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Abstract

If we take the process of displacement to mean the loss of capabilities required for an individual to function integrally in an accustomed environment then emplacement ought to be viewed as a strategy to regain such capabilities albeit in changed circumstances. While much has been said about religion driving conflict in the Middle East, less is known about the salience of religion in refugee emplacement strategies in cities across the region. Such sites should be understood as familiar spaces for displaced people, wherein cultural practices including religious ones are sustained and realized through social and kin networks. This chapter emphasizes intersubjective and relational aspects of home-making central to emplacement strategies of Iraqi refugees. In so doing, the lived, everyday experiences of refugee actors and their engagement with religion, re-calibrated as a practice of conviviality, is privileged over formal frameworks of religious authority. ‘A’isha reported Allah’s Messenger as saying: Gabriel impressed upon me [kind treatment] towards the neighbour [so much] that I thought as if he would confer upon him [the right of] inheritance. (Sahih Muslim Book 032, Number 6354)