The role of transnational networks and cross-border circulation in Palestinian migration in situation of conflict.

International audienceThe Syrian conflict has profound consequences for the Palestinian population in Syria. Palestinians in Syria were enjoying access to education and the labor market without particular discrimination in Syria before 2011. The conflict began in 2011 rejected the Palestinians in Syria to their stateless status and forced more than 70,000 of them to seek asylum in neighboring countries, like the Palestinians from Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003. The aim of this presentation is to analyze the specific treatment of Palestinians from Syria in a context of a broader discussion on the selectivity of migration policies of Middel Eastern states vis-à-vis the Palestinians. This issue raises wider question of the status of Palestinian refugees who seek asylum in a third country. Their status has a strong impact both on how they settle in their host country and their access to mobility and protection in the context of conflicts. The current forced migration of Palestinian refugees, largely overshadowed by the magnitude of the Syrian refugee crisis, raises many questions regarding the status of refugees forced to leave their countries of first asylum to seek refuge in a third country out of any framework for international protection. I will analyse the issue of secondary migration of refugees, which is part of a wider inquiry on the scales of mobility and cross-border circulation. I will therefore question the relationship between forms of long term circulation and forced exodus related to conflict. The construction of transnational and translocal networks in situation of crisis will be developed. This communication will be based on my research on the movement of Palestinians refugees since the mid-1990s as well as an exploratory field study carried out in December 2013 in South Lebanon which show strong relationships between secondary migration and other forms of international migration of Palestinians, as their local effects in Lebanon