Paper short abstract:

This paper, based on ethnographic fieldwork with Iraqis in Cairo, examines the implications of uncertain exile for temporality and well-being. Drawing on Iraqi refugees’ narratives, I consider how uncertain conditions, and refugees’ efforts to cope, re-configure concepts of time and life trajectory.

Paper long abstract:

For Iraqi refugees in Egypt, life in exile is construed as uncertain, unstable and temporary. In this paper, based on ethnographic research on Iraqi refugees' experiences of instability in Egypt, I consider the effects of conditions in the country of first asylum for refugees' conceptions of time and the future. Drawing on data from participant observation, interviews with refugees and service providers, refugee testimonies as well as archival research, I describe Iraqi refugees' uncertain conditions in Egypt and explore how these conditions affect refugees' perceptions of temporality. Second, I discuss implications of these conditions for refugees' well-being, and consider ways in which refugees seek to resolve conditions of instability. This paper argues that the experience of being in an unstable state of asylum, in conjunction with refugees' efforts to cope with uncertainty, has implications for the health and well-being of refugees that relate to experiences of war trauma and persecution, but which are not directly attributable to them. Instead, refugees' suffering, and their efforts to address this suffering, is best understood in terms of refugees' narratives, which include both expressions of suffering related to conditions of insecurity and instability as well as moral claims about their rights to re-establish their lives. These narratives illustrate the ways in which concepts of time and trajectory are reconfigured in contexts of uncertain urban exile.