News Deeply

Berlin’s Tempelhof: The Camp Too Controversial to Customize

The complex history of Berlin’s closed airport made it challenging as a refugee shelter, writes Toby Parsloe for Forced Migration Review. He explains how a graffiti ban and concerns over its future show the constraints of co-opting public buildings for refugee housing.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170622122318/Emergency-shelter-for-refugees-in-Tempelhof.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170622122205/Parsloe-Image-3-.jpg

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/06/22/berlins-tempelhof-the-camp-too-controversial-to-customize

#asile #migrations #parcours_migratoires #itinéraires_migratoires #Arctique

On Arctic Border, Refugees Embraced by ‘Northern Hospitality’

Thousands of asylum seekers crossed the northernmost border into Europe in 2015, cycling across the boundary between Russia and Norway. Their arrival has stirred memories of earlier waves of refugees and traditions of northern hospitality in the Arctic borderland.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170628091110/2779406.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg

More migrants put pressure on Russian-Norwegian border

Two Syrians got through the barbed wire fence on Friday, but where detained after 200 meters running in the snow.

https://thebarentsobserver.com/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/20170511_161744.jpg?itok=x7Tedz0W#.jpg

▻https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/borders/2018/03/more-migrants-put-pressure-russian-norwegian-border

Development Aid to Deter Migration Will Do Nothing of the Kind

A wave of new migration-linked aid deals ignore evidence that development assistance cannot reduce overall emigration from poor countries within our lifetimes, argues development economist Michael Clemens.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20161031142934/emigration_curve.jpg

«Es sind nicht die Ärmsten, die kommen»

Entwicklungshilfe nützt gegen Migration, meint die Linke. Kaum, sagt der Forscher – und widerspricht auch den Rechten.

▻http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/leben/gesellschaft/es-sind-nicht-die-aermsten-die-kommen/story/28997020
signalé par @stesummi

Stefania, guarda anche i testi qui (▻http://seen.li/9m50) su questo tema...

Voici le commissaire qui s’occupe de cela:
Commissario straordinario del Governo per le persone scomparse

Ogni anno in Italia scompaiono circa un migliaio di persone. Nonostante la maggior parte venga ritrovata dopo pochi giorni, il fenomeno genera allarme sociale. La strategia di contrasto attuata dal Commissario straordinario, che coinvolge Forze dell’ordine e magistratura, passa per il monitoraggio dei dati e il coordinamento delle attività di ricerca che ha consentito, dall’istituzione del commissario a oggi, un significativo calo delle persone ancora da ricercare.

▻http://www.interno.gov.it/it/ministero/commissario-straordinario-governo-persone-scomparse

Et les activités de ce commissaire:

L’attività del Commissario
▻http://www.interno.gov.it/it/ministero/commissario-persone-scomparse/lattivita-commissario

A défaut de les secourir, il faut bien montrer que les italiens font quelque chose.
Même chose pour tous les pays européens, bien sur.

@bce_106_6 : Franchement, je pense que, et une fois n’est pas coutume, dans cette histoire de migrations, l’Italie n’est de loin pas la pire des élèves, bien au contraire...
v. notamment ce qui s’est passé avec Mare Nostrum...

Farnesina: protocol is signed to identify the thousands of migrants who died at sea

ROME, APRIL 12 – Thousands of headstones in the cemeteries of Southern Italy have no names. Other corpses end-up on the bottom of the sea, corroded by salt or eaten by fish. Thousands of migrants who fall victim to drowning in the Mediterranean, remain unidentified. Their families, in their countries of origin or in Europe, don’t even know if their loved ones are dead or alive.

▻http://www.onuitalia.com/2017/04/12/farnesina-protocol-signed-identify-thousands-migrants-die-sea

Italy, Greece to launch plan to identify missing migrants

Four European Mediterranean countries are launching an initiative in June to identify thousands of missing migrants who died or went missing during the perilous sea crossing to the continent.

Italy, Greece, Malta and Cyprus — hardest hit by waves of migrants form Syria and Libya or people elsewhere in Africa — will gather on June 11 in Rome to discuss the plan, the #International_Commission_on_Missing_Persons (#ICMP) said on Wednesday.

“If we succeed in launching this initiative, and it looks very good that we will, it will be historical,” ICMP director general Kathryne Bomberger said in The Hague, where the inter-governmental organisation is based.

Amid the biggest migrant crisis to hit Europe since World War II, Italy alone has recovered some 8,000 bodies from Mediterranean waters over the last decade, the ICMP said.

The cooperation between states will help to properly quantify the numbers of missing and dead, track survivors and locate bodies, Bomberger said.

Southern Mediterranean countries like Libya and Egypt are also to be invited as observers to the talks, she added.

Since the beginning of the year, almost 18,000 migrants arrived in Europe by sea, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Some 559 people were already reported dead or missing, the IOM added.

“There are so many discussions today about the data, discussions that I think are rather negative ... but the data also have positive endings,” Bomberger said at a meeting with foreign correspondents.

Switzerland has donated around $400,000 (323,000 euros) to fund the project.

The ICMP was born out of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and set up in 1996 in Sarajevo by then US president Bill Clinton.

Using increasingly sophisticated DNA research methods, it has already succeeded in identifying some 70 percent of the 40,000 people who went missing in the Balkans conflicts of the 1990s, including 90 percent of the 8,000 killed in the 1995 Srebrenica massacre.

But over the past years it has increasingly lent its expertise to other tragedies, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, or the devastating Hurricane Haiyan which hit the Philippines in November 2013.

▻https://www.afp.com/en/news/826/italy-greece-launch-plan-identify-missing-migrants-doc-1450j51
#Grèce

Sicily’s Missing-Migrant Detectives

Meet the Italians driven by a sense of history and humanity to identify the refugees and migrants who have died trying to cross the Mediterranean.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20180517121315/95971652.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg

#Luminusa

Ha un nome che evoca la luce, il fuoco, e nelle giornate limpide ti sembra di percepire la grana dell’aria – argento puro. In fondo al suo mare, che ha tutte le sfumature del verde, dell’azzurro e del blu, giacciono ventimila morti senza nome, ammazzati. Di loro restano a volte tracce dilavate dalla salsedine: un sandalo infradito a rombi bianchi e neri comprato al mercato di Sfax, la foto di una sposa dalla pelle nerissima in abito di pizzo bianco, un rotolo di lettere in tigrino, una cassetta di Bob Marley. Ed è qui, a Lampedusa, che Mario, con malinconica determinazione, è venuto ad affrontare il suo segreto senso di inappartenenza e l’incertezza del futuro. Come se raccogliere quelle tracce in un minuscolo museo e salvaguardarne la memoria con didascalie in versi scritte su fragile carta velina potesse rendere più tollerabile la disillusione. Come se solo a Lampedusa, crocevia di destini, di strazio e di solidarietà, fosse possibile rispecchiarsi in chi ha osato cercare la salvezza su un barcone, e tornare a sperare. Con «Luminusa», #Franca_Cavagnoli ci costringe a guardare con altri occhi alla terra promessa di Lampedusa, alle tragedie e agli sbarchi che affollano le cronache: per scoprire, guidati dalla voce limpida e ribelle di Mario, la nostra, comune e universale, condizione di migranti.

http://www.edizionifrassinelli.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/978888832079_Cavagnoli_Luminusa.jpg

Elle est pas belle la vie ! On peut même y rester trois ans !

Le fondateur du groupe suédois Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad toujours aussi jeune : Ses cabanes pour migrants inflammables, comme dans les camps

Les autorités zurichoises et argoviennes (#Suisse) ont renoncé vendredi à utiliser ces installations d’urgence pour les requérants d’asile.
La #Fondation_Ikea a défendu samedi la sécurité de ses cabanes pour #migrants après la décision de la ville de Zurich d’y renoncer en affirmant qu’elles sont inflammables.

Zurich a dévoilé vendredi des tests montrant que ces cabanes conçues par le géant suédois de l’ameublement prêt-à-monter étaient « facilement inflammables ».
Les autorités ont donc décidé d’annuler l’accueil de migrants dans 62 de ces petites maisons à partir de janvier. Le canton d’Argovie, qui envisageait lui aussi d’acquérir ces maisonnettes pour accueillir 300 demandeurs d’asile, a annoncé qu’il recherchait d’autres solutions.

http://files.newsnetz.ch/story/1/3/4/13419837/5/topelement.jpg

Niveau de sécurité supérieur

« Nous ne pouvons faire aucun commentaire avant d’avoir reçu la traduction du rapport sur les résultats et la méthode utilisée pour conduire ces tests d’incendie », a indiqué la responsable de la communication du projet « Better Shelter », fruit d’une collaboration entre la Fondation Ikea et le Haut Commissariat des Nations unies pour les réfugiés (#HCR).

Les cabanes Ikea, dont la réaction au feu a été testée selon les normes européennes, présentent un niveau de sécurité supérieur à ce qui se fait ailleurs en matière d’hébergement d’urgence, a souligné la responsable, Märta Terne. « Les tests réalisés sur les murs et les panneaux de
couverture ont montré que le matériau dépasse les niveaux requis de sécurité pour ces logements provisoires ».

►http://www.lematin.ch/suisse/ikea-defend-cabanes-face-critiques-suisses/story/13419837

Plus là-dessus ici:
▻http://seen.li/9dqc

Dans le même temps que se développent des habitats-containers dont se félicitent certains designers et urbanistes, ces logements précaires pour les migrants d’aujourd’hui seront le standard de tous les pauvres de demain. Pour ce faire on insistera bien sur l’aspect bon marché et recyclage de la chose, et on fera des reportages cool et fun montrant des étudiants, pour mieux masquer la #paupérisation généralisée et la baisse des standards de vie que cette évolution entraîne.
Bientôt on n’en sera plus à exiger un logement digne pour tous, on en sera à se satisfaire de caissons en tôle avec 3 gadgets marketing, pendant que la bourgeoisie rira dans ses villas.
Comme le dit un type que je n’aime pas mais qui sur ce point a raison :

Rien de ce que décident les capitalistes n’est bon pour toi. Même si de prime abord ça a l’air sympa.
Surtout si ça a l’air sympa.

#bidonvillagisation

cc @evaspiek

Experts to Watch: Innovating Refugee Response

Several organizations and projects are at the forefront of seeking solutions to the unparalleled levels of global migration. In the first installment of our “Experts to Watch” series, we look at five that are rethinking refugee aid.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2016/08/03/experts-to-watch-innovating-refugee-response

Dans le #film / #documentaire « Bienvenue au #Réfugistan », une critique de l’#innovation en matière de #réfugiés :
▻http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/060822-000-A/bienvenue-au-refugistan

Citation tirée du film :
Alexander BETTS : « Ce qui inquiète dans le débat actuel autour de l’innovation c’est qu’il renforce avant tout les logiques d’une réponse humanitaire imposée par le haut. Il y a de la part des unités chargées de l’innovation une réticence à aborder frontalement ces questions, à poser les vrais problèmes, à confronter les gouvernements des pays hôtes, les gouvernement des pays donateurs et à remettre en question le cadre légal. Il faudrait remettre en cause ces logiques de #gouvernance_totalitaire imposée par le haut que vous trouvez dans les camps. Il faudrait se battre contre cette culture de la #surveillance et apporter des solutions qui transformeraient beaucoup plus en profondeur la manière dont nous concevons les défis des réfugiés aujourd’hui ».

Why Ikea’s flatpack refugee shelter won design of the year

Ikea’s solar-powered Better Shelter lasts six times longer than a typical emergency tent and has already changed the lives of thousands of refugees around the world

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8e9998d4539c670fb8cb4417f2113611ba858df5/493_591_4231_2539/master/4231.jpg?w=620&q=20&auto=format&usm=12&fit=max&dpr=2&s=a4194ec79ff825a8488d051032caa3b2

Ikea to provide jobs for Syrian refugees in new Jordanian project

Homeware chain looks to make hand-woven rugs and textiles for export and local sale

▻https://www.ft.com/content/35cb00ce-e6ed-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539
#Jordanie

IKEA Foundation and UNHCR put ‘Better Shelters’ to the test in the #Diffa region

In the region of Diffa, UNHCR have been providing emergency shelter assistance to vulnerable refugees and displaced persons since the first refugees crossed the border fleeing Boko Haram violence in Northern Nigeria in 2013. In 2016 alone, over 65,000 people in the Diffa region benefitted from UNHCR emergency shelters.

▻http://unhcrniger.tumblr.com/post/157015341304/ikea-foundation-and-unhcr-put-better-shelters-to

Ikea donerà mobili per arredare la #Casa_Valdese di Vittoria e due casa di #Lampedusa

Ikea Italia arrederà la Casa Valdese di Vittoria, il centro destinato alla prima accoglienza di donne migranti minorenni, non accompagnate, che formalizzeranno richiesta d’asilo. C’è il patrocinio della Prefettura di Ragusa. Si tratta di un’iniziativa di solidarietà Ikea con tre progetti in collaborazione con Unicef, a sostegno dei bambini migranti in fuga dalle guerre e dalla povertà. Interessato anche il Comune di Lampedusa dove saranno arredati due appartamenti di proprietà dell’ente civico che ospiteranno i minori non accompagnati.

▻http://www.radiortm.it/2017/03/16/ikea-donera-mobili-per-arredare-la-casa-valdese-di-vittoria-e-due-casa-di-l
#Italie

Why IKEA’s Award-Winning Refugee Shelters Need A Redesign

Fire safety concerns halted the rollout of Better Shelter and the IKEA Foundation’s portable, flat-pack refugee shelters to camps. The Swedish social enterprise is working on a redesign to launch later this year. We speak to their director about the lessons learned.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170519113234/Z5A9145.jpg https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170519113024/Z5A8840.jpg

Dossier : un monde de camps — Les réfugiés, une bonne affaire, par Nicolas Autheman (@mdiplo, mai 2017) ►https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2017/05/AUTHEMAN/57444

Pour faire des économies, l’agence a créé en 2012 une branche intitulée « Laboratoire Innovation », destinée à lancer de nouveaux partenariats : Ikea pour l’habitat, la société de livraison américaine United Parcel Service (UPS) pour la logistique d’urgence, et bientôt Google pour l’apprentissage scolaire. Interrogé sur le risque de voir ces sociétés prendre une place croissante dans les processus de décision, le HCR répond invariablement que leur participation financière reste encore marginale comparée à celle des États. Pour autant, les partenariats conçus à l’origine comme de simples donations prennent de nouvelles formes. Selon M. Parker, l’agence a mis le doigt dans un engrenage dont il devient difficile de sortir : « La Fondation Ikea a promis des dizaines de millions de dollars au HCR. Et, maintenant, elle a envoyé quelqu’un en Suisse pour voir ce qu’il advient de son argent. Au début, je crois que le HCR imaginait pouvoir simplement recevoir du personnel bénévole et des dons. Il est en train d’apprendre que ce n’est pas vraiment comme cela que fonctionne le secteur privé. (...) Les entreprises ne viendront pas sans contreparties. Que dire si Ikea, par exemple, décide de tester du matériel dans les camps de réfugiés ? » Et comment réagir lorsque des parlementaires européens révèlent, comme cela s’est produit en février 2016, qu’Ikea est impliqué dans un vaste scandale d’évasion fiscale, échappant à l’impôt dans des États qui financent le HCR (La Tribune, 13 février 2016) ? L’agence de l’ONU n’en a jamais entendu parler...

A Slightly Better Shelter?

The Shelter

On January 26, 2017, the IKEA refugee shelter was declared the worldwide Design of the Year in a unanimous decision.[1] When I interviewed one of the jurors about the process I was told that they’d chosen the “obvious winner”: the IKEA shelter was high profile, it had featured widely in the media, it was a positive story with a clear social purpose, and it offered a practical solution to the so-called “refugee crisis,” one of the most significant issues of the previous twelve months.[2] The London Design Museum has been awarding the “Design of the Year” for a decade now, celebrating examples that “promote or deliver change, enable access, extend design practice, or capture the spirit of the year” (Beazley 2017). The IKEA refugee shelter seemed to match all of these aims, claiming to be modular, sustainable, long lasting, recyclable, easily assembled, affordable, and scalable. It was installed on the Greek islands to shelter newly arrived refugees in 2015, and it came with the backing of the United Nations (UN) Refugee Agency, who purchased 15,000 units for distribution around the world.

The juror I spoke to explained that the shelter won because it “tackles one of the defining issues of the moment: providing shelter in an exceptional situation whether caused by violence and disaster…. [It] provides not only a design but secure manufacture as well as distribution.” A statement described the project as “relevant and even optimistic,” concluding, “it shows the power of design to respond to the conditions we are in and transform them” (Beazley 2017; personal interview, April 25, 2017, Design Museum, London).

It is easy to understand why this shelter has generated so much interest since it was first announced in 2013. It has received funding from IKEA, a company that has shaped so much of everyday life in the Global North and whose minimalist modernism has populated so many domestic environments. As Keith Murphy points out, there is a social democratic spirit underpinning so much of Swedish design, a combination of simplicity, affordability, and universality that both reflects and promotes a more egalitarian social order (Murphy 2015; see also Garvey 2017). When applied to refugee housing, this has all the makings of positive story. The media are given something their readers can relate to—the experience of unpacking and constructing IKEA flat-pack furniture—and can connect it to a problem that concerns us all: how to house the millions of refugees we see on the news. The IKEA refugee shelter, the story goes, can be assembled in four to six hours with a basic manual and no specialist tools. Everything comes in two compact boxes, much like those that contain your new bed and table from the IKEA store. More attractively, the design arrives with a number of innovative little tricks, including a photovoltaic panel that provides sufficient electricity to power a small light and mobile phone charger. It seems like a heartwarming example of philanthro-capitalism, good design, and humanitarian innovation (Scott-Smith 2016). What’s not to like?

https://limn.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Ikea-on-off-sm2.gif

For anyone who has actually seen the shelter up close, it looks rather mundane after this hyperbolic description. It has a rectangular floor plan, vertical walls, and a pitched roof. The shelter is fairly small, covering an area of 17.5 square meters, and it is designed to house a family of up to five people. When inside, you can look up and see the entire structure laid bare: a standalone steel frame with imposing horizontal beams, onto which foam panels are clipped. These panels are made from polyolefin, a light, flexible plastic, and they have the feeling and texture of swimming floats. They have been attached to the frame with hand-tightened bolts and brackets, and the shelter has four small ‘window’ openings, ventilation slots, and a lockable door. The main designer described its chunky, basic appearance as the kind of house “a 5-year-old would draw” (personal interview, May 18, 2017, Stockholm). It is, indeed, visually uninspiring, but this is because it is meant to be basic. Like much of IKEA’s product line, it is mass-produced, economical modernism. It is meant to offer a shelter that is immediate, quick, affordable, and easily transportable, staying as close as possible to the price and weight of the main alternative: the tent.

https://limn.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/TomSS-Ikea-Grid2-768x656.png

Tents have been the go-to shelter for humanitarian organizations for more than 50 years. The UN Refugee Agency distributes tens of thousands of them annually, and they are still valued for their lightweight, inexpensive simplicity. To be taken seriously as a humanitarian product, therefore, the IKEA shelter needs to be comparable to the tent in terms of price and weight while making some crucial improvements. There are four, in particular, that can be found in this design. First, the IKEA shelter provides increased security through a lockable door. Second, it provides greater privacy through firmer and more opaque walls. Third, it provides improved communication with a mobile phone-charging station. And fourth, it lasts considerably longer: up to four years rather than just one. These improvements encapsulate the basic requirements for dignified living according to the designers, combining security, privacy, durability, and connection to the outside world. These features, the narrative goes, are particularly important given the protracted nature of so many contemporary refugee situations and the likelihood of a lengthy exile.[3]

When I spoke to the designers about dignity, they came back again and again to the same material expressions, which were fascinating in their tangibility and their conception of refugee social worlds. Dignity meant being able to stand up in the IKEA shelter, which is impossible in a tent. Dignity meant having walls that were “knocky”: firmer, more secure, more resonant when tapped, which distinguished the materials from tarpaulin. Dignity meant privacy: whereas silhouettes can cause a problem in tents, the IKEA shelter does not reveal activity inside when the lights are on at night; its material is more opaque and disperses the shadows. Such improvements, however small, allow the design team to mobilize a more expansive, idealistic rhetoric. In its publicity materials, the shelter has become a “safer, more dignified home away from home for millions of displaced people across the world.” It has channeled “smart design, innovation and modern technology” to offer “a sense of peace, identity and dignity.” It is “universally welcoming”, a “home away from home” that balances “the needs of millions of people living in different cultures, climates and regions with a rational production—a single solution” (Better Shelter 2015; personal interview, May 19, 2017, Stockholm, Sweden). Far from being a better tent, this shelter has some revolutionary ambitions. But is it a better tent? Does it live up to its aims of producing a compact, cheap, lightweight product for meeting a basic human need?
The Reaction

The day after the announcement of the prize I sensed a collective sigh of despair among my colleagues working on refugee issues, which was tangible in personal conversations, snarky asides, and exasperated emails. The failures of the shelter were, for many of them, far too obvious. It was meager, limited, with no proper floor, no insulation, no natural light, and with a structure that let in drafts and dust. It had been oversold, under-ordered, and was described as sustainable when in fact it involved flying piles of metal and plastic around the world. It ignored established practice in the humanitarian shelter sector, which advocates the use of local materials and abundant local labor, and, above all, it was accompanied by an insistent triumphalism, with media reports pushing the narrative that an intractable problem had been solved. It had not. Managing refugee arrivals is a complex political issue that requires sustained political engagement, legal reform, and advocacy in host states to ensure investment in welfare and protection. Although these were not the aims of the IKEA refugee shelter, such lavish praise and attention, my informants felt, were a distraction. Many such “innovative designs” have become a fetish, creating a mistaken reassurance that circumstances can be controlled while obscuring a series of more serious, structural issues that remain unaddressed (Scott-Smith 2013).
The most tangible criticisms of the IKEA shelter, I soon realized, came from two opposing directions. On the one hand, there were those who argued the shelter did too little. It was a mean little space, they suggested, that looked like a garden shed or, due to its plastic panels, a chemical toilet. This line of critique usually came from architects, who filed the object contemptuously under “product design” and declared that it involved no architectural thinking at all. Architecture, they pointed out, should respond to the site and local environment, not mass-produce a universal design with no adaptability or control. Architecture should create sensitive and carefully planned responses to specific problems, not ignore basic elements such as insulation, proper flooring, and natural light. Architecture should also be pleasing to the eye. If you took the Vitruvian triad of architectural virtues, the IKEA shelter seemed to fail on every count. Firmitas, utilitas, and venustas was the aim, but the shelter was flimsy rather than firm, flawed rather than useful, ugly rather than beautiful.[4] It was particularly galling for this group of critics that the shelter won not just Design of the Year, but that it won the architectural category as well.

The other type of criticism came from humanitarians. They argued not that the shelter did too little, but that it did too much. It provided a fully integrated, flat-pack solution when this was rarely required or appropriate. It flew in a prefabricated house when there were better opportunities to work from the bottom up. It lionized designers when design was rarely a priority. Unlike architects, humanitarians were working in a context of limited time and limited resources. They worked with the mantra that “shelter is a process not a product,” a slogan that derives from the work of Ian Davis (1978), one of the founding thinkers of the humanitarian shelter sector, who argued that humanitarians needed to focus on the way people shelter themselves. Davis said that disaster-affected communities had their own techniques for finding and building shelter, suggesting that humanitarian shelter should mean discouraging designers and other outside “experts.” The priority should be to provide materials such as wood, nails, tarpaulin, and tape that help people build their own homes. These could be used and reused as people expanded their accommodation. The crucial task, in other words, was not to provide finished shelters, but to support people in their own process of sheltering.[5]
The Tension

In the middle of May 2017, I took a trip to Stockholm to meet the IKEA shelter’s design team and see how they navigated these two very different criticisms. I arrived at their headquarters on the 11th floor of the old Ericsson building in a southern suburb of the city, and spent some days learning about their brief, their aims, and their ways of thinking. The first thing that became clear was that this was not, in fact, an “IKEA shelter.” It was a designed by a group of independent Swedish industrial designers who had met at college and developed the basic idea in discussion with humanitarians in Geneva. They later received substantial financial support from the IKEA Foundation, which allowed them to refine, test, and iterate the idea, eventually leading to a commitment from the UN Refugee Agency to purchase a large number of units.

As I learned more about the project, it soon became clear that the story of the shelter seemed to be constantly swinging like a pendulum. It was caught between the expansive utopian idealism that so often underpins the announcement of new humanitarian designs and the restricted, mundane implications of their actual implementation. Both types of criticism, in other words, were basically correct: the IKEA shelter is both ‘too much’ and ‘too little’. It is clearly a product rather than a process, so it ends up being overwrought, top-down, and “too much” for aid workers who are skeptical of universal solutions. At the same time, it has been designed to be cheap and lightweight, so it will always be “too little” for those with bigger ideas about what design can achieve (especially as it lacks many of the basic elements that are crucial to architecture, such as proper flooring, insulation, light, strength, and beauty). The formal name for the shelter seems to encapsulate this tension. It is properly called the “Better Shelter”, and I was reprimanded in Stockholm for using the name “IKEA shelter,” which remains in common parlance but has never been formally adopted.[6] This name emphasizes the restricted horizon of improvement. The product aspires to be better, but it is no more than shelter. It idealistically attempts to improve the world, but pursues this by providing basic shelter rather than engaging with a more expansive terrain of housing.

https://limn.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/TomSS16-sm.png

The problem of doing too much and too little was powerfully illustrated in December 2015, when the Swiss city of Zurich conducted a fire safety test on the IKEA shelter. The video of the test was screened on the news and subsequently circulated online: it featured a series of terrifying images in which a small fire, illuminating first the translucent sides of the shelter, suddenly engulfed the scene in an explosion of flames and molten plastic. The media picked up on the story, Zurich cancelled its intended use of the shelters for new migrant arrivals, and distribution of the shelter began to slow. This was perhaps the biggest challenge the design had faced since its inception, and the fire test led to more than a year of additional work as the team made changes to the shelter’s design – mostly adjustments to the panel material. During this process, however, the design team found no clear code to work. Fire retardancy standards and testing procedures could not be found in the usual humanitarian handbooks, and so the team felt hostage to unrealistic criteria. The Swiss tests had compared the shelter with a permanent residential building, which seemed unfair (as a tent, which was the closest equivalent, would fare no better), yet it seemed impossible to object when the Swiss fire tests were released. The shelter was meant to be “better,” and the whiff of double standards would drift over the scene very quickly if they argued this was a shelter for a different population. The idea that refugee accommodation should be held to lower standards would not be good publicity for a product so concerned with the promoting dignity.

The fire tests raised a number of questions. Is this a “slightly” Better Shelter? Or is it “sometimes” a better shelter, depending on location and context? And when, exactly, is it a better shelter – in which times and places? One thing is clear: most people would not choose to live in one of these structures because of its obvious limitations. It has no floor or insulation, barely any natural light, and a tiny living space, even if its three or four tangible improvements certainly make it better than a tent. But then again, it should be better, as it costs a good deal more than a tent: currently twice the price of a UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) standard family model. Is this a problem? Don’t we expect a better shelter to be a more expensive shelter? Yet how much is too much? What if twice the price means aiding half as many people? Is this a “better” result?

As the IKEA shelter becomes more widely used in different locations, a clear lesson has begun to emerge: that the whole product is deeply dependent on context. It is only “better” in some times and places. It may be “better” when compared with a tent, but not when compared with a Swiss apartment building. It may be “better” in a Middle Eastern refugee camp, but not in a Western European reception facility. It may be “better” when funds are plentiful and refugee numbers limited, but not when refugees are plentiful and funds limited. It might be “better” when there is an urgent need for emergency shelters, but not when there is scope for people to build a home of their own.

https://limn.it/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/UNHCR-Tent2-300x448.png

The Lagom Shelter

Perhaps this, in the end, defines the wider world of little development devices and humanitarian goods: they are simultaneously too much and too little. They are vulnerable to the charge of being too limited as well as the charge of being too expansive. They fail to tackle fundamental global injustices, but they still make numerous ideological assumptions about human life and human dignity beneath their search for modest improvements. The little development device oscillates between its grand visions of human improvement and its modest engineering in a tiny frame. The humanitarian good balances a philanthro-capitalist utopia with the minimalist aim of saving lives. All of this is encapsulated in the slightly Better Shelter. When I discussed these thoughts with the team in Stockholm, they basically agreed, and reached for the Swedish word lagom to describe their aims. It is tricky to translate, but means something like “the right amount,” “neither too little nor too much.” The Better Shelter is lagom because it has to be viable as well as adding value. It has to negotiate with the critics who claim it is “too much” as well as those who say it does “too little.” The shelter could never please architectural critics because it was only designed as a cheap, short-term home, and it would never please bottom-up humanitarian practitioners because it was too top-down and complete. Lagom captures the search for balance while reflecting a wider ethos of democratic Swedish design.[7]

Yet aspiring to be lagom does not make the central tension disappear. Just like being “better,” being lagom depends on context. What counts as “just enough” depends on where you are, who you are, and what you are doing. Something lagom in Sweden may not be lagom elsewhere. This became apparent just before the Better Shelter was launched, when a handful of units were shipped to Lebanon for a practical test with refugees. On their arrival in the Bekaa Valley, a group of armed and angry Lebanese neighbors appeared. The shelters, in their view, were too permanent. It did not matter that they had no foundations. It did not matter that they could be removed in less than a day. It did not matter that the walls and roof would degrade in just a few years. The structures were too solid, and the authorities agreed.[8] The Better Shelter had become “too much” for the Lebanese political context, just as in Switzerland it had become “too little.” The same features that made it insufficient in one country made it extravagant in another.

So although the Better Shelter tries to be better everywhere, it can never hope to adapt to the infinite complexity of refugee crises and its scales became disrupted when butting up against hard political realities. Since 2013, the designers have been working assiduously in Stockholm to optimize every component: changing the clips and panel material, redesigning the bolts and vents, refining the door and frame. They think an improved product can overcome both the Swiss fire tests and the Lebanese resistance. But what is “better” will always change with context. The Lagom Shelter can only be truly Lagom on the 11th floor of the old Ericcson building in Stockholm. As soon as it moves, the balance changes. Lagom cannot be built into any universal form.

▻https://limn.it/articles/a-slightly-better-shelter

Avec cette bibliographie :

Bibliography

Beazley. 2017. “Flat-packed refugee shelter named best design of 2016”. Beazley Design of the Year Press Release, 26.01.2017. Available at link: ▻https://www.beazley.com/news/2017/winners_beazley_designs_of_the_year.html

Better Shelter. 2015. Better Shelter: A Home Away From Home. Better Shelter Promotional Leaflet. Available at link: ▻http://www.bettershelter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/About_Better-Shelter.pdf

Davis, I. 1978. Shelter After Disaster. Oxford, UK: Oxford Polytechnic Press.

Garvey, P. 2017. Unpacking Ikea Cultures: Swedish Design for the Purchasing Masses. London, UK: Routledge.

Murphy, K. 2015. Swedish Design: An Ethnography. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Scott-Smith, T. 2013. “The Fetishism of Humanitarian Objects and the Management of Malnutrition in Emergencies.” Third World Quarterly 34(5): 913-28.

———. 2016. “Humanitarian Neophilia: The Innovation Turn and Its Implications.” Third World Quarterly 37(12): 2229–2251.

———. 2017. “The Humanitarian-Architect Divide.” Forced Migration Review 55:67-8.

Sewell, Abby, and Charlotte Alfred. 2017. “Evicted Refugees in Lebanon Have Nowhere Left to Run.” Refugees Deeply, September 28. Available at link: ►https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/09/28/nowhere-left-to-run-refugee-evictions-in-lebanon-in-shadow-of-return

Aperto il primo corridoio umanitario

Italia. Firmato il protocollo per garantire mille visti a migranti e richiedenti asilo in condizioni considerate vulnerabili

▻http://www.ilmanifesto.info/aperto-il-primo-corridoio-umanitario

Le site de l’initiative :
« #speranza_mediterranea » (#mediterranean_hope)
▻https://mediterraneanhope.wordpress.com

Al via i corridoi umanitari verso l’Italia

Il progetto-pilota promosso dalla Federazione delle chiese evangeliche in Italia in collaborazione con la Comunità di Sant’Egidio e con il sostegno della Tavola valdese attraverso i fondi dell’8 per mille, è una sperimentazione ad alta potenzialità: se funziona non potrà che contagiare altri paesi europei

▻http://riforma.it/it/articolo/2015/12/18/al-i-corridoi-umanitari-verso-litalia

Des chrétiens ouvrent des corridors humanitaires

Trois organisations chrétiennes dont Sant’Egidio vont tenter de sélectionner au Liban au Maroc, puis en Éthiopie, des migrants pour les accueillir en Italie.

▻http://www.la-croix.com/Actualite/Europe/Des-chretiens-ouvrent-des-corridors-humanitaires-2015-12-17-1394110

L’Italie met en place des couloirs humanitaires pour les réfugiés

Alors que l’Europe discute du sort des migrants, le gouvernement italien a donné son feu vert, mardi 16 décembre, à une initiative exemplaire proposée par la Fédération des églises évangéliques d’Italie (FCEI) et la communauté catholique de Sant’Egidio : la création de couloirs humanitaires entre les pays qui accueillent de nombreux réfugiés et l’Italie. Son objectif : arrêter d’alimenter les réseaux des passeurs et éviter de nouveaux naufrages en Méditerranée. Il s’agit de sélectionner les réfugiés les plus vulnérables, les femmes enceintes, les femmes seules avec enfants, les mineurs, les réfugiés qui vivent dans des conditions sanitaires extrêmes ou dans des lieux trop proches de zones de combats. Ces derniers sont sélectionnés par des ONG déjà présentes sur le terrain. Les transferts vers l’Italie, et notamment les vols seront payés avec une partie des impôts que l’Etat italien reverse aux églises.

▻http://info.arte.tv/fr/litalie-met-en-place-des-couloirs-humanitaires-pour-les-refugies

Un ponte per mille profughi verso Italia

“Quando andiamo in Italia?”. A domandarlo è Hussein, un bimbo siriano di sei anni con gli occhi vispi e allegri. Da due anni e mezzo vive all’interno di un garage alla periferia di Tripoli con la mamma, il papà e la sorellina, affetta dal retinoblastoma, una rara forma di tumore che colpisce la retina. Sono loro una delle famiglie che arriverà in Italia nelle prossime settimane, grazie al primo corridoio umanitario in Europa, sponsorizzato interamente dalla società civile, attraverso l’otto per mille della Chiesa Valdese.

▻http://www.radiopopolare.it/2016/01/un-ponte-per-mille-profughi-verso-italia

Falak e la sua famiglia. I primi verso Roma con visto

La piccola ha 7 anni ed è malata di tumore: con il fratellino e i genitori saranno i primi ad arrivare da noi con un corridoio umanitario

http://images2.corriereobjects.it/methode_image/2016/02/02/Esteri/Foto%20Esteri%20-%20Trattate/cartina-fotozoom-kLKB-U43150439373515gmD-1224x916@Corriere-Web-Sezioni-593x443.jpg?v=20160202073113

Ici, la #flèche entre Beirut et Rome a tout son sens...
#flèches

I profughi che arrivano in aereo, ecco il progetto pilota di corridoio umanitario

La piccola Falak, siriana di Homs di 6 anni, è sbarcata oggi a Fiumicino con la sua famiglia. È il progetto pilota di corridoio umanitario organizzato dalla Fcei, dai valdesi e da Sant’Egidio, che si propone di portare mille persone vulnerabili in Italia dal Libano, dal Marocco e dall’Etiopia

▻http://www.repubblica.it/solidarieta/profughi/2016/02/04/news/i_profughi_che_arrivano_in_aereo_ecco_il_progetto_pilota_di_corridoio_uma

Syrian girl with eye cancer flown into Italy via ’humanitarian corridor’

A Syrian girl with eye cancer has been flown into Italy for treatment, becoming the first to benefit from a new ’humanitarian corridor’ hoping to stop desperate refugees from attempting a Mediterranean crossing to Europe.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/image/7142398-3x2-700x467.jpg

Benvenuti in Italia! L’arrivo a Roma della prima famiglia di profughi siriani, salvi grazie ai corridoi umanitari

E’ arrivata ieri mattina a Roma all’aeroporto di Fiumicino la prima famiglia di profughi siriani che ha potuto raggiungere l’Italia senza passare per il mare della morte, grazie ai corridoi umanitari realizzati con un acordo della Comunità di Sant’Egidio, Federazione delle Chiese Evangeliche in Italia e Tavola Valdese con i Ministeri degli Esteri e dell’Interno.

▻http://www.santegidio.org/pageID/3/langID/it/itemID/15320/Benvenuti-in-Italia-L-arrivo-a-Roma-della-prima-famiglia-di-profughi-sir

Corridoi umanitari. A Roma il 29 febbraio il primo gruppo cospicuo di profughi siriani

Roma (NEV), 24 febbraio 2016 – All’aeroporto di Fiumicino, di prima mattina del 29 febbraio, arriverà da Beirut il primo cospicuo gruppo di profughi siriani che grazie al progetto ecumenico dei “corridoi umanitari” entrerà in tutta sicurezza e legalmente in Italia. Ad accogliere le famiglie in aeroporto saranno i rappresentanti delle organizzazioni promotrici del progetto: Federazione delle chiese evangeliche in Italia (FCEI), Comunità di Sant’Egidio e Tavola valdese. Nel kit di accoglienza per i beneficiari dei corrodi umanitari, oltre alla prima colazione, troveranno anche la Costituzione italiana in arabo. I bambini, invece, avranno uno zaino con colazione, giochi e album da disegno.

▻http://www.nev.it/archivio/NEV_7770002317.html

v. aussi : ▻http://seen.li/a1u9

Italie : mise en place de couloirs humanitaires aériens pour les réfugiés

Fin février une centaine de réfugiés syriens sont arrivés de Beyrouth à Rome par avion. Avec ce premier couloir humanitaire en Europe, l’Italie espère faire école auprès de ses voisins ! Le programme approuvé par le gouvernement italien et surtout permis par les règlements européens a été mis en œuvre par trois organisations religieuses, dont la communauté de Sant’Egidio. Dans un premier temps, 1000 réfugiés syriens vont pouvoir en bénéficier.

▻http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20160329-italie-couloirs-humanitaires-aeriens-refugies-sant-egidio-migrants?ns_c

A Humanitarian Corridor Provides an Alternative to Bombs and Boats

In just over a year, some 800 Syrian refugees have been relocated from Lebanon to Italy by the humanitarian corridors program, an initiative of the government and religious groups. Abby Sewell tracks one family’s progress and examines successes and limits of the model.

▻https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/articles/2017/04/27/a-humanitarian-corridor-provides-an-alternative-to-bombs-and-boats?platf

For a few refugees, safe passage to Europe

Religious communities cover the cost of settlement for some of the most vulnerable fleeing Syria.

▻http://www.politico.eu/article/for-a-few-refugees-safe-passage-to-europe

Refugees arriving in Athens to be taken to Galatsi and Elliniko camps

2,651 refugees arrived in Piraeus on Friday morning via the Tera Jet catamaran and Aridne ferry boat

▻http://www.tovima.gr/en/article/?aid=742601

Des sites olympiques rouvrent pour des migrants

Les autorités grecques ont évacué, hier, sous la pression d’habitants du centre d’Athènes, un campement improvisé de migrants et les ont transférés vers un site abandonné des jeux Olympiques de 2004, rouvert pour les héberger. Environ 800 personnes selon la police, surtout des familles afghanes qui campaient sur la place Victoria depuis plus d’un mois, ont été conduites en bus au site de Galatsi, dans la banlieue ouest de la capitale, où ont eu lieu en été 2004 les compétitions de table de tennis.

▻http://www.letelegramme.fr/monde/grece-des-sites-olympiques-rouvrent-pour-des-migrants-02-10-2015-107958
#JO

Displaced, Dispossessed and Disposable

In this first part of a commentary series titled “Displaced and Disposable,” humanitarian worker Bruna Kadletz argues that current laws and social attitudes disenfranchise refugee populations to the point of dehumanizing them as expendable commodities.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20160726145717/13692383_10154028693269191_311070754_o2.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2

Hockey, Baseball, Refugees: An interactive tour of five camps in Greece

The camps are in a crazy variety of places: an abandoned beach resort, an Olympic baseball stadium, a highway rest stop, the grounds of an old psychiatric hospital. A team from This American Life went to see how people are adapting to this new life they do not want. We also sent a group of architects and engineers to capture each camp in the architectural renderings that follow. Take a tour to see how people live on the third base line and what others do to deal with the wild boars that roam around at night.

▻https://espminetwork.com/2016/08/03/hockey-baseball-refugees-an-interactive-tour-of-five-camps-in-greece

Boar Traps, Beaches, and a Baseball Stadium

A team from This American Life visited, and sent a group of architects and engineers to capture each camp in the architectural renderings that follow. Take a tour to see how people live on the third base line and what others do to deal with the wild boars that roam around at night.

http://files.thisamericanlife.org/greece/img/greece.png

#merci @cdb_77 ; très jolie réalisation de #cartographie_narrative

Diary of a Rescue Worker on the Mediterranean Sea

Amid a surge in refugee boats from North Africa, a humanitarian worker describes one grueling day onboard a search and rescue ship on the Mediterranean Sea and his dismay at reactions to such rescues in Europe.

https://newsdeeply.imgix.net/20170421152638/Aquarius-SAR-Winter-conditions-and-high-seas.jpg?w=640&fit=max&q=60&dpr=2#.jpg