Occupied Lives

Nina Gren

Description

How the inhabitants of a Palestinian refugee camp sustain daily routine, trust, and hope under Israeli military occupation
Intense media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not necessarily enhance one's knowledge or understanding of the Palestinians; on the contrary they are more often than not reduced to either victims or perpetrators. Similarly, while many academic studies devote considerable effort to analyzing the political situation in the occupied territories, there have been few sophisticated case studies of Palestinian refugees living under Israeli rule. An ethnographic study of Palestinian refugees in Dheisheh refugee camp, just south of Bethlehem, Occupied Lives looks closely at the attempts of the camp inhabitants to survive and bounce back from the profound effects of political violence and Israeli military occupation on their daily lives.
Based on the author's extensive fieldwork conducted inside the camp, including a year during 2003-2004 when she lived in Dheisheh, this study examines the daily efforts of camp inhabitants to secure survival and meaning during the period of the al-Aqsa Intifada. It argues that the political developments and experiences of extensive violence at the time, which left most refugees outside of direct activism, caused many camp inhabitants to disengage from traditional forms of politics. Instead, they became involved in alternative practices aimed at maintaining their sense of social worth and integrity, by focusing on processes to establish a 'normal' order, social continuity, and morality. Nina Gren explores these processes and the ambiguities and dilemmas that necessarily arose from them and the ways in which the political and the existential are often intertwined in Dheisheh.
Combining theoretical readings with field-based case study, this book will be invaluable to scholars and students of social anthropology, sociology, international relations, refugee studies, religious studies, and Middle East studies, as well as to anyone with an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian issue.
Preface
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration
Maps
Chronology of Events
Ch. 1. Introduction
-Focus and Purpose
-Being Camp Refugees under Violent Occupation
-Integrity and Constrained Agency
-Why a Focus on Everyday Life?
-'Normality' in a Violent and Prolonged Refugee Situation
-Social Continuity: New Homes and Re-established Family Lines
-A Moral Crisis on Repeat
-Doing Fieldwork in Dheisheh
-Overview of Chapters
Ch. 2. Dheisheh as a Social and Political Place
-Introduction
-The Order of Things in Dheisheh
-Earlier Political Affiliations and Activism in Dheisheh
-Political Disengagement at the Time of Fieldwork
-Concluding Remarks
Ch. 3. Living with Violence and Insecurity
-Introduction
-Experiencing On-going Crisis
-The Presence of Extraordinary Deaths
-Extending the Limits of Normality
-Remaining Patient and Hopeful
-Negotiating Trust
-Concluding Remarks
Ch. 4. The Making of New Homes
-Introduction
-To Build a House is to Make a Life
-Imprisonment Delaying Life
-Children as Normality, Resistance and Recovery
-Reframing Home to a Political Stage
-Getting by Together
-Concluding Remarks
Ch. 5. Reconstituting a Moral Order
-Introduction
-A Chain of Catastrophic Events
-The Camp as a Moral Community
-Palestinian Moral Superiority and the Immoral Others
-Moral Contamination
-A Shaken Political Morality
-Concluding Remarks
Ch. 6. Concluding Discussion
-Maintaining Integrity in the Face of Violation
-Struggling Against Temporariness
-Having a Life or Being a True Patriot?
-How May One Remain a Political Subject?
-Existence and Politics
References
Index

Sujets

• Political Science

Informations

• Publié par: The American University in Cairo Press
• Date de parution: 20 novembre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781617976728
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

OCCUPIED LIVES
OCCUPIED LIVES
Maintaining Integrity in a Palestinian Refugee Camp in the West Bank
Nina Gren
The American University in Cairo Press
Cairo New York
This electronic edition published in 2015 by
The American University in Cairo Press
113 Sharia Kasr el Aini, Cairo, Egypt
420 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10018
www.aucpress.com
Copyright 2015 by Nina Gren
First published in hardback in 2015
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978 977 416 695 2
eISBN 9781 61797 672 8
Version 1
To all the Dheishehans, past and present, who shared their experience of flight and loss with me
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Maps
Chronology of Events
Introduction
Focus and Purpose
Being Camp Refugees under Violent Occupation
Integrity and Constrained Agency
Why a Focus on Everyday Life?
Normality in a Violent and Prolonged Refugee Situation
Social Continuity: New Homes and Reestablished Family Lines
A Moral Crisis on Repeat
Doing Fieldwork in Dheisheh
Overview of Chapters
1. Dheisheh as a Social and Political Space
The Order of Things in Dheisheh
The Bethlehem Area
The Dynamics of Lingering Villages
Earlier Political Affiliations and Activism in Dheisheh
Political Disengagement at the Time of Fieldwork
Concluding Remarks
2. Living with Violence and Insecurity
Experiencing Ongoing Crisis
The Presence of Extraordinary Deaths
Extending the Limits of Normality
Remaining Patient and Hopeful
Negotiating Trust
Concluding Remarks
3. The Making of New Homes
To Build a House Is to Make a Life
Imprisonment Delaying Life
Children as Normality, Resistance, and Recovery
Reframing Home to a Political Stage
Getting by Together
Concluding Remarks
4. Reconstituting a Moral Order
A Chain of Catastrophic Events
The Camp as a Moral Community
Palestinian Moral Superiority and the Immoral Others
Moral Contamination
A Shaken Political Morality
Concluding Remarks
Conclusion
Maintaining Integrity in the Face of Violation
Struggling against Temporariness
Having a Life or Being a True Patriot?
How May One Remain a Political Subject?
Existence and Politics
Notes
References
Preface
T his book is based on ethnographic research in the Palestinian refugee camp Dheisheh, in the West Bank. It explores how the Israeli occupation and the political developments during the al-Aqsa Intifada came to impact on the camp residents everyday lives.
I like to think of my engagement in the research that led to this book as being of three kinds: academic, political, and personal. First of all, this book is the result of my anthropological interest in understanding everyday lives in violent and war-like contexts and what it means to be a refugee. Despite all the particularities of the Palestinian issue, Dheishehans predicament resonates with other people s lives in similar conditions. The frequently used concept the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is however more confusing than revealing. Although it is possible and sometimes useful to understand the relations between Israelis and Palestinians as a traditional conflict between two national projects or as a regional conflict that involves not only Palestinians and Israelis but also Arab and Western countries that wish to influence the Middle East, it is clear that those understandings hide important dimensions of reality and confuse many analyses. The asymmetry of power between Israelis and Palestinians is striking, as Israel remains an occupying power and the Palestinian territories a quasi-independent unit, lacking statehood. It is increasingly difficult to ignore the colonial aspects of the Israeli occupation and Israel s character as a settler community or even an apartheid-like state (for example, Abdo and Yuval-Davis 1995; Kretzmer 2002; Ron 2003; Carter 2006). One point of departure for this book is thus that the power imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians deeply influences Palestinians mundane routines in violent surroundings to a much larger extent than it impacts on Israeli everyday life.
Academically, I am writing against common and simplified views of Palestinian refugees as either terrorists or mere victims, and I am instead presenting them as social agents who have choices and aspirations, although within limiting conditions. I have thus taken into account the profound power asymmetry between Israelis and Palestinians, but without assuming that this asymmetry renders the dominated party passive or disabled. The way in which camp residents carry on with life in all its ordinariness despite the extreme conditions around them may seem provocative for some; these lives do not fit easily into the simplifying discourses and media representations that highlight Palestinian militancy, heroism, or suffering. Dheishehans lives are marked by ambivalence and constraints, but also by creativity in finding ways to deal with their predicament.
Those scholarly interests are no doubt bound up with a political stance. It is important for me that my research is not only an academic contribution but also of value in more pragmatic political and societal debates. I think especially of the impact of the Palestinian flight in 1948 and of the extensive and long-term violence carried out by Israel since the beginning of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. I hope that this book will further the understanding of the huge effects of Israeli abuses such as displacements, extrajudicial killings, incarceration, and torture on Palestinian society. In addition, the refugee issue remains a wound among Palestinians that needs to be dealt with seriously in several dimensions. I am convinced that a just and long-term solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can only be reached by engaging with those two issues.
I have often been asked why I spent so many years doing research on Palestinian refugees. I do not have a Palestinian or Jewish background, for instance. There is no simple answer to that question; many important decisions in life seem to be taken for multiple reasons. In hindsight, I think that some contacts and friendships I had with newly arrived refugees in Sweden during the 1990s influenced me to ponder what it means to have experienced political violence and flight.
I fell in love with Palestine in the summer of 2000 when, as a Master s student in social anthropology, I was awarded a grant for three months of fieldwork on Palestinian women s political participation. Before that, Palestinians and the occupied territories were part of the news I followed and a university course I took. Even earlier, Palestine was on the Biblical map hanging on the wall during my first years in school and was constantly referred to by my religious schoolteacher in the village where I grew up. Although I thought I had done my homework by reading extensively about the situation, seeing the reality in Israel/Palestine was a staggering experience because the injustices were so huge and obvious. At the same time, the beauty of the West Bank landscape was breathtaking and the kindness of the Palestinians I met overwhelming. With time, I of course developed a more critical view of Palestinian society.
Continuing my studies as part of a doctoral program with a year of fieldwork in Dheisheh was not an obvious decision, since the al-Aqsa Intifada was underway. After some discussion with my supervisor and other informed academics in Sweden and the West Bank, I decided to give it a try, still uncertain if it would be possible to finish my work. I am so happy and grateful that I managed. For many anthropologists, intense fieldwork can be personally transformative, as we frequently use ourselves as methodological tools. It proved transformative also for me. Although I was often under strain because of the violence around me and on a few occasions frightened, I felt and I still feel that, apart from learning about Dheisheh, I learned much about myself during that year. I cried a lot because of the suffering around me, but I also grew with the difficulties and had a surprising amount of fun at times. The stubbornness, solidarity, and sociability of Dheishehans taught me a lot about how I want to live my own life. I have rarely felt as seen and acknowledged as I did during that year. As this book demonstrates, Dheishehans are experts at supporting each other, as well as foreign researchers.
My involvement with Dheisheh has continued. I have visited the area numerous times over the last decade. I have to admit that I occasionally get tired of Dheishehans. Their intense social relations and their frankness (often commenting on things I consider none of their business) but mostly their occasional despair and hopelessness can be difficult to bear. Nonetheless, they are the most trustworthy and warm-hearted people I know. Among Dheishehans, I know I have some really good friends.
Acknowledgments
T his book was a long time in the making. The number of individuals and institutes that offered me support over the years has thus grown significant. I began the fieldwork for the book as part of my PhD project at the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg-a department that later merged into the School of Global Studies along with several other departments and subjects. After completing my dissertation