorsing a sovereign Palestinian state.

Snapshots of Post-Assad Syriaby Charlotte Al-Khalili - American Ethnological Society “Welcome to Syria,” greeted the robust man as he took our passports. He was seated at a counter, behind security glass. The man, unlike the young men carrying

Saturday morning reading: Charlotte Al Khalili describes reuniting with her interlocutors for the 1st time in Syria, one of whom she quotes:

“Charlotte, we are meeting in Damascus! Damascus!”, Bilal exclaimed as we greeted. “Can you believe it?! Who could have thought we would meet here one day!” 🥹

IAS Book Launch: Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp Join us for the launch of Time and Power in Azraq Refugee Camp. A Nine-to-Five Emergency by Melissa Gatter

I'll be at @ucl.ac.uk next Thursday to discuss my book with Estella Carpi and Anne Irfan and talk about what's next for the Syrian refugees whose stories shape my research. Register here 👇

Link to the open access article: www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journal...

Back at the desk today with Monday morning reading: Ruben Andersson gives us anthropologists a roadmap for studying humans in an increasingly inhumane world.

Much needed motivation as we stare down the barrel of 2025, full of monsters we've seen before (and some we haven't).

Inside the Final Days of the Assad Regime in Syria (Gift Article) President Bashar al-Assad, who wielded fear and force over Syria for more than two decades, fled the country under the cover of night — and a fake political address.

Another must-read story on the end of the Assad regime, in which palace insiders talk about the final hours, by the New York Times’s Ben Hubbard, Christina Goldbaum, and Hwaida Saad. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/w...

@nytimes.com
@benhubbard.bsky.social

Cover of The Time beneath the Concrete: Palestine between Camp and Colony by Nasser Abourahme. Cover is blue and features an image of an art installation featuring six human figures in concrete. There is some Arabic text above them on the right. The title is in white at the top of the design, the subtitle beneath that in red, and the author name at the bottom in white.

In "The Time beneath the Concrete," Nasser Abourahme argues that settler colonialism in #Palestine is always as much an attempt to conquer time as it is to conquer land. Read the introduction for free now.
https://buff.ly/3BwdKyr

Facing Trump 2.0: The Immigrant Rights Movement Needs to Step Up Its Game Mutual aid isn’t enough, says Zachary Mueller, political director for the nonprofit America’s Voice. We need a new coalition that studies the Right’s strategy, and builds a viable counterstrategy.

I had an open and honest conversation with @mdelbosque.bsky.social about the state of immigration headed a GOP controlled Washington and the urgent need to get a better understanding of nativists now in power.

My feed is a mix of celebration in Syria and destruction in Palestine. How I wish to see Palestinians share the joy of liberation in the very near future 🍉

If you want to fill your Friday with something truly remarkable, take a moment to look at the images and videos from across Syria today, where Syrians are celebrating the first Friday following the fall of the 54-year Assad family rule.

✊❤️

This is why time matters in migration debates. Migration is not just about HOW or WHERE we move but HOW LONG it takes us to do so. The question of 'how long' does a lot of work to socialize certain people to the kinds of futures they can access. (8/8)