Displaced: Vulnerability and Survival Within Segregated Undercaste Micro-Cultures

Abstract

Humanitarian programmes that offer support and aid to disenfranchised and displaced populations often focus on transient minorities in a state of hyper-vulnerability. Constant relocation of these groups from unsafe environments resulting from humanitarian crises or housing instability leaves a disproportionate segment of this population with inadequate housing or temporary shelter. Despite the best efforts of relief organisations, some disenfranchised and displaced groups view humanitarian outreach as a last resort and opt to meet their needs independently. Too often, these minorities are cast in a pitiable light and regarded as separate from the macro-societies they are part of. In this way, the border that defines these groups result from a state of being rather than a drawn boundary. How marginalised minority populations reject the larger society and sustain themselves outside conventional economic sectors is a subject of long-standing interest. This interest draws upon volunteer experience with habitat for humanity between 2005 and 2009 and first-hand accounts and statistical data of outreach to groups seeking asylum. These efforts are part of an ongoing examination of undercaste micro-communities in Lebanon and the US that are shunned within greater macro-societies.