In her research project, AIA Fellow Tamirace Fakhoury, Associate Professor of International Politics and Conflict Studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the USA, is examining refugee policy in the Middle East, with a particular focus on displacement in Syria as a case study.

At the center of the colloquium was the presentation of a paper she is currently working on. In it, she reflects on the concept of shared responsibility in the context of the Global Compacts under the key question: How are the expectations in Geneva being disappointed in Beirut? In her presentation, she also drew links to her core project, which she is working on at the AIA. In particular, the political and social structures of the Middle East as well as the discursive practices of the EU to strengthen resilience and the externalization strategies of migration control are recurring elements of her research. Tamirace Fakhoury provided initial insights into the narrative scripts she has identified so far, which she encountered in interviews with UN officials, refugee organizations, Lebanese government representatives and other actors, and systematically juxtaposed them. In particular, the concept of shared responsibility and how it can be operationalized was discussed intensively among the fellows, as many also saw points of connection to their own research projects here. The tension between effectiveness and fairness was also highlighted in the discussion, as was the tension between pragmatic and ethical approaches.