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Abstract
This article dissects the refugee recognition regime in Jordan. It argues that refugee recognition, despite being conducted by UNHCR, is a heavily politicized process shaped by intersecting racial and national hierarchies, restrictive government regulations, and UNHCR policies. Despite Jordan hosting the 'second highest share of refugees per capita in the world', relatively few protection seekers gain refugee status, and when they do, it is almost always as part of the resettlement process. Many remain asylum seekers for years or decades, while others cannot even register their claim for international protection with UNHCR. This article contributes to refugee studies by demonstrating how UNHCR policies are changing RSD in non-signatory states, the importance of asylum/refugee registration, how state and humanitarian policies lead to some protection seekers being missed in academic analyses, and highlighting the ever-growing gap between the legal and 'everyday' uses of the term 'refugee'.

AbstractIn the context of a greater focus on the politics of migration, the 'refugee entrepreneur' has become an increasingly important figure in humanitarian, media, and academic portrayals of refugees. Through a focus on Jordan's Za'tari refugee camp, which has been deemed a showcase for refugees' 'entrepreneurship', this article argues that the designation of Syrian refugees as 'entrepreneurs' is a positioning of Syrians within colonial hierarchies of race that pervade humanitarian work. For many humanitarian workers in Jordan, Syrians' 'entrepreneurship' distinguishes them from 'African' refugees, who are imagined as passive, impoverished, and dependent on humanitarian largesse. Without explicit racial comparisons, humanitarian agencies simultaneously market Syrian refugees online as 'entrepreneurs', to enable them to be perceived as closer to whiteness, and to thereby render them more acceptable to Western audiences and donors, who are imagined as white. This article extends scholarly understandings of the understudied relationship between race and humanitarianism. Furthermore, it asks critical questions about the political work and effects of vision of the 'refugee entrepreneur', which it locates within the context of the increasingly neoliberalised refugee regime. 'Refugee entrepreneurs' do not need political support and solidarity, but to be allowed to embrace the forces of free-market capitalism.

ABSTRACTThis article explores the significance of initiatives to formalize the labour market participation of refugees. Many practitioners believe that formalization is a panacea for improving the lives of marginalized workers, including refugees. This article argues, however, that in practice it easily becomes an indicator‐oriented exercise, where readily quantifiable targets are prioritized over substantive improvements. To this end, the article analyses the trajectory of the Jordan Compact, a flagship initiative that brought together humanitarian, development and labour actors to create 'win‐win' solutions for Syrians and Jordanians. Drawing on years of qualitative fieldwork in Jordan, the article traces how the Jordan Compact has made formalization an end in itself, with little regard for how much it actually benefits workers. It examines three central areas of programming: work permits, home‐based businesses and working conditions. In each area, the article demonstrates how the chosen indicators have shaped initiatives while undermining meaningful reform. Bringing together insights from humanitarianism, development and critical labour studies, the analysis shows that indicator‐oriented formalization, a form of measurement‐driven governance, ostensibly produces impressive results, yet it can simultaneously undermine longer‐term, multidimensional processes that would benefit workers more. The article advocates shifting the focus onto the individual and collective power of workers so that they can better realize the potential benefits of formalization.

Gender transformations are normatively understood as somatic, based on surgical reassignment, where the sexed body is aligned with the gender identity of the individual through genital surgery – hence the common lexicon 'sex change surgery'. We suggest that the UK Gender Recognition Act 2004 challenges what constitutes a 'sex change' through the Act's definitions and also the conditions within which legal 'recognition' is permitted. The sex/gender distinction, (where sex normatively refers to the sexed body, and gender, to social identity) is demobilised both literally and legally. This paper discusses the history of medico-socio-legal definitions of sex have been developed through decision making processes when courts have been faced with people with gender variance and, in particular, the implications of the Gender Recognition Act for our contemporary legal understanding of sex. We ask, and attempt to answer, has 'sex' changed?