We’ve made a graphic novel, yay!
Based on the research that we’ve done in the REF-ARAB project, we spent much of the past year writing, illustrating, translating and designing Cardboard Camp: Stories of Sudanese Refugees in Lebanon. This was my first time being involved in research-based visual storytelling and the learning curve has certainly been quite steep. Everything started with Yazan al-Saadi and I working mostly over Zoom and sometimes together in Beirut to write the actual script of the comic. To a large extent we used dialogue that emerged from my interviews or from other material such as video recordings made by my informants themselves.
The graphic novel largely revolves around a protest camp that was set up outside the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, in Beirut. While refugees are not really expected to be politically vocal during their exile, across the globe, they have sought to challenge existing power structures. In places like Cairo and Amman, Tunis and Athens, we see that they have aspired to fight against inequalities within the broader humanitarian system.
In many places, protection seekers have staged protests and sit-ins outside the offices of UNHCR. Being the primary organ mandated to provide international protection to refugees, UNHCR’s role is unique within the international system. Since its creation, the organization has assumed progressively more state-like functions when it comes to refugee protection.
Lebanon has long been a destination for persecuted Sudanese who seek access to the protection, aid, and resettlement services of UNHCR. In Beirut, Sudanese protection seekers have not remained silent and have loudly pushed for agendas defined by, and for, themselves. And there are good reasons for seeking to influence UNHCR’s protection and assistance. I write about some of these reasons in my research here and here.
Among other things, my research has highlighted how the situation of Sudanese and other African refugees is overshadowed by humanitarian responses focusing on refugee groups considered to be of greater political interest. UNHCR itself recently said that Sudanese refugees in Lebanon are among those who are “systematically worse off [than other refugee groups], and at times significantly so", on practically all levels.
Cardboard Camp depicts the struggles of three characters – Faheema, Sultan and Kudi as they make their way from Sudan to Lebanon, to elsewhere. Act 1 follows their individual journeys, while Act 2 brings the characters together at a sit-in outside UNHCR Beirut. The final Act 3 tells us what happens next.
While the characters and events are entirely fictional, the depictions of life as a refugee protester draw on research carried out at the UNHCR sit-ins in Beirut over the past few years. The needs, aspirations and concerns of each protester are complex, and it has been impossible to fully do justice to all experiences. That said, in the comic we hope to spotlight some of the daily concerns and struggles, and to remind us all that such struggles persist alongside and within larger humanitarian governance systems, in Lebanon and beyond.
While it certainly was not evident to me at the outset of this project, with time the strengths of visual storytelling as part of the research process have become obvious. We discussed the pros and cons and how-tos of visual storytelling at this recent seminar jointly organized with PRIO. We agreed that graphic novels can build empathy very quickly and may even allow us to study more closely difficult topics and events that otherwise would be too overwhelming to grasp. At an early stage I wrongly assumed that comics and cartoons created a distance to a topic, but after having gone through this process I find that the graphic distillation almost makes it stronger. Through this medium, we can explore emotionally hard research topics that standard research dissemination cannot quite grasp.
Visual storytelling offers an alternative knowledge production as it is another way of approaching and apprehending the world. As such, it challenges the ivory tower of academic knowledge production. For me, the visual storytelling experience also allowed me to communicate my research findings back to my research participants in a format that is more accessible and interesting to them. The overwhelming response at our launch event in Beirut certainly validated this desire!
I am ever grateful to the team of ten creatives that worked together with me on this project: K., Yazan al-Saadi, Omar Khouri, Noemie Honein, Anthony Hanna, Sirène Moukheiber, Chloé Benoist, Wini Omer, Farah Fayyad and Layal Khatib. As I expressed during out launch events in Beirut and in Oslo, I am humbled by the devotion and care that the whole team has showed Cardboard Camp and its characters. And to those of you who have shared your stories with us – stories that allowed us to make Cardboard Camp – thank you. A final thank you also to the University of Oslo and the Research Council of Norway for providing funding.
Cardboard Camp is available to read and to download for free in English and in Arabic by going straight to cardboardcamp.net. We’ve also printed a limited number of hard copies for distribution at events that we organize and/or participate in.