Abdulla Majeed

This research project emerges from a basic inquiry: How does Iraqi statehood appear in exile when it becomes entangled with Jordan’s state-project? Since the overthrow of the Iraqi Hashemite monarchy in 1958, Iraqis have continued to migrate and sojourn between the two countries, establishing lasting social and economic circuits. Yet, Iraqis’ lack of access to many legally binding rights in Jordan, and the failure of state-reconstruction projects in Iraq, have produced a condition of suspension, in which future hopes/aspirations for belonging and welfare are always contested and destabilized. In ways that have not yet been studied for any displaced population, Iraqis in Jordan are subject to multiple state projects — Iraqi and Jordanian — and they must maneuver between them as they negotiate their desires for a stable and benevolent state, and as they construct future hopes and aspirations for a “dignified” life. By following everyday socialites of Iraqi “guests” in Jordan, and their routine encounters with Jordanian and Iraqi state-practices, my research asks: How and why certain practices/relations become imagined as hopeful? How do these practices enunciate desires and hopes for a state? What does the circulation of these hopes inform us about the (re)making of statehood in exile?