Sense of belonging (Hypotheses 1-3)

According to our findings, CfW programmes in Jordan clearly strengthen the sense of belonging of Syrian participants to their host community – but only to a certain degree the sense of belonging of Jordanian participants

or of people from either group not participating in the programmes. This is presumably due to the fact that Syrians have a quite strong sense of belonging to their host communities anyhow.

Sense of belonging irrespective of CfW programmes

When asked whether they felt well being part of their respective local community, the vast majority of interviewees stated clearly that they felt comparatively well integrated – both Jordanians and Syrians. Unfortunately, we could not ask all interviewees and some did not answer our question, but a total of 84 people (that is, only a third of all interviewees) responded to this question, including 53 Syrians, 30 Jordanians and 1 Egyptian, respectively 47 males and 37 females. 66 of these respondents (79 per cent) said that their sense of belonging to the local community had always been quite good;

10 interviewees (12 per cent) reported that they had not been well integrated in the past at all but half of them felt much better integrated now.

Of course, some Syrians also mentioned that they still did not feel at home as they had in their Syrian home places before their flight: “Yes, I belong here.

But there is nothing like home” (22, non-participant, Ḥawfā); “Obviously, people are very friendly here. People are very welcoming. We visit each other on our special occasions. It’s very natural for us to become one. But our heart is in Syria” (73, non-participant, Al-Azraq); “Not 100 per cent, but it is normal, maybe 90 per cent” (46, non-participant, Kafr Assad).

One CfW participant in Kafr Assad explicitly made a lack of interaction responsible for her low sense of belonging: “I have no contacts to other people in the village because everybody is at work at day and sleeps at night.

Therefore, I do not feel to be part of it. And all my relatives live in other villages” (60, participant, Kafr Asad).

Some female interviewees stressed that life in Jordan was not always easy for their children. A Syrian CfW participant said, for example: “My girl had problems in the public school” (149, participant, Kafr Ṣawm) and added that her daughter had to change to a private school because she was discriminated against because she was not a Muslim; she was hit by a teacher and other pupils asked her why her mother was not veiled. Another non-participant mentioned: “My children sometimes get abused because we are Syrians. […]

In the schools, or when they go out of them. My older son has got a broken arm because he got into a fight” (135, non-participant, Kafr Ṣawm).

Male interviewees, by contrast, never mentioned problems that other family members had faced. Instead, they highlighted how much they appreciated the high degree of security of life in Jordan, which had helped them to settle in the host country and to feel more at ease.

Virtually all interviewees recounted that they had tried to migrate to communities where they knew someone, preferably relatives and preferably Syrians – but also where they knew at least somebody from the community.

Likewise, many Syrians mentioned that they felt connected to their place of residence in Jordan because it reminded them of the environment of their previous Syrian home.

Most Jordanians stated that they had a very strong sense of belonging to their respective home communities, anyhow. Some also highlighted that many people from their communities did their best to integrate everybody – Jordanians and Syrians: “There are people going to the weddings, funerals, graduation parties, different occasions, so in the beginning they invite the new people that come to the community” (117, non-participants, Umm al-Jimāl); “There is no discrimination [between Syrians and Jordanians]”

(224, shopkeeper, Al-Qaṣr/ Faqū’a); “We don’t think of ourselves as Syrians or Jordanians here, we are one and we all face the same challenges” (133, non-participant, Kafr Ṣawm).

Effects of the existence of CfW programmes as such (Hypothesis 1)

At the same time, a considerable number of interviewees commented on the CfW programmes’ effect on their feeling of belonging, with most pointing towards a positive effect. 30 out of 80 respondents giving any concrete answer to this specific question said that the CfW programmes had eased their integration into local communities: 5 because they had been not so well integrated in the past and 25 even though they had always been quite well integrated. Ten respondents declared explicitly (and another 31 more implicitly) that the CfW programmes had not had any tangible effect on their feeling of belonging because it had always been good. Only 9 said that their feeling of belonging was bad or at least not so good or that it was still the same (Syrian women and men) and no respondent mentioned any negative effect of CfW programmes on their sense of belonging.

Almost all of those who confirmed a positive effect were CfW workers. This finding supports the assumption that, in a context like the Jordanian where the sense of belonging of locals and immigrants is already quite strong, only

the experience of working with people from the respective other group can still make a tangible difference. The main channel of the positive effect of CfW programmes on people’s sense of belonging thus seems to have been participation in CfW programmes, supporting our Hypothesis 2 (see below).

Just 4 non-participants stated that the existence of CfW programmes as such had also had a positive effect on their sense of belonging. Evidence for our Hypothesis 1 is thus weak. One non-participant even mentioned the Arabic word for social cohesion, at-tamāsuk al-ijtimā’i, by himself, but it should be noted that he had been working for a while as a volunteer with NGOs and international organisations and therefore knew the buzz words that donors and researchers like to hear in an interview. Another non-participant stated:

“Yes, the programmes improved the relations. They were even better for the Syrians, who became part of society” (153, non-participant, Kafr Ṣawm).

These findings are in line with those of the survey conducted by Roxin et al. (2020). It confirms that both Jordanians and Syrians had a quite strong feeling of belonging even before the CfW programmes commenced (much more than Syrian refugees in Turkey and even their Turkish neighbours themselves). Furthermore, the survey likewise found that the feeling of belonging increased tangibly over time while the CfW programmes operated, both among participants and non-participants, Syrians and Jordanians (it diminished however in Turkey among participants and non-participants, Syrians and Turks). These results can be seen as indication that the existence of CfW programmes for refugees and locals can in itself generate a sense of belonging at least in some contexts (such as in Jordan).

Effects of participation in CfW programmes (Hypothesis 2)

The effect seems to be strongest on CfW participants themselves: 28 per cent of them acknowledged that their sense of belonging had improved – whether or not their sense of belonging had already been good.

Interestingly, the respective share was almost the same among Jordanian and Syrian cash workers. The Syrians, however, mentioned more often how important their participation in CfW programmes had been in making them feel being part of their host community even at times when we had not directly asked about this effect. The conversation with one Syrian woman was as follows:

Did participation in the project improve your feeling to be part of the community? – Yes, very much! I am proud that I have helped to improve schools in the guest country. And I am happy that some children will now enjoy more going to school and that they will feel well at school.

(60, participant, Kafr Asad)

Jordanians mentioned the issue only when we explicitly asked about it.

For instance, one of them answered the question “Is there anything in particular that helped you to become a member of the community?” with

“The relationships with my neighbours helped me, and the friendliness of the people there. Also, the common work helped” (43, participant, Kafr Asad).

Evidence for our Hypothesis 2 was thus quite strong.

At the same time, this positive effect of having a job is not specific to the format of CfW programmes. Several Jordanian participants highlighted that work was generally a good way to make people feel integrated and part of their respective local community. A Syrian non-participant also stressed that having a job was helpful anyhow – regardless of it being sponsored by a CfW programme or being carried out side-by-side with Jordanian nationals:

“At the beginning, I felt as an outsider. But now, I feel part of society. This is mainly because I have got a job. It helped me a lot” (55, non-participant, Kafr Asad).

Effects of public goods creation of by CfW programmes (Hypothesis 3) In the course of our research, we did not find any evidence for our Hypothesis 3, that is, that the creation of assets such as clean roads, embellished municipal parks, upgraded school buildings or the like have any tangible effect on the feeling of belonging of Jordanian nationals or Syrian refugees. As we tried to disentangle three different channels of effects in our research (see Subsection 5.1.1) it seems that the cooperation of Syrians and Jordanians in joint activities by far outstripped the existence of CfW programmes as such and the creation of assets helpful and enjoyable for people living in the respective local communities.