["Population, Space and Place, Volume 32, Issue 3, April 2026. ", "\nABSTRACT\nThis article analyzes the intertwined evolution of a humanitarian camp and the lived experience of its inhabitants, Syrian Kurds who sought refuge in Iraqi Kurdistan after fleeing the war. Based on intermittent immersive fieldwork conducted between 2014 and 2019, this article describes the various phases of the camp's construction—initially conceived as an open space, connected to its surrounding environment, the Iraqi Kurdistan—and analyzes the emergence of a relationship between the host society, Iraqi Kurdish, and the exiled population, Syrian Kurdish. In response to global security policies and regional challenges, this space subsequently is transformed into a site of control and marginalization, triggering a process of extraterritorialization. This critical phase confronts individuals with their historical trajectory and reveals an experience of ongoing violence, from which they redefine their relationship to both the camp and exile. Encampment is thus analyzed as an experience of subjectivation through which individuals reconstruct a shared history, enabling them to resist the exclusion inherent in humanitarian identification and the practice of encampment. By mobilizing their past in this way, Syrian Kurds not only give meaning to their asylum situation but also develop a paradoxical relationship to the camp, which emerges as a space that is simultaneously repressive and enabling.\n"]