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This thesis is based upon eighteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in London undertaken between January 2006 and July 2007. It explores the discourses and practices which (re)produce notions of gender, race, ethnicity and class among young people born or raised in London to migrants from Arab states. Instead of taking the existence of an Arab community' in London as self-evident, this thesis looks critically at the idea of Arab-ness in London and the ways in which it is signified, reiterated and recited. Taking the theorising of performative gender as a starting point I explore the possibilities of a sequential reading of ‘gender' and ‘race' and the practices and discourses which produce that which they name ‘Arab woman,' Arab man,' ‘British- Arab'. By looking at discourses, practices and political context, ‘ethnicity' and ‘race' appear to be less about an inner fixity or even multiple identities, instead they can be significantly attributed to a discursive and corporeal project of survival and social intelligibility between structures of subjection which create imperatives to enact and reproduce notions of ‘race' and ‘gender'. In this sense it is no longer satisfactory to see ethnicity as something that one possesses – but something that one does and embodies imperfectly, constantly adding, reinforcing and disrupting its presumed structure. Looking at what it means “to do” Arab-ness in London provides opportunities to look at the underlying normative and psychical structures that inform the doing of ethnicity in a particular setting. The shift from foundationalist and “epistemological account[s] of identity to [those] which locate[s] the problematic within practices of signification permits an analysis that takes the epistemological mode itself as one possible and contingent signifying practice” (Butler 1990: 184). Through the Shisha cafe, ‘Arabic nights', images and narratives I explore the discursive and corporeal acts that signify Arab-ness in London at a particular historical moment.

Responding to the call of contemporary political philosophy to locate ‘the political' beyond the boundaries of formal citizenship (Balibar, 2004; Chatterjee, 2004; Rànciere, 2004), over the last few years researchers across various disciplines have devoted increasing attention to migrant and refugee protests and political mobilization (Tyler and Marciniak, 2013). Research in this area has thoroughly questioned paradigms of biopolitical exception, but also challenged widespread assumptions on the political agency of subaltern subjects as always associated with mundane, silent, and invisible practices. In this context, academic attention has been devoted significantly to Euro-American borderzones and spaces of enforcement, and, in the Global South, to refugee camps. Today however, evidence is growing that the vast majority of refugee and migrant populations are urbanized, and do not live in the West. Based on an 18-month ethnographic fieldwork, this thesis contributes to this growing body of work exploring the contested relations between refugees and humanitarian agencies in Cairo, Egypt. Theoretically, the analysis combines insights from assemblage geographies (De Landa, 2006; McFarlane, 2011) and critical development, refugee, and urban studies (Hyndman, 2001; Simone 2004a, 2004b; Elyachar, 2005; Duffield, 2007, 2011; Bayat, 2010; 2012; Hyndman and Giles, 2011). The empirical sections of the thesis are articulated around two main axes of inquiry. Part B – The Boundaries of Aid – looks at how refugees in Cairo engage with the spatial practices of humanitarian organizations, contesting their growing securitization and the boundaries and hierarchies that separate them from practitioners. Part C – Sociomaterial infrastructures: agency beyond resistance – focuses on the networks – encompassing human and non-human elements – which allow refugees to build relations of support, experience sociality, and organize politically autonomously from aid agencies. The thesis puts forward a two-part argument. Not only do the struggles of refugees in Cairo challenge prevalent understanding of humanitarian aid as a domain of ‘depoliticization', but they also question the distinction between everyday life and overt manifestations of ‘resistance', contestation, and protest. Confronted with a complex and often violent system of humanitarian and urban governance, refugees in Cairo, I demonstrate, are able to mobilize a range of practices and position takings which problematize prevalent conceptualizations of resistance, and point to the need for rethinking questions of agency in conditions of structural violence.

Section A. This paper opens with a broad overview of theoretical and empirical literature on refugee mental health. It highlights a relative weakness in the understandings of post-migration mental health, particularly in the context of female refugees. The paper then focuses on three areas of refugee women's mental health, critically evaluating theoretical and empirical literature: 1) risk factors and prevalence of mental health difficulties 2) coping strategies, 3) mental health service utilisation. Gaps in the extant literature are highlighted and suggestions are made for future research. Section B. This paper describes a qualitative study which aimed to explore refugee women's experiences of distress and their encounters with mental health services in the UK. Refugee women do not utilise UK mental health services as frequently as might be expected owing to their vulnerability to mental health problems. The study investigated the mental health experiences of refugee women who have encountered mental health services in the UK in order to contribute to understandings about factors affecting service utilisation. A grounded theory qualitative methodology was employed. Ten refugee women were recruited from a local non-governmental organisation and participated in semi-structured interviews about their experiences of distress, coping strategies and encounters with UK mental health services. A two-staged model emerged from the data. The first model depicted women’s experiences of distress predominantly in the context of post-migration experiences and how they coped, drawing notably from spiritual and social resources. The second stage of the model indicated how mental health service encounters were varied and a process of engagement involved evaluation and re-evaluation at particular stages. The study concluded that understanding refugee women’s utilisation of mental health services demands a multi-factorial, dynamic appraisal. Section C. This paper offers a critical appraisal of the study reported in Section B. The paper reflects on the research skills and abilities developed by the principal researcher and considers areas for development in terms of future clinical and research work in this field.

Section A presents a literature review which aims to consolidate the theoretical and empirical psychological research regarding refugees’ post-migration, to clarify and further understand their psychological experiences and needs. The literature search yielded papers which are divided into four sections: refugees and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); refugees, complicated grief and cultural bereavement; refugees, resettlement and acculturation; and refugees and Quality of Life (QoL). The review highlights key findings and areas requiring further exploration. Section B reports an exploratory narrative study which aims to explore the role of QoL in the narratives of refugees with a diagnosis of PTSD. Episodic semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven refugees (5 males, 2 females), and analysed using narrative thematic, structural and performance analysis. The results illustrated containing and consistent support was important in progressing the transition from suffering during asylum-seeking to a refugee with hope, and improved QoL and psychological health. The results are applied to theory and research, and limitations of the study are discussed.