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Palestinian Refugees between the City and the Camp

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2020

Faedah M. Totah Open the ORCID record for Faedah M. Totah [Opens in a new window]
Faedah M. Totah*
Affiliation:
School of World Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University, 312 N. Shafer St., Box 842021, Richmond, Virginia23284, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: ftotah@vcu.edu
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Abstract

The camp and the city are both important for understanding the relationship between space and identity in the refugee experience of exile. In the Palestinian example, the camp has emerged as a potent symbol in the narrative of exile although only a third of refugees registered with UNRWA live in camps. Moreover, the city and urban refugees remain missing in most of the scholarship on the Palestinian experience with space, exile, and identity. Furthermore, there is little attention to how refugees understand the concept of the city and camp in their daily life. This article examines how Palestinian urban refugees in the Old City of Damascus conceptualized the relationship between the camp and the city. It illustrates how the concept of the camp remained necessary for the construction of their collective national identity while in Syria. However, the city was essential in the articulation of individual desires and establishing social distinction from other refugees. Thus, during a protracted exile it is in the interstice between the city and the camp, where most urban refugees in the Old City situated themselves, that informed their national belonging and personal aspirations.

Keywords

citiesPalestiniansrefugee campsSyriaurban refugees
Type
Article
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 607 - 621
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

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