TY - JOUR TI - Deconstructing the United Nation's imagination of 'the refugee child' DO - https://doi.org/doi:10.7282/T34Q7Z52 PY - 2018 AB - As the biggest humanitarian crisis since World War II, the forced migration of half of Syria’s population has undeniably altered the social, political, and economic landscape of the region. While all surrounding nations and several Western countries have accepted refugees, Lebanon currently accommodates more Syrian refugees per capita than any other country in the world. Of the over 1.5 million Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations in Lebanon, approximately half are under the age of eighteen. Lebanon currently hosts the largest number of Syrian refugee children in the world. Although the country is facing a seemingly new situation with the Syrian refugee crisis, Lebanon has confronted a similar predicament with the emergence of a Palestinian refugee population as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. As the longest running refugee situation in modern history, the UN’s response to Palestinian refugees is imbedded with a particular construction of childhood leading to the continued absence of socioeconomic progress nearly 70 years after their initial displacement. The purpose of this analysis is to reveal the tension between the UN’s construction of the ‘refugee child’ and the more nuanced lived realities depicted by scholars researching refugee children in the region. KW - Childhood Studies KW - Syria--History--Civil War, 2011---Refugees LA - eng ER -