Abstract
Despite the large number of studies on social cohesion, research carried out in non-European, refugee and local contexts remains limited. This article provides a structured, focused comparison of social cohesion practices in new refugee hosting settings based on examples from Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. The analysis reveals that social cohesion vision is implemented through peacebuilding, community engagement, and resilience building practices that aim at building safe, shared and empowered spaces respectively. In contrast to national policies with more immediate, tangible and standardized outcomes, local practices involve intercommunal, interactional, and future-oriented processes, which complicates the assessment of social cohesion through an indicator framework. Based on the findings, the article suggests (a) acknowledging context bound manifestations of social cohesion practices, (b) emphasizing social interactions at the local level as a crucial component of social cohesion processes, and (c) advancing research on the causal mechanisms of social cohesion as a long-term policy goal.
Highlights
Social cohesion is increasingly presented as a remedy to all the socio-economic challenges of contemporary societies where cultural diversity stems from mixed migration flows
Despite the willingness to recognize social cohesion as a policy target and social pattern, social cohesion processes are still conducted in the dark, without any quality thresholds that can be used to assess the impact of the implemented programs
This study seeks to start a new discussion prompted by the need to construct social cohesion indicators in forced migration contexts, in new refugee hosting countries
Summary
Social cohesion is increasingly presented as a remedy to all the socio-economic challenges of contemporary societies where cultural diversity stems from mixed migration flows. This study aims to fill this gap by examining the possible applications and underlying challenges of research on social cohesion indicators in forced migration contexts To this end, this study carries out a structured, focused comparison of social cohesion practices through a detailed examination of programs implemented in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan. This study carries out a structured, focused comparison of social cohesion practices through a detailed examination of programs implemented in Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan These countries encountered sudden and massive flows of refugees as a result of the civil war in Syria, leading to an emergency situation in which multiple global, international, regional, and domestic actors have engaged to provide humanitarian aid and relief programs since 2011
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