What -- or, for what -- is shelter? Deceptively simple questions motivate Tom Scott-Smith's compelling Fragments of Home: Refugee Housing and the Politics of Shelter, a critical examination of refugee shelter and of the often contradictory politics and practices contained therein. The absence of stable shelter is a defining feature of displacement crises; its provision, then, is among humanitarianism's primary goals, as coordinated through the United Nations Cluster System and codified in the Sphere Project's technical standards. Per Sphere, we know that shelter in a refugee camp can be fulfilled with 3.5 m2 of living space per person, adequate roof cover, and so forth. Or can it? Scott-Smith raises doubts. After all, although every physical need was met for Syrians in the "model camps" of Zaatari and Azraq in Jordan (Chapter 2), life itself was stifled in their prison-like confines. What, then, is shelter?

Fragments of Home's central argument is that shelter cannot be reduced to a mere essence or a set of standardized provisions, as humanitarians often attempt, but should, instead, prioritize the autonomy of refugees, allowing them to define their own needs, preferences, and aspirations. As he observes, "The fact is people do not suspend their higher-order human ambitions just because they have to flee