Refugees and claims-making in spaces of urban marginality: Syrian refugees build alliances across racial lines for collective action

Abstract

ABSTRACT Increasing number of refugees are being resettled in U.S. cities that have been historically populated by urban poor, immigrants, and racial minorities. This study examines how urban refugees’ claims-making process may be informed by civil rights and political activism of the local established residents of migrant and minoritized communities on the ground. Based on a case study of Syrian refugees residing in a central city in New Jersey, the study uses mixed method of in-depth interviews, field observations, historical archives, and demographic data. The findings show that the newly arriving Syrian refugees, resettled in a city grounded in history of civil rights and political activism, formed alliances with other long-term migrants and minoritized groups to claim their own political and legal rights, advocate for state resources, and resist social inequalities. Although Syrian refugees acknowledged their protected legal and citizenship rights, the actual process of enacting these rights and claims-making involved active relationships with other racial and migrant groups in the city. The study illustrates how refugees are articulating their agency through producing social and political spaces in connection with other spaces of urban marginality – a process that reveals how urban spaces can also become important sites for articulating new politics.