"The work is pure - but the game is dirty": A Case Study on the Humanitarian Organisations in Zaatari Refugee Camp

Larsen, Nanna Lykke

4. term

Global Refugee Studies, Master

2015

2015-09-29

120 pages

This thesis seeks to explain how the mental health organisations in the world’s second largest refugee camp, Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, are affected by the environment they work in. The analysis consists of three case studies, each displaying the conditions and frames the organisation works with at different levels. Each case constitutes an analytical chapter where organisational theory is able to explain how the mental health organisations are affected by the environment they work in. In the first case study, the Middle Eastern phenomenon of wasta, and the influence it has on the environment in Zaatari, is explored, analysed and explained via the organisational theories of Dependency and Power & Politics. The theories can explain the power structures of wasta both socially, culturally and professionally. The second case study is based on a mental health meeting I attended in Zaatari, where competition theories are used to explain the complex competition between the organisations in Zaatari. The focus is both the density of the organisations in Zaatari as well as on resource partitioning between the specialised and the generalised organisation. Lastly, the third case is a donor-government’s review of an INGO, where the organisational theory of organisations & environments is used to explain the donor scheme and the constraints accountability can cause. The donor’s demand for reports, log frames etc. are heavy burdens on the smaller locale partner organisations, who do not have the resources to employ grant managers. In the discussion, the three cases are combined into one abstract critical case, where I argue for the case to serve as a general example of how humanitarian organisations are affected and restrained by the environment in which they operate. The three cases all constitute the environment of humanitarian organisations and all are influential on the survival rate of organisations in such an environment. I ague that in order to comprehend the measures, strategies and behaviour of the mental health organisations in Zaatari refugee camp, one must fully comprehend the environment, context and conditions of the humanitarian field.

Humanitarian organizations ; organizational theory ; Cases study ; Zaatari Refugee camp

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