Navigating ‘Survivelihood’: Why refugees in Jordan plateau in their financial journeys too soon
By Swati Mehta Dhawan, Hans-Martin Zademach, and Kim Wilson
This essay brings together early insights from the research conducted under the Finance in Displacement (FIND) project in Jordan. Between September 2019 to December 2020, we completed three rounds of in-depth interviews with over seventy refugees and asylum seekers in Jordan (a total 234 individual interviews) to understand their financial lives in displacement. These interviews have tried to capture the strategies that participants use to perform various financial tasks during different stages of displacement, especially after they arrived in Jordan, probing on their financial stressors, coping strategies, approaches to household financial management, and access to and use of financial services. It also explores the ecosystem of refugees to better understand their access to services, relationship with organisations, and the role of social networks and friendships.
For questions, please reach out to Professor Kimberley Wilson at Kimberley.Wilson@tufts.edu.