Palestinian Refugees And Identity: Nationalism,Politics and the Everyday 9780755608737, 9781780769110

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To my mother

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure I.1: al-Wihdat official map (source: UNRWA)

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Figure I.2: al-Wihdat today, aerial view (source: Google Earth) 25 Figure I.3: al-Wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.1: Shelters with zinc roof (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.2: Narrow alley (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.3: Women in the market (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.4: Refugee camps in Jordan (source: UNRWA)

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Figure 1.5: UNRWA field office in al-Wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.6: UNRWA schools (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.7: Sumayya Street (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.8: al-Wihdat’s vertical expansion (source: Jihad Nijem)

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

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Figure 1.9: al-Wihdat Tahtwir (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.10: al-Wihdat, al-Nadi Street (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.11: Shops in the suq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.12: Stands in the suq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.13: suq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 4.1: Children playing in the street (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 4.2: Children and shabab in the street (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 5.1: Football field in the Nadi al-Wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 5.2: Coffee shops (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 5.3: Fariq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 5.4: Al-Wihdat fans (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 5.5: Al-Faisaly fans waving Jordanian hatta (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure C1: Jordanian flag painted on a shelter in al-Wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

It is my great pleasure to thank all the people without whom this book would not have been possible. First and foremost, I want to express my deepest gratitude to the community of Al-Wihdat, which welcomed me with warm hospitality, endless generosity and delicious food. Rarely have I encountered such kindness and eagerness to help someone who was, at first, a stranger. A special thanks to the shaba¯b of Al-Markez and the Nadi AlWihdat, where I spent a large part of my days in Jordan. Without their help I would not have been able to carry out this research. They treated me like a brother, opened their homes to me, and taught me everything I know about daily life in Wihdat. They told me stories about Palestine, their families and the camps, and had infinite patience with my less-than-perfect Arabic. My eternal gratitude goes to them. I am particularly thankful to Jihad Nijem, who assisted me during my initial visits into the Camp and still helps me now, as a priceless source of intellectual guidance and practical support. Most importantly, he is a real friend. I mention with appreciation Abdallah Hussein and his family, whose help and friendship have been precious in so many ways. I also thank Mohammed Assaf, whose good humour and knowledge of AlWihdat were invaluable to this project. I am greatly indebted to

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Rami, Abdallah Sous, Najar, Haddad, and all other shaba¯b and their families – whose names are too many to mention here but are firmly fixed in my memory – who so kindly and patiently accompanied me in my pilgrimages to the Camp and let me into their daily lives. To Griso, who taught me the secrets of the nous ras kharouf; and to Anas, who shared with me his passion for homing pigeons. I am indebted to the people of the mouq‘e al-wihdat, with a special thanks to Ibrahim and his family for hosting me and feeding me what must be the best mansaf in Jordan. I also want to thank my friends in the Souf Camp. A number of people were extraordinarily giving, and I especially owe gratitude to the Al-Jwabreh family, and in particular to Mohammed, whose humour and companionship enriched this study. I am profoundly grateful for my mentors and teachers. Foremost among them is Magnus Marsden, who has made the undertaking of this project both a tremendous challenge and a true pleasure. His commentary, critique and advice have made this book infinitely better. I’d like to thank Jalal Husseini, my intellectual mentor in the field and a dear friend, for whom there are no adequate words to express my gratitude. I also give my deep and sincere thanks to Laleh Khalili: her ability to combine incisive critique with supportive comments has been of great value to me. Above all, I owe Raymond Apthorpe a very special thanks for the time he has so generously spent on my book and his enormously encouraging feedback. My friends and colleagues have encouraged me, shared their knowledge with me, and greatly helped me with their erudition and sharp criticism. Among them, I would like to especially thank Diana Ibanez, whose friendship (and correspondence) during my fieldwork and after it enriched my research and ethnographic experience, helping to resolve my doubts, academic conundrums and a PhD’s particular life challenges. In Jordan, I am extremely grateful to Myriam Ababsa, Norig Neveau, and all the researchers and staff of Ifpo-Amman. I am also especially indebted to Lucas Oesch. They have been and still are the perfect companions for entertainment, academic exchange, and all-around amusement.

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To Alice Massari goes my eternal gratitude for the incalculable help she has given to me in writing this book. This book would have not been possible without her. I am also in debt to my grandmother, Raffaella Pansini, a veritable source of inspiration. Finally, my love goes to my daughter, Mariangela, who has made my life as happy as it is today.

INTRODUCTION

It is a late afternoon in April. I decide to pass by al-Wihdat Youth Club to visit a few friends. Located in the homonymous Palestinian refugee camp – established in 1955 on the outskirts of Amman, and then fully incorporated by the urban expansion of the capital of Jordan – the club is popular in the region today for being home of the well-known al-Wihdat football team. As I enter the building, I step on a big flag of Israel engraved in the ground just after the main gate. Put there for the purpose of being trampled on, the image is fading – rubbed out by the feet of frequent passers-by. On the other side of the entrance, in a big atrium, a couple of people sink rather lethargically into a brown-coloured sofa of synthetic leather. A smell of nicotine and a faint aroma of coffee permeate the room. Over the past few months, I have come to know both of them: Rami,1 in his early 30s, who has made quite a reputation among his friends for being atheist and communist; Abu Omar, a man whose religious zealotry has earned him the reputation of being a man of faith. The two men, who have known each other for a long time but who I have rarely seen together alone, are chatting. Their voices struggle to make their way to my ears amid the invocations of a preacher shouting from the battered speakers of a radio located somewhere in the spacious lobby of the club. I decide to join them and listen to their discussion.

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‘I don’t care about political demonstrations! Jordan is not like Egypt and Tunisia: we [Jordanians] don’t want the revolution here!’ I hear Rami concluding, presumably answering a question from his companion about the recent political turmoil that after the beginning of 2011 swept the country for quite some time. I am quite accustomed to hear people in the camp expressing opinions such as that one. Exhibitions of distaste and cynicism toward politics and political activism are not uncommon in al-Wihdat, yet are quite at odds with the reputation of the place and the parallel political ‘awakening’ of Jordan. After the outbreak of the so-called Arab Spring and its aftermath in the region, demonstration, online activism and ethnic and group-based coalitions of citizens have vocalised their discontent, especially against corruption and economic disparities, and asked for political reforms. In 2011, anti-government demonstrations began to be held every Friday in the Wasat al-Balad (downtown) of Amman, with unexpected regularity. Although generally quite small in terms of the number of participants, demonstrations accompanied a sit-in held on 24 March at the Dakhilliyye Circle. Organisers and participants even set up a tent encampment – named ‘Tahrir Square’ after the Cairo square that hosted the revolt against President Hosni Mubarak’s regime and the ongoing political demonstration that followed his deposition. Like the demonstrations and protests in other Arab countries, the sit-in was initially organised by various social networks and blogs, and comprised a disparate coalition of people, dubbed ‘The March 24 Youth Movement’. Originally planned as ongoing until their demands were met, it lasted only for a couple of days. On Friday morning, the participants were attacked by a group of counter-demonstrators (the ‘Loyalty March’), allegedly loyal to King Abdullah II. Eventually they were dispersed by the police in the ensuing chaos. At this point, I interrupt Rami and ask whether he is referring to the ‘March 24’ sit-in. Turning to me, he says: ‘Don’t worry about it . . . it’s only a group of dawawin [troublemakers] clashing with other dawawin [referring to the counter-demonstrators and police officers].’ Abu Omar nods and reiterates the point by extending his criticism also to political demonstrations and protests held in the camp:

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I don’t care about political demonstrations in the mukhayyam [camp] either! Hamas takes to the streets and hails Shaykh Yassin; Fatah takes to the streets and hails Arafat; the communists [Jordanian Popular Democratic Unity Party] take to the streets and hail George Habash. . . but there is only one Palestine! [. . .] If you participate [in these demonstrations], you will see communists’ flags, Hamas flags, or Fatah flags. That’s all good, but where is the Palestinian flag?! There is not any, because they do not care about Palestine and Palestinians; theirs are only ‘haki fadi’ [empty words]! Abu Omar and Rami’s words echo the thought of many in the camp and, simultaneously, challenge popular expectations about the political activism of refugees and refugee camps. People in al-Wihdat hold quite a diverse attitude toward the political, not exactly what I expected. The discussion between the two men reminds me of the different premises with which I began my doctoral fieldwork in al-Wihdat camp. I expected refugee camps to be highly politicised settings. Persuaded to document the significance of ‘the political’ in people’s everyday lives by recent anthropological work on the Middle East, I was instead quite puzzled by what seemed to me to be an ostensible absence of politics in the camp spaces. This book analyses the reproduction of nationalism in the context of protracted exile and displacement among young men and adolescents living in al-Wihdat. What forms does Palestinian nationalism take in a country that has granted full citizenship rights to the majority of refugees? More generally, how does nationalism operate, and how do claims of national belonging fit with other, apparently conflicting, national identities? How does a Palestinian national loyalty affect the relative assimilation of Palestinian refugees within the Jordanian socio-economic tissue anyway? Finally, how should we understand refugees’ attitudes toward Palestinian political elites and political parties? The objectives of this book are to specify the fragmented experience of Palestinian people, and the multiplicity of resources employed by them in the constitution and reproduction of Palestinian nationalism.

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It assesses the significance of ‘the ordinary’ as analytical category in the process of political self-fashioning; it explores the ambiguities and contradictions related to their nationalist allegiance that refugees have to face when they are called upon to confront the inconsistencies of daily life. Bringing the Palestinian example to the fore not only allows a deepening of this analysis but also exposes the limitations of an approach that is too reliant on resistance studies. Finally I demonstrate how a critical approach toward certain post-structuralist accounts of the political can create a more nuanced understanding of Palestinian refugees’ everyday life. One of the most pressing debates that has occupied scholarly and public spheres in and outside Jordan is how Palestinian refugees handle the tension between their integration in Jordan and their commitment to the Palestinian national predicament and the ‘right of return’ (haqq al-‘awda).2 Western media and many academic accounts have been generally inclined to believe that ‘Palestinian refugees from the camps’ (laji’in filastinin min al-mukhayyamat) are substantially inimical to any form of integration. Refugees have been hence popularly depicted as inherently political beings, ready to fight and resist all attempts to annihilate their nationalist struggles. In a similar fashion, refugee camps have also been represented as the locus of a political agency based on the ideal of resistance. Designed as transit centres to host and prepare Palestinian refugees for local integration, refugee camps in the Middle East have become what Julie Peteet has recently described as ‘oppositional spaces appropriated and endowed with alternative meanings’.3 In Jordan, there is a widely held collective opinion that camp dwellers have historically nurtured anti-government sentiments. Loyalty to the King, the Hashemite family, and the government is, by contrast, depicted as being associated most clearly with the tribes and Bedouins who are mostly comprised of East Bank Jordanians. These representations have been simultaneously sustained by historical studies that have documented the rise of Palestinian nationalism in the camps and its challenge to Jordan’s sovereignty.4 The result is that camps have been portrayed either as places of political instability or as the crucibles of subversive ideas and behaviour.5

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There is, of course, some truth in camps’ reputation of being bastions of ‘Palestinianness’, heroic resistance and political unrest. Since the late 1960s, Palestinian national consciousness has crystallised around the iconic figures of the camp and the camp dwellers. When the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) arose out of the havoc of the ‘Six-Day War’,6 young Palestinians in exile streamed into the resistance movement. During this period of mass mobilisation (1969– 82), which came to be popularly known as al-thawra (the revolution), a triumphant narrative of awakening valorised the men and women of the camps as the embodiment of Palestinian resilience and heroism.7 This was the heyday of alWihdat in Jordan and Shatila in Lebanon, and other refugee camps that, like the former, became powerful symbols of Palestinian nationalism. Not anymore a miserable abode for a mass of poor displaced, they came to be known as ‘liberated zone’, the furnaces of the ‘new men’ of the revolution. The ‘sons of the camp’, the Fedayeen, embodied the archetypal Palestinian. The chroniclers of the time portrayed them standing firmly against the overarching forces of their prior submission, no longer brought down by the suffocating impotence and fear of the first period of exile.8 In Jordan, the myth of the heroic guerrilla fighter from the camp resonated so powerfully in the collective imagination as to induce the Jordanian monarch, King Hussein, to publicly declare that ‘we are all Fedayeen’.9 Camps and camp dwellers were not simply the contents of narratives of heroism. When the various groups that together formed the PLO established their sanctuaries in the refugee camps, these spaces turned into veritable operative bases for the guerrilla fighters. Camp dwellers had become the militant and military backbone of Palestinian nationalism, and the word ‘mukhayyam’ (refugee camp) stood for ‘ma’askar’ (military training camp).10 Here, the Fedayeen established their headquarters and institutions: their own military police, a civil militia, a corollary of administrative, media, and supply centres, a security apparatus, revolutionary courts, and even trade union movements. In Jordan, so deep-rooted and powerful was the presence of the PLO in the camps that the government found itself powerless against much of the militant and military activities carried out by the

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guerrilla groups in the year preceding the Jordanian civil war popularly known as Black September. Unrestricted access to camps favoured the setting of recruitment bases, the provision of militia training and the unfettered circulation of Kalashnikovs and other weapons among guerrillas. There are several good reasons to define the escalating and rapid expansion of guerrilla groups in the refugee camps set up in the host countries as states-within-the-state, especially in Jordan. In the country where most of the Palestinian refugees enjoyed, and still enjoy, full citizenship rights, the emergence of a parallel Palestinian government had encroached on the Jordanian state sovereignty: the consequence of this still reverberates on the very process of national identification.11 Furthermore, if the heroic heydays of the 1960s and early 1970s played, and still retain, a central role in refugees’ political consciousness and self-understanding, a Palestinian nationalistic and potentially explosive sentiment has also been constituted negatively by experiences of loss and marginality. Over the years, Jordanians of Palestinian origin have faced informal discrimination in Jordan at the legislative level (by having their representation in parliament, the cabinet and the government ministries drastically curtailed) and in the field of employment (especially in the public sector, which largely excludes Palestinians from military and intelligence services).12 The discriminatory practices of the government and exclusivist claims of a segment of the native population have strengthened among many Jordanians of Palestinian origin the idea of being second-class citizens and, to some extent, reinforced a distinctive sense of community. Today in their third or even fourth generation away from their villages and homes, most Palestinians in Jordan fiercely uphold their ‘refugee status’ as the only recognition of their rights to be repatriated or compensated.13 However, camp dwellers’ consciousness in Jordan is not only constituted through the identification with a separate Palestinian entity. It is important to remember that the situation of Palestinian refugees in Jordan differs greatly from their fellows living in other Arab states. Unlike Lebanon and Syria, where Palestinians maintain a legal status as ‘stateless’ persons, Jordan has granted full citizenship to

INTRODUCTION

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a large number of refugees and, with that, at least in principle, the same rights and duties as any other Jordanian native. The extension of citizenship rights has certainly favoured the emergence among refugees of a feeling of identification with Jordan, the country where they were born and the only physical home they have ever known. On top of that, in Jordan, urban refugee camps are open spaces and commercial areas that more resemble a low-income residential neighbourhood of Amman than a space of exception designed for control and surveillance. Al-Wihdat is not a closed space. Historically, refugees have developed intricate social relations and drawn complex and varying life trajectories by moving outside the camp, returning to it at a later date, or, equally plausibly, never coming back. Furthermore, after the 1970s, refugees’ political activism gradually terminated in apathy and indifference. Once located at the very heart of the Palestinian national movement, Palestinian refugees and refugee camps in the Middle East became marginalised in the political process. Relegating the status of refugees to the final stages of the negotiations, the Oslo peace agreements were, for refugees in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, clear evidence of how the Palestinian Authority (PA) had sold off the right of return to secure the construction of a Palestinian state.14 Their exclusion by the official national project has ultimately helped to nurture growing feelings of bitterness and frustration toward political activism and militancy among refugees. This disengagement from political participation was furthered by other factors – most notably the restrictions imposed upon political activity in refugee camps by the authorities after Black September, the discontent with Hamas–Fatah rivalry,15 and the ineffectiveness of political parties that advocated the Palestinian cause in Jordan. At the time of my fieldwork in al-Wihdat, neither the recent political turmoil in Gaza and the West Bank, nor the outbreak of the Arab uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, aroused refugees out of what they described as being their routine life in the camp. The last episodes of ‘uprising’ that most of my informants recollected dated back to 2004 when Jordanian flags were burned in al-Wihdat following the assassination of the historical leader of Hamas, Shaykh Yassin. Interestingly, the issue was eventually solved at an official level by camp leaders (makhatir) who put the blame on

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alleged agitators coming from outside the camp.16 Today, in the aftermath of the ‘Arab Spring’ that has shaken governments, triggered bloody civil wars, and overthrown regimes in the Arab world, a wave of protests have swept across seemingly stable Jordan, but refugee camps remain calm. As may be obvious by now, the specificity of the Jordanian case challenges popular assumptions implicitly and explicitly reproduced in some academic and journalistic writing on Palestinians today. These traditionally convey the idea of Palestinians’ life as ‘locked in a bind between repression and resistance, ubiquitously struggling for national sovereignty’.17 In the context of their enduring exile in Jordan, refugees have not only carried out their nationalist struggles but they have also actively pursued socio-economic integration. As I will show, camp dwellers’ apparently contradictory desire of pursuing full socio-economic integration in Jordan and upholding their nationalist struggles brings to the fore the existence of forms of agency and subjectivity that cannot be fully explained by the mutually exclusive logics of ‘resistance’ versus ‘integration’. I argue instead that young men in al-Wihdat have genuinely subscribed to Palestinian nationalism, but – contrary to common assumptions – they have done so by accommodating this discursive regime to their determination to live in Jordan. The almost non-existence of Palestine’s state institution and the systematic purge of the ‘Palestinian element’ in Jordan’s internal politics has meant that this process of accommodation is not generated through the types of institutions usually responsible for inculcating national values, but through the ordinary activities carried out by people in their daily lives. In this book, I have chosen to examine spaces of everyday life to examine what type of nationalism is left, reproduced, and transformed among people who are today in their fourth generation away from the object of desire, their homeland. Everyday life is an accessible opening through which transformations in Palestinian nationalism can be tracked. What we will find is that camp dwellers’ assimilation into Jordanian life, the process of ‘becoming-ordinary’, has become the motivation for the emergence of their nationalist ethos, which is less ideological and far more affective.

INTRODUCTION

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Chapter 1 documents the institution of al-Wihdat, its management, and refugees’ struggles to make themselves at home there. Combining historical synthesis with some ethnography, the chapter shows how camp dwellers’ protracted, patient and pervasive reappropriation of al-Wihdat’s spaces is both a strategy to survive hardships and better their lives in Jordan, and a form of agency and creativity through which they forge Palestinian nationalism. Chapter 2 will continue the exploration of the ways through which refugees have infused nationalistic values with daily concerns and practices from the specific angle of the refugee political economy. Shedding light on the ambiguous and contested ways through which moral and political selfhood connect to the quandaries of everyday life, it shows how young men from the camp have sought to challenge a socio-economic marginality that is held to contribute to their moral and political anxieties. Chapter 3 operates as a hinge chapter, exploring more fully the link between political and moral agency. By situating contemporary and everyday forms of piety within the depoliticisation of refugee camps, it demonstrates how Islam has come to provide new generations of refugees with a new life project and an alternative and more viable way than politics to fulfil nationalistic goals and aspirations. Chapter 4 expands on the nexus between piety, ordinary life and political agency by investigating in more detail the performance of masculinity among the young men of al-Wihdat. In Jordan, as the expression of either immoral behaviour or unthinking radicalism, youth masculinity in the camp is widely perceived inside and outside camps as a symbol of cultural and political difference, and the failure of camp dwellers to embrace assimilation. Careful scrutiny, however, will collapse common stereotypes about adolescents and young men, and shed light on the ability of refugees to accommodate nationalist models of masculinity with their desire to live an ordinary life as citizens of Jordan. Chapter 5 concludes the analysis of the significance of the ordinary in refugees’ political identity and agency by exploring in greater detail another fundamental dimension of young men’s everyday life: time-off activities and strategies to deal with boredom.

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Before doing that, however, I want to begin readdressing certain shortcomings of resistance studies and a specific understanding of political agency that might prevent us from fully grasping the nature of Palestinian nationalism in al-Wihdat today. Following this theoretical interlude, I then discuss briefly the field and methods of the research on which this book is based.

Theorising political agency and subjectivity Over the past few decades, a wide body of literature has emphasised the significance of resistance to Palestinian identity and life.18 Although there has been a myriad of works criticising resistance studies and those inspired by it,19 there are several good reasons for bringing this scholarship into conversation with the case of Palestinians and their struggles for national sovereignty. One of the most important achievements of this scholarship has been to give more emphasis to a capacity to resist domination. This has turned out to be a crucial corrective to a scholarship on the Middle East that for decades had portrayed Arab and Muslim Palestinians as submissively bound by the unbreakable chains of custom, tradition and social coercion.20 This specific understanding of refugees‘ political agency is also a necessary step to challenge an overly passive image of (Palestinian) refugees as victims of an international drama. For these reasons, the ongoing importance of this scholarship cannot be stressed enough. Not only have these authors underlined the capacity of Palestinian refugees to be active agents in the making of their history, but they have also portrayed their lives in a far richer and more complex frame than critics of this approach seem to suggest. This acknowledgement notwithstanding, it is critical to examine the assumptions, weak points and elisions inherent in some of these studies; it is especially worthwhile to attend to the ways in which certain assumptions might preclude us from any understanding of forms of political agency that do not fit within the frame of ‘resistance’, such as the one I am dealing with here. In the field of Palestinian studies, there is indeed a tendency among scholars to look for expressions and moments of genuine

INTRODUCTION

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resistance that may suggest a challenge to domination. When Palestinians act, the social scientist points to moments of disruption or opposition to authority, generally embodied by the state of Israel. Even the systematic humiliation inflicted by means of beating, torturing and detentions is perceived as a rite of passage that galvanises ‘political consciousness and agency [in a] creative and dynamic act of resistance’.21 Agency, in this sense, is especially perceived as the capacity to act politically against overarching forces and practices of domination. This conception produces a set of interrelated problems. First, although ‘resistance’ – as an ideal and form of action – is surely paramount in Palestinian nationalism, its centrality has led some scholars to overemphasise the significance of this dimension of refugee political agency. A further interrelated problem with this notion of agency is entailed in the unspoken presumption of what a person’s actual or ultimate goal is. By taking for granted the universality of a desire to act and assuming that this may be inspired only by a genuine yearning for freedom and equality, this approach recognises as effective only those actions that are conducive toward this end.22 In making this assumption, however, such an approach denies ‘dimensions of human action whose ethical and political status does not map onto the logic of repression and resistance’.23 Consider, for a moment, the people with whom I lived in alWihdat. Their attempt to live an ordinary life and avoid any involvement in politics placed them in conflict with the resistance messages of Palestinian nationalism.24 Yet the rationale behind this conflict cannot be understood simply in the terms of a potentially liberating practice that finds its expression in resisting the yoke of a nationalist discourse that has relegated them to the uncomfortable roles of martyrs and heroes. On the other hand, camp dwellers’ daily life in Jordan cannot be read as a case of a deplorable passivity and docility vis-a`-vis the (Jordanian) regime that has fiercely opposed any allusion to a distinct ‘Palestinian identity’. In the context of an exile that has lasted too long, refugees have never ceased to demonstrate their allegiance to the values and meaning of Palestinian nationalism. But to reduce the complexities of people’s joys, sorrows, dreams and

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struggles only in terms of the will to resist would not do Palestinian refugees justice. In conclusion, if we take the ‘will to resist’ (or the lack of this) as the ultimate value around which refugees’ everyday life is defined, we risk dehumanising refugees and missing the complexity of their lives. An analysis of how camp dwellers living in al-Wihdat handle the call to commitment to Palestinian nationalism would require an analytical shift away from the classic parameters of so-called resistance studies to a more complex understanding of political agency and subjectivity. One way forward is advocated by a growing number of studies that have urged scholars to problematise the idea of agency as the capacity of a free agent to translate his values into actions.25 These authors warn against romanticising resistance by misattributing it to forms of agency that cannot be reduced only to conscious or unconscious moments of opposition to domination. Central to this scholarship is Foucault’s work on ‘subjectification’. Foucault conceives power as a force that permeates life and produces desire, objects, relations and discourse.26 In this context, the subject does not precede power but is produced by the very forces that form the condition of its possibility. This is what Judith Butler defines as the paradox of subjectification: the process through which the subject is produced as a self-conscious identity by the same forces that lead to his or her subordination.27 Such theory of the subject inevitably informs also a specific understanding of ‘agency’ as located within structures of power. In other words, when the subject actively fashions itself, it does that through practices that are imposed upon him/her by the society and social groups in which he/she lives. In doing so, Foucault does not deny the capacity of the subject to act freely, but situates this capacity within historically produced structures of power. Combining these insights with Derrida’s reading of Austin’s theory of performance, Butler28 moves forward and locates the possibility of resistance within the structure itself: if the subject is constituted within a structure of power and more precisely through the reiterative performance of its norms, it is in the very act of reproducing the structure that we can find ‘the possibility of its undoing’.29

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In a critical reading of Butler’s theory, Sabah Mahmood30 grounds her work on Butler‘s critique of humanist conceptions of agency and subjectivity, but she argues against the former for missing the point of ‘subjectification’: if the ability to effect change in the world and in oneself is historically and culturally specific (both in terms of what constitutes ‘change’ and the capacity by which it is effected), then its meaning and sense cannot be fixed a priori [. . .] In this sense, agentive capacity is entailed not only in those acts that result in (progressive) change but also those that aim toward continuity, stasis, and stability.31 Mahmood’s analysis is useful to understanding key aspects of camp dwellers’ political agency and subjectivity. If we recognise that the desire that motivates people to act may be other than the desire for subversion and freedom, it is therefore also important to investigate the conditions under which different forms of desire emerge. I do not intend to suggest that historical yearning for autonomy and freedom in al-Wihdat needs to be replaced by a new desire for subjection; but Mahmood’s argument is revealing in as much as it urges us to abandon a ‘Westernised’ notion of agency and begin an inquiry into the meanings that specific forms of agencies take in other contexts. My engagement with camp dwellers showed me that refugees’ remaking of their social world was carried out by striving to accommodate their nationalist predicament with their determination to achieve full socio-economic and political integration in Jordan. To put it simply, the kind of agency I am exploring here is entailed in a process of accommodation. After 60 years in a country whose naturalisation policy has de facto enabled their gradual absorption into the job market and their partial participation in the national politics,32 many refugees have come to terms with the realities of living in Jordan to the extent that a large part of them, if asked, would not leave Jordan for Palestine.33 On the other hand, Palestinian nationalism and its corollary of symbols and values remain central constitutive elements of refugees’ political subjectivity.

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In this book I will show that one of the forms of political agency that enables refugees to continue to uphold their nationalist ideals is located precisely in the context of their progressive integration in Jordan. In other words, by striving to live what they perceive as an ‘ordinary life’, refugees have fashioned their subjectivity as both Jordanian and Palestinian. In this sense, refugees’ attempts to pursue full socio-political integration in the Kingdom and express their allegiance to Palestinian nationalistic ideals does not reflect the strategies of a community of ‘actors’ who publicly seek full recognition while secretly embracing subversive stances.34 Rather it is part and parcel of living a life as both Palestinian refugees and Jordanian citizens. To understand agency in the terms outlined by Mahmood and Butler, we have to ground it in everyday experience and acknowledge the existence of different and, sometimes, conflicting forces; but doing so leads us also to encounter aspects of people’s desires that are shaped by values and ideas that are not only informed by the longing for ‘accommodation’. In other words, the process of accommodation of a Palestinian political consciousness with a Jordanian national identity is neither homogeneously accomplished in the camp nor devoid of inconsistencies and tensions. Let us consider, for example, the comment of a friend, whose words are worth quoting at length: if you ask people from al-mukhayyam [al-Wihdat, literally ‘the refugee camp’] whether they would return [to Palestine], you will not find anybody that will tell you ‘no’. But in the deep of our heart, we all know that this is not completely true: we don‘t know how it is to live there [in Palestine]; we have never been there! [. . .] I am Jordanian; this is where I am from. My father and my mother are both Jordanians [. . .] but does this make me a pure Jordanian? Well, I don’t know! Palestine is my land. Here you feel always different. People will never consider you one of them, no matter how long you have been living here in Jordan [. . .] I was born here, but this doesn’t make difference [. . .] [pausing for a moment and, then adding, frowning]

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You know, Luigi, sometimes, when I think of our life in the ghurba [exile], I feel like exploding! During my time in al-Wihdat I met numerous people who made similar remarks. These observations eventually made me aware of the complex and, sometimes, incongruous logics of refugees’ political agency. This complexity introduces a further dimension of refugees’ political life on which I want to shed light. Other scholars have given more attention than Mahmood to the ways in which people’s lives are fraught with multiple aesthetic and affective values that coexist, overlap, and clash, sometimes producing profound contradictions within the same subject.35 For these reasons, in this study of refugees’ political life, I also want to account for the various normative and affective registers, ideologies and everyday practices present in camp dwellers’ daily lives that do not produce coherent models of political action or belief but often stand in strong juxtaposition to each other in al-Wihdat. The desire to live ‘normal’ lives is informed by ambivalence and anxieties, and the desired integration bristles sometimes against inescapable invocations of allegiance to Palestinian nationalistic ideals and values. By failing to grasp this aspect, there is a risk of missing the contradictory, ambiguous and conflicting nature of everyday experience. The ordinary and the political are certainly intertwined in the everyday life of camp dwellers; yet often, being ordinary is infused with hopes and anxieties related to their national predicament – ‘Shall I find a real Palestinian woman from the camp?’ ‘Is it really worth spending money on an iPhone when my fellows in Gaza are broke?’ If we are to understand how refugees have accommodated a Palestinian nationalism with the desire to live an ‘ordinary life’ in Jordan, we need also to give significant attention to the inconsistencies that these projects might also have generated: for instance, when the pursuing of ‘ordinariness’ is not seen as desirable but rather perceived as the capitulation of Palestinian political identity and the loss of national values, or when failing to be ‘ordinary’ heightens the lived perception of discrimination among refugees.

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A non-political ordinariness It is in the context of the refugees’ desire to be both a ‘Palestinian refugee’ and ‘Jordanian citizen’ that we need to situate their lack of political participation. To explain this, I will borrow from two different theoretical approaches. First, an understanding of the working of the political in the camp finds an uneasy ally in the German philosopher Carl Schmitt and the recent scholarship that his work has inspired.36 Writing in the concluding years of the Weimar Republic, Schmitt grounds his conception of ‘the political’ in a reworking of Hobbes’ state of ‘Warre’: [his] critical twist was to project the state of nature depicted in Leviathan, the war of all against all in which individual agents are pitted against each other, onto the plane of modern collective conflicts: thereby transforming civil society itself into a second state of nature.37 For him, the condition of the political is reducible to a friend/enemy distinction. Such a condition ‘deals with the formation of a “we” as opposed to a “they” and is always concerned with collective forms of identification [. . .]. [It] can be understood only in the context of the friend/enemy grouping.’38 Schmitt’s verdict about liberal democracy and the authoritarian political conclusions he drew from this intuition are notoriously chilling, but they set an important point of departure in recent political theory. Engaging critically the work of Schmitt, Chantal Mouffe39 examines the friend versus enemy distinction and strikes a vigorous blow to deliberative theories of democracy: ‘the we/they distinction, which is the condition of possibility of formation of political identities’, she argues, ‘can always become the locus of an antagonism.40 Since all forms of political identities entail a we/ they distinction, [. . .] antagonism is an ever-present possibility: the political belongs to our ontological condition.’41 Such an understanding has an important implication: political identities are not

INTRODUCTION

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immanent, but they are constituted though the work of the political, which is inherently divisive and inescapably antagonistic. We shall see now the relevance of this to the Palestinian case. At the beginning of this book I mentioned the generalised feeling of distaste that refugees in al-Wihdat harboured for politics and politicking. This can certainly be linked with the question of national identity and the complex politics of inclusion and exclusion that regulate the access of certain groups to political power and state resources in Jordan. The very foundation of Hashemite governance relies on its capacity to build national constituencies by providing points of access to state resources and institutions. Gaining access to state resources is not easy, especially for Palestinian refugees living in camps, whose ethnic discrimination leaves them very few opportunities to set up the right connections. This is particularly evident at the level of political participation. For example, although in recent years, the government has promoted the institution of political parties and the development of parliamentary institutions, these are widely regarded by camp dwellers as ineffective. In Jordan, where the exclusivist attitude of the regime has resulted in a massive purge of Jordanian-Palestinians from the state apparatus, this means that ‘citizens of Trans-Jordanian origin [. . .] are almost twice as likely to vote as Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who generally have less influence in the government’.42 The relative lack of such democracy in Jordan certainly accounts for refugees’ lack of political involvement. If you do not have access to patron – client relationships, avenues to political participation remain limited, if not absent. However, I believe there is something else at stake. The eagerness of many to distance themselves from what they saw as the unsavoury and dangerous world of politics can also be explained by the specific understanding of the political as being fundamentally based on the dichotomy of ‘friend/enemy’. The difference between ‘enemy’ and ‘friend’ should be thought of as being intrinsic to Palestinian refugees’ status. This distinction is played out in the tension between ‘refugee-ness’ and ‘citizenship’; between ‘Palestinianness’ and ‘Jordanianness’; between the effort of living an ordinary life in

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the context of integration in Jordan and the nationalistic struggles of an exiled and marginalised community. To demonstrate this is the fact that in Jordan there is a strong equivalence between ‘being Palestinian’ and ‘being disloyal’. If any assertion of Palestinianness is perceived by the authorities as a manifestation of disloyalty, a manifestation of political dissent is often seen as an expression of Palestinianness. A case in point was the ‘The March 24 Youth Movement’. Despite being comprised of different groups with diverse ethnic and political backgrounds, the participants of the sit-in were rapidly identified by the counterdemonstrators as being Palestinian Fedayeen, aiming to overthrow the monarchy and establish an alternative homeland. What this episode tells us is that the working of the political produces adversarial positions, and these are frequently translated within the dichotomy Palestinian/Jordanian. Because of its agonistic nature, the political cankers that set of tensions and leaves little space for Palestinian refugees to establish the kind of flexibility they need to live harmoniously as both Palestinian refugees and Jordanian citizens. In this context, politics – understood as formal political action – is simply the arena in which the political tension between competing acts of loyalty is most forcefully re-enacted. Engaging in politics is as though camp dwellers are constantly asked to whom they pledge allegiance – the Jordanian state or Palestinian nationalism? In a country dominated by the logics of patrimonialism, such a question is not reduced to a merely procedural issue about defining ‘who is who’. It is, as we have seen above, a distinction that determines forms of discrimination and that can also regulate access to state resources. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that many in the camp expressed only a rather mild interest for the reverberation of the Arab Spring in Jordan. But if politics requires taking a firm stand either as Palestinian refugees or Jordanian citizens that camp dwellers are unwilling to take, a descent into the mundane and apparently trivial gives them hopes of transcending the incommensurability of the rhetoric of ‘us’ versus ‘them’, ‘Palestinians’ versus ‘Jordanians’. There is good reason for this – the accomplishment of a hyphened national

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identity (Jordanian-Palestinian) bears with it both the promise of socio-economic integration in Jordan and cultural authenticity as Jordanians of Palestinian origins. To understand this, I will borrow from a different approach. I build my argument on a growing scholarship that has expressed criticism toward some of the limitations inherent in poststructuralist accounts of the ubiquity of ‘the political’ in social sciences43 and has sought to go beyond the sharp division between resistance and power.44 One of the most considerable achievements of post-structuralist political anthropology is the recognition of the artificiality of the ‘non-political’. In this context, rather than being perceived as something natural, the non-political is an inherently political act of depoliticisation of a given political reality.45 However, as Matei Candea put it, ‘the pitfall in this denaturalization of the non-political, however, lies in a concomitant naturalization of the political’.46 To readdress this shortcoming, I intend to draw an analogy between the ‘ordinary’ – as it is perceived in al-Wihdat – and Jameson’s ‘suspension of the political’, meaning the refusal to play the game of politics.47 The ‘suspension of the political’ has been a useful analytical tool employed by recent anthropological literature to understand change in regimes that are experienced as totalitarian and immutable. In a set of recent articles, Alexei Yurchak shows how the members of an artistic movement during late Soviet socialism in Russia undermined the power of a seemingly totalitarian state, constituting a new space of subjectivity and agency, by refusing to engage in anything they regarded as political.48 My case diverges from Yurchak’s in so far as the suspension of the political was not a form of resistance vis-a`-vis the assimilationist practices of the state, or against the normative pressures of Palestinian nationalism. It was, instead, an opportunity to enact these simultaneously constitutive but apparently contradictory forces rather than acting against them. However, it dovetails into his argument. The refugees’ descent into what they perceived to be a non-political ordinariness is deeply transformative. The possibility is created for new forms of political subjectivity.

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Ordinary desires and goals such as settling down, getting married, making money and having fun are highly attractive aspects of life in al-Wihdat, appealing especially strongly to youth. But they are also more than merely attractive. ‘Being ordinary’, a condition that young men from the camp strive to accomplish in their daily life, is centred precisely on the suspension of the political. This project has one goal: to find ways of accommodating and performing seemingly conflicting national subjectivities or, in other words, to enact a kind of subjectivity that is both Palestinian and Jordanian. As will be shown, these attempts challenge the Jordanian regime’s definition of national personhood, with its purge of Palestinian attributes, and organise this challenge in terms that are neither oppositional to the Jordanian political system nor to their nationalist predicament. In other words, by actively pursuing a non-political ordinariness, refugees fulfil the regime’s requirements of non-politicisation of the camps and actively pursue integration within the Kingdom. At the same time, the suspension of the political enables them to re-enact their nationalist ideals. The Palestinian political cause and its symbols, the right of return, and the recognition of Palestinian suffering, heroic resistance and steadfastness (sumud) are genuinely embraced by virtually everybody in al-Wihdat, and re-enacted in the context of their protracted displacement. Engaging with the stream of ordinary life is crucial to achieving this goal: by stripping ideological contents of political militancy and weaving these into acts of daily life, refugees in al-Wihdat subscribe to a discourse centred on the ideal of resistance and adapt it to their wish to live a ‘normal’ life. Their capacity to infuse Palestinian nationalism with non-political meanings and aspirations is crucial for making these both viable in the context of their progressive integration and bearable against the backdrop of a profound discomfort regarding politics. I stated above that if we are to understand refugees’ agency we need to frame it within the prospect of the reconciliation of two apparently contradictory desires: being Jordanian and Palestinian. I have hence argued that in al-Wihdat this process of accommodation is accomplished by striving to be ‘ordinary’ (‘adi). But what exactly does ‘being ordinary’ mean for camp dwellers?

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Living an ‘ordinary life’ (haya ‘adiye) represents precisely an attempt to limit, control, and hold back the upsetting dynamics of the ‘we/they’ distinction. In this context, my friends in the camp perceive the ‘ordinary’ (‘adi) as substantially non-political and largely encompassed within the prospect of full socio-economic integration in Jordan, with all this might entail – owning a flat, getting married, and gaining a decent professional status, but also being able to fulfil other desires such as having fun or being free to choose a specific dress code. However, the indications in my fieldwork suggest that being ‘adi is not simply a state, but a condition that most people in alWihdat aspire, more or less successfully, to achieve.49 It is the struggle to fill the gap between the normative sense of what ordinary ‘should be’ and the empirical sense of what actually ‘is’ that constitutes the goal of many in al-Wihdat. Indeed, for refugees, ‘being ordinary’ is not something that can be easily taken for granted, for the search for the ordinary takes place in a situation of protracted extraordinariness and great ambiguity: Palestinian refugees and Jordanian citizens who after 60 years still live in a ‘temporary’ space that is also spatially and economically integrated into the municipality of Amman. And this condition is further aggravated by discrimination and stigma. The determination of many people to accomplish an ordinary life is sometimes in strident contrast with the extraordinariness of refugee political status and their wish to re-enact their allegiance to Palestinian nationalism. As will become clear throughout the book, the crucial ambiguity underlying refugees’ understanding and experience of the ‘ordinary’ points to the capacity of the political to overflow its institutional boundaries and the incapacity of the ‘ordinary’ to enact a full suspension of the political. Two interrelated objections may be raised if we think of the ‘ordinary’ in terms of a suspension of the political. First, it might be argued that the two bodies of theory that I seek to combine are irremediably irreducible. Second, it might be objected that this departure from the realm of politics is not a departure at all due to the political implications entailed in living an ordinary life. The first issue, I believe, is the result of my attempt to acknowledge the centrality of antagonism and division in ‘the political’ in Jordan

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without fully subscribing to its normative dimension: the rather ahistorical conception of the political as fundamentally and universally situated on logics of antagonism and exclusion. For this purpose, I have found Schmitt and Mouffe’s understandings of the political very useful; a few clarifications are needed first, however. My application of Schmitt and Mouffe’s theories to illuminate the complexities and ambiguities associated with political participation in al-Wihdat is undoubtedly circumstantial and very limited in its aim. My issue is entirely empirical: I wish to grasp the profound discomfort toward political participation in al-Wihdat at a time of extraordinary political upheaval and mass mobilisation. Antagonism, indeed, seems to be constitutive of camp dwellers’ anxieties vis-a`-vis the political, so the friend/enemy distinction strikes me as being a most appropriate angle of analysis. The main advantage in adopting this approach is the capacity to shed light on the agonistic and divisive dimension of the political. However, Schmitt and Mouffe’s intellectual foundation cannot adequately explain the refugees’ lack of political participation, for it is grounded in an eminently political framework. Mouffe’s idea according to which the political belongs to our ontological condition of being would disqualify my argument about the non-political dimension of ‘the ordinary’, not least because of the impossibility of stepping outside the dialectic of friend/ enemy.50 This is not what my informants felt when they referred to the necessity of living an ‘ordinary life’; as Candea put it, failing to respect the boundary they were indicating would not be a descriptive mistake so much ‘as an adverse performative intervention on [their] [. . .] lived reality’.51 Let me now turn to the second objection: the seeming ubiquity of the political. One of the specific projects of political anthropology since the 1970s has been to open up the category of the political to include fields that were not traditionally considered political.52 Since then, anthropologists have been particularly dubious about any ethnographic definition that might pin down or curtail the theoretical openness of the political, and expose it to accusations of depoliticisation.53 So, we may be tempted to step back from this and redescribe the whole thing that I defined as ‘the pursuit of the

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ordinary’ as political because of the political bearing that such an endeavour has for camp dwellers. However, I think that we should resist this temptation for a number of reasons. First, we would risk misunderstanding or even ignoring local categories of the political that do not neatly conform to ours, for most of the people in al-Wihdat would not normally consider an ordinary activity such as watching a football match as a political activity.54 This would inevitably lead us to disregard our informants’ attempt to limit the disturbing working of the political. Another problematic weakness of such an analytical approach is to represent people’s lives as being excessively austere. Politics certainly shapes many aspects of refugees’ everyday life. But to reduce everything their lives are about to this would contribute to reproducing one-sided depictions of Palestinian refugees living in camps – popularly conveyed, for example, in the stereotype of refugees as irreducible dissidents.55 Finally, such a reading would prevent us from understanding a crucial dimension of my analysis: the role of the non-political in fashioning new zones of political subjectivity. To address these shortcomings, I narrow down the category of ‘the political’ by grounding it empirically. In al-Wihdat, there was not a universally shared definition of what is political: for the people I lived with in the camp, the boundaries between what is, and what is not, political might change over time and vary among people. However, the indications of my fieldwork suggest that these different interpretations all converged in the idea that ‘the political’ to them is that thing that is liable to bring to the surface the extraordinariness of their condition: the tension between Palestinianness and Jordanianness.

In the field This book is largely based on one year of fieldwork during which I mostly lived in al-Wihdat. Part of it is also informed by previous and subsequent researches carried out here and in other Palestinian refugee camps of Jordan.56 In Jordan, there are ten (UN) official Palestine refugee camps, plus three camps recognised only by the Jordanian authorities. According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian

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refugees in the Near East (UNRWA)57 and the government, camp populations and refugees residing in their proximity live under similar socio-economic conditions. However, there are visible economic, visual and symbolic differences among the camps, depending on factors such as the proximity to urban centres, the place of origins of their inhabitants, and the year of establishment. This book is almost

Figure I.1

al-Wihdat official map (source: UNRWA)

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Figure I.2

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al-Wihdat today, aerial view (source: Google Earth)

exclusively about al-Wihdat camp. The other refugee camps appear more as contrastive cases that helped me in the course of my research to have a better grasp of the specificity of al-Wihdat as well as to appreciate shared features. I decided that fieldwork based mainly on a single camp would best suit my analytical approach. In so doing, I privileged depth at the cost of a broader analysis. While analyses of the latter kind are welcome, the specific focus of my book required an ‘immersion’ into the stream of ordinary life that could be achieved only through intensive research within a given context. The choice of al-Wihdat was largely motivated by its location and history. Al-Wihdat best exemplifies the ambiguous nature of refugee camps in Jordan between ‘exception’ and ‘integration’. The transformation of the camp’s ‘political’ identity and image since the 1960s and 1970s – discussed in greater detail in the following chapter – are here particularly evident. Now surrounded by

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Figure I.3

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al-Wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

residential areas as a result of growth in the Amman population and the subsequent development of the capital, the camp has developed into an urban-like quarter, though it still conserves a certain ‘family likeness’ with the other refugee camps. In the 1960s, al-Wihdat became a symbol of Palestinian nationalist struggles, when it hosted the headquarters of Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Today, the camp is known especially for the Nadi al-Wihdat,58 a youth club that gave birth to the homonymous fariq al-wihdat (al-Wihdat Team): a very popular football team in the region, almost entirely composed of Palestinian and Jordanian-ofPalestinian-origin players, which has become an important symbol of identification for Palestinian refugees in and outside Jordan. I pursued what scholars define as ‘polymorphous engagement’,59 a technique that implies the use of various and different methods. To find my informants, I adopted what in social science is called the ‘snowball method’. I thus began to meet people who attended or worked in the Nadi al-Wihdat to extend afterward my contacts among their acquaintances, friends and relatives. My research in a youth club has inevitably narrowed down my focus to the young

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males of the camp. I attended weddings, cultural events and religious ceremonies, and in general accompanied refugees in the ordinary activities of their daily life. Besides providing me with a deeper understanding of how youths manage their livelihoods, it furthered my insertion in the camp. Regular visits to households were an important part of my research. In addition, I visited other institutions and organisations in the camp such as youth clubs, local NGOs, UN and governmental facilities, zakat committees,60 and the Camp Service Committee, markets, shops, small restaurants, cafes, game rooms and barber shops too. Though participant-observation remained the most important part of my research and what I wrote in my field notes my primary source, I also analysed refugee texts, textbooks, document sources, posters, graffiti, newspapers, internet sites, and blog texts and other published material, including statistics of the Jordanian government and UNRWA on the condition of camp dwellers. Also I conducted a number of semi-structured interviews with UNRWA staff, governmental officials and members of the camp Service Committee. With the exception of these formal meetings, I soon abandoned the possibility of carrying a tape recorder and taking notes in front of people. It was clear that the employment of a more formal way of enquiry hindered a more spontaneous flow of speech and involved more silence on a number of issues. The presentations of excerpts of conversations held with refugees in this book are reconstructions of dialogues based on the notes that I made afterwards. My formal research activities constituted only part of the fieldwork, though. The raising of a post-modernist criticism has led to a greater awareness of the role of the ethnographer in the production of anthropological knowledge. This ‘self-conscious reflexivity’ has justly emphasised the role of the seemingly mundane and trivial dimensions of the researcher’s everyday life, and how this has influenced his or her object of study. Along with formal research, I have spent time with my family, visited friends, wandered the streets of the camp, and so on. None of these activities were originally part of my research agenda, yet most turned out to be crucial. While at that time they probably amplified my anxieties

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on the difficulty of properly targeting my research topic, they eventually soothed my obsessive search for the ‘extraordinary’, the politically relevant. I had, indeed, initially intended to engage in the study of political life, and more specifically the significance of Palestinian nationalism, in al-Wihdat refugee camp. Before starting my field research, I had formulated some initial assumptions about the impact of spectacular events – such as the outbreak of the second intifada and its aftermath – on the political consciousness of Palestinians living in the refugee camps set up in Jordan. However, during my field research, I became aware of the significance that living an ordinary life had among many in the camp. The discontent and the frustration with the Palestinian political situation (al-wade’) were such that many of my friends ignored it or, more likely, deliberately avoid talking about politics. Simultaneously, I was increasingly intrigued by the high number of unemployed youths who spent their time idling in the streets of the camp or in other spaces such as, for example, coffee shops and game rooms. Because of my acquaintance with the people working in the Nadi al-Wihdat, I spent a large part of the day with a multitude of young men and adolescents aged from their late teens to early 30s. Among my informants, ‘youth’ was a relatively broad category that encompassed a wide spectrum of people. The term, however, was often employed to indicate unmarried young men between their teens and early 30s. This age group was generally referred to as alshabab. A fascinating aspect of recent work on youth across the world is scholars’ tendency to focus on the anxieties that many young men experience in times of social and economic uncertainties. A large part of this literature has ascribed these anxieties to the gap between the fantasies and aspirations of youth and the realities of living in neoliberal economies.61 The breach between the actual and the desirable also resonated in my findings. Yet, in al-Wihdat, youth’s anxieties were not communicated simply by the impossibility of many young men to translate globally celebrated ideals and values of economic success into their concrete lives; much of the frustrations of young men

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expressed a conflict between the desire to live an idealised ordinary life in Jordan as Jordanian citizens and a binding allegiance to the Palestinian nationalist struggle. The everyday was the site where this tension was consumed and navigated. My fieldwork was gradually shifting in focus from a direct political analysis to the exploration of young men’s engagement with spaces of everyday life and their attempts to live ordinary lives. Immersed in the daily life of my informants, I was eventually seduced by the idea that political subjectivity in the camp could be encompassed largely by the cycle of everyday life. The symbolic significance of commemorating the Nakba,62 the memory of the militarisation of the camp in the 1960s, of Black September, and of the two intifadas, and in general the political significance of being Palestinian refugees, all seemed to be swallowed up within the stream of everyday life. Soon it became clear that ‘the ordinary’, the dominant theme of my investigation, was the most appropriate organising concept for analysing refugee political agency and subjectivity. My field trajectory – it must be admitted – led me to adopt a privileged focus on young men and adolescents of the camp to the detriment of other categories, most notably that of women. Women were actual presences in the camp. However, I did seek to compensate this by meeting and interviewing members of older generations, but I was not as successful in doing this with women. I am aware of the risk of biasing my research by an over-representation of male perspectives. When the occasion arose, I spoke with women in the camps too. However, due to the patterns of gender segregation and standards of modesty, as a male researcher I experienced difficulty in carrying out an investigation of this kind. For example, engaging in discussion with women was widely considered shameful (‘ayb). I was not even able to sit and converse with the female relatives of my friends. During my frequent visits to their houses, I usually had to wait outside before entering, leaving the women of the household time to change room and possibly avoid any contact with a male stranger. As such, I want to emphasise that this is not a study of Palestinian refugees in Jordan at large, but rather of a specific setting and a particular group: the shabab of al-Wihdat.

CHAPTER 1 IT FEELS LIKE HOME

I climb into a taxi cab in Jabal Amman. Al-Wihdat is near this wealthy neighbourhood of Amman. Embedded in a tight cluster of dwellings, its densely populated space stretches out without any physical interruption toward the urban areas of Jabal Ashrafiyya (hill of Ashrafiyya). From the town centre, there is a road that leads uphill towards the camp; once separated from Amman, al-Wihdat is today completely incorporated into the city through urban expansion. As the driver steers onto the busy thoroughfares of Amman, the landscape changes visibly. The nice villas and buildings in white stones of this well-off neighbourhood swiftly give way to poorer constructions, dilapidated houses and shabby buildings. The ubiquitous pollution of Amman is thicker here than in the residential area of West Amman, most likely due to the heavier car emissions and traffic jams that engulf one of the main streets that borders the western side of the camp, Madaba Street. The taxi stops here, at the camp’s outskirts, and does not enter through the large road that, departing from the main Madaba Street, penetrates into the camp. A multitude of stands and people jam the road, Al-Nadi Street, slowing down the access to the economic and physical core of the camp: the suq al-wihdat (Wihdat market). An occasional visitor would never guess what actually constitutes ‘the camp’ or where it is. No fences, walls, or barbed wire separates al-Wihdat from the rest of the city. This is quite at odds with popular stereotypes circulating

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about refugee camps, imagined as big Palestinian enclaves, distinct from the rest of the city, and still not fully assimilated in Jordan: a space of Palestinian national belonging and strong social cohesion, a place inhabited by a distinct type of people. Also many camp dwellers speak of this space in this manner, suggesting that they have internalised such an image. They refer to themselves with the general term ‘awlad al-mukhayyam/mukhayyamjiyye – a word that can be roughly translated as ‘being from the camp’. A term that, however, means much more than just living in the camp: it entails affinity, emotional attachment and personal relationship with this space. Any feeling of being an intruder in a dangerous and unruly zone of urban life rapidly vanishes once the first steps are taken toward the centre of the camp. Women and men crowd its main streets as well as the small alleys that branch in every direction – smoking shisha (water-pipe), sipping coffee, going shopping or trading. The public space appears to be an extension of the private space. Al-Wihdat does not present itself as an impenetrable community; it is rather an open space and a thriving economic area. The market is expansive and its food sector bigger than the equivalent market in the downtown area of the city. In some parts of the market, the asphalt of the streets is covered with a thick stratum of dirt that over the years has piled up and taken on the semblance of soil. The sonic jumble of the voices of the passers-by redoubles the shouts and rattles of street vendors with their handcarts and stands. The smell of cattle mingles with the aroma of hot falafel that shopkeepers fry in thick black oil. Occasional whiffs of fresh fruits and the resilient hints of rotten food fill the nose. A multitude of peddlers, stands and small shops sell their merchandise alongside one another. Together, these stores form a huge market that extends from the centre of the camp almost to its outskirts. Although there is a supermarket and a few other medium or large-scale business activities, the souk is made up mostly of stands and shops managed by single individuals or, less frequently, a handful of paid employees. Almost all of these businesses are family based. There are carpenters, butchers, barber shops, tailors, peddlers, coffee sellers and falafel makers with their stands.

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The centrality of market life to the camp’s daily rhythms and dynamics is apparent particularly in the northern section of the camp. The market serves the needs not only of the camp’s inhabitants but also of a much wider spectrum of people. Men in the camp take pride in saying how it is not only ‘us’ (folks from the camp) but also people from the surrounding areas and even from the richer zones of Amman who frequent their souk, attracted by abundant goods and competitive prices. As a whole, al-Wihdat is an integral part of Amman. There are distinguishing features, though. The main road where the taxi driver dropped me – Madaba Street – is a large one, with two lanes in each direction, divided by a traffic island; the street separates the western border of the camp from the surrounding neighbourhoods. Another big yet slightly narrower road delimits the northern border of alWihdat. At the entrance of the large street – al-Nadi Street – that I had crossed to get to the market, a police station towers: a threestorey fortress with a large poster of the King hanging on its facade. If the two roads encircle a part of the camp, separating it from the rest of the city, the police station draws the attention of a visitor to a slightly different visual pattern – a set of non-distinctive features that, taken together, bestows a specific and peculiar dimension to the camp. Aside from a few large roads, al-Wihdat is a maze of narrow passageways and twisting alleys that gives the camp the feeling of a labyrinth. The shabbiness of the shelters (ma’wa/malja’) – often protected only with zinc roofs anchored by pieces of debris and heavy stones – and their height (rarely exceeding a second or third floor) set al-Wihdat apart from other comparable areas of the city. Seasoned visitors can also quite easily spot other markers of aesthetic difference in the camp – such as the UN flags on the offices, schools and other facilities of the UNRWA. According to the words of a Palestinian refugee previously employed in the UN compound in the camp, al-Wihdat possesses a familiar air: for those who have never stepped a foot into it, it is difficult to distinguish the camp from any other poor neighbourhood. But for us who have lived and worked in the camp, it is simple. You

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can distinguish the camp for its vegetable market [suq alkhudra], for the women who dress traditionally, for the accent of the people and the way they shout when they sell their products. In Jordan there are few other camps like al-Wihdat whose name reverberates with so much intensity the echo of a distinct national identity. Yet, the borders of the camp have not only served to separate but also to connect.1 Over the years, newcomers and the demographic growth have radically altered its visual profile, which has increasingly melted into the surrounding neighbourhoods. If the refugees’ taking over of the spaces and infrastructure of the camp has certainly favoured a process of integration of al-Wihdat into the urban fabric of Amman, it has also evoked ambivalent feelings towards the camp (as it now feels like home) and fears of resettlement among camp residents. In this chapter, I explore the seemingly paradoxical status of al-Wihdat: an arena for fashioning nationalist ideals and subjectivity, and a site for the progressive integration of refugees into the broader Jordanian society. Refugees devote a great deal of their energy to trying to challenge the socio-economic marginality that seems to plague refugee camps. This capacity is a central dimension of their ability to accommodate the need to live an ordinary life as Jordanian citizens with the burden of an extraordinary existence as Palestinian refugees. To illustrate this, the chapter starts with a preliminary examination of the relationship between the Jordanian state and Palestinian refugees. This will show how state and UN policies in the camp have contributed to problematising refugees’ feelings of national self-identification – a dilemma further aggravated by the evolution of the UNRWA and the Jordanian state’s management of camps’ physical infrastructure and housing. I will then document how refugees, through their daily spatial practices, have sought to navigate the quandary pertaining to their status in Jordan by making themselves at home in al-Wihdat. If camp dwellers once sought to maintain the camp’s spaces as liminal places, today they welcome its spatial and economic integration inside the territory as a form of agency and creativity that demonstrates their allegiance to Palestinian nationalism. An inside view will also dissipate

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stereotypical depictions of the camp as an homogenous place and reveal the existence of several sub-neighbourhoods (harat), some of which differ from others in terms of the Palestinian origins of their inhabitants, their reputations and, sometimes, in terms of the forms of wealth and power they are thought to have amassed.

From expansion to contraction: Palestinians in Jordan When Palestinian refugees arrived in 1948, Jordan had only recently been recognised as a distinct territorial unity. Before Britain and France became the dominant imperialist powers in the area, the country was part of the ‘Province of Damascus’ (wilayat dimashq) under Ottoman jurisdiction. The end of World War I signalled the victory of the Allied Forces. Ruling what was formerly the Ottoman Empire, Great Britain and France introduced two regional systems into the eastern Mediterranean Arab region. The first was the nationstate system; the second was a new international regime that gave the Allies a mandate permitting them to administer the former Ottoman territories until they became fully fledged nation-states.2 In the eastern parts of the region, Arab and Kurdish populations were combined into the new Mesopotamian country called Iraq, which was supposedly independent, but a de facto British protectorate. Meanwhile, Syria and a greatly enlarged Lebanon were governed by France. In April 1921, Hejazi Emir Abdullah I bin al-Hussein, born in Mecca during the Ottoman Empire, was appointed Governor of the newly formed Emirate of Transjordan by the British government. In September 1922, the Council of the League of Nations recognised part of the territories east of the Jordan River as a state under the British Mandate. The first decade of rule was marked by the joint attempt of the British and the Emir (Emir Abdullah I bin al-Hussein) to establish a governmental structure and consolidate their authority over the territory and local population.3 The creation of Jordan defined the features of new political and ethnic identities. However, with the introduction of the new nation-state system in the region, traditional loyalties to a tribe, a region, a village, a town or a

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district did not disappear but rather merged into a new complex political system.4 To legitimise the new order, the regime implemented a number of strategies. From 1927 a series of laws were enacted, culminating in Transjordan’s Organic Law and the Nationality Law in 1928 that defined the temporal, spatial and corporeal borders of the nation. Territorial integrity and territorial sovereignty provided the basis for grounding the utopian idea that ethnic identity and national territory should correspond. Alongside the judicial and legislative bodies,5 several institutions have had a relevant role in the foundation of Jordan as a distinct national entity: the law and military, the Emir, the educational system, the census and the museum have all served the interests of the ruling powers in the production of a national identity.6 In 1946, the Emir declared himself King of Transjordan and the Emirate became the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.7 The following years brought even more radical transformations. The first Palestinian refugee camps were set up in the Hashemite Kingdom in the late 1940s following the establishment of Israel.8 When the Jewish Agency in Tel-Aviv announced the institution of the Provisional Government of Israel on 14 May 1948, the war that followed resulted in the destruction and mass evacuation of most Palestinian villages. The end of the war saw the territory of Mandatory Palestine divided between the Zionist colonies and the Arab forces that intervened on the ‘behalf’ of the Palestinian side. Whereas the former took control of a large part of the territory designated as the British Mandate of Palestine, Egypt and Jordan respectively administered Gaza and annexed the West Bank. Those who left their land and abandoned their houses to flee the mass persecution and atrocities perpetrated by the Haganah and other Jewish forces were therefore prevented by the newly born state of Israel from returning to their homes and lands.9 Three-quarters of a million people, many injured during the violent Jewish – Arab conflict, were suddenly transformed into a humanitarian problem: the Palestinian issue. Palestinians from southern parts of Mandatory Palestine fled to the Gaza Strip; those from the centre dispersed to the West Bank; and refugees from the north spread

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out into southern Lebanon and Syria.10 According to the Red Cross, about 320,000 Palestinian refugees stayed in the West Bank; 210,000 went to the Gaza Strip and 180,000 to other Arab countries. Around 100,000 Palestinians found refuge in the East Bank (today’s Jordan).11 The establishment of Israel in 1948 provided an opportunity for the ambitious King Abdullah to fulfil his expansionist goals. In the aftermath of the Arab– Israeli war, the monarch’s military annexed what remained of central Palestine, including the cities of Jerusalem (the East part), Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Hebron and the surrounding areas. In 1950, the government formally announced that on the occasion of the lifting of barriers between the East and the West Banks of the Hashemite Jordanian Kingdom, there is no longer a reason to consider the country [al-balad ] located in the West Bank a foreign country [. . .] the two countries located in said two Banks are considered one unity [wihdah wahidah].12 The territory formerly known as Palestine became the ‘West Bank of Jordan’. The military expansion was hence legitimised by the signing of an addendum to the 1928 Law of Nationality, which stated that all those who are habitual residents, at the time of the application of this law, of Transjordan or the Western Territory administered by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and who hold Palestinian nationality, are considered as having already acquired Jordanian nationality and to enjoy all the rights and obligations that Jordanians have.13 Along with a set of laws containing regulations relating to nationality, the addendum of 1928 – then amended in 1954 by the Law of Jordanian Nationality – granted citizenship rights to Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were ‘habitually residents in February 1954 in Jordan’ (which included the West Bank). As a result, between 1954 and 1967, Palestinian refugees who

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fled to territory administered by the Hashemites and Palestinians and who were born in the West Bank achieved legal equality to any other citizen of the Jordanian state. If in territorial terms the annexation of the West Bank signified the addition of a large chunk of land, the seizure of the territory meant also the inclusion of Palestinians in the Jordanian national population. In addition to the implementation of the abovementioned legal and political measures, the acquisition of the West Bank required the adoption of a persuasive national rhetoric to ensure the bonds of the West Bank to Amman. This took form through the idea of creating a national identity that would encompass every citizen of the Kingdom. According to Laurie Brand, ‘contrary to the perception of many Palestinians [. . .], the evidence suggests that the state’s goal was less to impose a Transjordanian identity than to create a hybrid Jordanian identity for both communities’.14 The project – pursued both by King Abdullah and, later, by his grandson, King Hussein – was based on three fundamental premises: the recognition of the Hashemite monarchy as the symbol of Jordan, commitment to pan-Arab ideals, and the unity of the two Banks. The demographic expansion drastically affected the urban environment of the Kingdom by tripling its population and transforming de facto the Transjordanians15 into a minority.16 The exodus of Palestinian refugees and the inclusion of the West Bank raised the population from 375,000 to 1,270,000 people. Refugees concentrated around the capital and in the small urban centres around it: 20,000 in Amman and 11,000 in the surrounding villages, 8,000 in Salt, 7,000 in the city of Irbid and 27,000 in its neighbourhoods, 5,000 in Zarqa and in the nearby city of Ruseifa. In the cities and in the villages, Palestinians found shelter in the homes of their relatives, in religious institutions and in tents. Only a small percentage of refugees, 21,000 people, lived in the two camps settled by the international community in the country: Karameh17 in the Jordan Valley (1949) and Zarqa camp (1949) in the north.18 Yet, the refugees’ desperate food, shelter, sanitation and health care needs convinced the UNRWA, in charge of the care of the Palestinians, of the need to raise the number of camps in the area: two

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were built in Amman – the Amman New camp, called ‘al-Wihdat’ by its inhabitants (1955), and Hussein camp (1952) – and one in Irbid (1951). With the exception of this early opposition, refugees accepted the energetic policy of integration pursued by the government.19 This has not signified a smooth transition though. Annexing the West Bank and extending Jordanian citizenship to Palestinians was accompanied by the staunch opposition of the Arab League that saw it as a clear threat to refugees’ right of return and the liberation of Palestine. Also the relationship between the regime and Palestinians was problematic. The decision to annex the West Bank sparked animosity at the beginning: Palestinians were angered by what they saw as a first step toward a separate peace with Israel. Tensions among Palestinians were also stirred by the unequal development of the two Banks of the Kingdom. The economic and demographic growth of Amman and the surrounding areas was pursued to the detriment of the Western Territory of the Jordan River. Faced with a more advanced West Bank, the government concentrated its efforts in the East Bank by greatly developing the economy of the territory and strengthening its transportation system. The malcontent culminated with the assassination of King Abdullah I in 1951, shot by a Palestinian gunman while attending Friday prayers at the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. On its side, the Jordanian government had a major interest in assimilating the Palestinians further into Jordanian society: to legitimise its claim to and control over the West Bank, the transformation of Palestinian refugees into disciplined subjects was paramount. Indeed, King Abdullah’s decision to incorporate the territory west of the Jordan River was not motivated by purely humanitarian reasons. The monarch never concealed his dream of ruling a ‘Greater Syria’ embracing Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and Transjordan. Once his expansionist aims were frustrated by the notso-sympathetic Zionist and British agendas, he had to content himself with the sole territory west of Jordan River. This, to the eyes of the ambitious Abdullah, could always have been a first step toward the expansion of his reign. When Hussein took over the reins of the

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government after the brief reign of his father, King Talal, the new monarch inherited the extended Kingdom and, with that, the determination to maintain unaltered the unity of the two Banks. It is not surprising therefore that the position of the regime toward the Palestinian population did not change in the immediate aftermath of the ‘Six-Day War’ when Jordan lost half of the inhabited area. In 1967, Jordan, Egypt and Syria suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Israel in the conflict known as the ‘Six-Day War’. Palestinians commemorate the date as the ‘Naksa’ (the ‘setback’). In Jordan, the conflict culminated with the loss of the West Bank and the second major exodus of Palestinians. A new wave of refugees expelled by the victorious state of Israel crossed the east bank of the Jordan River, thus raising the number of Palestinians living in Jordan to approximately 60 per cent of the total population.20 Since most refugees received Jordanian nationality after the unification of the East and West Banks in 1951, these second-time refugees were already naturalised citizens of Jordan. To deal with this mass of displaced people, new refugee camps were set up in the country. They found a place in the areas of Amman and Zarqa and six new camps were organised under the UNRWA’s control: al-Baq’a, Hettin, alTalbieh, Jarash, Suf and al-Huson.21 As part of the plan to restore the lost unity, Jordan’s strategy revolved largely around the preservation of socio-economic links with West Bankers. In so doing, the regime implemented a number of policies to reassert the bond with the West Bank. Perhaps the most important of these was the ‘open-bridge’ policy that allowed the free movement of people and goods through the bridges that connected the two banks of the Jordan River.22 Jordan continued also to pay the salaries of civil employees in the West Bank in order to maintain its claim on the territory.23 On a rhetorical level, the government repeatedly reaffirmed the territorial and demographic union of the East and West Bank. On July 1968, Prime Minister Juma made this point clearly during a parliamentary meeting: Jordan’s policy was, is still and will continue to be predicated on the following: The Palestinian cause is an all-Arab cause. No

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Arab State has the right to solve that question. The Jordanian entity of the two banks is sacred. We believe in it as much as we believe in God and in our religion. We will never at any time relinquish this sacred unity. The West Bankers should realize that their lives, souls and future are all rightly and sacredly bound to this bank. That bond will never be broken under the leadership of King Hussein.24

Dynamics of exclusion The costs of the 1967 war engendered a significant change in the development of a Jordanian national identity. Despite Hussein’s willingness to reaffirm the socio-political and economic links with the West Bank, the monarch could not ignore the demographic and geographical contraction of Jordan. Most importantly, the defeat resulted in the growing popularity of the Palestinian resistance movements (PRM), a crucial factor that in the following years led to a drastic change in the policies and attitudes of the regime toward the Palestinian population.25 The rise of the PLO in 1964 and that of the PRMs after 1967 are widely held to be responsible for the deterioration of the relationship between the Jordanian government and the refugees. But even before that would happen, Palestinian– Jordanian relationships were not entirely without problems. Palestinians and the native Transjordanians differed noticeably in terms of their social and economic backgrounds. Palestinians in general enjoyed better education, higher standards of health and medical care, and a lower rate of child mortality. Many were well-off, and most were better accustomed to an urban style of life and more experienced in terms of political participation than their Jordanian counterparts. If the cultural and economic capital Palestinians brought with them helped the development of the country, it also fuelled tensions with the native population. The Transjordanian upper class in particular felt slighted by what it perceived as a Palestinian ‘nation-class narrative of superiority’.26 Eventually, these differences paved the way to further tensions when the rivalry between the Hashemites and the PLO over

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the exclusive rights to represent the Palestinian national predicament and rights grew in significance and volatility. After the disastrous defeat of the Arab forces during the ‘Six-Day War’, Palestinian Fedayeen (guerrilla fighters) established their headquarters in Jordan – now reduced to the East Bank; here they launched their attack on Israel. The relationship between them and the Jordanian government deteriorated progressively. Not only did the PLO’s existence challenge Jordan’s claim over the West Bank, but its presence on the territory of the Kingdom encroached on the very sovereignty of the Hashemites. At stake, indeed, there was not only the capacity to represent the Palestinian people but also the control over the country. The 1967 war and the consequent influx of refugees to the country critically altered the demographic balance within the East Bank in favour of refugees and Jordanians of Palestinian origin (although estimates are inaccurate for this period). How this population was to be identified – whether Palestinian or Jordanian – was the central issue that both the PLO and the Jordanian government sought to manipulate for their benefit. Both, however, failed to emerge as the exclusive and legitimate representative of the Palestinian population in Jordan. On the one hand, the ideological and military power of the PLO was undermined by internal divisions among its ranks (most notably Fatah and the PFLP). The last years of the 1960s also saw the group alienating the sympathy of a large share of the population in the East Bank as a consequence of the abuses perpetrated by armed bands of Fedayeen (guerrilla fighters) – often in the form of requests for pecuniary ‘donations’ but sometimes involving the kidnap, torture and even murder of those suspected of collaborating with Israel. On the other hand, the Jordanian government failed to pursue a coherent agenda that was in line with its demographic, legal and rhetorical unity. The regime’s political and economic discrimination against its citizens of Palestinian origin exacerbated the cleavage between them and the Transjordanian population. The Palestinian community was perceived to be in collusion with the Fedayeen by default. It is not surprising, therefore, that when the guerrilla fighters opened fire on King Hussein’s motorcade on 9 June 1970, the

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Jordanian army shelled two refugee camps in retaliation for the attack against the king. As Adnan Abu-Odeh, King Hussein’s former political advisor, points out, ‘[t]he choice of two refugee camps as the target of the army’s anger implied that the army looked on all Palestinians as an extension of the Fedayeen, and vice versa’.27 This spiral of tension triggered a series of events that eventually culminated in the tragic civil war of 1970 known as ‘Black September’. The conflict started on 17 September 1970 and lasted until July 1971. In the first two weeks following the outbreak of the conflict, the Jordanian army conquered vast areas of Amman and Zarqa where the guerrilla forces were concentrated. By 23 September, the army held the whole of the al-Hussein camp and a large part of al-Wihdat, and over the next two days it attained total control of the remaining part of the camp. Large sectors of Amman, the other northern cities of the Kingdom, and the refugee camps that served as headquarters for Fatah and the PFLP were severely damaged in the early phases of the conflict. During the civil war, half of al-Wihdat was destroyed by army bombardment. The conflict inflicted heavy losses, especially among Palestinians. There is no consensus around the death toll and the nature of the violence. According to the regime, the number of casualties ranged from 1,500 to 2,000, largely imputed to selfdefence needs; by the guerrillas, it is claimed instead that between 7,000 and 20,000 died, and that their deaths must be ascribed to the regime’s intention of pursuing a systematic cleansing campaign and general slaughter of the Palestinians in the kingdom.28 In al-Wihdat, the showdown terminated with the destruction of a large part of the camp and, as elsewhere in the country, the eviction of the Fedayeen from the Kingdom.29 The bloody confrontation between the Palestinian guerrilla fighters and the Jordanian army did not see the juxtaposition of two ethnically distinct groups. Not only did most PalestinianJordanians partake in the civil strife, but a sizable minority of Transjordanians joined the rebels in their fight against the monarchy.30 However, the end of the civil war saw a radical change in Jordan’s official ideological line. Under pressure from

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Transjordanian nationalists to distinguish Jordan from Palestine, the construction of a national identity began to be spelled out almost exclusively through those attributes that celebrated its ‘Transjordanian nature’: the nomadic traditions of ‘native’ Jordanians were to be juxtaposed onto the urban and peasant heritage of Palestinians; as Christine Jungen points out, ‘the terms ‘asha’ari (tribal), watani (patriotic) and urduni (Jordanian) progressively acquired an equivalence between them’.31 If King Abdullah’s annexation of the West Bank revolved around the creation of a collective identity encompassing Palestinian and Transjordanian elements, Black September and the events that followed gradually precipitated a discourse of unity toward a guest/ host relationship. In Jordan, this discourse was expressed in the terms of muhajirin (emigrants) – the Palestinians – and ansar (supporters) – the Transjordanians. Muhajirin and ansar refer respectively to the Prophet Muhammad and his companions – who fled to Medina to escape their persecutors – and the people of Medina – who welcomed the Prophet. In the Islamic tradition, the two terms stand to signify the establishment of the first Islamic state. The reference to these two concepts of the Islamic tradition was made for the first time by King Hussein in the wake of the civil war. Whereas the King’s intention was to invoke this distinction in order to reinforce national unity, Transjordanian nationalists reinterpreted these concepts to suggest the temporary presence of Palestinians in the Kingdom.32 As a matter of fact, Transjordanian nationalism emerged strengthened by the events of the 1970s. Its main concerns revolved around two intertwined issues: the Palestinian issue and the question of national identity in Jordan. It is important to note, however, that not only were there ‘native’ Jordanians opposing anti-Palestinian stances, but that Transjordanian nationalism comprised a variety of groups with diverse and sometimes conflicting agendas.33 Yet, these diverse positions all converged into a broad idea: the primacy of a national identity predicated upon the exclusion of the Palestinian ‘element’. Such an exclusivist discourse was largely (but not universally) grounded on the primacy of the ‘tribe’ (‘ashira).

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It should be noted that, while the Hashemites never really ceased to rhetorically uphold the discourse of unity between Transjordanians and Jordanians of Palestinian origin (i.e. refugees and those displaced by the 1948 and 1967 wars), the regime pursued an ambiguous policy at times. By generally supporting the manifestation of Transjordanian chauvinism, the government also exploited intercommunal tension in order to achieve specific goals – such as the prevention of alliances between Palestinians and Transjordanians or the strengthening of the PLO’s authority over the territory.34 Indeed, in an effort to integrate the Bedouins within the national body politic and promote the creation of a national identity (and a shared history) that laid its foundation upon a ‘genuine’ (Trans)Jordanian basis, King Hussein himself upheld and promoted notions of ‘tribalism’. The inclusion of the tribal component in a nationalist discourse of authenticity resulted in de facto exclusion and marginalisation of the Palestinian community from the national base. Ironically, the regime’s emphasis on tribes and tribalism at time has backfired: a segment of Transjordanian nationalists has questioned the very legitimacy of the Hashemite elite on the basis that their origins were Hejazi and not Jordanian.35 After Black September, the government’s agenda showed a clear leaning toward privileging the non-Palestinian aspects of the state’s national identity.36 The civil strife between the Palestinian militias and the Jordanian regime may have been the first major turning point, but further domestic and regional events fostered the weakening of the regime’s inclusive policies. In October 1974, at Rabat, the Arab League recognised the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. In 1987, the outbreak of the first intifada in the Occupied Territories struck the final blow to the Hashemites’ claims over the West Bank. Not only did the Palestinian grassroots uprising question the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, but it also challenged Jordanian sovereignty over the territory. On 31 July of the same year, the regime formally announced their disengagement from the West Bank, and ‘genuinely abandon[ed] its claim to speak for Palestinians’.37 Finally, if the disengagement signified a radical change of orientation, Israel’s claims that Jordan is

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the proper homeland for Palestinians (al-watan al-badil) further entrenched the new tendency. From the 1980s onwards, the new tendency to treat Palestinian territory and people as different from the Jordanians was firmly ingrained in the regime’s agenda. The rise of Transjordanian nationalist discourse and the repercussions of the civil war had reverberations at different levels of society. This is perhaps most visible in the dramatic increase in the regime’s discriminatory practices against Jordanians of Palestinian origin. In the field of employment, for example, the hiring of ‘native’ Jordanians was usually privileged over that of ‘Palestinians’. In the public sphere, the exclusivist attitude of the regime resulted in blocking Palestinian advancement and a massive purge of Jordanian-Palestinians from the state apparatus. Whereas Jordanians of Palestinian origin used to enjoy a good representation in the government, this was drastically reduced in the following years. Palestinians were also excluded from attaining the highest positions of executive power. Another example is the near hegemony of Transjordanians in the state security apparatus, including the police force and the intelligence agency (al-mukhabarat).38 In the education sector, the regime’s discriminatory stance was particularly pernicious. Prior to the war, the universities were largely dominated by a highly educated quota of Jordanian-Palestinians, but the new forms of exclusion practised by the regime dramatically inverted these demographics.39 The process of de-Palestinisation of the national identity of the Jordanian state was also evident at a cultural level, specifically in the popular realm. The promotion of Transjordanianness was implemented through the institution of a number of cultural clubs.40 On the societal level, efforts to assert this novel identity led to the adoption of new symbols and identity markers. A case in point was the red-and-white hatta (scarf/head-gear). From the 1970s, King Hussein started to wear the scarf with increased frequency, especially when meeting with tribal leaders.41 Following the example of the King, a new generation of urban male youths began to use the scarf in order to mark their ethnic identity as Transjordanians. The hatta soon became a marker of the political inclination of Jordanian-

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Palestinians, allegedly distinguishing those who sought integration – and wore the red-and-white garment – from those who asserted their Palestinianness by donning a black-and-white scarf.42 Yet, many nationalists nurtured the feeling that the regime has done little to downsize the economic and political role of Jordanians of Palestinian origin.43 Transjordanian chauvinism became even louder when the number of Palestinian refugees living in Jordan increased considerably following the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990. Saddam Hussein’s invasion and occupation of the country forced approximately 300,000 Jordanians, mostly of Palestinian origin, to return to Jordan. In 1990–1, the bulk of Palestinians living in Kuwait left the country as part of the mass exodus of the civilian population at the time of the Iraqi invasion.44 When the conflict ended, the Palestinian population was prevented from coming back to their houses and jobs in Kuwait. Kuwaiti authorities explained this exclusion as being a result of Arafat’s partisanism with the occupier as well as the unfavourable conditions of the Kuwaiti economy (ibid.).45 The so-called ‘returnees’46 settled in the major economic centres of the kingdom: Amman and Zarqa, and to a lesser extent, Irbid.47 Although a minority of them found a place in the overcrowded camps of the country, many built houses near these camps, contributing substantially to the expansion of camps such as al-Wihdat and their amalgamation with the city. Stretching further state resources and weakening an economy already on the edge of collapse, the third exodus of Palestinians to the country cemented the idea among Transjordanian nationalists that they were gradually succumbing to Palestinians. Over the years anti-Palestinian exclusivist discourse grew in intensity and boldness. On 5 February 2012, for example, 36 representatives of the main Bedouin tribes – Bani Sakhr, Abadi, Shobaki and Manaseer – issued a petition publicly questioning King Abdullah II’s wife, Queen Rania. Among other things, the petitioners attacked her Palestinian background and accused her of seeking to empower Jordanians of Palestinian origin by supporting the right of women to pass their citizenship on to their children, which would inevitably have further shifted the demographic balance in favour of Jordanian-Palestinians.48

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The Hashemite regime, on the other hand, has consistently rejected any attempt to undermine national unity. After Black September and the events that followed, King Hussein I, before, and King Abdullah II, after, have promoted an inclusivist national identity that emphasised, at least rhetorically, the integration of Jordanians of Palestinian origin – provided that the latter avoided explicit invocation of a Palestinian identity and refrained from political activity against the regime. Since 2002, the Jordanian authorities have thus sought to counter these ‘divisive’ stances by developing a unifying agenda, first under the cry of ‘Jordan first’ (al-urdunn awalan) and more recently under the slogan ‘We are all Jordan’ (kulluna al-urdunn). In this context, camp refugees’ status as fully fledged citizens has been repeatedly confirmed through public statements such as ‘[Palestinian refugees are] part and parcel of the Jordanian people with the same rights and duties as any other Jordanians’; or, also, ‘[refugees are] a dear part of Jordan [. . .] that should be given the same attention and services as other parts of the country such as the countryside and the semi-desert areas’.49 But despite what the government has advocated and more or less successfully sought to accomplish, a large part of the refugee population in the country fears that the regime has ultimately surrendered to a Transjordanian exclusivist discourse.50 In al-Wihdat, for example, many have been extremely sceptical of the rallying crusade of the government. In particular, the slogan ‘Jordan first’ was interpreted in the terms of ‘(Trans)Jordanian first’ and ‘Palestinian last’: the clear confirmation that the government preferred ‘native Jordanians’ before them. Today, the discriminatory turn of the Jordanian government vis-a`vis Palestinian refugees is visible in multiple scenarios. What perhaps exposes with most dramatic evidence the socio-political fragility of Palestinians in Jordan is the fate of West Bankers. While Palestinian refugees originally from Gaza have never been given citizenship rights,51 refugees who arrived in 1948 from the West Bank have enjoyed the same social and economic rights as any other Jordanian. However, upon King Hussein’s decision to disengage in 1988, the government has revoked the Jordanian citizenship of those living habitually in the West Bank. Most importantly, in recent years, it has also started stripping arbitrarily the citizenship of those who were

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Jordanians for all legal purposes; this has de facto left many Palestinians in and outside Jordan in a legal limbo, stateless citizens of a Palestinian state-to-be. Equally illustrative of this discriminatory trend is Jordan’s differing treatment of Syrian and Palestinian asylum seekers fleeing the civil war in Syria. According to Human Rights Watch, ‘since April [2012], Jordanian authorities have automatically detained all Palestinians who enter Jordan without passing through an official border post, without the possibility of release. No such policy exists for thousands of Syrians entering the same way.’52

Refugee camps in Jordan: the institution of temporariness There are approximately 5 million Palestinian refugees registered with UNRWA, of whom over 2 million are living in Jordan. According to UNRWA, ‘Palestine refugees are people whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab– Israeli conflict.’53 Among them, more than 346,000 registered Palestinian refugees live in the ten Palestinian refugee camps recognised by the UNRWA, six of which are situated in the AMA (Amman Metropolitan Area).54

Figure 1.1

Shelters with zinc roof (source: Jihad Nijem)

Figure 1.2

Narrow alley (source: Jihad Nijem)

Figure 1.3

Women in the market (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.4

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Refugee camps in Jordan (source: UNRWA)

The refugees’ stay in the camps was meant to be temporary, until the UNRWA’s working programmes would help them to become economically independent. Even though the host states – Jordan, Lebanon and Syria – and the large network of humanitarian organisations involved in the care of Palestinian refugees had different and even contradictory mandates, organisational cultures, and interests, all converged on a similar methodology around the Palestinian issue in Jordan: resettlement.55 Two major premises

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underlay the functioning and determined the objectives of this regime in Jordan: Palestinian refugees were a transitory phenomenon of crisis and disorder, and thus only temporarily relevant; human nature was best served in a sedentary setting.56 In this context, refugee camps soon became a practical device designed to accommodate Palestinian refugees. Planned as emergency and thus temporary solutions to the ‘refugee problem’, camps were the most suitable solution for the management of those refugees – mainly dispossessed labourers and farmers57 – who could not find an alternative accommodation elsewhere. The camps were not intended to separate their inhabitants from the rest of the population, but rather to foster their integration within the local and regional market. On 8 December 1949, the UN General Assembly established the United Nations Relief and Work Agency for the Near and Middle East (UNRWA) as an operational, non-political agency in order to take care of the humanitarian plight of Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. According to the December 1949 Resolution 302 (IV) of the UN General Assembly, the UNRWA had to work in collaboration with local governments [on] the direct relief and works programmes [. . .] [and] consult with the interested Near Eastern Governments concerning measures to be taken by them preparatory to the time when international assistance for relief and works projects is no longer available.58 This project was expected to be carried out first in the refugee camps ‘through the gradual replacement of relief assistance (food rations, medical care and primary education) by a program of public works involving terracing, afforestation, irrigation schemes and road construction’.59 In April 1950, humanitarian assistance passed completely under the control of the UNRWA. In 1951, an agreement between the UNRWA and the Jordanian government defined the responsibilities of both: camp organisation and assistance-distribution were run by the UNRWA,60 while the government’s role was limited to enforcing

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the law and supporting the agency in carrying out its humanitarian mission. Under the imperative of preserving the temporary nature of camps, the Jordanian government and the UNRWA issued specific norms for the regulation of the use of land plots and shelters in alWihdat and the other refugee camps of the Kingdom. The camp, the name of which literally means ‘units’, takes its name from the 100 square metres, called a ‘unit’ or ‘wihda’, assigned as a housing unit to each familial group with a registration number that certified its refugee status. The camp was set up to the south-east of Amman, on an area of 0.48 square kilometres, owned by private citizens but ‘temporarily’ leased out to the government.61 The location was largely motivated by the circulation of goods and services. On each plot the authorities built a concrete room of 12 –20 square metres. Unlike other refugee camps, indeed, al-Wihdat was set up not with tents, but with more durable shelters made of concrete, zinc, stone and asbestos. As refugees were not entitled to ownership rights over the plot of land, the block was not divisible or transferable. To limit the horizontal growth of the camps, the building of new units was forbidden. The height of the shelters was limited to 3 metres to avoid the vertical growth of the camp. The residents were not allowed to rent, buy or sell their habitation units. From the beginning, life in the camps seemed to be disciplined by the absolute prohibition to use its space for any activity, except for dwelling.62 Furthermore, alWihdat – like the other refugee camps in the territory – was left outside national and municipal policies of urban development. Again, at the core of this decision was the determination to reproduce camps’ temporary character. This choice was not opposed by refugees, who feared that any infrastructural improvement could jeopardise their return to Palestine. It was not until the mid-1960s that the expanding municipality of Amman integrated the urban camp areas within its public service system (with water, telephone lines and electricity).63 Several factors, including the weak absorption capacities of the host countries and the absence of a political solution for the refugee issue, contributed to endangering the permanent resettlement of

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refugees into Jordanian territory. But, more than anything else, it was the refugees’ opposition – sometimes by means of violent demonstrations – to any solution that could threaten the ‘right of return’ that eventually put an end to the UNRWA’s plans for a collective reintegration in the late 1950s.64 While the notion of resettlement/naturalisation (tawtin) was interpreted as a clear sign

Figure 1.5

UNRWA field office in al-Wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 1.6

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UNRWA schools (source: Jihad Nijem)

of collaboration with Israel, camps soon became political symbols of Palestinian struggles for the right of return. As over the years refugees in camps have become particularly reliant on the UNRWA, this process is most visible in the politicisation of the agency and its services.65 Camps, indeed, are the only places where UNRWA services are available in their totality66 – elementary and preparatory schools, health clinics, relief distribution and social centres. In this respect, the fact that the vast majority of the agency’s staff is recruited within the Palestinian community has surely reinforced the agency’s identification with the refugee cause. As al-Husseini writes, ‘UNRWA’s services were instrumental in ensuring the very existence of the camps, which became bastions of Palestinian nationalism as of the late sixties and simultaneously the focus of the PLO’s implantation and its main recruiting ground.’67 A case in point was the UNRWA ID card (al-wathiqa). The large majority of Palestinian refugees in Jordan hold a Jordanian passport and a UNRWA registration card. Whereas the former identifies them

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as citizens of the Hashemite Kingdom, the UNRWA card indicates their temporary status as refugees. These cards provide refugees with access to a number of social and economic benefits such as food and medical supplies. At the same time, cards constituted one of the few official documentary evidences of their physical link with Palestine. Over the years, they therefore became potent symbols of Palestinianness through which refugees could still remind the international community of the lack of a political solution to their plight and evoke a shared sentiment of national unity. Starting in the 1970s, UNRWA’s influence in the camps began to decline because of a diverse range of factors that have contributed to its decreased control over camp issues. The main reason seems to be a severe lack of financial resources: crippled with an inadequate budget, the agency has progressively reduced its services and expenditures for all of its facilities – that is, schools and health centres.68 UNRWA’s loss of authority was accompanied by greater participation of the Jordanian authorities in the management of the camps. In concomitance with the end of the civil war, the government began to take over numerous tasks previously endorsed by the agency, such as the enforcement of regulations surrounding the space of the camp, and the maintenance and rehabilitation of shelters and camps’ infrastructure.69 To accomplish these and other duties, immediately after the Jordanian disengagement from the West Bank in 1988, the government established the Department of Palestinian Affairs (DPA), a national body in charge of the Palestinian refugee issue in

Figure 1.7

Sumayya Street (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Jordan under the umbrella of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its grip on the camps was secured by the institution of the ‘camp services committees’. In charge of implementing community projects and representing refugees’ requests and concerns, the committees are quasi-governmental bodies under the economic, operational and membership control of the DPA. Government leverage over the committees has repeatedly induced refugees to lament their lack of autonomy and call for the independent election of its members, a request that has so far been ignored.70 The DPA has also exerted indirect control through the supervision of the numerous NGOs, the diverse range of ‘community based organisations’ (CBOs) – such as ‘Women’s Program Centres’ and ‘Community Rehabilitation Centres for the Disabled’ – and the zakat committees operating in the camps in the medical, relief and social sectors. If the progressive involvement of the government in camp management has certainly intensified its control over this space, it has also boosted the integration of al-Wihdat into the municipality of Amman. Indeed, after Black September the Jordanian government and the UNRWA implemented several projects to ameliorate the living conditions of people in al-Wihdat. These interventions are visible in a number of measures undertaken in the year following the civil war. In 1986, for example, the Nadi al-Wihdat passed under the control of the Ministry of Youth and Sport. Originally set up and supervised by the UNRWA, the club grew into a major sports club and a place of political activism in the 1970s. A decade later, the government widened Sumayya Street, a small alley that crossed the camp from north-west to south-east, turning it into a large two-lane road. A few years after, on the occasion of the outbreak of the second intifada, the government also visibly enlarged the police station located on the outskirts of the camp. It is interesting to see the different interpretations made of these changes. From the viewpoint of the authorities, the expansion of Sumayya Street was carried out to improve bad circulation within the camp, while the extension and refurbishment of the police station was explained by management issues – the unification of the station

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of al-Wihdat with that of Ashrafiyya. For many camp dwellers, instead, these changes are precautionary measures following the outbreak of the first intifada in the Occupied Territories and, ultimately, part of a plan to strengthen state control over the camp and its population. Either way, these interpretations shed light on the same rationale: if the insertion of al-Wihdat into the municipality of Amman has become more visible, so has the control of the ‘state’ over these spaces. In other words, the attempt to ameliorate camp dwellers’ living conditions and secure the country’s political stability are mutually constitutive projects when the status of refugees in exile seems more and more to be destined to become a permanent resettlement in the host country.71 In any case, the control and normalisation of camps through spatial regulation has been even more evident in recent years. In 1994, the signing of the Wadi Araba Treaty between Jordan and Israel marked further involvement of the Hashemite Kingdom in matters relating to the camps.72 In 1998, the government launched the ‘Economic and Social Productivity Program’ (ESPP), a national development programme aimed at improving living conditions in impoverished areas, including refugee camps. Two sub-programmes, the Community Infrastructure Program (CIP) and the Housing Projects for the Poor (HPP), have specifically tackled the infrastructure situation in refugee camps. The first one is intended to upgrade the physical infrastructure of the camps; the second seeks to rehabilitate the most deteriorated shelters. The novelty of these interventions resides in the fact that, for the first time, al-Wihdat and other refugee camps have been included in a large-scale development scheme that has, at least rhetorically, radically tackled camps’ infrastructure. It is also important to remark on refugees’ responses to the ESPP. If in the past any upgrading of the camps’ infrastructure was firmly rejected by the refugee community as an attempt to resettle Palestinians in Jordan, they now welcomed the durable upgrading of camps’ physical infrastructure. Researchers have explained this as the consequence of the widespread feelings of disappointment and bitterness generated by the agreements of Oslo and the signing of the Wadi Araba Treaty.73 In al-Wihdat, the signing of these treaties

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ultimately persuaded many camp dwellers that Jordan was their permanent place of residence.74 Critics of inclusion of refugee camps in the ESPP point out how these kinds of interventions are likely to lead to the ‘the refugees’ permanent resettlement in Jordan’ and to the ‘gradual disappearance of the camps through their transformation into poor housing neighbourhoods’.75 Government authorities, however, have been adamant about claiming that the camp’s status remains unaltered. The political symbolism of the camps has indeed dramatically reduced the extent of these interventions: none of the camp’s shelters were demolished and only single rooms were rehabilitated.76

Al-Wihdat: between inclusion and exception Refugee camps were set up in Jordan with the operational and very practical objective of gathering in one place those refugees who could not afford alternative accommodation. It was thus refugees’ basic and immediate needs – rather than the attempt to discipline refugees as an anomaly in the national order of things77 – that determined their establishment. Nonetheless, UNRWA’s administrative practices profoundly impacted on Palestinian refugees’ lives. In the camps, modern techniques of ‘bio-power’ were implemented by way of controlling refugees’ bodies,78 adopting a number of interventions to inscribe Palestinians with a new status. In Lebanon, for example, Julie Peteet notes how ‘rations [were] aimed at the subjective transformation of the displaced from angry, potentially volatile refugees to docile recipients of food aid’.79 However, the thorough control of refugees through their classification, enumeration, medical screening and practices of rationing had unexpected reverberations on camp dwellers’ political subjectivity. If such techniques of control aimed to generate a social unitary group – the ‘refugees’ – without social, historical and political links with the past in order to facilitate its integration in the host country, the result was quite different. From the space that once came to represent the attempt of silencing the political predicament of Palestinians under the guise of a humanitarian issue, a culture of political resistance emerged.

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Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East feature a long political history of resistance and national mobilisation.80 Animosity toward the agency sparked whenever it appeared to undertake any measure suspected of leading to a permanent resettlement. During the first years of their exile, camp dwellers rejected vigorously any attempt to conduct a census. In many camps, the replacement of tents with concrete shelters was fiercely opposed. Demonstrating their refusal to put down roots in the camp of Dayr Ammar in the West Bank, refugees destroyed a UNRWA nursery.81 In the heated heyday of the thawra, from the rise of the PLO in the 1960s until its expulsion by the Jordanian army in the early 1970, al-Wihdat became a focal point for Palestinian nationalist activity. For almost a decade, it had attained a quasicomplete political autonomy from state central power. On the eve of the bloody events of Black September, al-Wihdat was not simply a militant base of Palestinian nationalism, but a veritable military and command centre. In 1970, for example, Fatah launched the Lion Cubs and the Flowers Institutions in the camp: military training and additional schooling programmes for children and adolescents.82 Here, the Palestinian liberation movement – mostly members of Fatah and the PFLP – established its headquarters and renamed the camp ‘the Republic’ in an overt challenge to the Jordanian monarchy. Even after the disintegration of the armed bands of Fedayeen, camps and camp dwellers continued to retain their cultural and political distinctiveness as sites and symbols of Palestinian resistance. Over the years, pro-Palestinian demonstrations, protests and even allegiance to a football club – al-Wihdat Football Club, which will be discussed in Chapter 5 – remained, for refugees, important acts of identification with Palestinian national struggles.83 At the time of my research, along with other elements generally associated with peasant life such as the orange and olive trees, the tabun bread, the traditional embroidered dresses, wild thyme (za’tar), the symbols associated with refugeeness – such as the zinc-plate roofs, ration cards and the UN flag – acquired an intensely political meaning in refugees’ nationalist rhetoric.

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Over the years, al-Wihdat has become a place to preserve, a sanctuary of Palestinianness. The fear of resettlement has partly shaded into a feeling of being at home, and eventually into pride. It is interesting to see how the very instruments of their subjection and the symbols of their political and human plight – the refugee status, the rations cards, the camp, the UNRWA facilities, and so on – became the raw material to remould a national identity in the context of a lasting exile. The reappropriation and politicisation of al-Wihdat is particularly visible through the re-enactment of the memory of the village and the exile in the space of the camp. For example, the camp configuration itself reflects in great measure the Palestinian experience of displacement, a stubborn localism that collides with administrative representations. In fact, the official spatial regulation reflected the international community’s inclination to consider refugees and their descendants as a compact and abstract block, not only in spatial terms, but also in temporal terms.84 However, even though housing units were randomly distributed, spontaneous refugee groupings sought to reproduce Palestinian villages both for the name and for inhabitants’ provenance: sab’awi and ghazawi refer respectively to inhabitants of Bir al-Saba’a and Gaza. As Peteet points out, ‘organising and naming camp space by village crafted both a memory scape and a practical spatial enactment of the lost homeland’.85 Al-Wihdat’s spatial re-organisation through kinship and villages of origin is still relevant in many areas of the camp, so that the residents of particular areas (harat) are often identifiable for the allegedly typical characteristics of people from specific towns or villages in Palestine that have become associated with those spaces. For example, since sabawi are widely believed to be untrustworthy and ruthless in business, the hara located at the eastern border of alWihdat generally inhabited by this group is equally considered to be ‘disreputable’.86 Likewise, street names are symbols of camp dwellers’ collective memory. Some, for example, recall infrastructure that has helped to characterise the camp since its institution: al-’Iyada (chemist) Street, al-Madaris (schools) Street, and Mu’an (UNRWA food storage) Corner.87 Al-Nadi Street is called after its famous

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sportive association (ibid.).88 Others evoke individual stories and more personal refugee life trajectories: ‘al-Liddawi Street’ owes its name to the first wholesale dealer. When camps became homes for Palestinians in exile, the transformation paved the way to the gradual integration of al-Wihdat into the urban and socio-economic fabric of Amman. Today, al-Wihdat would strike many today as being more a space of negotiation with relatively collaborative state officials than a place of overt resistance against an alien state. The camp derives much of its energy from the ongoing struggle and adaptation between recent immigrants and its inhabitants, refugees and the state, peddlers and shop-owners, landlords and tenants, and so on. It is a space of co-operation and struggle between people and the state that Joseph Bayat calls ‘quiet encroachment of the ordinary’: ‘a silent, patient, protracted, and pervasive advancement of ordinary people on the propertied and powerful in order to survive hardships and better their lives’.89 The first permanent structures that once were obstinately referred to as malja’ (shelters) are now called byut (homes). Faced with a density and rates of overcrowding higher than overpopulated cities like Mumbai and Kolkata in India,90 inhabitants not only moved outside, but also breached camp rules. They split up the ‘indivisible’ units among family components. Over the years, houses have

Figure 1.8

al-Wihdat’s vertical expansion (source: Jihad Nijem)

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changed owners, been sold and bought. Recently, shelters have also been rented to Iraqi refugees, Egyptian labourers, and other lowincome immigrants who can afford only the relatively cheaper rents of the camp.91 After several changes of tenant, some units have lost any memory of the original owner, and real estate speculation has become one of the most tangible marks of refugee reappropriation dynamics. The vertical expansion of buildings also reached unpredictable levels. Fifteen years ago, a second floor on a building was permitted only in special cases. However, the DPA administration has turned out to be quite flexible not only on the renting, selling and buying of housing units but also about the infringement of spatial norms. Today, for example, it is possible to build two additional floors (of less than 6 metres in height) on commercial buildings, and obtain authorisation to add one floor to a housing unit92 – though the request has to go through a specific official route before being issued. As a result of this, almost every unit in the camp has now a second floor, and three- and four-floor buildings are increasing. Now that the roads have been enlarged and electricity has been installed, refugees inhabit al-Wihdat not just as a temporary or emergency space but as a place for living. In this context, it is important to note that the state does not monopolise regulatory practices; it is more a case of negotiation between different actors – such as the camp Service Committee, UNRWA, refugees, and DPA officials. If it has boosted the economic integration of al-Wihdat’s camp dwellers, the physical expansion of al-Wihdat and the opening of unregulated and unlicensed businesses have also had a notable repercussion at an administrative and political level. Camp dwellers’ life trajectories have forced the authorities to change the norms that regulate the interdict on business activity in the camps and reinterpret those that disciplined the physical space of the camp. Simultaneously, in order to tax these activities and discipline refugees’ reappropriation of the space, the government has also had to strengthen its control over this space, which ultimately favours the insertion and participation of the refugee community into the wider Jordanian public sphere. In this sense, the DPA’s relative tolerance toward refugees’ breach of camp norms is not at odds with

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the progressive control exerted by the state over the camps. Rather, it is perfectly in line with the Hashemites’ attempt to assimilate Palestinian refugees in Jordan and leave the temporary status of refugee camps unaltered. Indeed, the informal and temporary character of the state’s regulatory practices in the camps has not only sped up the urbanisation of the camp but has also allowed the preservation of the ‘temporariness’ of al-Wihdat (and the other camps). This has ultimately served the regime’s interests in a number of ways: avoiding taking on the responsibility of being an Arab country that has contributed to liquidating Palestinians’ ‘right of return’, reminding Israel that Jordan should not be perceived as an alternative homeland for Palestinians, and increasing the likelihood of eventual compensation for the resettlement of refugees within its borders.93 Today, the intensive urbanisation and spatial integration of alWihdat into surrounding areas is impressive, especially when compared with other refugee camps. This is reflected in the visual heterogeneity of its space. Despite a common aesthetic pattern that consists of coarse walls without paint, unfinished buildings with iron cables coming out of the reinforced concrete, many satellite dishes, no windows, iron doors, and narrow alleys, there are tangible differences between different areas of the camp. While the northern area of al-Wihdat has developed into a thriving economic centre with threeand even four-floor buildings, the southern quarters resemble slumlike (sha’bi, literally ‘popular’) dwelling areas. The staggering price of real estate in certain areas stands in sharp contrast to other neighbourhoods of the camp, where much lower rents are affordable to poor refugee families and newer waves of immigrants. This heterogeneity drew my attention, most especially during a return visit I made to al-Wihdat in the winter of 2011. The Nadi al-Wihdat was negotiating the rent of a two-storey adjoining building with a Palestinian-Jordanian businessman originally from the camp. The family was rich and had good political connections that stretched far beyond the camp. The man, I was told, had multiplied his fortune working in the Gulf’s estate market. Now he was planning to use the space to make a fast-food restaurant. Eventually an agreement

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between the club and the man was set for a generous amount of money. The price he agreed to secure the tenancy for 15 years was 250,000 JOD (Jordanian Dinars) (around $350,000), with as much again to be paid for refurbishing the entire premise. It was a high price, especially if compared to other areas such as al-Wihdat Tahtwir (low al-Wihdat) – an extension of the camp 100 metres from al-Nadi Street – where the cost for buying a housing unit is about 1,000 JOD. So while al-Wihdat proudly and tragically exhibits its symbolic value as an icon of Palestinian nationalism, this enduring symbol of refugees’ determination to return is also a socio-economic and spatially integrated space. Camp dwellers’ self-representation as Palestinians is grounded in the space of the camp. It comes as no surprise that refugees sought to preserve this space by challenging its socio-economic marginality and fostering its integration into the territory – especially after the Oslo peace process when even the already tenuous prospects of repatriation succumbed to the PLO’s realpolitik. By pursuing physical upgrading and the spatial integration of the camp within the surrounding urban neighbourhoods, camp dwellers have sought to challenge the marginality of alWihdat and, ultimately, preserve its political dimension and significance. But in this process of integration refugees have also drawn the energy to uphold their nationalist predicament. What perhaps best exemplifies this seemingly ambivalent outcome is the souk (market) of al-Wihdat. Cross cut by al-Nadi Street, the souk is split into two main sections: the northern part with the food and kitchen articles (suq al-khudra, i.e. vegetable market), and the southern part with the clothing and other items (suq al-malabes, i.e. cloth market). Anybody who steps into the market for the first time would be bewildered by the number of things and people in the street. The intense sociality of the souk is striking. A multitude of people stand, walk, sell, buy, play, hang around, shout, argue and fight. Many things draw the attention of passers-by. Shops, fast foods, stalls and street sellers are distributed across the market, selling virtually everything, from potato peelers to bright velvet corduroy pants, from sexy lingerie to little pictures

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that frame the most common hadiths of the Prophet or the word ‘Allah’. Most of the vegetables come from Ghor in the Jordan Valley, and the clothes from China. Goods such as oil and flour are rumoured to be waste materials shipped from the United States. Men selling various objects compete to shout the loudest about the price of their merchandise, while others sit and gaze passively. Outside the door of their boutiques – propped against the wall or sitting on a plastic chair – shopkeepers look passively at the stream of people passing by. An important area of the food market is covered. Here, among stands, hawkers and small shops there is also a modern supermarket. In suq al-malabes, amidst miserable shops and wrecked stands, there are fancy boutiques that recall high street shops like H&M or Zara. In this noisy and teeming labyrinth, animals such as rabbits, chickens and even lambs and sheep are exhibited for sale.

Figure 1.9

al-Wihdat Tahtwir (source: Jihad Nijem)

Figure 1.10

al-Wihdat, al-Nadi Street (source: Jihad Nijem)

Figure 1.11

Shops in the suq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

Figure 1.12

Stands in the suq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

Figure 1.13

suq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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At the time of my research, not only Palestinians, but also Iraqi refugees, Transjordanians (urdunniyyin), Gypsies (nawari) and even Filipinos ( filibiniyat) came to the market because of its better prices, apparently tastier food, and the wider selection of merchandise, staff and food. This great variety of merchandise is a dimension of camp life that is particularly appreciated by camp dwellers, who would often celebrate the advantages of living in a highly populated area like alWihdat where the cost of living is reasonable and the souk, with its services (khadamat), is nearby. They took pride in claiming that the products sold in the souk not only competed with but actually outshone those in the fanciest and richest zones of Amman. The souk is a symbol both of integration in Jordan and the capacity of Palestinians to struggle against the adversities of a life in exile. On one of my first visits to al-Wihdat camp, I asked if there were differences between refugee camps and the rest of the city. An employee of the UNRWA, a refugee who lived in the camp, answered: ‘No, there is no difference, the camp is like the balad!’ By saying so, the man was drawing a link between the commercial zone of the camp and the old city of Amman, which is commonly known as balad and where an important open market of the capital city is located, a place of business and trade. But in Arabic, the term balad connotes also ‘village’, ‘homeland’ and ‘place of origin’. By stating that al-Wihdat was only another balad, he was also indirectly referring to the fact that the camp had become an alternative city centre in Amman: the centre of a Palestinian space and a symbol of Palestine itself. The association of al-Wihdat with the balad of Amman is an expression of the ambiguous nature of the camp: a space of both integration and Palestinianness.

Conclusion Al-Wihdat is today part of the al-’Awda quarter of the al-Yarmouk district. ‘Al-’Awda’ means ‘the return’ – a name that might sound surprising for one of Jordan’s most economically integrated camps, but that well reflects the contradictory feelings associated with this space.94

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After Black September and other turning point events such as the loss of the West Bank, the ‘disengagement’ and the rise of Transjordanian nationalism, the body of the nation has lost a great deal of its original elasticity. The Hashemites’ efforts to develop a hybrid identity encompassing both Palestinian and Transjordanian elements has given way to a project of social engineering aimed at fashioning a national identity that is genuinely Jordanian, essentially meaning ‘East Banker’. This change has eventually strengthened the determination of the regime to accelerate the process of normalisation of Palestinian refugees in Jordan. In the governmental rhetoric, refugees – Jordanians of Palestinian origin – were included as long as they renounced any manifestation of ‘Palestinianness’. ‘Jordan first’ and the other rallying slogans of the regime served precisely to reinforce this process of inclusion and integration. The events following Black September – along with the loss of control of the UNRWA over camp issues – had similar repercussions at the level of camp management. In the decade following its establishment, the politicisation of UNRWA services contributed to transforming alWihdat and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East into ‘oppositional spaces endowed with alternative meanings’.95 The civil war, the declining influence of the agency, and the progressive role played by the regime through the DPA in the camps ushered in a new trend in the management of camp physical infrastructure and refugee population. In al-Wihdat, the Jordanian government deployed an array of practices aimed at strengthening the control of its population: enlarging the police station, supervising historical sites of political activism such as the Nadi, as well as integrating the camp into nationwide development policies such as the ESPP. As the Jordanian authorities have repeatedly put it, however, these projects were not formally meant as a permanent inclusion of camps into the municipality’s urban planning. Al-Wihdat’s temporary insertion into large-scale schemes of urban planning must instead be understood as a technique of control and management, through which the regime has sought to maintain unaltered the symbolic status of refugee camps, while reinforcing the de-Palestinisation of its inhabitants and, to a lesser extent, their Jordanisation.

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Refugees have displayed varying attitudes and response to this process of normalisation that has taken place in the camps in the last years. Although their life practices and the longstanding facts of their exile have inevitably led to a profound transformation of the space of the camp, historically they have fiercely opposed any infrastructural change in the camp aimed to alter the ‘temporariness’ of this space. ‘Temporariness’ stood for ‘return’. However, the Oslo agreement in 1993 and the Wadi Araba Treaty in 1994 introduced a new trend. Undermining the basis upon which lay their hope of return, they triggered among refugees a profound rethinking of their status in Jordan.96 After that, for the first time, camp dwellers positively responded to the programmes implemented by the government to upgrade the physical infrastructure of al-Wihdat. The recent amelioration of camp dwellers’ living conditions was not interpreted as an attempt to dissolve their political rights through resettlement (tawtin) but as socio-economic rehabilitation (ta’hil), waiting for a definitive political solution.97 Moreover, refugees not only welcomed the improvement of living conditions in al-Wihdat; they also saw these as necessary for upholding their nationalist ideals and struggles for the implementation of their ‘right of return’. Far from interpreting the physical precariousness of al-Wihdat as a token of their temporary stay in Jordan, many of the people I spoke with in alWihdat perceived the camp’s deteriorating infrastructure and its low standards of environmental health as an attempt to liquidate the Palestinian issue and sink refugees into despair and oblivion. As we will see in what follows, poverty and the lack of decent infrastructure were often held by camp dwellers to be the main sources of social problems and immorality among the young people, inherently negative situations that ultimately endanger refugees’ commitment to Palestinian nationalist struggles. As a friend once told me, pointing to a group of children playing amidst a pile of garbage and debris tossed in the middle of a narrow alley: I am afraid for the future! If you live in a bad environment, you grow wild; and if you are poor, you don’t eat; and if you don’t eat, you cannot sleep. So what you do? You think, and you get

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angry, more and more, until. . . until something bad will happen. It’s not still the worse, but we are close to it. Once people will get the bottom, they will start making trouble, maybe kill each other. . . This is what they [Israel and the United States] want! They want us to kill each other! Marginalised by the Oslo agreements of 1993 and faced with the gradual decay of their living conditions, camp dwellers saw the socioeconomic rehabilitation and physical upgrading of al-Wihdat – a symbol of Palestinian nationalism – as a way forward to preserve their nationalist ideals in the context of a progressive assimilation.

CHAPTER 2 IMPERATIVES OF WORK

Abu Jihad was listening patiently. His friend looked rather upset about the umpteenth cut that crippled even further the already wretched budget of the UNRWA. The man grumbled: ‘The situation will never change! The only thing that we can do is just wait, wait here, poor, in the mukhayyam [the camp], wait until we die!’ Abu Jihad smiled for a moment, and then shot back caustically, ‘Don’t bother about that, habibi [my dear], I am sure that God has built a refugee camp for us in paradise too!’ Abu Jihad’s witticism well evokes the profound impact of the ‘refugee camp’ on Palestinian national consciousness.1 In Jordan, it is common opinion that Palestinian refugee camps are places for ‘the poor’ ( faqir). Whereas Palestinian refugees (laji’in) in Jordan claim to belong to the same group, socio-economic differences between those living in camps (min al-mukhayyamat) and the JordanianPalestinians from ‘outside’ (min barra) often set them apart, affecting their self-perception of being irremediably different. Outsiders – mostly Jordanians and Palestinian-Jordanians living outside the camps – never point at borders or fences, non-existent barriers in Palestinian refugee camps of Jordan, to comment on the particularistic reputation of al-Wihdat and other refugee camps. Rather, camp dwellers are represented as a close group of miserable and low-status people (masakin), often related to each other by common origins and a strict endogamy – aspects of their social

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identities that also mark them out as being from ‘rural’ backgrounds. This was explained to me as being a feature of the camp population; but it was not the only one. The socio-economic marginalisation faced within the camps is also believed to strengthen ethno-nationalism and exclusivism. In other words, laji’in min al-mukhayyamat would be somehow more genuinely Palestinian, either because they preserved the original ‘humbleness’ of their ancestors, or because the enduring low standards of living had jeopardised their full integration in Jordan.2 There is certainly some truth in the popular belief that refugee camps are closed and homogeneous spaces defined by specific forms of socio-economic and political differences. Yet, while a shared sense of poverty is an important aspect of the ways in which camp dwellers inhabit their collective identities, this should not conceal the important forms of differentiation that are also part of camp life. Economic disparities do not only contribute to determining the relationships between the rich Jordanian-Palestinian upper class and Palestinian refugees from the camp, they also define the interactions among camp dwellers. Al-Wihdat is not only the homogenous and exclusivist space depicted by outsiders. A perspective from within the camp reveals the existence of a socio-economic fragmentation and of areas and sub-neighbourhoods (hara) that differ from one another in terms of wealth and power. This fragmentation is in large part the result of the diverse ways through which refugees cope with the obligations of kinship and the need to secure a living in the settings of the camp. In addition, diverse working trajectories and interactions with other people and political economies have contributed to this ‘heterogeneity’ by influencing the ways in which camp dwellers forge shifting and contradictory modes of identification and political allegiances. This chapter will explore this heterogeneity and the ways camp dwellers reflect upon it. More specifically, it sheds light on the ambiguous and contested ways in which moral and political selfhood connects to the quandaries of everyday life. By unveiling the implications of the camp’s political economy for the tenor of refugees’ self-understanding as Palestinians, I document how camp dwellers

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negotiate the need to live ordinary lives and pursue a livelihood with the simultaneous emphasis on not giving up a national identity predicated upon a discourse of loss and poverty. The ethnography here presented will therefore be structured around the investigation of the following themes: the corrosive power of wealth and the moral superiority of imagined frugal and rural roots in the context of camp dwellers’ search for socio-economic integration; the fracturing and disaggregating consequences of camp dwellers’ mobility; and the ambivalent effects of new waves of immigrants on Palestinian refugees’ collective identity.

Political economy and Palestinian nationalism: the ambivalence of poverty I was once invited by a friend to his brother’s marriage, a well-off Jordanian of Palestinian origin. The luxury of the location was surely at odds with every marriage party (hafle zafaf) that I attended in the camp. Unlike al-Wihdat where wedding parties are usually hosted in tents set up for the occasion, the event was celebrated in the splendour of the Landmark Hotel – a five-star hotel located between Jabal Amman and Abdoun. Yet, it was still a Palestinian wedding; the guests were called to witness the bond of the host family with Palestine. From a legal and cultural point of view, many things were binding the rich Jordanian-Palestinian upper class with the refugees in the camps. Mainly, they shared the same origins – for they were all legally ‘refugees’. They had all left something in Palestine: houses, lands, jobs, or relatives and memories. At the weddings in the camp, it was also quite common to have cousins, uncles, brothers and sisters coming from the West Bank. Likewise, this party was called to strengthen further the relationship between two households – one in Ramallah, and the other in Amman – already linked by kinship: a bond re-enacted also by the zaffa3 players who, amidst nationalist songs and chants, celebrated the village of origin (in Palestine) of both the bride and the groom. Nevertheless, an economic, social and political chasm set the rich Jordanian-Palestinian upper class apart from camp dwellers.

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That day, a magnificent party took place in the vast open atrium of the hotel, around a swimming pool with floating decorations. The unrolling of the dinner in the pleasing coolness of a summer evening at the Landmark was a spectacular break with the sultry and smoky Bedouin tents jammed in the narrow alleys of al-Wihdat: a break that says much about the world inhabited and created by the rich Palestinian bourgeoisie in Amman. The camp and the hotel were two different settings which marked many visual and social differences. In al-Wihdat, the tents looked like natural outgrowths of the street that reinforced the link between the people and the urban environment. A sophisticated conversation took place during the wedding party at the Landmark instead, flowing on the elegant terrace of the hotel. The place was a reminder of people’s social status and their insertion into mainstream Jordanian society. Most of the guests were almost bilingual, switching naturally from Arabic to English, and vice versa. Their voices were soft, more accustomed to the educated intonations of the capital (madani), than the self-defined heavier accents of the mukhayyamjiyye (camp dwellers), perceived as being closer to ‘peasant’ ways of speaking ( fellahi).4 Their fluency in English was the result of their undergraduate and postgraduate studies carried out in the most prestigious universities in America and the United Kingdom that would boost their careers in expanding and richer job markets across the world as high-flying white-collar workers, managers, directors, architects or lawyers. Furthermore, whereas in al-Wihdat, the common pattern of gender segregation was reinforced during these events, on the terrace of the Landmark Hotel women and men were mixed. Very few women wore Islamic clothing such as the hijab or the niqab5 – and those who did also sported elegant and flowing outer garments which, for many of my friends in al-Wihdat, would clash with their understanding of ‘proper’ female modesty (al-ihtisham). In contemporary Jordan, the spatial division between camp and non-camp refugee communities reflects and perpetuates the preexisting sectoral and class differences that originally divided the Palestinian urban-based middle and upper class from the illiterate poor peasants who could not find alternative accommodation to the

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refugee camp.6 In practice, the social background of the first generations of refugees who settled in the camps, the lack of job opportunities, and the spread of poverty within the camps have all contributed to strengthen the belief among camp residents, as well as within Jordanian society more broadly, that refugee camps are places for the ‘poor’.7 What is interesting here is how young men themselves reflect on the connections between their economic circumstances and the ways these have fed into their nationalistic ideals. Distinctions in wealth and status have indeed played a role in the making of camp dwellers’ political subjectivity. To people in al-Wihdat, much separates them, the unfortunate ones (masakin), from the wealthy families (aghniya’) living in West Amman. However, whereas the authorities and some scholars8 usually associate camps’ material poverty with social and cultural estrangement and political disloyalty, the negative connotation of the word ‘masakin’ acquires a positive dimension within the camps. Here, poverty stands to indicate ethical and moral qualities such as steadfastness (sumud) and humbleness (twad’e). Frequently shabab (the youth) employ these attributes to illustrate their moral and nationalist superiority over non-camp dwellers.9 Interestingly, the link between status and emotional disposition is also expanded on to include a further dimension of what it means to be an awlad al-mukhayyam (camp dweller). The qualities associated with a humble style of life (being mitwad’e) are often held up as being an indication of an altogether more pious moral disposition. Thus, camp dwellers perceive themselves as displaying a more genuine disposition for piety. On several occasions, my friends explained the difference between refugees inside camps and rich Palestinians who lived in the affluent areas of Amman in terms of the pious behaviour of the former as opposed to the indecent conduct of the latter. The full extent to which poverty is constitutive of a superior moral standing was revealed to me in a conversation with Hussein, a young men I had come to know through his involvement in the Nadi al-Wihdat. Hussein was in his early 20s when I first met him; he lived along with his family in a small house in a lower-income area of al-Wihdat. He studied at the university to become a high-school

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teacher, and once a week he volunteered in an educational programme for children that was held every Friday morning at the Nadi. It was during one of these occasions that I had the chance to listen to his opinion about the imbrication of poverty, political subjectivity and piety: Refugees from ’48 are different, they are all well-off people who live in places like Jabal Hussein and Shmeissani, or Abdoun. They don’t care about Palestine, they don’t live in the camps anymore, they have money. They are like the urdunniyyin [Transjordanians]; there is no difference even between them and al-yahudi [the Jew]! Have you seen how their women go out in Jabal Amman?! None of them is veiled! [. . .] Here in al-Wihdat, most of the people are refugees from ’67. We are different, more respectful of Islam and we still care about Palestine! Hussein’s comment is striking in many ways. At one level, it seems to overlook the fact that al-Wihdat camp was actually set up in order to accommodate the first exodus of refugees in Jordan in 1948. Of more general importance, however, is that he wanted to point out a correspondence between political economy, moral dispositions and nationalist identity in order to set an empirical difference between the two ‘communities’ of refugees: the refugees from 1948 and those from 1967. The former were those more likely to have found, over the course of almost four generations of life in Jordan, a decent job, to have been able to move out of the camps, and ultimately adopt what he defines an ‘immoral’ lifestyle. To him, those refugees were no longer representative of the Palestinian cause and culture because they lived in comfort and luxury (rafahiyye) that made them forget the truthfulness and sobriety of old times, their origins, the hardship of a refugee life and the teachings of their fathers. So, more than the rich Palestinians who live a corrupted and immoral life along with Jews in cities like Jerusalem and Jaffa,10 it is the poor fellahin (peasants) and their offspring in the camps who best embody the piety and morality of the past generations. In al-Wihdat, camp

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dwellers often told me that the immorality of the present day and the concurrent plight of Palestinians were the result of people no longer remembering their origins (asl), and also having lost the frugality of the old times. Remarkably, in the context of a visit I made to another refugee camp, a young man openly blamed people in al-Wihdat for having sold out the Palestinian cause: ‘they are not refugees anymore . . . at all! Al-Wihdat is not a refugee camp, it is a commercial centre now, and they even have the biggest souk in Jordan! Here it is much worse [. . .]. We still suffer and we know what it means being refugees.’ There remains, however, a crucial ambiguity with regard to poverty in the thinking of many of my informants. Refugees certainly perceive poverty as being tightly intertwined with nationalistic values.11 Yet, at the same time, they also recognise it as being a condition fraught with deeply ambivalent images and feelings. If poverty fosters an immoral disposition rather than humbleness and steadfastness, this – I was told – depends on a number of factors ranging from individual attitudes to the family and the hara (neighbourhood) where a person is raised. The loss of the positive connotation of poverty may also be explained by the substantial neo-liberal restructuring of the state. Since the rise to the throne of King Abdullah II, in 1999, large-scale capital investments have rapidly changed the urban landscape and visual profile of cities such as Amman.12 Over the past few years, the state has subsidised large-scale investment and neo-liberal urban restructuring projects to transform the city into a landscape of neoliberalism. High-end urban development projects such as the Abdali Project, upper-end residential cities and gated communities such as Green Land and Andalusia, hyper-modern skyscrapers and fancy urban islands of consumption in Abdun and other upper-class neighbourhoods of Amman have bestowed the city with a specific neo-liberal aesthetic. Billboards with slogans such as ‘Let us start the pleasure of shopping’ have mushroomed all over different places of the city; their messages hold the promise of economic prosperity and expose a discourse that seems to suggest the city is ripe for investment and consumption.

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The spatial restructuring of Amman has not only transformed the physical space of the city, but it has also produced new lifestyles and ways of self-representation. In Amman, this change has certainly widened the socio-economic chasm between the disenfranchised groups and the cosmopolitan elite, but it has also fashioned shared codes and fantasies that cut across socio-economic status and class.13 The increased presence of exclusive bars, high-end restaurants, shopping malls, spas and five-star hotels has produced a concomitant demand for qualified staff. The prospect of economic gain has attracted an increasing number of people in and outside the camp. Although only a minority of camp dwellers in al-Wihdat possess the necessary confidence and fluency in the cultural codes of their habitual customers, some of my friends have found employment in these places. As they master these codes, they carry them back when they return to the camp, contributing to the spread of neoliberal values and aesthetic patterns in the camp. The neo-liberal turn in Jordan has thus had profound imaginative implications on local understandings of affluence and well-being. This is perhaps best exemplified by the emergence of specific patterns of consumption among camp dwellers. Mass-produced and massmediated consumer goods such as television sets, satellite dishes and computers have become a main aim of people’s aspirations. Even the ability to reach full adulthood by getting married and settling down is today largely dependent on young men’s ability to provide their future brides with gold jewellery and new clothing, buy new furniture for a new house, and cope with an expensive number of wedding celebrations.14 As such, getting married is a costly affair that young men from the camp keep postponing. However, not all my friends in the camp experience the anxieties and frustrations of a delayed marriage.15 At times, the importance of consumption for social standing and respect is so powerful that it inverts the triage: consumption is not a crucial means to accomplish a greater goal in the path toward happiness – such as getting married, living an independent marital life and having children – but it is rather the actual arrival on this path. This was the case of a friend, Ashraf – a man in his mid-20s when I first met him – who, if he had to choose

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between having a nice car and getting married, would definitely have gone for the nice car. When I asked Ashraf the reason for that, I was told that he really wanted to get married, but first he desired a car because he was crazy for cars. As such, rather than universally treating poverty as a source of authenticity, many camp dwellers claim that the condition of being masakin (poor/miserable) can lead people to a crooked path (inhiraf), especially for young men. In the wretched space of the camp, youths are more negatively affected by poverty because living in a time where the rustic life of their grandfathers – the jil al-nakba (the Nakba generation) – is only a fading memory and the heroic resistance of their fathers ( jil al-thawra – the generation of the revolution) is no longer needed. Indeed, the poverty of the older generations is interpreted more in the terms of simplicity, and not as a lack of means. They are said to have lived a humble and yet rich life with the products that the fertile land of Palestine apparently dispensed so lavishly. Similarly, the jil al-thawra is believed to be inspired by the heroic ideals of revolution that guided it through life’s adversities and economic hardships. But with the backdrop of the declining economic standards in Jordan, active militancy and overt forms of resistance are no longer discussed as strategies to pursue nationalist goals; in fact, they generated suspicion, and often disapproval. According to my friends, people no longer had time to waste as they had to cope with other more urgent matters such as working to maintain their families.16 As a friend put it, ‘now there are no more Fedayeen in al-Wihdat because people need to find a job to live . . . now, life is more expensive’. Deprived of guidance and ideals, young men of the camp were said to gradually sink into the despair and apathy generated by the severe lack of economic means. My friends frequently complained of the hardship that they had to endure because of the living conditions (dhuruf al-ma’isha) in al-Wihdat. Those who made money left the camp, I was told; those who stayed were the poor. It all played a critical part in plunging many camp dwellers into a state of frustration and anger: the unbearable cold in winter and suffocating heat in summer amplified by the corrugated sheets used as roofs for the shelters (numar al-zinko); the mud that

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swamped the narrow alleys of the camps in the winter; the lines of people who queued in order to have access to rationed goods. The social unease and immoral behaviour of present time shabab is often explained by poverty and unemployment. As a low-rank UN employee once pointed out to me during the course of an informal chat in the UNRWA field offices in al-Wihdat: Most shabab want to work but they can’t find a job. What can they do? They leave. They go for violence or do wrong things. Amongst youth there are lots of problems like drugs and alcohol. Many youths are fed up of their situation in the camps, so they cause trouble. So, although the poor and humble life of refugees is romantically seen as being closer to the lifestyle of the ancestors, poverty and unemployment are also recognised as the main causes of many of the frustrations, anxieties and conflicts that afflict camp dwellers. A true Palestinian and a ‘proper’ man is, hence, the one that provides for his family rather than searching for political legitimacy in the marginality of his condition.

Working in Jordan Wedding parties are just one among the endless number of munasabat (celebrations) – such as births, graduations, funerals and engagement parties, dispute resolutions and truces, or religious holidays – whose fulfilment allows the transition to social adulthood of any Jordanian, regardless of his or her class and ethnic background. These celebrations are an important part of daily life and require considerable material resources to cover their costs. If coping with their expenses is not an easy task for anyone in the stagnant Jordanian economy, for young men from the camp it is even more arduous: discrimination and negative attitudes have greatly tarnished their livelihood strategies. For this ‘ordinariness’ to be assured in a context marked by declining economic standards, people in the camp need to work hard. Perhaps the clearest examples of how refugees struggle to

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cope with these incumbencies and root a nationalist identity in economic integration are their attempts to set up successful working careers and ‘connections’ (wasta). Since their exile, refugees have pursued diverse strategies to secure varying forms of employment within and beyond al-Wihdat and other camps. Historically, Palestinian refugee camps have constituted a pool of labour in Jordan and, via Jordan, in other destinations, most notably the Gulf countries.17 The first generation of Palestinians arriving in the refugee camps set up by the international community in Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria were seasonal workers and unskilled labourers from rural areas with little if any formal education. In Jordan they found work as masons and workers or, alternatively, in the ranks of the UNRWA. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the UNRWA developed a programme for technical training that aimed to integrate these refugees into the expanding economies of the Gulf. In the mid-1970s, job opportunities in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates provided young educated Palestinians with a range of technical and professional occupations (mostly as teachers and vocational workers). The focus on educational programmes greatly benefited the socio-economic positions of refugees. Significantly, although the UNRWA’s employment schemes were intended to ease the refugees’ reliance on its services and favour their integration into the host countries, they eventually came to serve Palestinian national interests, as remittances from relatives working in the Gulf States were often conveyed to the PLO.18 Such opportunities, however, decreased steadily over the years and eventually came to an abrupt termination during the first Gulf War in 1990 (see Chapter 1). At the time of my field research, much of the employment in al-Wihdat available to camp dwellers gravitated around the local market: street vendors, shopkeepers and arabanji (porters) constituted the bulk of these jobs. Alternatively, people with business initiative and small capital could invest their money in a game room, pool room, or barber shop. But the availability of good job opportunities in the camp was limited to the owners of the stands/ shops and their extended families. Furthermore, many jobs were

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quite profitable but dismissed by refugees as too demeaning. Working as arabanji in the souk, for example, could grant earnings of up to 10– 15 JOD per day (about $14– 21), but was held by camp dwellers as being degrading, and so was often left to new immigrants. Some refugees have found steady and dependable positions in the ranks of the UNRWA – although these positions have become much less desirable than in the past due to the ongoing difficult economic situation of the agency. The majority of them worked as nurses, cleaning and maintenance staff, teachers, social workers, and low and middle-cadre administrative staff; very few refugees from al-Wihdat managed to rise in rank to middle management positions and none of them, including any local staff in or outside the camps, made it to a top position.19 A very common form of employment among shabab from the camp was to engage in occasional painting and decorating jobs. The large majority of camp dwellers found a job outside the camp, in the service and light industry; many others were employed in educational institutions, especially as teachers and social workers.20 A number of women found jobs in hairdressing salons and ‘beauty parlours’.21 Many men worked in and outside the camps as technicians, electricians, waiters, clerks and mechanics. By any standards, however, the most important source of income came from the private sector, accounting for up to two-thirds of the employed people – about 70 per cent of men and 55 per cent of women (ibid.).22 The working careers of many of the refugees I knew lacked stability and their economic situations were far from being vibrant. Many households relied on the remittances sent periodically by family members who were pursuing their careers abroad.23 A large number of young men in al-Wihdat as well as in another refugee camps were not in steady employment;24 they alternated between seasonal jobs and periods of economic inactivity. Wages were usually very low and the possibilities for young men without a university education to secure salaries above 250 JOD were scarce. Furthermore, people described the working conditions as exhausting; many jobs had triple shifts and working overnight was not uncommon. In this context, individual skills and hard work were rarely enough to secure

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the type of jobs to which people aspired. For refugees, things were even worse. The negative stereotypes that accompanied camps and refugees hindered even further the hiring of those from the camps. Many of my friends admitted to having often lied to their employers about their place of residence, claiming to live in the adjoining neighbourhoods of Ashrafiyya or Qwesmeh. This discrimination was particularly visible in the public sector, where the hiring of ‘East Bankers’25 was usually privileged over that of ‘Palestinians’. The words of a friend well summarise this situation: After my graduation at the university, I had to wait four years before finding a place as teacher! Do you know how long it takes for urdunniyyin [Transjordanians] to find a place? Nothing, it’s straightforward! For us it is like there is a wall, beyond which you can’t go. For example, if you work in the police [shurta ], you can’t have more than three stars [senior commander]. I had to wait four years before getting a place as teacher with a salary barely enough to pay my expenses [250 JOD]. [. . .] But if we were in Palestine, it would have been different; there we would have had land, a good position, work, wasta [relationships of patronage]! Instead, if you want to get a job here in Jordan, you need to work hard, harder than the urdunniyyin. Historically, indeed, refugees have successfully manipulated the humanitarian system to obtain access to resources and promote their interests.26 To do so, they played on their status as refugees. For example, in a recent comparative article on Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and Sahrawi refugee camps of the Western Sahara, anthropologist Randa Farah reports the words of a refugee that pointed out the decisive role played by the UNRWA as a welfare government in the camp: When an UNRWA official knocked at someone’s door, it was like the government had arrived. The role of UNRWA was basic – it substituted for a government [. . .] I don’t know if

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you have heard the saying: ‘We only have God and the ration card’ [. . .] If someone had a relative or knew someone who worked with UNRWA, it was akin to having wasta [connections].27 However, despite UNRWA’s aid and programmes, humanitarian welfare became increasingly insufficient to support refugees. Cut off from the more lucrative jobs in the Gulf after the outbreak of the Gulf War in 1990, most refugees could no longer rely on the UN educational system to find a steady working position: instead they had to secure a network of alliances beyond the camp. The key to success and the different level of achievements among camp dwellers depended much on wasta. The term, which literally means the ‘middle’, indicates the use of family connections and relationships of patronage that are central to the search for jobs, credit, favours and housing in Jordan. Wasta refers to both the process of intermediation and the person who, by virtue of his connections and reputation, provides services and connectivity.28 Furthermore, the search for ‘connections’ is not only confined to material gains but also extended to everything that is beyond the applicant’s reach. So, if many camp dwellers judge wasta as a form of corruption ( fasad) that deeply undermines their career perspectives, they necessarily have to deal with it in their search for a livelihood.29 Through informal networks, individuals and groups create more opportunities to find a job, to obtain a visa for migration, to get better working hours, and even to find a groom or a bride. Intermediaries play a fundamental role. Friendship and kinship work well in this process. A person might ask his boss to have a better working shift not by virtue of his length of service but because of his long-time friendship with his employer; another might obtain a visa for moving to the Gulf because of a relative who works in the consulate. School teachers, bus drivers, clerks, grocers, workers and taxi drivers would generally find a job through their social connections – often originating through social and physical proximities or affinities of kinship and village. Getting acquainted with the proper intermediary is not an easy task, especially for camp dwellers, whose marginalisation and

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discrimination have left them with very few opportunities to set up the right connections. Working in the camp might speed up the process, as refugees could activate their network of alliances to secure a job. However, job opportunities in al-Wihdat are still limited (even if they are better than in most other refugee camps). Building connections that begin in the camp and extend beyond its borders constitute often the only viable alternative available to camp dwellers. Outside the camps, however, refugees are not masters of wasta; they are rather on its blunt end. Their economic hardships are the result of the Vitamin W, as my friends sarcastically refer to wasta,30 a substance that refugees in Jordan severely lack. In this context, setting up the right connections is also a mark of skill and social competence. Establishing social connections (rawabit) in the university, for example, is a necessary survival strategy for many young men; these friendships will become useful in the future in terms of securing a job. To my friends, their Transjordanian fellows at university are not inimical others but friends and companions who share fun, working experiences and so on with them. During these encounters, shabab from the camp would not stress traits of their identity based on exclusive forms of identification such as being ‘from the camp’ (awlad al-mukhayyam/mukhayyamjiyye): they would strive, rather, to activate other networks based, if not on kinship, on friendship, work and acquaintance. These attempts to set up the ‘right connections’ do not downplay their identity as Palestinians. Actually, wasta turns out to be crucial for Palestinianness stepping into the practical responsibilities of fatherhood and the need to find a proper income. At the same time, these connections favour the insertion of camp dwellers into the broader Jordanian society by playing out forms of identification other than being from the camp – such as being Muslim, Jordanian or Arab.

Leaving the camp While camp dwellers’ socio-economic integration has served their nationalist ideals, it has also introduced a sense of disruption to a

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national identity predicated upon socio-economic marginality.31 In this context, it is necessary to move beyond the beneficial consequences of socio-economic integration. A closer scrutiny of refugees’ labour migration sheds light on their ambiguous relationship with the affective and political space of the camp and the deep fractures that refugees’ labour migration at times generates within their selfrepresentation as an ‘homogeneous community’. Labour migration has historically tempted many young ambitious refugees with better employment prospects. People in al-Wihdat not only left their homes to go to unfamiliar parts of Amman Metropolitan Area (AMA), but also travelled and lived abroad. According to a survey conducted by Fafo in late 1999, marriages and work-related reasons account for most of the recent departures from the camps.32 The majority of my companions in alWihdat enjoyed a great deal of mobility, not only for their careers but also for their studies. The great appreciation for education is of course related to its use in promoting potential for educational advancement and the concomitant prospect of a better working career. Economic goals do certainly play a role in explaining the high mobility of refugees. For many households in al-Wihdat, this is more of a necessity; domestic survival hinges largely on the remittances periodically sent by family members who have migrated. Despite the fact that job opportunities in the Gulf have diminished substantially in comparison with previous years, migrating to Kuwait and the Emirates is nevertheless one of the few viable means left for camp dwellers to substantially improve their economic standing and an important source of income for those of their relatives who remain in the camp. Many of those who left worked in Saudi Arabia or in the Gulf. Others found employment across a range of technical and professional sectors in the United States, Europe, Australia, Canada, or in the growing economies of some Asian countries such as South Korea, China and Thailand. Some of them settled down permanently in these countries. Most people, however, worked abroad for a limited period of time, signing up for fixed-time contracts, sending money back to their families, and eventually returning home.

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Refugees’ decision to leave the camp cannot be understood without an appropriate recognition of the complex demands of earning a living in a precarious economic context. The destinations are chosen according to different criteria – better job opportunities, prestigious schools and universities, or a cheaper cost of living; but also for the possibilities opened up to the prospective migrants depending on the documents required, the level of control, and social networks. However, the desire to move cannot simply be reduced to mere self-interest or a cost –benefit analysis. While camp dwellers are not supremely moral and political beings animated exclusively by the irreducible need to live in the camp, nor are these people simply freeroaming individuals seeking to escape as soon as possible in order to pursue a better economic condition. Migrating has to be understood as the outcome of a complex process of decision making in large part motivated by migrant’s ambivalence about home.33 Deteriorating infrastructures, poverty and unemployment certainly play a role in the decision to leave the camp. For many camp dwellers, however, al-Wihdat camp is also the iconic space of a lost homeland, a place that evokes strong feelings of homeliness. In this context, migrating raises considerable concerns centred on the notions of community, family and parenting – leaving is rarely, if ever, an easy decision.34 A case in point is the story of Abdullah. Squeezed between the need to make money and the uneasiness of bringing up his daughter abroad for an indefinite period of time, this man – in his late 20s – was overwhelmed by a dilemma: ‘if I stay at home [without a proper job], my wife will leave me, but if I go abroad [with the whole family] for years, who knows how my daughter will grow up in a different place?’ A few days before leaving Jordan, I received a call from him in which he told me that his wife had left him and moved into her parents’ house. The reason was her unwillingness to live with a man who could not ensure a decent standard of living. It seems that after a couple of months his wife finally decided to come back, though Abdullah never left. The case of Abdullah is all the more poignant because it points at forms of intense emotional distress generated not by a forced immobility but,

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on the contrary, by the very capacity of moving: a form of agency that Abdullah perceived as imposed upon him. Unlike other refugees, he had both the means and the contacts to work in Europe. His reluctance to leave was justified by the conviction that children should be brought up in the more suitable environment of the camp.35 As Abdullah put it: ‘you know, in Europe it is normal that girls go out with men before marriage! I don’t want my daughter doing this. I would move to a better place in Amman, but if I travel [to Europe] with my daughter, she will end up behaving like Western girls!’ So some remain, but others move out. Seeing it as a symbol of Palestinianness in exile, people who leave the camp feel the need to reaffirm their bond with it. To do so, sometimes refugees return on a periodical basis, stay in touch with their friends, sent remittances to their relatives, or find a spouse from the camp. A man, Oraib, who was in his 30s when I first met him spent his childhood in the Palestinian refugee camps of Baq’a and al-Wihdat. Status and power had come to him and his brothers from setting up a successful car dealership in South Korea. Apparently, his wealth derived from his capacity to navigate specific norms regulating the trading of cars from Korea to Jordan, and across the borders between Jordan and Syria. Although Oraib was living in Seoul along with his brothers and their families, he still returned on a regular basis to Jordan, where he had family, and occasionally visited Syria, where he had business interests.36 Migrants often reasserted their bonds with the camp by repeating cycles of return and departure and by rhetorically stating the primacy of the camp in their lives. It was in al-Wihdat, during the course of one of his trips back from South Korea, that I met him for the first time. He kept coming to the camp to see his friends because, as he told me, he still felt himself to be one of them. Living in the physical space of the ‘camp’, with people coming from the same city or village, and having shared the same life and similar socio-economic conditions with them, reinforced in Oraib the distinctiveness of being Palestinian and a refugee. However, Oraib also knew very well that much held them apart too. For his elderly father, and to demonstrate his affluence, he built a

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villa in Amman right above the Baq’a camp. From his new house, he dominated the landscape beneath, looking over the tight clusters of flat-roofed shelters that stretched out in the valley where the refugee camp was established. The house’s spacious and richly furnished rooms flaunted luxuries inaccessible to the very large majority of people living in al-Wihdat or Baq’a. This building was a powerful testimony to Oraib’s recently acquired economic position. Its superior place marked the social and physical distance between him and ‘his people’. The man was quite aware of the significance and influence of living in the camp in strengthening an imagined Palestinian national identity. One day, he summarised his life trajectory to me in the specific language that characterises many refugee narratives, where football is strictly enmeshed in ethnic and political issues: ‘I was born in Baq’a, I support al-Wihdat, and I’ll die in al-Faisaly!’37 In that context, it was a funny comment: an irony, however, all the more interesting because it conveyed also a great deal of cynicism and self-reflection. This short sentence enclosed a complex set of assumptions where football, status, political allegiances and sense of belonging are intertwined. By emphasising the trajectory that led him to leave the camp, support al-Wihdat, and eventually die in al-Faisaly, Oraib suggested that moving outside the camp entails a process of socio-economic and cultural integration in Jordan, alienation from his own origins, and the weakening of his political identity as Palestinian. In other words, he feared that money will eventually lead him to become someone well integrated in Jordan, who has forgotten his origins or, worse, who has sold out the Palestinian cause in exchange for integration: in short, someone who even supports a notoriously pro-regime football team. In Jordan, recent studies have documented how a strong desire to leave the camp is often accompanied by unwillingness to abandon the camp community.38 The experience of mobility documented in these stories well captures refugees’ ambivalence about the camp. Equally important is how this experience defines the relationships among camp dwellers. On the one hand, the emigration process specifically benefits the camp population as remittances from the Palestinian community in the Gulf have become a mainstay of the refugee

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economy.39 On the other, feelings of alienation and distance have inevitably tainted the lives of those who left and defined the relationship leavers have with their fellows in the camps. Migrants have to deal with some forms of resentment from their family and community members in the camp. Migrating does not always lead to success. If those returning have often to cope with a loss of status and earnings, migrants abroad feel the weight of their duties toward relatives and friends acutely: wives, brothers and friends nurture great expectations from their spouses, relatives and companions abroad in the form of remittances, reliability, connections and favours (wasta). At the same time, people who have managed to leave and pursue a career abroad are sometimes accused of exploiting their relatives in the camps as keepers of their mothers, sisters and fathers. This is often the cause of friction between those who left and those who stayed. If the latter complain about the selfishness of those who migrated, the former fear their envy and back-biting, which is said to poison and weaken the reputation of people in the camp. Rafid’s story well exemplifies this tension. This man had big hopes: settling in the United States. He often used to repeat that, and how he did not really care about Palestine. His was a veritable obsession. He always kept with him a map of the United States in which the state of Texas was renamed after himself: ‘Rafid’. Yet, his desire to travel to the United States was rather recent. Ironically, when he was young, applying to an online lottery, he won a green card: the ID card attesting the permanent status of immigrants in the United States. Either due to his unwillingness to leave his elderly parents alone, as he claimed, or the fear of moving alone to a new country, as his friends more maliciously suggested, Rafid refused the green card. When I met him, the approval letter was treasured as the most precious of relics: a symbol of his past fortune and a token of his wavering. Unfortunately, despite his desperate efforts and several interviews with the visa office in the US Embassy, Rafid never managed to obtain the yearned-for document. His countless and unsuccessful attempts to move to the United States were an object of mockery and derision in the camp. To make things worse, an alleged employer in the States convinced Rafid into

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advancing him 3,000 JOD for a fake employment contract, which would have eventually led to the issue of the visa. With great effort, Rafid managed to borrow money from his wealthy brother who, to add insult to injury, gained enormous success in the United States working as an engineer. Rumours said that Rafid even suspected his brother of secretly conspiring against him because he needed someone in the camp to care for their elderly mother. However, after having been paid the sum, the man disappeared, leaving Rafid in great despair and in debt to his brother. A couple of months afterwards, a few weeks before the conclusion of my fieldwork, I received a call from Rafid in which he announced to me that he was shortlisted with his family for an interview with the consul – he then added, in a whisper: ‘don’t tell it to anybody, but I’ve got the visa! I don’t want people in the camp to know because they are all envious!’ However, something had to go wrong: six months after I came back again to the camp for a short visit, people burst out laughing when I asked for information about Rafid. Apparently, his wife and daughter were granted a visa, yet his own application was rejected due to some obscure irregularities. Far from being supportive, kin and social networks can be deceiving and envious. Rafid’s story says a great deal about these dynamics: not only did he fear the envy of those who stayed, but he even suspected his brother – who left – of being complicit in his failure. What this and other vignettes tell us is that the types of choices that people make about moving and working in heterogeneous social environments are highly nuanced and contradictory. These stories well expose the fractures and deep ambiguities in the relationships refugees have with the affective space of the camp and its population. In al-Wihdat, camp dwellers’ common experience of marginalisation and poverty works strongly to reproduce a collective identity based on solidarity and reciprocity. However, closer scrutiny of refugees’ life trajectories reveals a sense of mutuality deeply entangled with antagonism: camp dwellers’ experience of mobility has at times endangered a shared feeling of collectivity by exposing it to interpersonal resentment and bitterness.

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Outsiders inside the camp At the time of the camp’s establishment, refugees living in al-Wihdat were, for the most part, Palestinians from Kufur An, Safriyeh, Ramla, Dayr Tariff, Abassiyah and other villages in the district of Ramla.40 In Jordan, there is the widespread opinion that camp dwellers are related to each other and arrange their marriages according to strict forms of village and family endogamy. Studies have also documented how refugees sought to group by village of origin or by extended family when they first moved into camps.41 Yet, if al-Wihdat, for many of its inhabitants, stands for security, domestic order and homeliness, simultaneously it exposes conflicting feelings of insecurity, impurity and danger. This ambivalence is most immediately evident in refugees’ relationships with the new waves of immigrants. The camp today is not an ethnically homogeneous space. Over the years, al-Wihdat has experienced a noticeable diversity in terms of its ethnic composition. What is interesting about recent immigration in the camp is that it exposes dramatically the tension underlying refugees’ socio-economic integration by making the camp both the arena of an expanding economy and sociality, and the site where an exclusive identity is reproduced. On the one hand, the socio-economic and ethnic diversity of present-time al-Wihdat has collapsed a depiction of the camp as a bounded space of Palestinianness in exile. At first glance, this ethnic heterogeneity might appear to point towards the emergence of forms of cosmopolitanism and hybridity. At the same time, it hints at a different theme: apparently diminishing forms of homogeneity in the camp have simultaneously led to the strengthening of a sense of national collectivity. Cosmopolitanism of present-day al-Wihdat is now in great part evolving around labour and forced migration. Palestinian refugees’ livelihood strategies and economic trajectories have led to the transformation of a humanitarian space into an effervescent and heterogeneous space of commerce and business. As a result of the political stability of Jordan in the region, new types of cosmopolitan dynamics have added to earlier forms of coexistence in the

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camp. This has had tangible repercussions on making al-Wihdat a destination point for people other than Palestinian refugees. The arrival of Iraqis and Syrians in the camp and its outskirts has a recent history and reflects a broader trend in the city. Following a mass refugee migration that began in the early 1990s and increased after the fall of the regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003, a large number of Iraqis found an abode in Jordan.42 Syrian refugees fleeing the tragic civil war that is still raging across their country are now following a similar trend. Egyptians and other labour migrants from other Arab countries began to arrive in the late 1970s. Given the scant opportunities offered to Palestinian refugees within the Jordanian economy, the possibility of finding positions appropriate for one’s degree of education was extremely difficult for Jordanian citizens and almost impossible for legal immigrants, let alone those who resided in the country illegally. Unable to cope with the growing rents in west Amman and the strict requirements for legal residency permits, numerous migrants and refugees – most notably Egyptians and Iraqis – have in the past two decades taken up residence within the camp or on its outskirts.43 Many of them not only found residences, but also jobs in the camp. Camp dwellers refer to these newcomers either by referring to their nationality or with the general term ‘foreigners/strangers’ (ajaneb). New types of ‘everyday cosmopolitanism’44 have added to earlier forms of coexistence: in al-Wihdat, there are also the so-called ghajarin (Gypsies) – long-term residents who are said to have lived in the camp and its proximities almost since its establishment. Their status in al-Wihdat is ambiguous; although not recognised as ajaneb, as many of them have been living in the camp since its institution, they are generally identified as outsiders from a generic ‘East’ (shark), who came to the region long ago, before the establishment of Jordan. They currently speak the local variant of Levantine Arabic and, I was told, also ‘their own language’.45 Many live in a neighbourhood near al-Wihdat, others in specific parts of the camp such as Liddawi Street and the alleys that radiate from it. The diverse way through which refugees imagine and categorise such social diversity reflects the nature of the interactions that take

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place in al-Wihdat. Distinctions between different groups of migrants are often placed within a complex socio-moral hierarchy whose opposite poles are expressed in the terms of ‘humanity’ (insaniyye) versus ‘animality’ (ahiwaniyye). Gypsies occupy the lowest ranks of this moral hierarchy. They are said to be undesirable villains46 and the areas that they inhabit are widely thought of as being a poisonous environment. Refugees hold the alleged bestial nature of this group to account for the social and moral corruption of the camp. They generally accuse ghajarin of polluting the moral environment and thriving in those forms of entertainment that are seen by many as immoral or, at least, not pious: encouraging shabab to smoke hashish and drink alcohol, or engaging in illicit activities such as thieving and prostitution. Nawari also have a longstanding reputation for being loafers; and if males are widely deemed to be dawawin (troublemakers), their women are said to be sharamit (prostitutes). Some of my friends even avoided playing football with Gypsies because of their supposedly immoral attitudes, and many in the camp would claim that they do not count any of their friends among them. Gypsies also feature predominantly in many narratives of violence. I heard many stories of quarrels and brawls that involved Gypsies, and also occasionally witnessed episodes in which they were said to be taking part. In this case, the negative epithets occasionally expressed by refugees toward migrants gave way to the widespread belief that nawari in general are ‘disgusting’ (beghsu) and ignorant of the fundamental principles of Islam (zinkhin, literally ‘fouls’). Compared to Gypsies, Palestinian refugees perceive Arab-speaking migrants from Egypt, Iraq and other Arab countries as much better types of ‘human beings’ (‘insan). Refugees interact with and talk about these newcomers in complex and diverse ways. These are not lowly servants but friends, fellow workers or simply individuals who carry a personal story and share a similar lifestyle with the rest of the refugee community. They participate in camp life, and are welcome guests at the marriages and funerals of other camp dwellers. Mahmud, a young Egyptian man in his mid-20s, was one of them. His story highlights camp dwellers’ cosmopolitanism and everyday practice of

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coexistence in the camp. Upon his arrival in the camp, he had been working for a Palestinian family that ran a tiny but profitable business in the suq al-wihdat (al-Wihdat market). The old head of the family carved out of his house a small grocery store in al-Nadi Street; he then expanded his business by opening up a stand where cheap goods, mainly imported from China, were sold at low prices. During the time I stayed in the camp, Mahmood was sleeping in a computer shop, whose owner – a decent person (muhtaram), so I was told – only took in rental what the man could afford to pay. Because of the beauty of his voice, Mahmood was invited on a few occasions to recite the Qur’an in the annual recurrence of Palestinian celebrations held in the Nadi. When I saw him last, the man was about to celebrate his engagement party with a young Palestinian woman from the camp. Daily life in the camp provides refugees with complex opportunities to mingle with these ‘outsiders’, interactions that go beyond simple working relationships. At times also, the much more negative stereotypes associated with the category of the ‘nawari’ give way to forms of tolerance if not friendship. Refugees, for example, appreciate ghajarin for their sonic performances in nightclubs and in parties held for special occasions in private houses in the camp. Not only daily interactions, but actual forms of fluidity in personal identity blurred the boundaries around the category ‘ghajar’ (gypsy). There were, indeed, cases of Gypsies being ‘redeemed’. The allegedly demeaning gypsy origins of one of my friends were, at least temporarily, ignored because of his pious commitment – the boy volunteered weekly in the Department of Children in the Nadi al-Wihdat, and his family chose not to associate themselves with the other members of the Gypsy community in the camp. If everyday life is informed by co-operative experiences47 and ‘convivial cosmopolitanism’,48 this does not presuppose an allembracing harmony of interaction in the camp: coexistence is not always positive. More than a few ‘strangers’ in the camp harbour rancour against refugees. Over the course of private talks with me, they lamented how Palestinians ( filastinin) were troublemakers and deceitful in business. Likewise, grievances toward new immigrants is

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equally vocalised by Palestinian refugees. For example, one day in a small and stylish clothes shop beside the Nadi, a clerk was expressing a harsh resentment toward migrants. Visibly annoyed by the increasing number of ‘strangers’ in the camp, he shrugged his shoulders and said: ‘they [migrants] are like cockroaches (sarasir) who take even the humblest jobs without ever spending a penny in the camp’. This is not surprising. Limited resources reinforce antagonism, a sense of superiority to other communities. When I asked him whether they were troublemakers, the clerk replied: ‘Not at all, otherwise we would do like that with them’, mimicking the act of putting out a cigarette. However, the clerk’s words articulate only some of the widespread anxieties regarding the perceived take-over of al-Wihdat by new migrants. The presence of different groups of immigrants is at times related also to the ongoing moral and social degradation of the camp. In fact, many refugees claim that contemporary disorder is associated with immigrants. There is much talk about the departure from a supportive and co-operative lifestyle as well as the ways in which new forms of immorality have seeped inside what were once the superior moral standards of al-Wihdat. If al-Wihdat has transformed from being a centre of Palestinianness to a declining socio-moral space, this is often ascribed to the fact that new migrants do not feel any emotional attachment to the camp and its inhabitants. According to many in al-Wihdat, Iraqis, Egyptians and other immigrants have weakened the sense of solidarity of refugees by mixing with camp dwellers. As one man put it: The camp is good. . .I like al-Wihdat, but before it was better! [. . .] Before there were not all these Egyptians (masrin) around. There were no Egyptians, Gypsies, and Iraqis! We were all Palestinians, the community was much more solid, people were more close to each other. We used to help each other. If you had a problem, your friends and neighbours would help you. But now, now it’s not anymore like that! With all these immigrants people do not care anymore [. . .] But this is not all, especially Egyptians come here they take every job but

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then they do not spend their money. They take everything home, in their countries. Daily interactions between refugees and migrants problematise the image of a morally and ethnically pure Palestinian community, generating anxieties and tensions, at times reinforcing ethnic boundaries. A closer consideration reveals the ways in which this heterogeneity in the camp does not only stand for cosmopolitanism but is also central to the objectification and valorisation of a specific local identity as Palestinian refugees.49 By raising anxieties linked to the loss of political meaning and the weakening of local solidarities, the arrival of new immigrants has enhanced refugees’ affective relationship with the space of the camp. On the one hand, specific patterns of interactions between these newcomers and Palestinian refugees in al-Wihdat have unveiled dynamics of everyday cooperation and sharing between them and the camp dwellers. On the other, the exclusive forms of identity that arose from refugees’ mingling with these ‘strangers’ have exposed clearly the anxieties and fears about the allegedly decreasing moral standards and weakening of forms of solidarities. In turn, these feelings serve to foster forms of ethno-national identity by encouraging antagonism and a sense of superiority to other minorities and migrant populations, reinforcing the affective relationships that refugees nourished toward the space of the camp. However meaningful refugees’ grievances over the lack of a sense of home on the part of recent migrants may be for the assertion of a domesticity in al-Wihdat, they also conceal the fact that to be ibn al-mukhayyam (son of the camp) and to feel at home in the camp is not straightforward for Palestinian refugees either. In a recent article on the relationship Karachiites entertain with their city, Oskar Verkaaik reports the grievances of some urban planners who lament the lack of sense of home articulated by new migrants from rural areas. This allows the author to observe that ‘the manageable Karachi is slipping out of everybody’s hands as the dominant notion of what it entails to be a Karachiite is rooted in a mythological time that is difficult to evoke in the present’.50 In the same manner, as the brief excerpt

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I quoted above underlines, the conception of al-Wihdat as home is slipping out of refugees’ hands as the dominant notion of what it entails to be a camp dweller is increasingly rooted in a mythological time. The imagined al-Wihdat, in which one could feel at home, is represented in the minds of Palestinian refugees as the camp at the time of the first decades of their exile in Jordan. Projecting moral order onto a past is normal. What is interesting, however, is the fact that this representation, that so well evokes the homeliness of al-Wihdat, seems to neglect the fact that the first generations of refugees fiercely opposed any durable improvement in the camps on the basis that these places were not their home. Ironically, then, the camps begin to evoke the ethos of the home/village when other (nonPalestinian) refugees move in and the camps are no longer exclusively a space for Palestinianness in exile.

Conclusion This chapter has documented and explored refugees’ working lives and the practices that inform political economy in al-Wihdat. The goal was not simply to give a better understanding of the refugees’ material lives. It was rather to show how socio-economic integration provides the ground for sustaining a nationalist identity in exile – although at times this process of integration might have disaggregating effects on camp dwellers’ social relationships and selfdepiction as a homogeneous community. In al-Wihdat, discrimination, material poverty and other negative dimensions linked to the working and economic conditions of refugees have reproduced forms of self-understanding based on the conception of ‘the refugee’ as embodying an ideal of resistance. The simplicity and authenticity associated with a modest life and humble origins are thought by camp dwellers to confer upon them more intense forms of political commitment. On the other hand, however, displacements have been introduced to this form of political subjectivity in consequence of the need to fulfil the obligations people in the camp believed to be integral parts of adulthood and moral maturity. In this sense, refugees are not driven by a yearning

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for marginality but reproduce their political identity in relation to more practical responsibilities, notably the need to secure an income. Rather than simply being the raison d’eˆtre of narratives of sumud and resistance, poverty is talked about in terms of youthful uneasiness, violence and immoral behaviour. Camp dwellers see overt exhibitions of independence or cunning without rational reflection as contributing to current hardships. To them, living an ordinary life entails active processes of thinking about the consequences of one’s actions. In this context, their attempt to set up the ‘right connections’ in order to overcome poverty does not threaten their nationalistic commitment, quite the opposite: it is one way in which the ideological tenets of Palestinian nationalism can be reproduced and made more adaptive to exilic life. However, refugees’ goal of upward mobility is fraught with ambivalence. By challenging the notion that refugee camps are merely disciplinary spaces of confinement, camp residents’ working trajectories ‘feed into local frameworks of self and subjectivity’.51 Camp dwellers’ mobility has at times had negative implications and displacing effects on their self-perception as a national community. The experiences of Abdullah, Rafid and Oraib shed light on the variety of ways in which refugees negotiate the demands of mobility at a time of great economic uncertainty. As these cases show, the political and affective dimensions of al-Wihdat have played a role in influencing camp dwellers’ attitudes about migration. This was well reflected in how this bond was recreated, for example, through refugees’ regular visits to the camp, the remittances sent to improve their homes, the unwillingness to leave, and even the desire to build magnificent villas nearby. But if this bond was continuously reenacted through these acts, these patterns of im/mobility were also transformative of the very relationships between camp dwellers. If in some of these journeys, people attained success by becoming business people or professionals, others were left behind: tensions revolved around the ways in which people perceived migrants’ newly acquired wealth and position, which was often understood to be over-exhibited through the brash display of high-priced items such as expensive cars, mobiles, brand name clothing and accessories.

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Finally, recent immigration in al-Wihdat has further exposed the tension underlying refugees’ socio-economic integration. The camp’s cosmopolitanism has not wiped away exclusivist forms of identity. Daily relationships with Syrian and Iraqi refugees, Egyptian migrants, Filipino workers and ghajarin (Gypsies) contribute to reproducing a specific discourse in which an exclusive national identity as Palestinians was objectified and valorised, distinguishing Palestinian refugees from other communities in the camp and beyond. On the other hand, the opening of al-Wihdat to new migrants has led to deterritorialising and displacing the authoritative discourse inherent in Palestinian nationalism, which sees refugees and refugee camps respectively as the embodiment and the site of Palestinian nationalism in exile. If young men from al-Wihdat proclaim themselves as being the ultimate symbol of Palestinianness in exile and the real inhabitants of the camp (awlad al-mukhayyam), the anxieties associated with the seemingly selfishness and immorality of new immigrants unveil a deviation from the idealised image of the ‘refugee camp’ as a Palestinian place. As camp dwellers’ fears well highlight, the heterogeneity and everyday cosmopolitanism of camp life do not reflect the territorialisation of this ideal of Palestinianness, but rather the integration of refugees inside the territory. Refugees’ pursuit of an ordinary life serves nationalistic ideals by challenging a marginality that is in part held to contribute to cultural decay and an immoral demeanour, characteristics that are widely said to be among the main causes of Palestinian refugees’ inability to return to Palestine, as we will see in what follows. The next chapter carries this analysis further by tracing the link between political and moral agency in the context of the growing importance of Islam in the daily lives of refugees in al-Wihdat.

CHAPTER 3 POLITICS AND ISLAM

When Hussein came into the main atrium of the Nadi al-Wihdat, he signalled to me to follow him into one of the small rooms of the club. Here, on Fridays, the Committee for Children (lejne al-atfal) in the Nadi held a programme for young men and orphans (barnamaj alaytam) from the camp, run weekly by voluntary workers. Sitting behind a small desk at the right-hand corner in front of the entrance, Hussein was teaching a class of children of various ages the difference between Islamic and ‘pre-Islamic time’ ( jahiliyya). Nearly 20 children aged between six and 12 were sitting around him, arranged in five rows of plastic chairs. ‘Islam’ was part of the curriculum of the programme, which also included educational and leisure activities. Hussein struck me as being a good teacher: the students looked particularly enthusiastic, spoke only when questioned, and seemed always eager to answer. During the break, a tall volunteer walked into the class, proposing to accompany me on a quick tour of the centre’s facilities. As the place was quite small, the tour did not last long. Waiting for Hussein to finish, I lingered for a while outside the class. While sitting on a bench, I could not help but notice the recurrence of the name ‘Abbas’; it was repeated several times by Hussein. At the end of the lesson, I approached him and asked whether the ‘Abbas’ he was referring to was the Mahmoud Abbas, President of Palestine and a prominent member of Fatah. He responded resoundingly: ‘No, not at all! Mahmoud Abbas is wati [a bad/lowly individual]! I was

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talking about Abbas, the relative of the Prophet. Not Mahmoud Abbas!’ The certainty with which Hussein dismissed a Palestinian political leader from a party that had established its headquarters in al-Wihdat in the late 1960s reflected the attitudes of many camp people: their growing disappointment with, and contempt toward, Fatah and its leadership were coupled with a parallel appreciation of distinctively Islamic symbols and rituals. He then continued: ‘Political leaders are bad, and Palestinian politicians are even worse. [. . .] A decent person [muhtaram ] does not get mixed up with politics today [. . .]. Did you notice the difference between my father and Adnan’s father? My father has never mentioned Palestine, he just talks about Islam!’ Hussein was referring to an evening we had passed together at the house of a mutual friend a few weeks earlier. Over the course of a rather frugal dinner, Adnan’s father – a Fedayeen during Black September – spent a great deal of time expressing his views on the current political situation in Palestine and explaining its causes. In contrast, during the dinner we had just had in the company of Hussein’s father, the man – whose pious commitment gained him the appellative of shaykh (man of piety)1 – never approached politics. He was not the only one to think this way. By refusing to engage in what they perceive as the muddy and treacherous world of the political, the majority of the people I have met in al-Wihdat have found instead a life project in the cultivation of a pious self. The interaction between Islam and politics in and beyond the Middle East has been fiercely debated by scholars who see the progressive importance of Islam in public life as a throwback to an ancient time,2 and social scientists who posit that the call for political Islam is caused by the vacuum of values generated by globalisation and the crisis of the nation state.3 More recently, the failure of Islamic groups to seize state power and their declining popularity in many countries has led some authors to postulate the existence of a period of ‘post-Islamism’.4 This is held to have led to the rise in new forms of Islamic fundamentalism that are concerned with the Islamisation of the self,5 the departure of Islamists from Islamic radicalism to more moderate and ‘Westernised’ positions,6 or a greater engagement of Muslims worldwide with issues of civil rights and democracy.7

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Up to a point, the declining popularity of Islamic groups in alWihdat might lead an observer to claim that a period of postIslamism is underway in the camp too. Nevertheless, I would caution against overdrawing the contrast between the process of individual self-fashioning and more ‘traditional’ forms of political Islamism.8 Despite the willingness of many to separate their ways of being Muslim from the treacherous world of the political, the seemingly ‘post-Islamic’ way of behaving and displaying piety in al-Wihdat consistently recalled the Salafi discourses that are openly connected with Saudi Arabia’s political and foreign policy objectives.9 At the time of my research, audio-recorded sermons and publications of popular Salafi scholars and preachers from all over the world were widely consumed by my friends. Tapes and books were generally sold in the various stands on the streets of the camp and in the bookshops outside the King Hussein Mosque in the centre of Amman. The impact of this discourse in al-Wihdat was visible, for example, in the strengthening of a sectarian distinction between Shia and Sunni Muslims10 and in the popularity of figures generally associated by Western media with Salafi Jihadism, such as Osama bin Laden, al-Maqdisi and Zarqawi. Yet, describing camp dwellers’ religiosity as being defined in terms of a singular trend – Salafism – would be misleading when attempting to understand the complexity and plurality of Muslim self-understanding and experience in the refugee camps. Indeed, in al-Wihdat, Salafists or other radical Islamic groups were no more popular than so-called moderate Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brothers. Many camp dwellers were particularly sceptical of the Salafi movement, which they perceived as being merely interested in pursuing the short-sighted interests and political agenda of the Saudi regime. The rejection of the political and the stress on the moral dimension of Islam recall compelling scholarly work that has preferred a fine-grained ethnography and a focus on Muslims’ individual experience, rather than the macro analysis of political scientists.11 This body of work in anthropology has called for a recognition of the moral and ethical aspects of Islam as motivations

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that cannot be reducible to power and politics.12 Such an account is important because it allows us to understand the relationship between piety and Palestinian nationalism in al-Wihdat without becoming trapped in the rigid categories of political Islam. Understanding the cultivation of a pious self as a project of moral self-fashioning might be understood by its practitioners as having important consequences at a political level, though this might not be their primary goal. In the camp, indeed, the growing significance of Islam in the life of many people in the camp has not meant that refugees have actively sought to challenge the state authorities and pursued armed struggle. Rather, piety was understood by many as a genuine attempt to develop an ethical self. At the same time, however, it was not completely divorced from their nationalist ideals: many in al-Wihdat believed that consolidating an Islamic lifestyle was also the solution needed to fight Zionism and Western imperialism. However, while these ethnographies might be excellent in unveiling the ways in which piety ideally satisfies the conflicting demands of living life in Jordan while upholding nationalist struggles, they seem less capable of capturing the ambiguities and contradictions involved in this process of accommodation. In other words, the exceptional piety documented by this body of scholarship tells us very little about how refugees behave in situations in which the pressures of everyday life make it difficult to fulfil a moral ideal. As a corrective to this approach, my understanding of what it means to be Muslim in al-Wihdat largely follows Soares and Otayek’s concept of ‘Islam mondain’:13 a term that points to the diverse types of sociality and ways of being Muslim in contexts of political and economic uncertainty.14 The time I spent in the camp gave me the opportunity to observe how the complexity of Muslim social experience in al-Wihdat cannot be merely understood as a totalising focus on self-discipline. For camp dwellers, piety was a source of great comfort as well as deep anxiety. Among them, religious morality coexisted uneasily with more mundane aspects of life, where ethical self-fashioning, the quest for romantic love, and consumerist binges were all features of refugees’ everyday lives in the camps.

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To understand Islam in al-Wihdat and its relevance for Palestinian nationalism, I suggest that we should move beyond a debate on whether people’s piety in al-Wihdat is best defined as Salafism or post-Islamism, and instead ask what piety means to refugees and how it is performed. In so doing, this chapter seeks to address the relationship between attempts to lead a pious life and Palestinian nationalism amidst rising levels of apathy and cynicism towards politics in and about Palestine, and the parallel growth in significance of ‘global’ forms of Islamic discourse and symbolism. Earlier, I demonstrated that what characterised the daily life of camp dwellers in al-Wihdat was neither political militancy nor active resistance against attempts to resettle them within the territory. On the contrary, Palestinian refugees have upheld the ideals of Palestinian nationalism by pursuing integration in Jordan through ordinary daily activities such as spatial and socio-economic practices. I argue here that the performance of a pious self in al-Wihdat has to be understood in the same light: as an attempt to ground the authoritative discourse of Palestinian nationalism within the need to live an ordinary life in Jordan. The chapter begins with an examination of the increasing popularity of Islamic parties such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood among refugees, but their decline in political importance in recent times. Like their secular counterparts before them, Islamic parties and groups are depicted in the camp as being selfish and ineffective. Gradually, politics and Islam have drifted apart. Islamic doctrine and practice gained legitimacy only to the extent that they do not get neatly identified with the working of the political. In so doing, I will explore the moral (and political) significance of living a pious life for camp dwellers. In the camp, Islam was understood by many as a moral project that may eventually also reward the refugees politically – as long as it is not corrupted by political activism. To be a pious Muslim and a good Palestinian in the camp, one has to strive in both material and spiritual terms towards a process of subject formation that is perceived as self-improvement. By documenting refugees’ involvement in the barnamaj al-aytam (the orphans’ programme) of the Nadi al-Wihdat, I suggest that one of the specific forms in which the co-dependence of piety and

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nationalism has emerged has been through people’s commitment to welfare activities and organisations.15

Political participation in al-Wihdat At the time of my research, a general contempt towards Fatah was shared equally by Palestinians living in camps and those outside. Despite its critical role in resisting the Israeli occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Fatah was widely regarded as ineffective and corrupt. Abu Rami – the father of Salma, a young woman in her early 20s who volunteered as an English teacher in the UNRWA schools of al-Wihdat – summarised to me in a few words the historical demise of Arab secular nationalism among Palestinian refugees: In the fifties and sixties the more leftist were prevailing in the camps . . . but this because they were cheating them [camp inhabitants] saying that they were the only legitimate authority in the camp. But this was false and the people of the camp realised the false promises of the leftists and they returned to Islam, following God’s instruction. Leftists now have little support amongst refugees. The time has revealed the lies they were concealing behind their empty words [haki fadi ]. And people believe now that Islam is the only way to get rid of Jews, to improve their political situation. The PLO’s loss of influence was also a reflection of another trend: the growing popularity of Hamas in the Occupied Territories and the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun) in Jordan.16 Popularly referred to in the camp as ‘shuyukh’, the Muslim Brothers have been a fundamental factor in Jordanian politics. Although its political wing – the Islamic Action Front (IAF) or Jabha al-Amal al-Islami – was legalised only in the early 1990s, the Brotherhood has been present in Jordan since its constitution, in 1945. It was only from the late 1980s and 1990s that al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun came to play a pivotal role in the Jordanian political panorama.

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The political influence of the Brotherhood in and outside refugee camps in Jordan has different explanations. Although the decline of pan-Arabist and leftist groups in the region certainly played a role, much of its success was also linked to its capacity to exert influence through an extensive network of Islamic Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and other charitable organisations. Indeed, the Brotherhood’s non-involvement during Black September was rewarded by the monarchy with the tacit permission to take over the political and social space left by the Palestinian resistance in the refugee camps and residential areas of Amman. From the 1970s to the 1990s, its activities were boosted by a massive influx of money through oil-related financial support and revenues from individuals working in the Gulf countries. This ultimately enabled the movement to establish a system of schools, clinics and other organisations across the country.17 These grassroots activities implemented and managed by NGOs have created ‘vehicles for developing a clientele and support for the Brotherhood cause’.18 Al-Ikhwan’s civil activism is today manifested not only through the movement’s involvement in and commitment to charitable activities, but also through professional associations such as the Engineering Association Council – the principal forum for political activism in Jordan.19 Behind the influence of the Brotherhood and the IAF there is also its longstanding relationship with the regime. Until the lifting of martial law in 1991, indeed, the Brotherhood was the only political movement allowed to operate in civil society. The bond between the government and al-Ikhwan was surely reinforced because they shared a common enemy: the left-leaning opposition. The regime saw in the Brotherhood a useful ally against the leftist threats of Nasser’s panArabism, Communism, and Ba’thism.20 Most importantly, the ‘Islamists’ never sought to seize political power in Jordan. They remained predominantly a realist pro-democratisation movement that never really opposed the regime. On the contrary, the Brotherhood had a positive influence even on placating the riots that broke out in the Kingdom after the rise in the cost of living in 1989, and during the increase in tuition fees that led to student protests in 1984 and 1986 at Yarmouk University; a co-operative

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attitude that resulted in them being bestowed with the title of ‘loyal opposition’.21 At the same time, the Brotherhood’s cautious stance did not prevent the movement, from 1984 onwards, from expressing a strong criticism against the Jordanian government’s non-democratic practices. This, along with its campaigns against corruption, for political inclusion, for democratisation, and against the normalisation of the relationship with Israel, found much consensus throughout the territory of Jordan. In al-Wihdat, the Ikhwan and the IAF filled the vacuum left by the diminishing influence of the PLO’s various factions and their incapacity to sponsor supporters and allies since 1971. This officially registered Jordanian political party and moderate reform movement became the main representative body in al-Wihdat, capitalising on the votes of refugee camps. Here, al-Ikhwan came to run a variety of organisations such as sewing centres, orphanage programmes and associations providing financial and material aid to the poor, especially during the holy month of Ramadan.22 The influence of the Islamist movement on youths in the refugee camps was particularly significant. The camp youth clubs were a notable example: once firmly in the hands of various factions of the PLO, they fell under the influence of al-Ikhwan. This reflected a strategy adopted by other Islamic groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, whose focus on grassroots education and youth initiatives were found to be fruitful in garnering support among their recipients. The Brotherhood also sought to utilise zakat committees in the camps to engender loyalty among camp dwellers.23 In al-Wihdat, the religious charitable institutions run by the Ikhwan have provided an opportunity to disseminate their ideological message and develop a solid clientele. The capillary grassroots activism of the Ikhwan bore fruit. In 1989, the movement gained 22 of the 80 seats in the parliamentary election. However, such political success was doomed to end. In the national parliamentary elections of November 2007, the Brotherhood suffered a severe drop in its popularity from the following years, attested to especially in the electoral defeat in the national parliamentary election. Having gained 17 seats in the previous

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election, al-Ikhwan had to deal with an unexpected and disappointing result: they secured only six seats in the 110-member parliament and lost important cities that they had previously held, such as Irbid and Zarqa.24 That political defeat had multiple causes. The mild opposition of the Brotherhood towards the government and its alleged association with members of the regime certainly played a role in tarnishing the popularity of the movement. According to a report by the International Crisis Group in 1993, ‘youths were angered by steps to normalize the relations with Israel and felt abandoned by Jordan’s mainstream MB which refuses to clash openly with the government over this issue’.25 Al-Ikhwan were also widely accused of nepotism for backsliding into tribal dynamics and logic in their policy making. This denunciation, as Larzillie`re points out, ‘is all the more problematic for them as part of the support for Islamists [. . .] indeed relies on their challenging of community management. They notably strengthen the position of youth with regard to that of the elders by claiming a higher religious legitimacy.’26 The discrimination systematically exerted by the government on its members has eventually contributed to the delegitimisation of the movement. Indeed, since the decline of the left, al-Ikhwan has ‘become the main target of the strategies of co-optation and exclusion from the government’.27 In 2006, for example, the government curtailed a large part of the Brotherhood’s grassroots activities by closing the Islamic Centre Charity – the main means through which the movement operated in civil society. Equally important is the introduction in 1993 of a new law that disciplines the reallocation of electoral districts in a way that over-represents constituencies from tribal areas, a change that is widely believed to aim at curbing the influence of the Brotherhood by limiting its main electoral pool: the Jordanian citizens with a Palestinian background.28 Throughout 2010 and 2011, al-Ikhwan still played an influential role in Jordanian politics. However, political sympathy for the IAF and Muslim Brothers was rapidly vanishing. Many in al-Wihdat were overtly critical of the bland opposition of the Brotherhood to the government. Thus, for example, when a well-known shaykh (man of

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faith), affiliated with the Brotherhood, came to the camp to give a speech on the holy places in Islam, the main atrium of the Nadi alWihdat – where this kind of event was usually held – was crammed with people. The speech was an occasion for denouncing the alleged attempt by Israel to demolish al-Aqsa Mosque. It was a widespread belief in the camp that the true goal of the archaeological excavations implemented by the municipality of Jerusalem in the proximity of the famous mosque was not to find the temple of David, but to erode the foundations of al-Aqsa, causing it to collapse. The shaykh was encouraging a mixed audience to act. Adopting a seemingly proven rhetoric, he reproached Arabs for their inactivity, stating that it was not the duty of Western countries to intervene in their own affairs. Arabs, he claimed, had two goals: a long-term goal that consisted of a united war, like that at the time of Saladin, to take back Jerusalem; and a more immediate goal that involved the need to foster worldwide public awareness of what was happening in Palestine. Despite the inflammatory vocal style of the performer and the ‘righteousness’ of his arguments, the majority of my friends were not enthusiastic about the speech. As one friend put it, ‘He’s like the other Muslim Brothers, he says that we have to fight but then adds “not now” and “maybe later”, but they don’t do anything to change the political situation. They like too much their chairs.’ As a consequence of this disaffection with the Brotherhood’s political strategies and social activities more generally, many refugees ceased their involvement in the various social institutions under the control of al-Ikhwan, such as the youth and orphan centres. One such person was Sari, a friend whom I first met as a volunteer in the orphan and youth programme (barnamaj al-aytam) run by the Nadi alWihdat. One day, he was confronted by one of the managers of a youth club affiliated with the Brotherhood, where he was spending some of his free time. The man asked him to make a choice between them and the Nadi. Sari opted for the latter, commenting on his decision as follows: ‘I did not like the fact that the Ikhwan tell you what to do and how to do it!’ Such a statement is not uncommon. I have often heard people lamenting the nepotism and despotism of

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al-Ikhwan, who were said not to tolerate any organisations and groups in the camp other than their own. Many in al-Wihdat have criticised in particular their attempts to monopolise humanitarian action (especially through zakat and youth-based programmes) as a political tool to serve their own interests. Rumours were circulating, for example, about some of the charitable activities implemented by al-Ikhwan, most notably the ‘orphan program’. The Brotherhood was said to give 10 JOD ($14) to children in the camp on a monthly basis. According to my friends, behind the unselfishness of this noble gesture lies a deeper intention to create a constant dependence (‘so they can tell to everybody, and everybody knows that they have given money to them’). Providing support to children in need is just, they said, a self-interested way of strengthening and improving the visibility of the organisation, and, even more perniciously, ultimately providing themselves with a more resilient electoral base. Echoing the general disaffection with political parties and the ruling class in Palestine,29 the distrust towards the Brotherhood has also been extended to other Islamic groups.30 Rather than being said to be made up of pure and pious people, many people in the camp have claimed that, like any other political party, those who stand on an Islamic platform are no less dirty or corrupt. In the minds of people, far from being a sign of purity and morality, the alleged strict observance of Islamic standards allows the supporters of these groups to conceal the immorality of their own real goals. Amza, a man notorious for his youthful involvement in political activism in the years preceding Black September and, at the time of my research, widely regarded in the camp as a man of piety (shaykh), made this point very clear. Responding to my question about his opinion of one of the rather rare political demonstrations held in the camp just a few days earlier under the auspice of the IAF, he burst out resoundingly: ‘I could not care less! I don’t like political demonstrations (mutaharat)! They [political parties] mind just their interests.’ He then continued by pointing out how such demonstrations were mere display cases for political parties who pursued only their selfish interests and did not serve the Palestinian nationalist cause. Like him, many others have lamented the selfishness and egoism of political parties and movements

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that are believed to have contributed to the current status quo: a population scattered, spatially and ideologically. The allegations of corruption and dishonesty – that have increasingly characterised people’s perceptions of groups that were once represented as the solution to the Palestinian political issue – have fostered a sense of despair among Palestinian refugees in al-Wihdat. This sense of despair has contributed to reinforcing the depiction of politics as a treacherous domain of life, dangerous at best.

Islam and resistance If politics appal, Islam appeals. Every day, the cracked sound of the loudspeakers pierces from the top of the mosques’ minarets the noise and reverb of the camp. Islam infuses the sounds and the space of alWihdat. It is a quiet, yet pervasive, presence. It is visible in refugees’ habits and clothes. It is audible in the way they speak, in their discourses. It is everywhere, almost. To be maintained in its original purity, Islam has to be kept separate from politics. In the camp, people have taken active steps to distinguish piety from what they refer to as the corrupted and dangerous domain of the political.31 One day, a friend’s answer to my interrogation as to whether he was a Salafist abruptly brought to my attention how many efforts my informants made in this endeavour. ‘No, I’m Muslim,’ he answered, cutting my questioning short. He then paused for a moment reflectively before continuing: ‘I don’t care about the Muslim Brothers, Hamas, Salafists or anybody else, I am just Muslim.’ The man then explained the reasons behind his staunch refusal to affiliate with politics and political groups: ‘You see, Luigi, they [Muslim Brothers, Hamas, and Salafi groups] think only to their business, to keep their chairs.’ Like him, the vast majority of people thought of their religious commitment in these terms. They referred to the polluting influence of politics in the religious realm: if the political divides, Islam calls for unity among all the community of believers. Untying Islam from the political was, therefore, a necessary step in preserving the righteousness of their faith. They were highly critical of any

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understanding of Islam that could limit its significance to the status of a mere political ideology and instrument. Obviously, it would be arduous to track a commonality of intention in relation to Islam. For some, Islam is not to be mixed up with politics, for others the religious and the political are inextricably linked, and yet others believe the former comprises the latter. However, what virtually everybody agrees on is that Islam has nothing to do with contemporary politics and, most importantly, that the cultivation of a pious self is a moral project, in itself not a political endeavour. A trenchant critique, for example, is often launched against preachers who are not believed to act in the name of pious commitment because they are encumbered by the patronage of the state or political parties. They are described as ‘deceitful people’ (kazab) interested only in political power. To my informants, the significance of religious practice and doctrine lies especially in the cultivation of a pious self. If properly followed and performed, Islam is perceived as a stronghold against the anxieties and troubles of life, a source of happiness that would provide the believer with internal peace for the whole of his life, and even afterwards. As a friend once told me: People should not waste time with politics [. . .] Islam is the best thing [. . .] when my father died, he looked happy; you could see the serenity on his face. This was because he did not care about politics [siyase ], only about Islam. When he died it was as if he was flying towards God [. . .]. He was a good Muslim [muslim mlih ]. This is the way people should live. In al-Wihdat, tales abound about divine providence manifesting itself by punishing or blessing either individuals or entire populations. In miracles people found the proof of the divine. Accounts circulate lavishly about martyrs smiling in death and the perfect state of preservation of their bodies, about mosques miraculously spared by natural catastrophes, or corpses emanating a pleasant scent because of the piety of the deceased in life. Even the most disparate topics of conversation can be brought to religion at

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some point. Seemingly unrelated events often turn into proofs of miraculous happenings, sudden religious awakenings, meaningful catastrophes: all pointing to God’s will. I have heard several times people asserting with certainty that the impiety of Asian people generated the tsunami that in 2004 devastated most of the coasts bordering the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000 people. Regardless of the truthfulness of these narratives, what matters is the visibility and importance of religion in the daily life of my informants. People exchange these stories, argue about their truth, and find confirmations of their belief. One day, for example, I visited, with a friend, a common acquaintance who was stuck at home with a severe back strain that had been tormenting him during the past few days. The living room was saturated with a strong smell of nicotine. Judging also from the ashtray overflowing with extinguished butts, our host spent most of his confinement smoking. ‘This is a very bad habit I have,’ he confessed, ‘Smoking is bad in Islam. But before I did worse . . . before I also used to drink.’ Apparently, what made him abruptly stop drinking was what happened to him after ignoring the warnings of his friends to stop. Not only did he keep drinking but he boastfully claimed that he really wanted to see what God would do to him if he continued to do so. The next day, sober, he was driving to his job, when the car suddenly turned upside down without any apparent reason, crashing but leaving him unharmed. This, he claimed, was an evident manifestation of God’s power. From that day onward, he never drank again. Listening to this story, my companion – who looked ecstatic and excited at the same time – stood up from his chair and asked whether it was true. Once assured of this, he sat satisfied. Most of the people with whom I have spoken share a concern for what they describe as the increasing erosion of a pious disposition at the present time. According to them, the consequences are tangible. Moral corruption is the root of any problem: floods, earthquakes and other natural disasters are God’s punishments for the immorality of Muslims all over the world. Interestingly, if people’s piety does not directly confront politics, it does bring moral transformations that are believed to involve a

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modification of the socio-political order.32 In this sense, the cultivation of a moral self allows camp dwellers to hold on to the ideological imperative of Palestinian nationalism. Feeling betrayed by political organisations in Palestine and Jordan, for refugees, steadfastness in faith is what they fell back on, but also what they need to make sense of their lives and exile in Jordan. For many, the plight of Palestinians is the consequence of God’s wrath. Governments and political parties are equally, if not more, guilty for being careless of Islamic precepts and moral conduct. As a friend once pointed out: ‘the problem is not only people [. . .] there are many good Muslims [. . .] the problem are the governments! The governments do not care about Islam; they just want seats [. . .]. When they start to follow Islam properly, we will finally be able to get Palestine back!’ Only a return to the proper way of being Muslim, the Islam of the Prophet, would finally achieve lost unity. Islam is widely said to be sure to lead eventually to the eviction of the satanic (sheytani) forces – Zionism and Western imperialism – from Palestine: key to overcoming division and uniting every Arab Muslim under the flag of Islam, as it has been during the time of the Prophet or Saladin. As another friend put it, ‘you see, Luigi, at the time of the Prophet the Muslims managed to take control of Palestine against overwhelming forces . . . they were hundreds, the enemies were thousands, but Muhammad – may Allah honour him and grant him peace – won against them [. . .]’. If Islamic prescriptions and norms act as prevention against various threats – especially political menaces – the task of every Muslim is to organise everyday life according to Islamic doctrinal principles and moral precepts. It is a commonly held opinion that people’s personal account (hisab) with God would determine the hereafter: blessed with bliss if their good intentions and deeds would outweigh the evil ones, condemned to damnation if otherwise. For this reason, many believe that piety should permeate their whole life. This shared understanding, however, paves the way for different interpretations. For those who seek to live a life almost ascetically, others deem it enough to loosely fulfil the ‘basic’ requirements entailed in the ‘five pillars’ – fasting during Ramadan, praying, pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj), and

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alms-giving. Especially for the former, the ‘turn’ towards piety involves a moral regulation of everyday life.33 To them, going to the mosque, performing salat (ritual prayers), and abstaining from practices deemed to be immoral, such as stealing, drinking, flirting, lying and watching pornography, are crucial to strengthening Islamic values and a genuinely pious form of morality. The role of prayer is fundamental in this process of moral selffashioning. People extol the virtues of praying five times a day, preferably in a mosque. The benefits that – I have been told – people can obtain from praying are great. The five prayers are considered a boundary between morality and immorality. On several occasions, my companions claimed that they became real Muslims only when they started to pray every day. In their view, the realisation of the moral self has to pass through submission to God, and the performance of daily prayers is a fundamental way to reach this accomplishment.34 Such a style of religiosity also involves careful conduct with regard to dress and interactions with members of the opposite sex. Males and females from the camp carefully avoid any physical contact with one another unless this happens between husband and wife or close relatives (mahram). Shaking hands, for example, is prohibited for fear of arousing sexual desire and temptation ( fitna). If such demeanour defines the moral conduct of a devout Muslim, so does the hijab (veil) for women. As a matter of fact, the large majority of women in the camp is muhajjabe (veiled), wearing a headscarf that covers their heads and necks. The hijab can be matched with denim and a t-shirt, but is preferably worn with a loose-fitting cloak in dark colours usually made of black synthetic fibre. A few women wear a niqab over their clothing, a scarf that covers head, neck and face, revealing only the eyes. Piety is not only performed through acts such as fasting, praying, veiling, speaking and, in general, all those activities that make the life of a devout Muslim. Discourses about Islam are equally important. Actions are often considered according to an Islamic moral code, and the appropriate moral stance to some question of personal behaviour is sometimes the object of passionate discussions.

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I have heard my friends debating the correct interpretation of religious prescriptions, the significance of certain ahadith (exemplary speech and actions ascribed to the Prophet), and the meaning of specific Qur’anic quotations. For some of them, however, daily chats with their peers are not sufficient: to gain greater religious understanding they seek advice and information through numerous sources. This is particularly true for those people whose superior commitment and piety identify them as shuyukh. The category of the shaykh (plural shuyukh) will be analysed in greater detail in the next chapter. For now, it is suffice to say that for these people, as well as for others, the cultivation of a pious self lays the foundation, especially on the active pursuit of the correct Islamic knowledge. There exists, of course, a wide range of authoritative or official channels that discuss religious doctrine from a variety of perspectives. A pious person can turn to books, watch the numerous shows about religious matters daily broadcast on special television stations or listen to the DVDs and radio sermons of famous preachers. Looking for religious advice, people also check specific websites and forums that discuss in depth even the most trivial and ordinary matters of everyday life: from the proper length to trim the moustaches to the permissibility of oral sex. However, exegetic endeavours do not fully encompass the discursive importance of Islam in the camp. Not only does Islam permeate most of the daily talks in the camp, but it also penetrates the very domain of the language. Many people strive to adopt a distinctive jargon. This is most immediately evident in common patterns of greetings, now replaced by Islamic locutions. To my friends, the abundant use of Islam locutions and conventions in daily speech that has come to replace more secular ones testifies a clear break with a recent immoral past. These idiomatic expressions point out people’s greater commitment and the increased importance of religion in the camp. Yet if they show one’s devotion, they also contribute to reinforce it. Carefully attending to one’s daily language is part of a process of ethical self-fashioning through which a devout Muslim seeks to inculcate pious disposition by means of bodily and discursive practices.35 For example, I was told that salamtak (health

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be with you) is not the best way to address someone who sneezes. The term, which until recently had commonly been used as an act of courtesy toward someone who was ill, should now be replaced by the Islamic locution ‘yarhamuk allah’ (may God have mercy on you). If a non-Muslim was to sneeze, the best choice of words would be ‘yadi kum allahu wa yaslih ba lakum’ (may Allah give you guidance and make your children pious). The pattern of courtesy, however, demands that this formula follows the ever-present ‘al-hamdulillah’ (praise to Allah), a phrase pronounced by the one who sneezes immediately after sneezing. The courtesy exchange would then conclude with ‘yarhamuna allahu wa iyyakum wa yaghfiru lana wa lakum’ (may Allah have mercy on us and you, and may He forgive us and you), which is the proper answer to ‘yarhamuk allah’. A few years earlier, people would have simply said ‘sahha’ (health) and answered ‘shukran’ (thanks). Similarly, formulas and locutions to celebrate or congratulate someone – for example a bride and groom – or to offer condolences for the loss of a relative have been replaced by alternative Islamic expressions.

The barnamaj al-aytam Almost every Friday morning, the children gathered in a semicircle along the lines of the penalty area of the big football pitch on the first floor of the Nadi al-Wihdat. In the middle, a young boy conducted the voices of the others as the director of an orchestra would. They first sang a song about Palestine, then they recited the first sura of the Qur’an, and they concluded with a song on the Islamic holy places of Jerusalem (al-quds). This was the beginning of the barnamaj al-aytam (orphans’ programme). The programme sought to support ‘orphans’ from the camp and nearby through educational programmes and livelihood assistance.36 It was quite popular in the camp – running every afternoon and on Friday morning from 7:30 am until the call of the muezzin for the noon prayer (zuhr), and attracting around ˙ 100 children and adolescents. The cultivation of a moral self depends on both discursive and embodied practices. Piety, however, is not only a self-oriented process

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of inner development. To be genuine, it has to carry significance outside the individual: it has to be brought into the public realm through community welfare. As such, being a ‘good Muslim’ (muslim muhtaram/mlih) requires more than simple performance of Islamic duties and practice such as praying, fasting or veiling. It includes the cultivation of social relations as well as the defence and strengthening of the social community in which a devout person lives.37 A case in point is the distribution of food during Ramadan. A relatively conspicuous amount of money is donated privately and by companies as a zakat for the iftar (evening meal). On the occasion of Ramadan 2010, for example, the Nadi received money for several thousand meals. In al-Wihdat, however, being pious has also to do with being camp dwellers and Palestinian. The daily commitment of the volunteers of the barnamaj al-aytam well exemplifies such a belief. The programme was managed by Abu Omar. To Abu Omar and the other ustadha (educators) who volunteered in the barnamaj, the programme had to serve truly as a barrier against immoral dispositions and attitudes, educating children towards good conduct. These people perceived their active involvement as a crucial dimension of being pious, more than a mere act of humanitarian charity. By channelling their piety into the public realm, community service contributed to both strengthen volunteers’ piety and promote the diffusion of an Islamic ethos among the children. The barnamaj, indeed, was not only aimed at providing help to the ‘orphans’, but also at fostering Islamic knowledge and pious morality among them. In the words of Abu Omar, the programme had to ‘keep the children (atfal) off the street by teaching them about Islam and Palestine’. Immorality in the views of the volunteers of the barnamaj was not about a perceived lack of piety. Rather, it was about poverty and a degraded urban environment. In other words, they firmly believed that the camp’s rampant poverty and urban deterioration affected negatively the moral and intellectual development of the children and young men of the camp. If poverty nourished ignorance ( jahl), this was said to be even more evident among the ‘orphans’, who lacked the guide of the paternal figure. This excerpt from my field notes sheds light on the point:

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‘14 years old is a difficult age’. Abu Omar’s words refer to Kamal – a young boy who occasionally comes to the barnamaj. For him, this age is a watershed: ‘some boys become dawawin [troublemakers], others muhtaramin [respectable]’. The family and the group of peers are decisive to point kids in the ‘right direction’. Abu Omar stresses the role that the group of peers, and indirectly the hara, play in the transition to social adulthood for many children. ‘Kamal, Hamze, and other guys are good guys, but they grow up in a very poor hara [neighbourhood] with friends that are no good [. . .] Kamal until few months ago was also a very good student. He finished the year with 7 [a school mark roughly comparable with an A]. But now his mother is complaining about him, she told me that he stays all the day in front of the computer – perhaps he watches also sex movies – that he doesn’t want to do anything . . . she cannot do anything because she is a woman alone, and his [Kamal’s] father is always absent because he works from morning till night. Along with the family and the friends, the mosque and the Nadi can keep lads from a bad conduct.’ (Field notes, 8 November 2009) The underlying premise of much of the programme’s activities in the camp was that the cultivation of children’s piety depended on keeping children out of the street and bad environments. Afterwards, because pious will is not assumed to grow naturally, the educators of the programme made a great effort to seek to promote and strengthen the proper desires and dispositions. In fact, the director and volunteers of the programme kept stressing the importance of developing a mode of living built upon what they saw as higher moral standards. Such commitment, however, did not simply consist of performing religious obligations in a prescribed manner, but also involved an attentive regulation of public conduct, the cultivation of strong kinship and community relations, the promotion of certain forms of entertainment, and a good knowledge of Palestinian history. Abu Omar and the volunteers stressed that Palestinians’ struggles for national sovereignty were critically dependent upon the formation of a virtuous self and the regulation of everyday life in keeping with

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Islamic doctrine. In turn, a truly pious disposition was thought to encompass awareness of and active social involvement in the Palestinian national drama. This commitment took different forms. Generally arranged in three groups, each headed by a tutor, children participated in different activities, mainly revolving around ‘Islam’, ‘sport activities’, and ‘national activities’ (nashat watani). They played football in the ‘field’ (a large room) located on the first floor of the Nadi and attended educational activities in small classrooms at the club or alternatively sitting on the thinly carpeted concrete of its larger atrium. Islamic lessons addressed a range of issues that ranged from exegetical commentary in colloquial Arabic on selected passages from the Qur’an and the hadith to sermons on more general issues of social and moral conduct (for example, how to properly respects parents and older people). ‘National activities’ took the form of classes on Palestinian history. During these lessons, the educators continuously re-enacted the memory of exile and suffering of refugees by touching on the most topical events of Palestinian history: such as the establishment of Israel or the recent siege of Gaza. Also the questions asked by Abu Omar at the end of the lessons moved in this direction: ‘When was the Balfour Declaration signed?’ or ‘When did the intifadas start?’ Islam and ‘national activities’ were often treated as two interconnected topics. Abu Omar was one of those who stressed insistently that pious behaviour was not only a moral obligation but also a nationalistic duty. This is what he had to say during one of his sermons: Look around in our society and tell me what you see? You see people who drink, take drugs, forget their prayers, and curse Allah. Do you want to become like them? You want to waste your time in the street? Have you ever asked yourself why we lost Palestine and why we have not been able to return? It is because we have forgotten the teaching of the Prophet and ignored the warnings of our parents. Our conduct and thought should be for God and out of love for Him. Look, shabab, we will never be able to return to Palestine while we behave

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[immorally] like yahudi [Jews]. Our duty is to be close to God and be aware of our history. Note that the ‘duty’ Abu Omar regards as central to his work was not only carried out by means of formal educational activities. The children also had a vast repertoire of songs to perform; most of them recounted the heroic deeds and suffering of their counterparts in Palestine, others chanted the beauty of Palestine. Islamic songs were equally important. The ‘orphans’ also spent some time listening to Islamic audio sermons discussing issues and problems affecting daily life. Along with these activities, I have also attended a number of sketches and dramas staged by the children under the supervision of the educators. Songs, quizzes and sketches were all tailored to the task of teaching children about Islam and Palestine. The programme also lent children DVDs that they could keep in their home and watch for a period of three days. The goal was to raise awareness about what was happening in Palestine. These DVDs showed images of violence and the suffering of Palestinians, covering events such as the atrocities committed during the second intifada and the siege of Gaza by the Israeli army since 2007. But they also showed acts of resistance and guerrilla warfare as well as the martyrdom of pious Palestinian fighters: women, men and children facing tanks, armed with stones, and sometimes carrying weapons. Another practice that was held in high esteem among the volunteers of the programme was the capacity of memorising and reciting verses from the Qur’an. Most of the children of the programme had learned the basic skills of recitation and memorising during their childhood, either in the public school, during the barnamaj, or under the direct tutelage of their family. The educators also arranged trips for the children to Aqaba (the only coastal city in Jordan) and to Mecca, setting tight schedules. We woke up at 4.45 am. The clock was set for the early prayer. The children gathered in the big atrium of the hotel to perform the salat al-fajr, the dawn prayer that starts off the day. Abu Omar puts great effort into educating children and guys about

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Islam. Many of the prayers during the week are held by the most promising boys under his careful scrutiny. The rest of the morning goes in the performing of sketches. These sketches are of two kinds: either the performance of short plays or the arrangement of drawings and pictures through the use of white pebbles. The rooms provide the scenario, four representations for four groups, each one with eight or nine children (in total 35). Today there were three drawings and one sketch. Two of the three compositions represented the historical map of Palestine with the names of the main villages and cities. One was particularly admirable for the accuracy of its details; it coloured the different parts of Palestine with leaves and grass following slightly the geophysics of the country. The ubiquity of the map of Palestine is remarkable. Since I started my research, I have seen the lines that make up the triangular shape of Palestine everywhere: in the drawings of the children, in the posters and fliers fixed on the walls of the Nadi, on the floor of their rooms at the hotel in Aqaba. The circulation of this symbolic currency keeps alive a Palestine that does not exist anymore, a barometer of belonging that measures the symbolic significance of Palestine for these children. Later on, I assisted in the staging of a short play on the eviction of Palestinians from their lands by Zionist forces. A person was sitting alone until a stranger decided to sit in the same chair. The first person moved over slightly and let the second share the same place. But the newcomer was not satisfied, and kept pushing the first person out until he was alone on the chair. Just before lunch and after most of the children accomplished the salat al-zuhr [the noon prayer], the children ˙ started singing a couple of songs. The first was about Islam and the Prophet and the second a mix of nationalist and Islamic themes, whose main refrain was ‘I will come back to Palestine with my children. Our father will bring us back to see where Muhammad rose to the sky; I will come back to Palestine with my children.’

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The remaining part of the day was scheduled with education activities. Arranged in four groups, each headed by a tutor whose task was to educate the children on different themes, the children were shifting every 20 minutes to the next section. The subjects were ‘first aid’, ‘Islam’, ‘sport activities’, and Palestine (nashat watani). During these activities the memory of exile and the suffering experienced from the establishment of Israel to the siege of Gaza were continuously re-enacted and renarrated through these activities. Also, the questions asked by Abu Omar and the other tutors took this direction: ‘When was the Balfour Declaration signed?’ or ‘When did the intifadas start?’ (Field notes, 10 January 2010) Barnamaj activities were extremely important for the formation of a collective consciousness. Those who did not comply with its curriculum and the value that it sought to inspire – who cursed, drank, took drugs, stole, and in general whose behaviour was deemed not pious – were made to feel unwelcome and ultimately thrown out of the programme. A case in point was the ritual pilgrimage to Mecca (’umra). The ten-day journey was for the children as well as the educators an irresistible opportunity to improve their faith and have fun in the company of their friends. However, a few weeks before leaving, the educators met to debate the case of Kamal and two other children who were said to have lately cultivated immoral dispositions – engaging in activities such as watching pornographic films, swearing and smoking cigarettes. After a long discussion, they all agreed to let the two boys join the group on the trip and leave Kamal at home. What led to this resolution was the fact that, while the former were ‘new’ to this immoral behaviour, the latter had been accused of such behaviour in the past and showed no sign of reforming.

Flaws in piety ‘Ba’id ‘an al-’ein ba’id ‘an al-qalb’ (out of sight, out of mind [literally ‘heart’]) is an Arab proverb. The meaning of this gives an insight into the piety of Ashraf. I knew this young man from the camp to be a

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fairly committed devout who successfully fulfils all the obligations of a pious Muslim such as praying five times a day, keeping off alcohol and avoiding premarital relationships. His friends described him as a good Muslim. Even Hussein affirmed that Ashraf was a better Muslim than himself: ‘he prays everyday . . . [while] sometimes I skip the prayer’. One day, however, without much hesitation, Ashraf confessed that he would not have minded drinking alcohol and flirting with girls outside the camp, and possibly outside Jordan: ‘you know, Luigi, outside the camp it is not a problem . . . in Beirut I will drink and look at the girls.’ In al-Wihdat, many refugees have genuinely sought to ground Islamic principles within the concrete context of life. Instruments of moral self-improvement, Islamic doctrine and belief have helped them to make sense of their exile and to uphold the Palestinian struggle for national sovereignty in the context of a growing dissatisfaction with the political. If the rigid dogmas of militant groups do not encompass refugees’ interpretation of and adherence to Islam, neither, however, is their faith a perfectionist project of selfdiscipline. While Ashraf’s assertion might sound puzzling at best, it is a demonstration of refugees’ capacity to navigate the complex and contradictory demands of everyday life. However, this seeming duplicity in refugees’ behaviour is not an example of refugees’ hypocrisy. Camp dwellers’ lives are fraught with these inconsistencies and ambiguities. In their everyday life, camp dwellers need to balance Islamic moral regulations with, for example, the ideal of romantic love or the desire to have fun. Such an ambiguity is not necessarily problematic. Rather, as Samuli Schielke writes, ‘often it can be rather comfortable, allowing people considerable leeway of action as long as one practices due consideration to avoid open conflicts and scandals’.38 In al-Wihdat, the capacity to accommodate such a project of ethical self-fashioning with other conflicting demands and desires is crucial in their attempt to live an ordinary life. On another occasion, for example, I was catechised for a couple of hours by a friend of Hussein on the advantages of becoming a Muslim. He did not understand why I would not convert to Islam. In his eyes, my refusal to convert was incomprehensible: ‘Yes, I know,

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you are not Muslim! Bas lesh enta ma tislam [why don’t you convert]?!’ He was determined to make me change my mind. He began to list the benefits of being a Muslim and the joy he derived from it. Eventually, we ended up talking about the significance of Ramadan to good Muslims and the blessings that came from it: ‘Ramadan is an important time for Muslims that helps people to relax, get stronger, and become better people [. . .] You see, Luigi, I really think you should convert.’ Given his self-confidence, I was quite surprised to find out that he was not fasting during Ramadan: ‘I mean [i’ani ] . . . I smoke, I curse. . . there’s no point in doing Ramadan.’ The growing importance of religion has clearly made a more scripturally focused understanding of Islam the foundation of what being pious means. And yet a scriptural understanding of Islam has not unconditionally shaped refugees’ religiosity: being a ‘good Muslim’ (‘shaykh kwayes’ or ‘muslim muhtaram/mlih’) is subject to interpretation. The very large majority of Muslims I have met in and outside the camp are neither unreflectively conditioned by any surah of the Qur’an, nor by any sermon of a particular preacher. A dialogue, at times incoherent, between diverse and sometimes contradictory moral registers governs individual conducts. I met people who prized themselves for their skills in settling disputes through the use of butterfly knives, who explained to me that they were good Muslims because they abstained from drinking alcohol and smoking hashish. I heard blunt and shared assertions as to the fact that the problem with Arabs is that they have lost their way, with what was ‘the [right] way’ (al-tariq) still fiercely debated. I heard once a friend, Mohammed, and his brothers criticising the several forms of hypocrisy that afflict the demeanour of Muslims today without finding a common understanding of how such hypocrisy manifested itself. Mohammed argued: ‘people pretend to be Muslims but then everybody drinks and just goes to pray on Fridays. See my brother Fadi’ turning to him, ‘he only prays on Fridays!’ Fadi did not protest, he acquiesced to his brother’s rebuke and, shrugging his shoulders, added: ‘there are people who go to the mosque every day but they steal and do not care about

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others [. . .]. And there are people who think that to be a good Muslim you need to have a long beard and dress like the Prophet used to. But the Prophet dressed like that because that was the way people dressed at that time. If Prophet Muhammad came now, he would dress like people do now.’ (Field notes, 15 April 2010) In the camp, people have their own specific ways of being pious, adapting to the context and to their circumstances, facing failure and inconsistencies. Open-mindedness was highly valued among my companions, a true test of their capacity to carry out an ordinary life. Narrow-mindedness and an excessive rigidness in regard to piety, in contrast, were perceived as suspiciously akin to the polarising and agonistic world of the political. For example, a very few people in alWihdat were rumoured to be Jihadi Salafists or members of similar groups, whose followers my friends generally referred to as takfiriyin. Maliciously, their desire to stand out was said by some to have pushed them to adopt a particular style of dress typically associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan. They shaved their moustaches and grew long beards; they covered their heads with skull caps and wore short jelabiya referred to as shalwar qamiz. In keeping with a rigid interpretation of Islamic sources, these people were said to lash out not only at those who worshipped or followed religions other than Islam, but they also openly attacked those Muslim regimes who allegedly fail to uphold Islamic law. For the takfiriyin, the Jordanian regime is kafir (apostate, plural kuffar) for its failure to uphold Islamic law, and therefore subject to violence.39 These people, however, did not constitute the bulk of ‘Muslims’ in the camp, rather they were exceptions. According to my friends, one of the direct consequences of their lack of understanding was their strict and unreflective reading of the Qur’an, which prevented them from appreciating that the jihad involves also diverse forms and must not be taken literally. To most of them, takfiriyin were a bunch of ‘narrowminded people’ (muta’assibin) who ‘read that a good Muslim should do jihad, and take a machine gun and go straight (ala tul) to the closest police station to kill people’.

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People in the camp may carry on their lives without caring too much if there are contradictions in their way of being a ‘good Muslim’, but of course when ordinary aims challenge refugees’ moral convictions, there can be considerable frustration as a result. This is hardly surprising. As Muslims do not inhabit moral states unproblematically,40 they might experience contradictions and inconsistencies in living a moral life. A pious demeanour does not necessarily result in feelings of calm and harmony. Even for those held to be especially devout (mutadayyin), piety is not achievable once and for all: being a ‘good Muslim’ is a process of moral improvement pointing toward an impossible perfection. In al-Wihdat, for example, being ‘ordinary’ – or not being able to live a fully moral and thoughtful Muslim life – is often a source of deep stress and anxiety, fraught with situations that overtly contradict the ideals of piety. Contradictory and conflicting aims are entailed in the performance of an ordinary life – such as the desires both to live by the Qur’an and to pursue ‘illicit’ fun by drinking, getting high or having premarital sex. While many in the camp despise Salafi activists for being tied to political organisations and groups, they draw heavily on the conception of Muslim personhood and a ‘literalist’ understanding of the Qur’an advanced by those who are often labelled as Salafi. In the camp, Islam is perceived as an irrefutable and perfect set of directives and restrictions that leaves little room for interpretation and compromise. People seek to embody those virtues, forms of thinking and ethical capacities that they perceive as having been forgotten by present-day Muslims. In so doing, however, they are confronted with their incapacity to fully comply with a rigid, but fascinating, interpretation of Islam. Salat is a case in point. Many people celebrate the five daily prayers as being truly distinctive of a pious self, and I have often heard people claiming that they experienced a sense of tranquillity and peace through their submission to God during salat. As a friend put it, ‘[if you pray in the proper manner] you must feel, not think’. To many, salat is something that has to come from the heart (qalb). This visceral feeling is such that it breathes into the performer a general and diffuse feeling of well-being. Indeed, although people perform

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the ritual prayers daily, it is especially under conditions of stress, hunger and depression that salat works best. However, despite the importance of salat, many people neglect to pray in al-Wihdat. Their inability to fulfil the perfection inherent in this ideal, especially when it is exposed by my direct questioning, fuelled at times a great sense of discomfort and failure among my friends. Hussein, for example admitted that he, like many others, frequently failed to accomplish the whole set of prayers. When questioned about the reason, he expressed his deep discomfort with his very lack of commitment. However, although praying was a source of comfort, Hussein confessed that ‘waking up very early in the morning to pray or going to the mosque every day was exhausting’.41 A strong sense prevails in al-Wihdat that Muslims in the modern world disregard Islamic precepts and doctrine. Despite the importance of piety in the daily life of Palestinian refugees – especially in comparison with a recent past perceived as being dominated by a widespread lack of religious commitment (iltizam) – I have often heard my friends repeating that this is not a good time for Islam. They believe that people should strive to return to earlier forms of Islam, most notably the Islam of the Prophet and his companions. To them, this supposedly superior moral conduct has undiscussed advantages for their struggles for national sovereignty. A pious life is rewarded by political success ‘because God helps good Muslims’. The examples are countless, stretching from the past to the present time, from the example of the Prophet to the Afghan wars and the resistance of Zarqawi in Iraq. If the greatest world powers could not breach the defences of a bunch of Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, this is because God rewards true believers. Nonetheless, in al-Wihdat, people neither feel that they are any closer to achieving their political goals, nor think of the camp as a better place to live. According to many, the immorality of the present time is the emanation of internal and external threats: the Arab immorality and the corruption exerted by the Western world. The moral weakness of Arabs – who curse, drink, take drugs, engage in prostitution, cheat, fight and exploit each other – as well as the attempts by Western governments and pro-Western Arab regimes to corrupt the souls of

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Muslims are the roots of their moral and political problems. As a consequence, Palestinians are still very far from the right path, so I have been told, and their immorality is most evidently expressed in the ongoing occupation of Palestine by Israel. The anxieties and frustrations associated with the impossibility of accomplishing a full moral self has increased refugees’ sense of marginalisation as well as their despair vis-a`-vis the political situation in Palestine. The full extent of these anxieties in the life of people in al-Wihdat was revealed to me once again during a conversation I had with Abu Omar, the co-ordinator of the barnamaj al-aytam. The man looked quite upset. Apparently he had received quite badly the latest news of a recent reprisal by Israel against civilians in Gaza. Venting his bitterness against the air strike, he burst out: ‘muslimin beghsu assa [Muslims suck nowadays]! We lost Palestine because we were not good Muslims; we cannot get back Palestine because we are still bad Muslims.’ Despite his harsh criticism of Islamist politics in the region, the man has never hidden his admiration for the ‘example’ of Osama bin Laden and those that like him ‘travel abroad to fight in a country where they do not belong for the sake of Islam’. Much to my surprise, however, the Israeli reprisal prompted a long invective whose target was not the Israeli army, but himself. Apparently, Abu Omar was not proud of himself: ‘Yes, I help people here in the camp, but I am doing little! If I were a good Muslim, I would go to Palestine, not necessarily to fight, also to help. Instead, I’m here, while my people are dying in my country.’ It is particularly worthwhile to report Abu Omar’s words because, among the people I know in al-Wihdat, very few of them match consistently with the conventional standard of a ‘good Muslim’. This man is one of the few. Since I have met Abu Omar, I have never known him to miss one of the daily prayers. His extensive knowledge of the Qur’an and religious debates has gained him the designation of shaykh. His daily commitment at the barnamaj al-aytam has accompanied irreproachable moral conduct and a reputation of being respectable (muhtaram). Yet, Abu Omar’s piety does not fully make the man. Along with a notorious passion for football and high-tech items, he is also known for his obsession with expensive sneakers and

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tracksuits. He is an intelligent man with a remarkable yet caustic sense of humour that does not spare anything, including the Palestinian political issue and Islamic parties. These qualities are combined also with a noteworthy respect for different religious and political stances (though this is not all-encompassing). He has often bragged to count among his friends even a Japanese Mennonite. In this sense, such a proud displaying of intellectual refinement and cosmopolitan sensibility can sound in strident contrast with his appreciation of groups and people known for their, to put it mildly, uncompromising stances, such as al-Qaida and the Taliban. Flexibility is a quality held in high regard,42 while at times it nevertheless triggers deep anxieties, ultimately related to a selfperceived lack of piety and nationalist allegiance. Much of the frustration experienced by Abu Omar lies in the apparent simplicity of pious commitment whose foundation sits uncompromisingly on a moral rigour that, in al-Wihdat, also involves nationalist allegiance. Whether it is an alleged lack of piety or an alleged lack of nationalist commitment that generates this frustration, it is hard to say. In any case, a true Palestinian would act piously; a true believer would fight for Palestine. Not fulfilling one of the two axioms inevitably leads to failing in the other.

Conclusion Much can be inferred about the boundary between Islam and the political in al-Wihdat, especially its porosity in recent time, yet virtually nobody in the camp thinks there should be no boundary at all. The growing importance of Islam in al-Wihdat cannot be described as part of a broader trend of Islamic politics sweeping through the Middle East. Being Muslim in al-Wihdat is a more complex issue than refugees unthinkingly adhering to allegedly global forms of Islamic radicalism. The significance of Islam in the daily life of camp dwellers has not resulted in a straightforward militancy of camp dwellers in Islamic parties and movements. Refugees have been particularly critical of these groups, in which adherence to Islam and proper conduct among politicians and

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political parties are said to have given way to a cruder, more direct, and often embarrassingly shameless desire for power, office, money and recognition. By contrast, camp dwellers are much more concerned with the attempt to cultivate a moral self than with joining a militant Islamic group. But if Islam is interpreted by many as a project of ethical self-fashioning, it also provides refugees with the material for the reinterpretation of the cultural parameters of their world. Their efforts to keep Islam separate from the dangerous and dirty world of the political is not meant to suggest a complete withdrawal from Palestinian nationalism into an isolated and bounded space of piety. In al-Wihdat, Islamic and nationalist discourses are firmly entangled: the sacredness of national sentiment finds its expression through the cultivation of a pious self. By linking their faith to a broader political and social context, many in the camp extol the virtues of living an Islamic life as a stronghold against the political menaces of international neo-colonialism. However, specific forms of ethical self-fashioning cannot be always and easily separated from the complexity of social life. In this sense, refugees’ religiosity reflects their attempt to carry out an ordinary life. For many in the camp, being ordinary is as important as the impetus towards self-perfection or adherence to a strict, reformminded Qur’anic form of Islam or Islamic purification. In other words, if the performance of a virtuous life dovetails with the ideal of resistance and ultimately Palestinian nationalism, refugees have adapted this project, more or less successfully, to the need to live with normalcy.

CHAPTER 4 ORDINARY MASCULINITIES

I met the head of the police station of al-Wihdat when seeking approval for doing research in the camp. The man was sitting in his armchair; his short legs barely touched the floor of his office. Swinging them up and down, he complained about the problems and troubles of his work, while a sizeable plasma screen television in front of him was showing a local soap opera: My job is very difficult. Here there are any sorts of crimes! Kullu, kullu [everything]! Drugs, stabbings, homicides, prostitution, fights – kullu, kullu! Especially in the summer because people get out of their houses and they give vent to their frustrations. [. . .] Unemployment and the poor condition of infrastructure aggravate the situation. [. . .] Yes, you can say so, the camp is much worse than the surrounding areas. It is a dangerous place! Such a stereotypical depiction of the camp and those who live in it is especially powerfully and consistently articulated by the authorities and wealthy people of both Transjordanian and Palestinian backgrounds. However, it is not uncommon to hear such ideas in poorer areas of Amman as well.1 ‘Dir balak fil al-Wihdat [Be careful in al-Wihdat], it’s a dangerous place,’ I was continuously reminded by people who, informed of the nature of my research, were genuinely

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concerned about my safety. This is the type of image that people ‘from outside’ (min barra) – as camp dwellers identify them – commonly hold on the camps. ‘Outsiders’ generally suspect al-Wihdat and Palestinian refugee camps in general of being hubs for unruly and violent individuals (mushkalgiyye). They sustain this idea with the belief that camps are epicentres of religious fanaticism – a belief that finds confirmation in the visibly higher number of veiled women (muhajjabat) in the camp, the conservative attitudes of its residents, and the popularity of Islamic political groups (see Chapter 3). They also hold poor infrastructure and poverty accountable for their social malaise. Ultimately camp residents’ radicalism would indeed be connected with the economic destitution that affects these spaces. New generations are thought of as being affected in particularly acute ways by the camps’ rampant poverty: seen as idlers and loafers (dawawin), and a constant source of social anxiety, young people are said to be responsible for a large share of the problems (mashakil) that afflict the camp – from petty crimes such as fighting, theft, drug dealing and feuds among families to wrong and overly radical ways of being Muslim. So, if refugee camps are known for being places brimming with unruly individuals, this stigma is also associated with the widespread belief that young men and adolescents from the camps are unthinking and ignorant conformists in the grip of Muslim fanatics. In Amman, for example, the authorities and members of the rich bourgeois of the capital city with whom I spoke thought of al-Wihdat as being both a place of immoral sinners and, in contradiction, of Islamic terrorists (irhabiyin). These prejudices have eventually led some authors to question the very idea that camp dwellers might nurture any genuine feeling of identification with the Jordanian state.2 This is not surprising; writing in relation to Muslim immigrants from Turkey in Berlin, Katherine Pratt Ewing claims that the identity of the national subject, that is, of one who fully belongs to the nation as one of ‘us’, rests on a discursive process in which others are defined as ‘not us’. [. . .] Even when a minority is granted full legal rights, these collective fantasies

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can be a source of basic challenges to the possibility for full cultural citizenship.3 In a similar manner, Palestinian refugees from al-Wihdat are often imagined ‘through the lens of a socially shared fantasy that [. . .] affects the possibilities for the [camp dwellers’] cultural citizenship or sense of full belonging’.4 Indeed, either as the expression of immoral behaviour or unthinking radicalism, camp dwellers – especially young men – are widely perceived outside the camps as incapable of fully belonging to the nation. What is surprising is the fact that the enduring stereotype of the inherent unruliness of camp dwellers is involuntarily reinforced by a specific scholarly understanding of masculinity.5 By building more or less consistently on the notion of ‘hegemonic masculinity’,6 studies have investigated the production of Palestinian national identity in relation to the construction of a style of manhood that celebrates militaristic notions of irreducible resistance and independence,7 investigated the anxieties emanating from the incapacity to embody this ideal of masculinity,8 documented the shunning of the ‘feminine’ within the Palestinian official national discourse,9 and shed light on the coexistence of different scripts of masculinities.10 In doing so, all these studies have brought to the fore the mutual dependency between a normative model of masculinity and Palestinian nationalism. Such a hegemonic ideal of masculinity would take shape around heroic expressions of independence, bravery, and male assertiveness; it would be defined against allegedly feminine characteristics, typically associated with subjection, passiveness and endurance. In a recent article on the construction of masculinity in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan, for example, Jason Hart shows how the instantiation of an aggressive masculinity serves to assert refugees’ enduring national identity and ‘reproduce the camp as authentic location of an exilic national community’.11 This chapter builds upon this scholarship. The display and performance of specific manly values in al-Wihdat is doubtless central to the way camp dwellers express Palestinian nationalism while in exile.12 However, the concept of hegemonic masculinity

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produces a set of interrelated problems if employed to assess the imbrication of gender and Palestinian nationalism within the specificity of the Jordanian context. First, by setting the pattern against which all others forms of masculinities are measured, such an understanding invariably leads to a perception of camp dwellers as frustrated males who unsuccessfully strive to achieve a normative form of masculinity. In other words, whereas those who fail to uphold the qualities of such idealised masculinity face ostracism in their own communities, the performance of a hegemonic masculinity signifies marginalisation within the broader Jordanian society where such exhibitions of male potency and independence are fiercely opposed by the state authorities. Although authors have acknowledged the coexistence of different masculinities within the same individual,13 their approaches continue to suggest a binary understanding that points to some form of duplicity in refugees’ agency: while certain ‘hegemonic’ virtues such as male assertiveness and independence are ideally associated with resistance as a form of political agency, ‘subordinate’ male traits like diligence and compliance would point to assimilation and normalisation in the host country. Accordingly, refugees can either pursue integration in Jordan by emphasising traits of subordinate masculinity, or assert a virulent and liminal national identity by performing a hegemonic masculinity. What may be lost in such a way of understanding Palestinian refugees’ masculinity is that refugees in al-Wihdat, living in exile, have continued to reproduce their allegiance to Palestinian nationalism also through the performance of those attributes that are traditionally associated with a subordinate masculinity and reconcilable with a process of assimilation, such as being diligent, docile and reliable.14 Taking as its starting point lingering representations of Palestinian camp dwellers, this chapter seeks to document the role that the performance of masculinity plays in relation to the political subjectivity and agency of youths living in al-Wihdat. To understand this, the first two parts of this chapter will be an investigation into the main stereotypes associated with camp residents’ masculinity through an analysis of two paradigmatic models of masculinity, which I term here ‘dawanji’ (troublemaker) and ‘shaykh’ (man of

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piety). Dawanji and shaykh’s masculinities have at times been ideal ways through which Palestinian nationalism has been re-enacted through the display of specific manly values. It would be tempting to interpret the manly virtues that both types of masculinity have respectively embodied in the camp as the primary and genuine way through which young males re-enact the ideal and values of Palestinian nationalism. Careful scrutiny, however, will collapse common prejudices about adolescents and young men in the camp. Despite their aspiration to act out a hegemonic masculinity, young men are critical of those in the camp who yearn to embody such cultural ideals exclusively; they are accused of being unable to adapt to the changing circumstances of their lives in Jordan.15 What will be shown here is that the very people who have contributed and still contribute to reproducing hegemonic masculinity16 do not always yearn to embody this idealised way of being a man, and appreciate attributes antithetical to it. For many of them, I argue, it is this very ability to downplay overt expressions of male potency and move between diverse and, at times, contrasting styles of manhood that enables the reproduction of Palestinian nationalism in the context of an exile that has lasted too long. These apparently irreconcilable types of masculinity converge in the performance of what I call ‘ordinary masculinity’, referring with the term to the capacity to manage, but not fully comply with, a wide range of different yet intertwining masculine registers: a masculinity that is circumstantial and capable of dealing with the quandaries of everyday life. I will conclude the chapter by documenting fractures in the performance of masculinity. This does not refer to camp dwellers’ inability to conform to a specific model of dominant masculinity, but rather to their incapacity to reconcile the diverse masculine registers that constitute what I have defined as ‘ordinary masculinity’.

Ideals of masculinity in the camp At first glance, the paradigmatic styles of manhood I encountered in al-Wihdat seem to fit popular representations that emphasise the inherent unruly and violent dimension of camp dwellers’

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masculinity.17 During my field research, this prominent model of masculinity was best embodied by the figure of the dawanji (plural dawawin). In the local Jordanian dialect, this term is generally used to denote all thugs and troublemakers, regardless of their origin and place of dwelling. However, the word also evokes a hostile attitude toward the authorities that is widely believed to be especially distinctive of ‘camp refugees’. The same belief is shared indiscriminately by camp dwellers themselves who see the traits associated with the dawanji as the most tangible consequence of the existential emptiness and socioeconomic marginalisation experienced particularly by young men. The words ‘dawanji’ or ‘dawawin’ share the same root as ‘diwan’. The term ‘dawawin’ is actually the plural of the Arabic word ‘diwan’, understood as the collected poetic works of an individual or a tribe. In daily speech, the term has come to indicate someone who is a boaster and bragger: a person who is thus best represented as a veritable collection of stories. The dawawin are those who do not work and pass their time telling stories and idling in the company of their friends. They organise their time around forms of sociability such as drinking and drug consumption, which ‘mainstream’ attitudes in the camp hold as being ‘immoral’. Dawawin exhibit a similarly strong appetite for women, independence, male assertiveness and transgressive behaviour. They would hang around game rooms and coffee stalls of the camp, play shadda (cards) or videogames, ‘talk dirty’ (biseb), or simply stare lazily at the homing pigeons performing their aerial tricks from the tops of the houses. In short, dawawin are idlers who waste their time in the street (al-shar’a) and the hara (neighbourhood). These urban spaces are a laboratory and a testing ground for young men who want to fully embody a specific model of masculinity. Walking through the camp, it is not uncommon to come across groups of adolescents and young men arguing or fighting over issues concerning respect and authority. The street is the best context in which to exhibit superiority over others, or to challenge local authority figures in a manner that also displays one’s masculine bravery. Violent confrontations are quite limited during wintertime,

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a period of the year during which people tend to stay in their homes. In contrast, the sultry heat of the summer pushes ‘refugees’ outside of their houses and stirs up their tempers. Often, ordinary issues such as car crashes, economic competition or neighbourhood jealousy prompt particularly fierce quarrels. At other times, brawls arouse over homing pigeons, family matters or women. In some cases, the dispute generates a feud that ends up involving also the extended families, leading to an escalation of tensions that often culminates in bloody confrontations. Feuds and clashes arise and die in the shar’a and the consequences reverberate in the hara, either weakening or enhancing the reputation of an individual, a family or even the whole neighbourhood. Certain areas of the camp have a worse reputation than others in terms of the behaviour of their inhabitants. Liddawi Street and the alleys that radiate from it, for example, are believed to be an especially poisonous environment because of the high concentration of troublemakers (dawawin) and gypsies (nawar/ghajarin). Violence is indeed a prominent feature of this model of masculinity – often etched on the face of the so-called dawawin in the shape of diagonal marks, carved by the razor blades of other dawawin in memory of past insults. The best way to ‘spot’ a dawawin, I was told, is the scar on the cheek. But the dawawin share other distinctive aesthetic features: they sometimes have long hair, and display their tattoos and a specially grown long nail on their little

Figure 4.1

Children playing in the street (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 4.2

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Children and shabab in the street (source: Jihad Nijem)

finger with pride; they often dress in a shabby way, wearing worn jeans, dirty t-shirts, and tattered tracksuits, but occasionally combine these with garish garments like studded shoes or belts with brash metal buckles. Haircuts and styles of dress are not the only way to perform, display and enact this identity. Tattoos are also quite frequent. Many dawawin, for example, sport three stars or points that sketch out the shape of a triangle on the back of their hands, between the thumb and the forefinger. Each point or star implies a word: three points for a threeword sentence that means ‘kuss ukht al-hukuma!’ (loosely translated as ‘fuck the government’). Additionally, the specific features of being dawanji have also been emphasised by sensational nicknames (algab). Giving nicknames is a fairly common practice in the camp and, more generally, in Jordan.18 People are often named after objects, animals or famous people that have or may have had some connection with aspects of their character, physical appearance or ‘deeds’ performed in the past. For example, tall people might be called Shajara or Silam, which respectively mean ‘tree’ and ‘stairs’; a man could be named ‘hit’ (wall) for his stoutness and strength. For their unpredictable and violent behaviour, dawawin earn nicknames such as ‘Khartush’ (from khartusha, literally ‘cartridge’) or ‘Bonduqiyye’ (shotgun).

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Because of the irreducible hostility that the term evokes, being dawawin in Jordan is fraught with ambivalence. The word has doubtless taken on in recent times a clearly negative connotation, and those who complied with this ideal commanded little support in or outside the camp. Nonetheless, when I conducted my research, being dawawin could still be a source of pride. People who conformed to this model – who used the very term ‘dawawin’ to refer to themselves – were not ashamed of this label and displayed, with a certain degree of pride, the features associated with being able to act in such a way. As the word signifies being tough, canny and streetwise, some skills and dispositions related to this ideal were still appreciated as a mark of being genuinely from the camp.19 However, shabab in the camp do not only establish their nationalistic predicament through the performance of violence. The exhibition of independence and transgressive behaviour finds little sympathy among more pious committed people, whose assertion of manly virtues develops instead around religious practices and discourse, and is organised on a diverse form of sociability. In this sense, it would be tempting to define the dawawin as being in opposition to the forms of masculinity adopted by the ‘shaykh’ (plural shuyukh). Shaykh in Arabic has a wide range of meanings. At the time of my fieldwork, people in and outside the camp adopted the term primarily to refer to piety and Islamic knowledge. Those people who strived to adopt a style of life consistent with Islamic piety and had a broad knowledge of Islamic doctrine were popularly called shuyukh, regardless of any affiliation with a particular political group.20 Generally speaking, however, almost anyone exhibiting a groomed long beard, a sober haircut and a dishdasha21 was generally referred to as being a shaykh. But if a beard and dishdasha certainly earn someone the appellative of shaykh, it is a commonly held opinion that they do not necessarily point to being a ‘true’ one. Being truly a shaykh is regarded as a genuine holistic and all-encompassing endeavour that leads the believer to develop a God-fearing personality. In exchange for complete rigour and devotion, such a process of self-improvement

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would grant the real man of piety a life devoid of all ambivalences and inconsistencies. Central to this style of masculinity is the spatial dimension of moral personhood.22 The perceived deficiencies in people’s morality and immoral forms of masculinities are widely accounted for by pious-minded people in terms of the time spent on the street. To them, more than the failure to conform to Islamic values, it is alshar’a (the street) that plays the key role in a man’s moral degradation and immoral manners.23 As we have seen in the previous chapter, Abu Omar and the other educators (ustadha) in the barnamaj al-aytam sought to keep children away from the street and educate them in Islamic teachings and practices by recurring to a number of teaching methods, most notably lecturing and peer-teaching. Such a ‘piety turn’ underlay among my informants the strong belief that the cultivation of a pious self was a key aspect of social and material progress. Thus, a case in point is the great emphasis put on civilised and refined manners (adab). In contrast with the previous construction of masculinity, the word shaykh often evokes moral dispositions, especially respectfulness, devotion and sobriety. A complex etiquette regulates a wide system of salutation. The specific way to address, honour and greet people is highly valued among refugees as a sign of cultivation and politeness, and a standard of civility indispensable to being a good Muslim. This display of politeness plays a significant role in shaping a pious masculinity in contrast to the unruly and ignorant dawawin. If the recurrence of certain verbal locutions – such as ‘ard ummi’ (the honour of my mother) – marks someone as dawawin, others define shuyukh and pious Muslims – such as the spasmodic reiteration of ‘al-hamdulillah’ (praise to God). But speaking is not only an index of the moral qualities of single individuals: for many people, the social dimension of language makes it a general index of the moral fabric of society.24 To shuyukh, therefore, the lack of piety and adab, most clearly expressed in the street jargon and behaviour of the dawawin, are symptomatic of the moral and political decline of al-Wihdat and Jordanian society as a whole, described as corrupted and not genuinely Islamic. Conversely, by striving to adopt a distinctive

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jargon and a proper etiquette, shuyukh strived to pin down an Islamic moral code into the fabric of everyday life: at once an ethical and socio-political endeavour. However, the extent to which religious commitment (iltizam) finds expression in the believer’s life varies widely – from a life spent ascetically in the realisation of a total moral and spiritual self to the mere fulfilment of major religious duties, such as prayer, alms-giving and fasting. A piously inclined person would not simply choose the mosque over the street; instead he would, ideally, avoid any contact with the opposite sex, refrain from lying, abstain from intoxicating substance (alcohol, nicotine, hashish and so on), participate in social and political activities in favour of Palestinian resistance, collect zakat (alms) and distribute food to the poor, as well as listen to cassette tape sermons and study the Qur’an. In other words, his iltizam would find its expression in a wide spectrum of social, political and embodied activities that ultimately attest his submission to God. These dispositions converge in the figure of the shaykh, forming the best example of human being (insan) and manliness (rujuliyye) in the contemporary world.25

From dawawin to shuyukh ‘A toshe! [quarrel/fight]’, Fadi warned me, pointing at a police van in the middle of the road that was drawing the attention of a growing crowd of people. The van was parked in front of a small alley that led from the main road into the maze of alleys in the camp. Clearly, something was happening there, because people were darting out from the small alley onto the main road like steam escaping from a pressure cooker. ‘It is always like this’, Najar commented, ‘when [the weather] gets hotter in the summer, there are always more problems.’ In the camp, it is a commonly held opinion that this seasonal shift in the performance of violence is coupled with another temporal change: the gradual decrease of the number of dawawin. The interplay of nationalism and ideals of masculinity in alWihdat can be narrated historically. ‘There was a time in which the dawawin were muhtaramin [honorable men]!’ people sometimes told

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me. There was, indeed, a time in which Jihad – who had spent some time in an Israeli prison in the 1960s – did not mind displaying the huge ‘Palestine’ tattooed on his right forearm. When I conducted my fieldwork, the situation had significantly changed and the man felt awkward with his allegiance engraved on his body: ‘I’m not young anymore and Wihdat is different now . . . before there were a lot of dawawin in al-Wihdat, and I was one of them . . . life fil mukhayyam [in al-Wihdat] was more intense in the past. But now I don’t want people to think I’m a dawawin.’26 In al-Wihdat, the masculine body of the nation-to-be has been re-enacted through hegemonic, yet apparently irreconcilable, models of manhood – the hard-boiled fighter and the pious man. In the years preceding the Jordanian civil war popularly known as ‘Black September’ and in its aftermath, dawawin fitted the ideal of active resistance. Many fida’iyin (guerrilla fighters) were also dawawin, and, in refugees’ narratives, the two terms were often used to indicate the same kind of person. As long as the figure of the armed fighter embodied the ideal of resistance, dawawin were highly praised and esteemed for their ‘quarrelsome’ spirit. I heard many using the word muhtaram (honorable) to refer to former dawawin. However, the civil war and its aftermath had dramatic repercussions on the status of the fida’iyin in Jordan. In 1970, the showdown between the Jordanian army and the guerrilla militias terminated with the eviction of the fida’iyin from the Kingdom. The centre of Palestinian resistance shifted to Lebanon, and finally to the Occupied Territories. With the backdrop of their political and symbolic marginalisation in Jordan, the myth of the fida’iyin began to dawn.27 This – along with the significant growth of so-called revivalist religious discourses in the country28 – had a significant bearing on rearticulating camp ideals of masculinity around different values and principles. Devoid of any political content, ‘dawanji masculinity’ became de facto marginal and immoral, if not dangerous; shaykh masculinity, on the other hand, gained in prominence and popular following. It would be, however, a mistake to see the two ideals of masculinity – dawawin/fida’iyin and shuyukh – as the embodiment of

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contrasting and antithetical transnational discourses. Authors have abundantly documented the family resemblance between nationalist and Islamist discourses in the Middle East29 and in the context of the Palestinian struggle for national sovereignty.30 Interactions between Islam and nationalism are visible also in al-Wihdat at a social level in terms of the local ideas and practices of masculinity. While dawawin came to embody a less desirable and appealing style of masculinity among the refugee community, the militaristic-heroic virtues associated with dawawin were inherited by the figure of the shaykh.31 First of all, in the camp, shuyukh embody a style of masculinity that is not only appreciated for its pious-based qualities, such as studiousness, spirituality and religious devotion: male assertiveness, potency and independence are also part of shuyukh ways of being. For example, looking at a robust, bearded man, one day, a friend called my attention to the man’s imposing figure. With a self-satisfied tone, the man – whose father was a shaykh – pointed out that physical strength and bravery are as important qualities for these ‘men of faith’ as their pious dispositions. Most importantly, however, the cultivation of a pious self allows camp dwellers to hold on to the ideological imperative of Palestinian nationalism. People believe that Islam fulfils the hope of pursuing a meaningful life, which has been left unfulfilled by the broken promises of secular nationalism; it is the key to overcoming division and uniting every Arab Muslim under the flag of Islam, leading eventually to the eviction of the evil (sheytani) forces – Zionism and Western imperialism – from Palestine. For example, when reflecting on how political change would come about, many people in the camp mention the example of leaders such as Salah al-Din, whose triumphant liberation of the Holy Land from the Crusaders centuries later clearly exposed the power of his faith. The display of this ‘new’ type of masculinity often reveals antagonism in relation to the Jordanian government, which was perceived as immoral and tied to Western imperialism. Shuyukh are the protagonists of the Islamic jihad, people who follow the example of the Prophet and also fought wars far from their homes. From this perspective, Islam and pious Muslims are considered by many in the

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camp as a bastion against Western despotism. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that many shabab in al-Wihdat have been fascinated by the protagonists of the ‘Islamic Jihad’. Bin Laden, Zarqawi and others have been acclaimed as pious fighters who were willing to give up their lives and wealth to fight for the freedom of Islam in a country far from their homeland. Yet, the extent to which people borrow the valorisation and militarisation of masculinity from nationalist and liberationist discourses is significant. Many in the camp actively made comparisons between Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and Osama bin Laden. One such person was Shaykh Najar, who sported a long beard and placed much emphasis on Islamic teachings and practices. On several occasions, he confessed to me his fascination with figures like Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.32 According to Najar, indeed, ‘there is no difference between people like Osama and others like Che Guevara. They are both strong and fight for freedom against America [. . .]. Osama in Afghanistan and Zarqawi in Iraq have fought for the freedom of Islam!’ During the time I spent in the camp, my friends frequently pointed out to me people who had been thought of as being dawawin yet who had radically changed their demeanour and appearance to become respected shuyukh. I asked many people what ultimately motivated this spiritual change and physical transformation for so many dawawin. I was told that these people were referred to as living in darkness and ignorance ( jahiliyya), disregarding Islamic precepts and doctrine until their gradual awareness of having wasted their time and energy doing nothing worthwhile finally roused them from their torpor. This change was said, sometimes, to motivate these newly reborn pious Muslims to engage in ‘noble and pious’ undertakings, such as, for example, fighting for the freedom of Islam from the Western yoke in Afghanistan or Iraq. However, the figure of the avenger – a shaykh or someone who acts on God’s behalf, whose virtues lie especially in being capable of overcoming evil and unjust blasphemers in violent contest – recurred also in many other accounts. If taken singularly, the plot of such stories itself is not remarkable as it follows quite a standardised pattern: offence, fair punishment, overwhelming forces and rightful victory. What is

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interesting in these stories, however, is that they introduce us to a specific ideal of masculinity, organised around the values of piety, power and force. Notwithstanding the considerable appeal that similar stories might have held for some shabab, very few people in al-Wihdat were said to have left and ultimately fought in Iraq or in Afghanistan. The distance, the cost, the time and the risk involved in such an enterprise apparently persuaded the large majority of these prospective fighters to abandon their warlike ambitions. Bonduqiyye was an exception. Bonduqiyye, when I first saw him, was in his late 50s. Notorious in al-Wihdat for his outbursts of irrational violence and for having been a thief and murderer in his youth, his temper gained him the nickname ‘Shotgun’ (bonduqiyye). He lived in the area of the camp called wihdat al-taht (Lower Wihdat) – a southern hara relatively distant from the souk – next to the house of Hussein, the young man who volunteered at the barnamaj al-aytam. It was here, outside his house, that I saw him for the first time. After a quick exchange of greetings with him, my friend whispered to me that the man had a reputation for being something worse than a loafer: ‘you see this man, this is Bonduqiyye, and he was the king of the dawawin [malik aldawawin ]!’ Hussein continued: ‘He used to steal, drink, curse, and even kill. Then, he changed; he embraced Islam, and became a much better person. He started praying and respecting people, he stopped stealing and behaving as a dawawin!’ Apparently, at some point in his life, Bonduqiyye adopted a style of life consistent with a Salafi revivalist understanding of Islam. This led to an abrupt break with his sinful past as he became a new committed person (multazim). The unexpected change was said to have had a positive and allencompassing effect in Bonduqiyye’s life: the man dismissed ‘Western’ trousers and a clean face to appear bearded and dressed in jelabiya. Pious discipline led him to fulfil religious obligations, socialise only with other shuyukh, and give up his ‘career’ as a thief and criminal. Apparently, Bonduqiyye pushed his commitment even further by deciding to travel to Afghanistan in order to fight against the American military occupation of the country in the wake of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.

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Bonduqiyye was an established feature in the camp’s landscape. Anecdotes and stories about him abounded in the camp: a violent dawawin, a brave shaykh, and an unpredictable majnun (fool/insane person). ‘Now, he is old but before he was very strong [. . .]. Once, a gypsy passing nearby cursed God while Bonduqiyye was praying. Bonduqiyye finished his prayer, caught up with the gypsy, and beat him badly.’ In retaliation, apparently, some hours later a large group of Gypsies gathered in the streets of the camp looking for the offender. In a short time, a huge crowd of dawawin gathered on the roofs of the houses and began throwing stones and other blunt objects at the Gypsies. Some of my friends, who participated in the clash, still laughed recalling Bonduqiyye pretending to be a shaykh and throwing a huge rock at his adversaries to the cry of ‘Allah Akbar’ (Allah is great). In another story with him as the protagonist, a man from a Jordanian family from al-Tafila cursed God. Bonduqiyye gave him a sound beating. The other members of the family tried to avenge the ‘disrespect’ but the feud ended with the annihilation of the entire family. The most consistent and widespread rumour was that upon his return from Afghanistan, Bonduqiyye was caught by the Jordanian mukhabarat. In retaliation for his ‘deed’, the secret service brutally tortured him with electric shocks to the degree that his mind was irremediably injured. The man never recovered from this encounter: he ceased to be considered a pious man, and became an insane and irrational (majnun) dawawin. Whether these stories are true or not, what is interesting here is the fact that the ‘myth’ of Bonduqiyye is exemplificative of how the masculine body of the nation-to-be has been re-enacted through different and apparently irreconcilable figures – the hard-boiled thug and the pious fighter. Despite obvious differences, shuyukh took the role of the fighter from the dawawin/ Fedayeen and borrowed some of their manly qualities.

The importance of being docile The image of the irreducible fighter does not fully exhaust the repertoire of actions and attributes associated with the dominant

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ideal of masculinity in al-Wihdat. Another ideal is predicated upon the capacity to act as provider and nurturer: an aspiration that is both the expression of practical needs and the result of ideological considerations. On the one hand, the rising cost of living in Jordan and the tightening control of the government over the camps have made such an ideal not only an imperative but often the only strategy left to young men in order for them to walk into full adulthood. Since Black September, overt expressions of toughness and hostility have been keenly discouraged by the authorities and have become a hindrance for ambitious Palestinians who want to pursue a career outside the camp. As a consequence, many refugees have had to move away from emphasising certain traits of their character which are linked with aggressiveness and independency. For example, Nader – the owner of a game room whose habitue´s did not dislike being called ‘dawawin’ – explained the gradual normalisation of al-Wihdat by pointing out the increasing control exerted by the government over the territory. ‘Before, there was mafia in the camp. Right here, where we sit, there was a man that controlled all the hara. I knew at least five dawawin that were living here and were hanged by al-hukuma [the government]. Now the only mafia here is the government.’ Also Assaf, a man in his 30s who managed a local NGO in the camp, corroborated this theory: ‘yes, many were arrested’. But he also adds as an explanation the necessity of finding a job in a context marked by ethnic discrimination and fierce competition for employment: Now people don’t have time to fight and make problems. If you want to live in Jordan you need a job. This is not easy for anybody. For us [people from the camp] it is even more difficult because there is racism in Jordan; nobody will ever employ you then if you behave like a dawawin. On the other hand, young men’s willingness to act as breadwinner is located in a shared moral code in the region that holds the masculinity of the family provider as a marker of respected adult status. In the Palestinian case, then, the family-provider model is

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clearly entangled within the Palestinian nationalist discourse. According to Massad, the capacity to embody the nationalist agent ‘includes not only the masculine ability to launch armed struggle, but also to have a bourgeois economic status. The appeal is made in the context of the Palestinian diaspora, where most of the Palestinian bourgeoisie now lives.’ The nationalist agent is one who is ‘paying for the education of “his” brother and sister, taking care of “his” parents, raising “his” children, and dreaming in “his” heart of returning to Palestine’.33 Among youths in al-Wihdat the ‘breadwinner masculinity’ therefore constitutes an alternative, yet equally attractive, script of Palestinian manhood. What is interesting here is that these seemingly contradictory scripts of masculinity – the docile breadwinner and the independent fighter – coexist simultaneously in the lives of my informants. One day, for example, Anas – a young man in his mid-20s who I came to know for his studiousness and piety – puzzled me with an episode dating back a couple of years. At that time, Anas and a friend of his were employed as seasonal workers at the Kentucky Fried Chicken in a wealthy area of Amman. One day he and his friend gave a sound beating to a couple of Transjordanian colleagues for having allegedly disrespected them by ordering the two ‘camp dwellers’ around at work. Having spelled out the word ‘AWLAD AL-MUKHAYYAM’ emphatically, Anas then continued with evident self-satisfaction: ‘shabab from the camp are different from shabab living in Jabel Amman, Shmeissani, or Abdoun [well-off neighborhoods of Amman]! We are AWLAD AL-MUKHAYYAM, they are like girls [banat ]!’ Other times, however, young men from the camp display other skills and attitudes that are very different from being independent and streetwise. To camp dwellers today, manliness necessitates an active process of thinking about the consequences of one’s actions. However, as even ordinary jobs are hard to come by in Jordan, dedication and docility are virtues essential to successfully secure a decent economic position. On another occasion, Anas blamed his coworker for not being able to secure a long-term job, because he was too lazy (kaslan) and too short-sighted to see that being reliable and

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trustworthy is in most cases more profitable than displaying hypertoughness and independent behaviour. While Anas was obviously proud of the exhibition of sheer masculine potency in the first episode he recounted, he also disapproved of the unthinking display of overtoughness and independence: He is a dawawin. He cannot do the same job for more than a couple of weeks [. . .]. He is too lazy [. . .] He does not last longer also because he always argues with his employers. After two weeks, maximum, he loses his job. [Most of the days] he wastes his time in the game rooms, watching girls, or drinking . . . if he is lucky enough to find someone who pays for his booze! The exclusive display of over-toughness and independence generates suspicion among young men, for whom diligence, studiousness and commitment to fulfil the practical obligations of kinship were often perceived as more desirable then engaging in forms of political militancy and resistance. In al-Wihdat, the display and performance of certain traits of male identities traditionally associated with potency and bravery were not strategies to pursue nationalist goals. Since the late 1990s, the overemphasis of those traits that served to reinforce the distinctiveness of camps as separate and oppositional political spaces has been unlikely to be the most obvious goal to pursue as part of the transition to manhood in Jordan.34 As has just been mentioned, to camp dwellers, manliness necessitated an active process of thinking about the consequences of one’s actions. In this context, seemingly subordinate characteristics did not stand in opposition to highly valued over-masculine codes but were all part of the way refugees asserted their national predicament.35 Consider for a moment the daily life of many shabab in the camp. Most of the adolescents and young men I met have been quite capable of performing a kind of ordinary and middle-ground masculinity far from the manly rigour of the shuyukh and even further from the hyper-masculinity of the dawawin. Shuyukh and their piety were widely seen in the camp as a stronghold against Western

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despotism. The act of self-sacrifice involved in fighting a battle under the sign of ‘freedom’ (huriyya) was held in high regard by some of the adolescents and young men in the camp; the names of those who left to fight the oppressor in Palestine or liberate Afghanistan or Iraq from the Western yoke were uttered with respect. At the same time, however, they often ridiculed the inability of takfiriyin to think rationally. While young men express admiration for the display of the heroic virtues of ‘shaykh masculinity’, they were not unreflectively conditioned by it. I heard many in al-Wihdat expressing criticism toward the narrow-mindedness of those who could not reconcile Islam with the need to live an ordinary life. Bonduqiyye’s spiritual epiphany, for example, did not result in him acquiring any uncritical forms of respect. What is interesting is the low reputation that Bonduqiyye enjoyed in the camp, also motivated by his radicalism and his inability to think rationally. The man was rumoured to have recently become a takfir. Embracing what was described to me as an inflexible position, these people not only lash out at ‘infidels’ (kafir), but also against other Muslims. Rather than admiring his uncompromising approach, most of my friends called him muta’assib (narrow-minded) and ‘onsori (racist). To them, Bonduqiyye’s extremism was a reflection of his wild nature and insanity. Notwithstanding the ideal of potency that the dawawin and the shuyukh have respectively embodied throughout the years in alWihdat, most of the people in the camp are thus engaged in a quite different type of project: performing a kind of ordinary masculinity far from the manly rigour of the shuyukh and even further from the hyper-masculinity of the takfiriyin and dawawin. Being a true ibn almukhayyam (son of the camp) requires young men in the camp to balance potency, independence and smartness with those attributes that make one a trustworthy and respectable person (muhtaram), such as conscientiousness and hard work. Not surprisingly, young men also speak of docility and compliance as fundamental to make Palestinian nationalism a viable project in light of their exile in Jordan. In the context of refugees’ socio-economic integration in Jordan, allegiance to the nation and commitment to the family are often in congress with one another. In their eyes, exhibitions of independence and potency

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without rational reflection are not simply one of the causes beyond their experience of blocked upward mobility, discrimination and harassment. By precipitating refugees into a socio-economic despair and oblivion, they can be a clear threat to the Palestinian national predicament (see Chapter 2). In this context, the negative connotation of being acquiescent and compliant acquires here a positive dimension in the camp, indicating ethico-political qualities such as resilience and ‘steadfastness’ (sumud). As Tobias Kelly puts it, ‘the contrast between self-preserving passivity and nationalist activism is probably overdrawn. Personal aspirations, kinship obligations and national goals are interwoven [. . .]. In this process sumud (steadfastness) combines both personal and national hopes.’36

Fractured masculinities: the impossibility of being ordinary Still, the coexistence of diverse registers of masculinity is a deeply fragile project. Failures, setbacks, frustrations and disappointments in men’s attempts to carry out what I have termed ‘ordinary masculinity’ are frequent. Within this framework, it is important to shed light on the relationship between youths in the camp and the authorities. From the viewpoint of camp authorities, shabab in al-Wihdat embody opposition to the state. Refugees continue to be popularly depicted as a community that is inherently hostile to the state. As a matter of fact, young men’s encounters with ‘the state’ usually involve forms of police discipline, repression and monitoring. Police control of people living in al-Wihdat and in its proximity is quite pervasive. As a middle-ranking cadre of the UNRWA put it in the course of an interview: Amongst youth there are lots of problems like drugs, alcohol and unemployment. Many youths are fed up of their situation in the camps, so they cause trouble [. . .]. Most of the people there don’t have a job. So they run small stands in the main street, where the camp market is held. This is their main source of income, but they don’t have a licence to do it. So, when the

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municipality comes, they are forced to leave. They generally wait until they go away, and then they put their stands on the street again, but sometimes the police confiscate their stuff. This is what upsets the youths most. They get angry. Nonetheless, refugees do not generally seek confrontation.37 Rather, agency more often takes the form of co-operation or, in many cases, evasion.38 The encounters with state authorities are often narrated in terms of humiliation and injury; being harassed by over-zealous police officers, I was told, is a very common experience. My friends carefully avoided approaching the area where the massive police station (makhfar) of al-Wihdat was located without their IDs or other identification papers. If they are stopped without proper documents, this would mean their being detained in the station until a relative or a friend comes to vouch for them. The negative stereotypes that accompany camp dwellers in their relationship with the broader Jordanian community aggravate further this ‘crisis of masculinity’. Discrimination and blocked upward mobility, especially in the public sectors, endanger the transition to social adulthood, which is largely focused around the capacity to provide for a family and live an independent life. My friends in the camp frequently complained of their incapacity to forge a productive masculinity by stepping into the more practical responsibilities of kinship and marital life: in the stagnant Jordanian economy, getting married is a costly affair that overt discrimination in the public sector postpones even further.39 In addition, the combination of the problems of living in an area that is economically marginal and deprived, aggravated by a severe shortage of connections and contacts to get things done (wasta), has strengthened the idea among camp dwellers of being second-class citizens. As Abu Shadi, a young man who works as a taxi driver in Amman, put it: We are not strangers (ajaneb) in Jordan, but we are not like the urdunniyyin (Transjordanians); we are second-class citizens (muwatin min al-daraje al-thaniyye)! Even class four! If a Palestinian, a nawari (gypsy), and a masri (Egyptian) go to the

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makhfar (police station), the Palestinian will be the first to be arrested! [. . .]. I have a friend who works as a taxi driver. He was going to Aqaba with a friend of his, a Jordanian, who was driving another car. The police stopped the two cars. One asked for their passports and said to the other [police officer], ‘This one is fine, he is tafili (inhabitant of al-Tafila).’40 They let him go and gave my friend instead a ticket for high speed [. . .]. You see, Amza?’ [my friend continued, pointing at his brother, who was younger by two years] ‘He passed the tawjihi [secondary examination] with a 70. That is very good, but he did not find a job. Jordanians who get 50 in the tawjihi find a job! And they can work in the army or in the police. I can tell you, we are under the Jordanians! If discrimination and negative stereotypes tarnish camp dwellers’ chances of living a life equal to any other Jordanian citizen, they also restrain the celebration of male potency, political independence and toughness identifiable with specific models of Palestinian nationalist masculinity. This is brought to light, for example, in the documentary film Full Bloom, in which the Jordanian filmmaker Sandra Madi explores these dynamics in al-Baq’a Palestinian refugee camp. The film draws the real portrait of Faraj Darwish, a young boxing champion whose promising career came to an abrupt end upon his refusal to fight in a match against an Israeli boxer. Faraj was born and raised in al-Baq’a, a large urban camp established in the environs of Amman. As with many other shabab in the camps, unemployment and unfulfilled aspirations filled him with frustration and offered little change to the unchanging and predictable rhythm of life. He passed his time monotonously by chatting with friends, idling at home, and playing with homing pigeons. Unlike other shabab in the camps, however, there was a time when Faraj was well known and popular in the country. In 2004, when he was 21 years of age, he gained the title of Arab boxing champion in Algeria. The victory also earned him the chance to meet the King of Jordan. Despite such accomplishments, however, the newly decorated champion was barred for life by the Jordanian Federation from

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competing officially because of his refusal to fight an Israeli boxer at an international championship competition in Turkey in 2006. The ban irremediably damaged Faraj’s blooming career, leaving the boxer powerless and embittered, capable neither of reaching full socioeconomic integration within the Kingdom nor of becoming a virile symbol of Palestinian nationalist struggles as a boxing champion from Baq’a. As this story clearly shows, failure is also generated by harassment and discrimination. Unsettled tensions between the desire to fulfil a hegemonic style of nationalist masculinity and the demands for conformity from the local economy and polity endanger the transition into full adulthood. Camp dwellers’ capacity to manage and combine different and sometimes conflicting styles of masculinity coexist uneasily with the greater clarity of the more normative conceptions of masculinity: most notably the masculinity of the previous generations. I have heard many young men pointing to the sober and pious masculinity of their peasant ancestors as an ideal to strive for.41 In this sense, the nexus between humbleness and being Palestinian – which I have explored in Chapter 3 – has a significant bearing also on the way young men in the camp imagine their own masculinity. In alWihdat, the elder (khitiar) is the depositary of the peasant tradition and the living demonstration of the Palestinian national struggle and suffering over the years.42 His role is fundamental in passing on the memory of Palestine and Palestinianness – the specific way of being Palestinian re-enacted through food, dialect, songs, embroidery and so on. Since most of the first generation of refugees are illiterate, people in the camp rely heavily on the narratives of their grandparents – jil al-nakba or jil al-thamania wa-arba’in (the generation of ’48) – to imagine life in the villages in Palestine before the Nakba. In the narratives of the first generation, references abound to the rural life in the villages before the arrival of the Zionists. The impact of these memories on the new generation is strong. My friends refer with pride to themselves as the children of the countryside (awlad al-balad) to denote the cultural authenticity of the camp, a space where peasant tradition and culture are still preserved.43 Most

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confess their most joyful wish is to own a piece of land to be cultivated and farmed. The first generation of refugees – the preNakba generation – is seen as representing the pre-colonial time, a golden age in which Palestinians were living in harmony with their tradition and respecting Islamic tenets and doctrine. If the ‘generation of 1948’ sets the example of the sober and pious masculinity of the grandfathers, the heroism of the fathers throughout the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s defines another model of masculinity, which took shape around the manly values of steadfastness, heroism under fire, military courage and self-sacrifice.44 Many shabab in al-Wihdat recall the time when their fathers fought against Israelis in Jordan or in Lebanon; many praise the past heroism of the Fedayeen (guerrilla fighter) and shahid (martyr) who died in their attempt to pursue the national goal. They are proud to have an uncle or a father martyr who died in the Battle of Karama during the civil war in Jordan and Lebanon.45 Such a person is Abu Hussein. ‘Abu Hussein always thinks about his father when he prays’, a friend once told me. His father became a shahid when Abu Hussein was three years old. He was killed in Lebanon by Israeli soldiers and buried in a cemetery for shuhada (martyrs) in Syria, which the son periodically visited. The man, who at the time of my fieldwork was in his early 30s, was proud of his father and his glorious death. He often showed me a picture of the tomb – a long epitaph engraved on the stone quoted part of the sura al-baqara on shahada (martyrdom) – which he treasured on his laptop and smartphone. He made no secret of the fact that it was his wish to re-enact the example of his father. On a few occasions, in fact, he also confessed his wish to fight in the Occupied Territories for Palestine and Islam: ‘I want to go to Palestine to fight. I don’t know when, I only know that I will go. Not necessarily to kill, I can also help in other ways.’ The urge to follow in his father’s footsteps was particularly evident on the occasion of a two-day journey that I made to Aqaba in his company. During the last part of the journey, the road to Aqaba ran parallel and with great proximity to the border between Israel/Palestine and Jordan, and my companion glanced with mixed feelings of excitement and sorrow at the nearby city of Eilat in Palestine. Turning his gaze away from the

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hills and to the other side of the border, Abu Hussein said: ‘I can’t see these mountains and do nothing. My father died for them, and I don’t do anything. . .’ In al-Wihdat, the ideal of perfection embodied by the elders is widely compared with the declining standards of masculinity that afflict the younger generations.46 For many, the shabab of the camp have become loafers and troublemakers, and their weak (dha’if ) parents are seen as incapable of controlling and educating their children. In their eyes, it is the corruption of the simple and pure way of life that has led to the weakening of religious feeling and eventually the loss of their country. One day, for example, one of the frequent UNRWA teachers’ strikes ignited a long tirade between a couple of men in the Nadi about the UNRWA, youths and moral decay: First man: ‘[. . .] schools are very bad. There is alcohol, drugs, and young guys come to hang around the girls. Yesterday, I went to the school and I saw a glass of wine on the floor. My son told me a week ago that a man tried to sell him a drug tablet for 10 piasters [psychotropic drugs].’ Second man: ‘Yes, of course! That’s why shabab raided the UNRWA Clinic a few days ago. Alcohol and drugs help them to forget their problems.’ First man: ‘The problem is that they don’t know the way of Allah. We are very far from Islam [. . .]. I’ll tell you what the problems are: TV, satellite, internet, and sexy [pop] singers! They fill the mind of shabab with stupid things. Youths’ minds are empty! They can do everything! And where are their families? Their fathers are bad, and their mothers are even worse! But in the past, when we were young, Islam was everything!’

Conclusion The relationship between masculinity and political agency is complex. Terms such as ‘refugee camp’ or ‘camp dweller community’ might encourage lingering assumptions about the homogeneity of

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models of masculinity within a space like al-Wihdat. In Jordan, these ideal forms of masculinity are abstracted and reified, with some being romanticised and others ‘abjected’,47 but all pointing to the camp dwellers’ lack of integration. However, camp dwellers’ masculinities do not rest upon uniformity. During the course of their adolescence and early adulthood, young men in the camp reproduce ‘Palestinian nationalism’ as a system of human values and as an everyday reality of ‘normal life’ through the negotiation of diverse forms of manhood, most notably embodied by the figure of the dawawin and the shaykh. By exploring the production of masculinities in diverse settings, I have come to recognise a shift in the significance of the political in people’s lives. The time in which there were the most dawawin in the camp was before and during Black September. Afterwards, disillusioned by the broken promises of Palestinian nationalism on one hand, and deprived of their political agency by poverty and governmental control on the other, the dawanji came to be gradually replaced in the camp as the dominant model of masculinity by the shaykh. Despite their obvious differences, however, ‘dawawin’ and ‘shaykh’ masculinities share common attributes traditionally ascribed to what authors have called hegemonic forms of masculinity such as male assertiveness, moral or physical strength, and independence. But the exclusive performance of these masculinities is also quite costly. Camp dwellers’ valorisation of over-toughness and independence is not only discouraged by the authorities but also disparaged by later generations of refugees. Young men instead value the ability to move through and master diverse and sometimes contrasting registers of manhood as a central component of their way of being men in contemporary Jordan. Such an endeavour sheds light on the complexities and ambiguities associated with their protracted exceptionality – still being refugees after 60 years. It displays refugees’ day-to-day engagement with the facts of their exile in Jordan alongside their need to uphold the values and ideals of Palestinian nationalism. This capacity, if successful, is what ensures the ongoing distinctiveness of a Palestinian political identity in the context of their enduring exile in Jordan.

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Nonetheless, discrimination and the ideal of perfection set by older generations have at times jeopardised refugees’ attempts to carry out a life as ‘ordinary’ males. The incapacity to perform an ‘ordinary masculinity’ has ultimately endangered the possibility of progressing into full adulthood as both Palestinian and Jordanian males. The failure to move through conflicting registers of masculinity reinforced refugees’ experiences of marginality, frustrated their search for an ‘ordinary life’, and ultimately broadened the chasm between being ‘refugees’ and being ‘citizens’. Many in the camp have remained trapped in this condition of being incapable of both embodying the nationalist potency of previous generations and achieving integration in the Kingdom. Exasperated by the situation, a friend once bitterly expressed this feeling of marginality by drawing a pastoral analogy: ‘You know, Luigi, what we [refugees] say about our situation here in Jordan? We say that Palestinians are ‘zay kuss el baqara: la ihna barra wa la ihna juwwa’ [like the vagina of the cow: neither outside nor inside]!’

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Wandering with Hussein around Liddawi Street in al-Wihdat, I heard a voice calling me and Hussein over. Turning our heads we saw Ghazi, one of the regulars at al-Mahall – one of the many game rooms of al-Wihdat. He was lying on the sofa in the barber’s shop located next to the game room. Ghazi was not alone in the salun (barber’s shop); other shabab were sitting listlessly and watching the TV. ‘T’al t’al! (Come here!),’ he called, inviting us to sit with him. He arranged a couple of plastic chairs for us and asked what we wanted to drink: ‘shay or gahwe (tea or coffee)?’ Returning with the hot drinks, Ghazi confessed to being deadly bored: he had spent the last five or six hours doing nothing other than hanging around in the barber’s shop and playing the PlayStation in the game room. He wanted to do something: ‘What about buying a bottle of vodka? What do you think?’ Despite his eagerness to drink, Hussein was not at all keen to spend the rest of the night watching over Ghazi drunk. He had recently returned from the umra: apparently, the trip had just strengthened his determination to behave piously and avoid keeping ‘bad company’. He left Ghazi with the elusive promise that, perhaps, we would come back after Hussein had finished his prayer at the mosque nearby. We moved on. On our way to the mosque we spotted Rami: a common acquaintance, a young man who had gained quite a reputation in his hara (neighbourhood) of being a skilled kashash

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(pigeon trainer). Along with a man in his 40s, he was sitting on the kerb rather lethargically. They returned our greeting in a listless fashion. ‘You are complaining now. . .’ Rami pointed out, continuing a discussion that the two were presumably having on the difficulties of finding a job, ‘but the right season to find one is just passing, and in the winter it is much worse, you know that!’ The man nodded and shrugged his shoulders: ‘Shu bidna nsawi (What can we do about that?)’. Hussein invited them to join him for the prayer. The man accepted willingly: ‘Why not?! After all, we don’t have anything better to do.’ Friday night (laylat al-jum’a) is not generally a thrilling experience for the shabab of al-Wihdat. Everybody stays up until late into the night, but the activities do not really differ from any other day. People have two options: they can either stay in the camp or leave it. In the second case, young men would often go to the more upmarket areas of Amman, Abdoun, Jabal Amman and Shmeissani. Alternatively, younger boys in their teens would spend their time in Madaba Street, a main arterial road that borders alWihdat, or in the small square in front of the Masjid al-Darwish, a beautiful mosque located in the proximity of the camp. In this pedestrian area, benches and several shops make the place an attractive solution to their ‘boredom’ (malal): men and women would gather to spend some time together, drink juice, eat sunflower seeds and chat. Those who stay in the camp do not have many options. Playing football until late on Friday evenings is quite common among the youth in the camp. However, since there are no open spaces to play in the camp, shabab would usually go to Qwesmeh where a wide clearing in the proximities of the King Abdullah II Stadium provides them with a suitable spot in which to play football. Game rooms, pool rooms and coffee stalls are equally popular. Many young men organise their free time also around deviant or morally condemnable forms of sociality such as alcohol and drugs. The consumption of psychotropic drugs (hubub, literally ‘pills’), often smuggled from a nearby hospital, has become the subject of much concern in the camp. However, the street is by and large the most likely option that young men would choose:

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sitting on the kerb, standing on street corners or strolling around is what young men would generally do with their free time. My argument in this chapter is that leisure and entertainment – like socio-economic integration and ordinary ways of being a man in al-Wihdat – are part of those acts of daily life through which young men from the camp have sought to navigate boredom and the extraordinariness of their condition without renouncing their allegiance to Palestinian nationalism. If the time people spent together sipping hot drinks and chatting in the street, playing football or training their homing pigeons on the roofs of their houses reflects refugees’ escapist desire of engaging the stream of everyday life, these activities also contribute to strengthening a sense of closeness and national identity among camp dwellers.

Boredom and loitering around A widespread feeling of boredom and ennui seems to infuse the life of many in al-Wihdat. People would express their boredom by shrugging their shoulders and saying adi (normal, ordinary), a word that conveys a general feeling of apathy. In daily speech, this expression of boredom (malal) is often used as an adjective, so that people describe themselves as being zahgan (bored/fed up). A number of factors would generate this state. First of all, refugees often explain this emotional state by drawing a connection between their life aspirations and the economic reality of contemporary Jordan. Recent studies of ‘boredom’ are of a distinctively modern condition attributable to the existential emptiness experienced particularly by young men in the face of unemployment, socio-economic marginalisation, and their feeling of being left out of great economic and social transformations.1 The radical neo-liberal restructuring of the economy since the ascension to the throne of King Abdullah II has doubtless had deep imaginative implications on local understandings of affluence and well-being. In cities like Amman, this change has certainly widened the socio-economic chasm between the disenfranchised groups and the cosmopolitan elite.

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But among Palestinians, however, boredom is not merely the product of particular configurations of the neo-liberal economy. It is, rather, the effect of the ‘excess of the political’ and (at least in the Occupied Territories) the consequence of the overwhelming presence of death and political violence in people’s everyday lives. Writing on the implications and meanings of the second intifada in the West Bank, Lori Allen and Tobias Kelly emphasise this aspect in their respective researches. As Allen notes, ‘in the midst of traumatic, deadly daily events, and beyond the bravado and “sumud” that made up the normative sentiments of Palestinian nationalism, it was boredom and zahaq (a state of being fed up and frustrated) that came to be a dominant “political ethos”’.2 Similarly, Kelly writes that ‘[a]longside the spectacular acts of violence that have dominated the newspaper headlines, for most Palestinians the second intifada has been marked by boredom and frustration’.3 Boredom is also a central theme in the work of Palestinian intellectuals and artists – such as Mahmoud Darwish’s poetry, including ‘A State of Siege’, and Elia Suleiman’s films Chronicle of a Disappearance and Divine Intervention – that evokes the feelings and actions set forth by bored and frustrated generations of Palestinians. In al-Wihdat, shabab perceive boredom as engendered by a combination of political and economic factors. On the one hand, they believe that the lack of job opportunities and career prospects against the backdrop of the stagnant Jordanian economy ultimately leads to a state of boredom. In keeping with such an explanation, boredom is unanimously said to affect mostly young men and adolescents, who are often unemployed, and be more intense in winter when the muddy alleys of the camp and the cold curb shabab willingness to look for a job. On the other hand, shabab evoke boredom also in the context of their deep frustration at the continuous failure to find a solution to the ‘Palestinian issue’: rather than making life more meaningful, politics and politicians increase their feeling of being bored. I have heard many lamenting of being ‘fed up’ (zahgan) of the useless political blubber (haki fadi, literally ‘empty words’) around refugee rights and suffering periodically invoked by Palestinian and pro-Palestinian politicians. More than that, young men accuse these

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people of not being capable of effectively protecting them against the discrimination that they have to undergo as Palestinian refugees in Jordan. The ineffectiveness of politics (siyasin) and the ineptness of political parties (ahzab) have ultimately affected their ability to carry out a normal life (haya ‘adiye). In al-Wihdat, the severe lack of job opportunities, young men’s frustrated dreams of upward mobility, and their day-to-day experiences of discrimination would condemn many shabab to a forced state of social immobility. As a matter of fact, many in the camp neither work nor study. As a friend once told me: If you don’t get a good mark in the diploma and if you are poor you don’t go to the university . . . but if you have a good mark and you go to university, it is still difficult to find a job because there are little [sic] jobs in Jordan, and it is more difficult for us [i.e. Palestinian refugees from the camp] to find a job. So, what [do] many shabab do? They can just wait and get bored! They don’t have anything else to do. The negative stereotypes associated with being laji’in min almukhayyamat tarnish further the already meagre chance of gaining decent employment in Jordan; young men impute this discrimination also to the incapacity of the political elites to effectively advocate the rights of Palestinian refugees. In the eyes of many, it is a political conspiracy that aggravates the condition of deprivation that seems to affect the camp. As a friend exasperated by the latest cuts in UNRWA services once told me, the UNRWA cuts, the drugs, the alcohol, and the unemployment are parts of a plot to sink Palestinians and refugee camps. They are killing us, always! Western people can only die once, but not Palestinians. . .We can die a thousand times. This is what they are doing to us; they have been killing us since 1948! One of the most obvious consequences of boredom in the camp is the importance that spaces and activities of recreation play in the life of the shabab of al-Wihdat. Among the limited range of activities

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available in al-Wihdat, football is definitely one of these. It is extremely popular in al-Wihdat among boys and young men – watched on TV and played in the UNRWA school yard or, alternatively, in the football field located on the first floor of the Nadi al-Wihdat. Wedding parties constitute a favoured alternative to football, particularly with the hot season approaching. They usually begin in the late evening and go on until midnight or well after. ‘Now the summer is coming . . . you will see, al-mukhayyam [the camp] is going to be much more fun [. . .]. Every Friday there is a haflat al-shabab [stag party]’, a friend once commented to me. In their free time, young men would also smoke shisha4 in the small cafes near the camp, train homing pigeons on the roofs of their shelters, or play billiards in one of the pool clubs of the camp. Places such as game rooms – generally small rooms equipped with a few screens and PlayStations – and barber’s shops are often crowded with youths of all ages. These places are also a warmer alternative to the street. Especially in winter, people would spend much of their time listening to Western and Arabic pop music, watching music videos, Hollywood or Egyptian soap operas, or listening to religious sermons on the radio. The social significance of these spaces explains their popularity. They are forums of public life open until late at night where refugees can gather and engage in social practices of conviviality: joking, being informed of job opportunities, talking about politics, gossiping, playing cards and listening to the news on the TV. When I conducted my field research, the children and the educators of the barnamaj al-aytam hung out in a house located on the western outskirts of the camp. Informally called ‘the Centre’ (al-markez), the place was a sort of self-run youth club used as an alternative leisure and cultural centre by the shabab orbiting in the sphere of the barnamaj. The co-ordinator of the barnamaj, Abu Omar, supervised and coped with the expenses. Most of the shabab of the programme spent a large part of their free time here from their childhood to their adolescence, until their married life, and sometimes even during this. The Markez consisted of five rooms. A big lobby with a table tennis table is the first thing someone would see on entering the Markez. In front of the entrance, on the other side

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of the room, two doors led to the kitchen and the toilet respectively. There were three more rooms located on the left of the lobby: a store room and two living rooms with a TV and personal computer. There was not much else. With the exception of a few political posters of Palestine and of King Abdullah II of Jordan, a small table, a cabinet, and a few other things, not much contributed to embellish the room. The whole place would have looked shabby to a visitor’s eyes. Still, the Markez constituted an important place of congregation and a veritable resource for the shabab of the programme who did not have many other places to go beside the streets and the Nadi. Sami, a young educator of the barnamaj in his mid-20s, recalled the Markez as one of the most important places of his childhood: ‘everything started from here: here is where I spent all my days when I was a child with the other shabab’. Last time I saw him, Hussein still continued to go to the Markez. Escaping boredom constitutes an important part of refugees’ daily lives – especially for adolescents and young men. It is, therefore, necessary to shed light on the significance of these attempts. By engaging the trivial and mundane, young men in al-Wihdat seek to negotiate their social suffering and mitigate the ‘excess’ of the political.5 What is peculiar about the popularity of these activities and places, if anything, is that they are all iconic of a desire to live a normal life (haya ‘adie) beyond the imperative of political resistance, a desire even more striking if compared to the emphasis placed on personal and collective austerity that has been documented by other scholars of Palestinian communities during the first intifada.6 However, as young men perceive boredom as being in part the result of the saturation of the political in their lives, it would be wholly inaccurate to see loitering as completely divorced from the political.7 Loitering is also central to how the political was re-enacted, conveyed and narrated. By mitigating the excess of the political in refugees’ lives, infusing it with mundanity, and crafting a sense of collectivity among camp dwellers, these activities make a Palestinian national subjectivity viable in the context of their progressive integration into Jordan. In this sense, it is important to recognise the importance of activities and spaces of everyday and apparently idle sociality to the

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fashioning of political views and subjectivities, and to show how the political merges with other discussions and feeds into them. In urban West Bengal, Dipesh Chakrabarty8 dwells on the importance of male social exchange in culturally defined spaces (addas) for the fashioning of masculine conviviality and political consciousness. Beauty salons, game rooms, street corners, coffee stalls, or the roofs of the kashashin are comparable contexts in al-Wihdat. Here, discussion topics are not clearly defined. Sex and morality provide the background for political analysis, climate change blends into the most extreme conspiracy theories, and ethnic discrimination often serves as a complement to business talk. Far from being simply a beauty salon for men, ‘The Best’,9 the barber shop of an acquaintance of mine at the northern periphery of the camp, was to its habitue´s essentially a space where they could forge a sense of communality. The frequent use of humour, horseplay and biting jokes was instrumental in reinforcing interpersonal association among young men from the camp.10 Spirited mischief and horseplay punctuated their talks and unveiled the hardships of being ‘from the camp’ in Jordan. Abu Said, the manager and owner, generated much laughter among his friends by pointing out a friend and claiming ‘he is the best drinker in the camp. He can drink one litre and half of Cognac [. . .].’ Turning then his attention to another boy who was sitting just beside him: ‘instead, he is the best when it comes to eat hubbub [psychotropic drugs]. You see, we [awlad almukhayyam ] are very good in that, we have lot of time to do practice!’ Also ‘sex’ was an open topic of discussion. Among groups of lads gathered together in the barber shop, conversations turned several times to reminiscences of past intercourse and other ‘sexual’ issues. Here, sometimes, hyper-masculine patterns of behaviour blend in with homoerotic appreciations of male beauty; much attention is given to each other’s appearance, with physical contact such as caresses, cuddles or massage, not being unusual. As talking about and performing the ‘illicit’ was permissible and quite common within the relatively secure circle of friends, these discussions operated in the sense of Herzfeld’s notion of ‘cultural intimacy’ – ‘the recognition of those aspects of a cultural identity

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that are considered a source of external embarrassment but that nevertheless provide insiders with their assurance of common sociality’.11 These moments of sociality are very important in alWihdat. In spaces like ‘The Best’, shabab craft a sense of intimate solidarity, strengthened also by common experiences of discrimination in Jordan (Figures 5.1– 5.2).

Excessive loitering Young men’s free time, however, should not be romanticised as a moment of camp dwellers’ boundless conviviality. If these activities generate a sense of intimacy among peers, they also contribute to dividing the camp community along moral fractures. Having fun is also a source of debate, discussion and even moral condemnation. In al-Wihdat, camp dwellers make a distinction between different forms of pastimes by opposing the figure of the ‘good (moral) person’

Figure 5.1

Football field in the Nadi al-Wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 5.2

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Coffee shops (source: Jihad Nijem)

(muhtaram) having fun against the image of the ‘useless loafer’ (dawawin) engaged in excessive and immoral loitering.12 Such a distinction depends not merely on the type of activity performed or the location where this takes place. The time dedicated to performing it is also crucial to set the two groups apart. Loitering requires a careful balance;13 if not judiciously managed, excess loitering (daiyya’ el-waget, literally ‘wasting time’) might turn a person into being an az’ar (good-for-nothing/thug): someone who idles away his time doing nothing (yatasak’a), a feature of being dawawin. The shabab and volunteers of the barnamaj al-aytam, for example, saw a clear difference between their ‘moral’ ways of having fun and those of the dawawin of the Mahall. A dilapidated room with a few benches, a handful of PlayStations and as many TV screens, the Mahall was a game room in Liddawi Street whose aficionados depicted themselves and were depicted as being dawawin. Located in an area of the camp notoriously known to be one of the epicentres of

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trouble and street violence, the Mahall was to the dawawin of the neighbourhood as the Markez was to the shabab of the barnamaj. In this sense, we might imagine the Mahall and the Markez to be respectively inhabited by antithetical typologies of youth. This vision is backed up by the types of activities the youths were engaged with. In the Markez, the shabab of the barnamaj al-aytam got together to spend some quality time watching television, playing cards or alternatively discussing the schedule and the problems of the programme. When doing so, bad words and certain idiomatic expressions were usually avoided in favour of an orientation toward modesty and obedience. On the other hand, the atmosphere was different in the Mahall. Cursing and swearing against the other’s sisters and mothers were much more common. Sex, drugs and alcohol were topics of discussion that were generally condemned among the shabab of the barnamaj but were unabashedly spoken of, and presumably used, with a greater frequency in the Mahall. While many of the shabab of the Markez believed that the Mahall, the dawawin, and their activities were immoral, in fact there was no clear division between those who criticised and those who engaged in such forms of sociality. As I have shown in the previous two chapters, a closer glimpse of those young men who were more self-defined as pious reveals that their commitment does not prevent them from engaging in a number of time-off activities that are allegedly unfitting for their piety. Non-gambling card games (shadda), for example, are an almost ever-present feature of life in the camp. Although – I have been assured – there are no specific indications in the Qur’an that forbid these activities, some people believe that such games distract men from more godly activities such as praying or listening to audio sermons. In spite of such anti-card game arguments, however, most camp dwellers find playing shadda very amusing and not at all in contradiction with Islamic moral standards. The game is halal (religiously allowed) in so far as it does not preclude the fulfilment of Muslim duties such as the salat. As a friend very simply put it, ‘there is no problem [mush mushkile ], you pray, and afterwards you can play!’ Conversely, if shadda is permissible, the settings where these games were played commanded

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little approbation among pious-minded people in al-Wihdat. Pool rooms and game rooms are such places: especially popular among youths and young men, the clientele that they attract is said to be made up mostly by dawawin. People like my friends found themselves torn between the desire to play these games and the importance of maintaining a good reputation. This moral impasse, however, was often settled by simply choosing a place outside the camp and reducing the number of visits. In this sense, loitering is not antithetical to a shared moral register. The nexus between morality and fun is rather contextually renegotiated by my informants through an active process of critical thinking. In other words, despite the significance of Islam in people’s lives, people in al-Wihdat reinterpret the call to soberness and austerity promoted by more ‘orthodox’ readings of Islamic and Muslim tradition, making it more flexible.14 Many in the camp – including those with the appellative of shaykh – have an unabashed fondness for watching and playing football, and alternate listening to the Islamic sermons of well-known preachers with listening to popular Lebanese and Egyptian pop stars; most importantly, they do not find any contradiction in doing so. One day, for example, Abu Omar recounted to me a conversation he had had a short time earlier with a clerk employed in a fish shop located in the northern outskirts of the camp. The man, an Egyptian in his early 30s, wanted to become a shaykh. Abu Omar was often approached by people on issues of piety because of his principled conduct, and so advised the Egyptian to simply follow the Qur’an. The clerk, however, was concerned that such a change would turn him into someone like his uncle, a shaykh, but also a sad (muhazin) and angry (za’lan) person who condemned any form of fun. Abu Omar sardonically commented that he did not see the point in being like that: ‘if you are shaykh, you can still watch a film and play football!’ A complex imbrication of time and morality sets the boundary between passing time and wasting time. This is well exemplified, for example, by the bad reputation of ‘pigeon trainers’ (kashashin) in the camp. Training homing pigeons (kash) is an unemployed man’s pastime in al-Wihdat. The kashashin dedicate much time to their

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hobby: feeding and grooming their birds, separating those that are sick, or just observing them flying in circles. Muneer – a young man in his early 20s – confirmed to me that: ‘most of kashashin do not work, you need to spend lot of time looking after hamamat (pigeons). But it is also good because this fills your day if you are unemployed and you hang around the whole day doing nothing.’ His words had to sound particularly true to me during the many afternoons I spent with him sipping tea on the roof of his house and looking passively at his 40-pigeon flock flying in wide circles and pecking at corn grains on the roof. However, keeping homing pigeons is not simply an amusing hobby; it is also a profitable activity. Kash also implies snatching pigeons from others’ flocks. A kashash goes for diverse hunting strategies to seize the greatest number of quarries. In a fruitful day he can catch up to three birds, equivalent to 20 – 30 JOD and even more. One of the strategies employed is to use the flock to attract pigeons mislaid from other flocks that wander through the sky or wait lazily on the roofs. In this sense, being a kashash involves risks and a certain expertise that, according to my friends, would jar with the qualities and skills ascribed to a zealous Muslim. For this reason, kashashin did not command much approbation in or outside the camp. For those who saw it as a filthy hobby, however, the immorality of the game lies not simply in the fact that its performance implies snatching others’ doves. A crucial dimension is the time wasted. As a friend once put it, ‘I like hamamat but I don’t like kashashin because if you are a kashashin you are a thief (arami) and a good for nothing (az’ar) who wastes his time (yatasak’a) rather than working or praying.’ There is hence a distinction, introduced by counterpoising the idea of pious shabab spending their free time against an image of immoral and idle dawawin engaged in excessive and immoral loitering. What is relevant here is that such debates have important repercussions on the way refugees conceptualise their own political subjectivity. Whereas the former behaviour is the epitome of the good Palestinian, the latter is the embodiment of immorality and the enduring political plight of Palestinians. The result of the indolence and immoral behaviour of lazy people is clear and plain for everybody

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to see in the decadence of present times: entire families lacking a fatherly example and stable financial support; children and adolescents devoid of proper guidance, wasting their time running across the streets of the camp; shabab, lying on the sofa of barbers’ shops or idling on footpaths, engaging in immoral activities such as cursing, smoking, watching pornography and drinking alcohol. In what follows, I focus on two apparently incompatible events: political commemorations and football matches.

‘Apolitical’ nationalist celebrations and commemorations Ceremonies such as weddings and funerals, exhibitions, stories, songs, pictures, and also religious symbols such as the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa contribute to transmitting the memory of Palestine and keeping it alive. The iconic role of these objects of memory has been crucial even in the fiction and poetry of Palestinian artists such as Ghassan Kanafani and Mahmoud Darwish. A heterogeneous and large body of scholarship has abundantly investigated how strategies of cohesion and resistance are articulated through commemorative narratives.15 Scholars have also shed light on how, far from being merely acts of nostalgia, pro-Palestinian celebrations and commemorations are paramount to forging a sense of nationhood among Palestinians.16 Situating narratives at the core of commemorative practices, Laleh Khalili argues ‘that every commemoration, whether it is a ceremony, a monument, a mural, or commemorative naming, explicitly or implicitly contains a story’.17 In al-Wihdat too, these ceremonies are vehicles for the transmission of nationalistic narratives. But at the same time, the participants in these events do not unthinkingly endorse the ideological and political rhetoric channelled through these events. A great deal of criticism is often expressed not only after or before but even during the various kinds of commemorations held annually in the camp, such as those commemorating the Nakba Day (yawm al-nakba) or the Naksa Day (yawm al-naksa). I have often heard my friends ridiculing the speeches, as well as the poses assumed by the speakers at these events. They were not sympathetic to the reasons and motives behind

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the participation of people in such events who created a distance between themselves and the jumhur (crowd) and whose involvement, they believed, was not motivated by a true interest in political issues, but, rather, to immoral reasons, such as flirting with girls or just ‘hanging out’. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that refugees, who are extremely critical of the efficacy of these commemorations, are completely indifferent to the ideological values that these ceremonies commanded. I have never met anybody who did not praise these ceremonies as an occasion for celebrating a common story and cause. Most importantly, despite the harsh criticism expressed by many of the participants in these types of events, they remain rather popular among the shabab of the camp. The commemorations of the Nakba and the Naksa as well as other events for Palestine that I attended were unique moments of fun and distraction. In his brilliant work on the capacity of the modern state to enforce social cohesion, Alexei Yurchak shows how in the Soviet Union, the routinisation of rituals has led to acceptance of the form but not necessarily of its contents. People might, therefore, attend such events first and foremost because these rituals enable possibilities: to belong to a group, to do a job and, in al-Wihdat, to have fun or simply escape boredom. In such a context, the reasons for participating may be less important than simply the act of doing it. As Yurchak writes, ‘the successful achievement of the result [. . .] does not necessarily depend on what one’s opinion [. . .] is or even whether one has an opinion at all’.18 The repetitiveness of these commemorative ceremonies in the camp contributes to strengthening a sense of community. The re-enactment of certain stories and histories, the instantiation of semiotically rich ritual elements, such as dancing dabke (a Palestinian traditional dance), the performances of Palestinian folk musicians, and the incessant displays of Palestinian symbols (flags, scarves, maps) reinforce allegiance to an imagined Palestinian community. Most of all, these ceremonies – held in the Nadi, located at the centre of the camp – reinforce among camp dwellers the belief that they, more than anybody else, embody Palestinian steadfastness (sumud) and commitment to return.

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The annual commemoration of al-Nakba I attended in 2010 during my fieldwork in the Nadi al-Wihdat was such a ceremony. That day – 15 May – had been planned long before. Despite the fact that at the beginning of the event rumours seemed to confirm the government’s refusal to grant permission to commemorate the Nakba in al-Wihdat, the Committee for Culture (lejne al-thaqafe) of the Nadi al-Wihdat eventually held a memorial in the big atrium of the club. These kinds of events are usually quite standardised and contain many ritual elements: the recital of a sura of the Qur’an, the hail to the King, the speeches of the invited speakers, and performances by Palestinian folk musicians. The visual realm is always characterised by the abundant display of Palestinian and Jordanian flags and drapes, and the ever-present face of the King. That day, men and women of different ages crowded the meeting room of the Nadi for the anniversary of the Nakba. Although separate seating for women and men was not strictly enforced, the former occupied the left side of the atrium, leaving the right side, which occupied two-thirds of the room, to men, some sitting, most standing. Meanwhile, a conspicuous group of police officers were patrolling both the entrance to the Nadi and its main hall. In the left corner of the hall, friends pointed out to me a bunch of people, mukhabarat (secret service) officers, I was told, who were very busy jotting down notes and taking photographs. Journalists, photographers and cameramen added to the crowd in the room. People sat in a semi-circle around the podium that was set up for the vocal performances of the speakers. At the back of the stage, two big flags – one Palestinian and one Jordanian – represented the solidarity of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan with the hardships endured by the people of Palestine. However, a giant poster of the King in the middle of the two flags suggested who the ultimate patron of the commemoration was. A few posters and flyers of the event were scattered on the wall and the floor of the Nadi; some banners waved by the spectators completed the scene. As anticipated, the event started with the salute to the King and the reading from the Qur’an. After that, it continued with speeches

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given by seven speakers. The men – two Jordanians and five Palestinian-Jordanians – loudly evinced their support for the Palestinian cause and the suffering of its people. As often happens in these kinds of discourse, victims and martyrs were invoked by the speakers to make their speeches more effective. One speaker in particular made an explicit reference to other contexts, such as Algeria, where a much smaller number of martyrs led people to a revolution (thawra). The orator asked the spectators how many victims Palestinians would need to do the same. Saddam Hussein was also mentioned as a victim and symbol of resistance against imperialism. At the end, medals were distributed to the speakers. I cannot say whether it was vanity – as my friends maliciously suggested – or a sense of duty that inspired the vocal performances of the old guards of the Palestinian resistance. What certainly did push many shabab to attend the event was boredom: the conference was a pleasant distraction from the daily routine in the camp. A generalised feeling of boredom saturated the room. Many yawned, other looked around listlessly. A friend whispered in my ear that he had better things to do than wasting his time listening to the raving of the speakers and was there only for the closing party (hafle). Indeed, things began to change only when the speakers brought to a close what to the ears of my friends sounded like ‘empty words’ (haki fadi). Shortly afterwards, a documentary was screened. As was the case with many others I had watched, images of devastation, grief and misery unfailingly followed actions of urban guerrilla warfare, steadfastness and rebellion. The shabab seemed satisfied with the documentary. Hisham, a young man originally from Gaza, explained to me that references to the martyrs and heroes of Palestine made him feel ‘proud of being Palestinian’. The conference eventually turned into a sort of live concert as a well-known Palestinian singer and his band, wearing traditional dress, began playing nationalistic songs. Despite the great efforts of the speakers, once again the singers were met with greater approval by those gathered. No longer bored, the crowd looked jubilant at listening to the music. Bursts of applause and joy accompanied the musical performance. Many other people, mostly shabab, also entered

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the Nadi attracted by the music and noise audible from outside. Photographers and cameramen bustled around with the intention of recording and framing moments from the event. The public now participated with visible enthusiasm. The commemoration, however, prompted different responses. While Hisham and his friends described the day to me as ‘helue ktire’ (really nice), others were instead very critical of the nature of this commemoration. According to the latter group, it should have been more a moment of remembering and mourning rather than a mere party for amusing youths. Their scepticism addressed not only the nature of the day’s event, but also the real intention of the speakers: ‘they speak, so they feel important!’ The motivations that inspired most of the shabab and young men to attend were also called into question: ‘al-shabab here do not care about the commemoration, they just come to chase girls [yimshi wara’ al-banat]’. As a friend put it, ‘I am here just because there is nothing else to do today [ fish shi’ thani al- yawm]’. The commemoration of the Nakba thus draws attention to the kinds of emotional involvement that participating in this and other similar events involved. Fascination with patriotism is one reason why such ceremonies continued to enjoy considerable success in alWihdat. Yet there is more to people’s decisions to attend such events than formal commitment to Palestinian nationalism alone. The annual commemoration of the Nakba just mentioned above demonstrates how these events also provide camp dwellers with a whole set of different options – such as flirting with girls, listening to music, or even the pleasure of backbiting about the speakers. Likewise, a diverse mixture of emotional states ultimately motivates people to attend these ceremonies. Whether this is fun, boredom or irritation makes little difference. What is important here is, rather, that indifference is not as common a feeling as might have been expected, based on what refugees say about their discomfort toward politics and political elites. Indeed, as we have seen, despite their criticism against speakers’ political rhetoric and staid opinions, my friends ultimately attended the commemoration. Seeing people’s participation in ceremonies solely through the lens of their passive

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acceptance of or resistance to an event’s political contents would not explain the contradictory fact that many people in al-Wihdat are able to both criticise and enjoy these gatherings. In other words, these commemorations are, for many, an irresistible occasion to have fun or, at least, escape boredom. By enjoying the company of friends, the presence of girls, and good music, refugees infuse the political contents of the celebrations with transgression and fun. But, however ‘profane’ and apolitical the reason for attending the celebrations may be, refugees do not fail to engender Palestinian nationalism at these events. Quite the contrary: participating in these rituals produces among them a feeling of togetherness and shared intimacy as Palestinians that would have been impossible without turning a boring and highly standardised political ritual into an opportunity for transgressive forms of behaviour.19

Fun, football and Palestinian nationalism ‘Shu bitshaja’a (Which team do you support)?’ was the question I was asked most frequently during my fieldwork. Indeed, some of my most enduring memories of fieldwork in al-Wihdat refugee camp are the several evenings I spent watching football matches in the company of my friends. If political parties, groups and activism seem to have little appeal for my companions, football, on the other hand, takes on particular significance in their lives. The ubiquity of football in the camp is evident: played in the UNRWA school yards or in any other clearings that served the purpose, watched on television, and evoked by the logos and official colours of popular teams – such as Barcelona or Real Madrid – on the t-shirts and tracksuits that refugees wear daily. Remarkably, whereas adolescents and young men attend political demonstrations and events as amusing diversions from the tedium of daily life, leisure activities such as football at times take on distinct forms of political significance. People often draw a link between politics and football. For example, many saw the World Cup as a time for payback against colonisers and imperialist countries. The Algeria – England match played in the preliminary round of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in July

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of 2010 is a case in point: virtually everybody I met in the camp supported Algeria for the above-mentioned reason. As a friend once told me, ‘I used to support Brazil and Argentina [. . .] now I support whoever is against the colonisers [musta’mirin]’. However, political sympathies for football teams extend well beyond the simple colonised/coloniser dichotomy. Abu Omar, for example, once explained to me why he supported the Italian football team despite its disastrous performance during one of the previous World Cup tournaments: ‘You asked me why? Here is the reason’, he said, pointing at a picture on his laptop that displayed a crowd of Italian fans in a stadium who were waving Palestinian flags and placards with slogans supporting the resistance in Gaza. ‘You see the posters? When Italians won the World Cup in 1982, they dedicated it to us!’ But football is connected to the Palestinian national struggle not only through the imputed political sentiments of international teams: the camps also have their own teams, and some of them have important places in Jordan’s national culture. This is most evident when the Wihdat football team ( fariq al-wihdat) – a sports club founded in 1956 in the Nadi al-Wihdat – plays against its historical rival, the Faisaly football team ( fariq al-faisali). When this happens, there is little room for ambiguity in the minds of the people in the camp: football is politics. One day I had to find out the relevance of all this. One sunny evening in early April, I – along with a few friends from the camp – went to the football stadium in Amman where the Wihdat team played the majority of its home matches. King Abdullah II Stadium was located within walking distance of al-Wihdat camp in the nearby neighbourhood of Qwesmeh. The proximity of the stadium along with the wide clearing that encircles it provides the shabab of al-Wihdat and the surrounding areas with a suitable place for playing football. That day, however, the riot police were patrolling. The deployment of security forces was noticeable, and a thick cordon of officers stood along the entire perimeter of the football field. The Wihdat football team was playing and, as always, the authorities expected unrest. Clashes between supporter groups and the police are indeed likely to erupt at such games, especially

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when the team plays against the Faisaly team. In 2010, for example, more than 250 fans were injured during a match between the two clubs. The fierce rivalry between the two teams (i.e. al-Wihdat and al-Faisaly) is not only motivated by the fact that they are the strongest football clubs in Jordan, which end up contending for the local championship every year. There is something else. Whereas al-Wihdat has over time become an important symbol of identification for Palestinian refugees in and outside of Jordan, al-Faisaly is a club typically associated with Jordanians of East Bank origin and loyalty to the regime. When the two teams played against one another, I often heard people repeating that ’adi siyase mish mubara ‘adie’ (this is politics, not a normal football match). On the other hand, most of the fans at other ‘home’ games are Palestinians from al-Wihdat, and only a few police officers would patrol the stadium. But that day there was much more at stake than usual: al-Wihdat was just one victory away from winning the Cup of Jordan. Al-Wihdat eventually won that game. In small groups, people flooded into the streets of the camp chanting slogans and singing songs while waving Palestinian flags and football scarves. Having watched the match at the stadium, I decided to join the crowd in the streets of the camp. Important al-Wihdat victories are always moments of shared joy and collective participation. That day, however, the enthusiasm and joy that accompanied this spontaneous gathering was greater than anything I had seen since living in the camp. In terms of the number of people involved, other events such as the sporadic political demonstrations or the annual commemoration of the Nakba were insignificant. The streets were filled with people jumping and dancing, and traffic flow – in and of itself always problematic in the narrow alleys of al-Wihdat – was completely blocked. Whereas men and shabab (young men) took active part in the commemorations, women, children and older people watched the parade enthusiastically from the balconies and windows of their homes or standing on the sidewalks. In the important arterial roads of Sumayya Street and Madaba Street, the sound of the drums accompanied the explosion of firecrackers and fireworks. The Wihdat football anthem was played loudly from stands and small shops.

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The spontaneity of these celebrations was also indicated by the complete lack of organisation. Separate groups of people – which, in the dim lighting of the outer areas of the camp, looked like just darker spots – met in the street and started the celebration. Shabab spasmodically waved flags and al-Wihdat football scarves, occasionally using aerosol sprays as flamethrowers. As a mark of the strong bond that united the Wihdat football club with camp dwellers, soon after the trophy presentation in the stadium, the cup was brought into the camp and excitedly displayed by a group of people who were presumably standing on a car. The vehicle – not visible because of the number of bodies on and around it – was parading around al-Nadi Street. In the space of a few minutes, thousands, mostly adolescents and young men, overflowed Madaba Street and the streets around it. Blocking traffic flow, many hailed the victory by chanting slogans such as ‘God, Jerusalem and the Arabs’ or ‘We are from al-Wihdat, we are the children of Palestine.’ These clusters of people eventually joined one another, merging into a larger mass. Moving back and forth in Nadi Street between the souk and Madaba Street (where a main police station was located), the gathering attracted more people, growing rapidly in size. Nobody led the crowd. Occasionally, leaders appeared, stirred up the crowd, and then disappeared. But then the ‘mood’ of the crowd changed quickly. The joy about the success of the Wihdat team was replaced by songs and chants against Faisaly and the royal family, and the jubilation turned to turmoil. New slogans were replacing the old ones – such as ‘kuss ukht al-hukuma’ (fuck the government) and ‘faysalawi manayik’ (Faisaly supporters are faggots). Insults were also launched at the police officers who were zealously watching the celebration, perched on the observation balconies that were located on top of the towering police station. Some people also began to set off fireworks close to – or even in the direction of – the police station. Immediately after the first fireworks were set off, the darak (gendarmerie) arrived at the scene dressed in full riot gear. It did not take long for the police, then, to intervene with batons and tear gas. They were, according to my friends, only waiting for a pretext of one kind or another to scatter the

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crowd. Moving back from the epicentre of the clashes/celebration, we came across groups of shabab running away. Poor street lighting in al-Wihdat further raised fears and tensions. Indeed, a few hours earlier, a friend of mine had commented that a temporary blackout in the camp was the direct result of regime machinations: ‘It’s the government! They are doing it because of the match.’ The main road that provides access to al-Wihdat from Madaba Street was now blocked by temporary check points. A friend commented, his voice shaking with excitement: ‘It seems like we’re in Afghanistan!’ Apparently, people in the camp were much more likely to incur the wrath of the authorities for football matches that turned into collective protests against the regime, than for political demonstrations. However, how can we explain the fact that people who manifested and expressed their profound distaste for politics were still keen to use football as a political arena? The whole episode may induce some observers to conclude that political life among refugees is framed in terms of a radical antagonism between Jordanians of Palestinian origin and ‘native Jordanians’, and that people in al-Wihdat make instrumental use of football to channel their political struggles. There is nothing special about the political significance of football.20 In Jordan, the political dimension of the matches between al-Wihdat and al-Faisaly has been the subject of a research study,21 a plethora of newspaper articles,22 and even WikiLeaks cables.23 The problem with these accounts is that while they have the merit of exploring how football channels political tensions, they look at football primarily for ‘its expressive and instrumental role in the reproduction of [Palestinian] nationalism’.24 I instead urge that we once again look at the ludic dimension of football in order to grasp the complexities of camp dwellers’ political identities. The intention here is not to downplay the obvious political dimension of al-Wihdat Football Club, which became one of the symbols of Palestinian nationalism in Jordan after the crushing of guerrilla fighters during Black September in 1970. However, I believe that if we are to understand refugees’ daily lives in Jordan, we should look at football for its ludic dimension rather than

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for its capacity to act merely as a political medium. Focusing on this multi-dimensional aspect can enhance our understanding of how fun and football enabled camp dwellers to navigate the ambiguities of their lives. Al-Wihdat’s football matches generate a generalised enthusiasm in the camp, and my friends list important victories by their local team among the most cherished moments of their lives. Of course, the dynamics of friend/enemy identification that defines the agonistic world of politics are also played out during football matches: this is most evident when al-Wihdat plays against al-Faisaly. The fun and ludic dimensions of watching their ‘local’ team allows refugees to reproduce the ideal and ethical values of Palestinian nationalism by fashioning a shared feeling of belonging to the same community. But the line between fun and political violence is a thin one.25 They begin by experiencing the celebration of victory as a form of leisure, humour and irreverence, which gives them a sense of power, amplified by the self-awareness that being together inspires. Aroused by the noisy sound of drums at the stadium, audible even from the south-eastern outskirts of the camp, al-Wihdat’s fans often accompany the performance of their team with mocking and sarcastic songs. On these occasions, for example, a common slogan that the crowd shout to encourage al-Wihdat features the substitution of malik (king) with ‘al-Wihdat’ as a term of reference in what was originally a nationalistic, pro-Hashemite slogan: ‘bir-roh bid-dam nafdika ya malik/al-Wihdat’ (by soul and by blood we support the King/Wihdat). Soon, however, the transgressive crossing of the boundary between the licit and illicit grows in boldness. When the shabab start criticising the King and the authorities, it becomes evident that the euphoria and joy about the victory of al-Wihdat has taken a dangerous and yet thrilling turn. The fierce rivalry between al-Wihdat and al-Faisaly turns into political criticism and unrest, and then into a sort of urban guerrilla fighting. The thrill and excitement wipe out political nuances; ethnic boundaries get sharpened. This process of identification reaches such an extent that when al-Wihdat lost an important match and consequently the championship, many were embittered and remarked to me: ‘They took Palestine, then al-Aqsa, and now al-Wihdat.’

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For camp dwellers, however, allegiance to Palestinian nationalist ideals during football matches is more than a political discourse of foe and friend. It is because of its ludic and non-serious dimension that football can contain and mitigate the divisive forces of the political. Fun enables a flexibility that a formal domain of politics would not permit – being regarded as intrinsically political, the latter does not allow people to switch from one identity to another: the dynamic of friend/enemy is stronger here, the categorisation inescapable. The self-contradictory ambiguity of being both Palestinian refugees and Jordanian citizens is of little importance to my friends when al-Wihdat played. If supporting al-Wihdat means anything at all, it is the desire for transgression, the feeling of togetherness, and the euphoric atmosphere that its supporters experience when the team plays. This makes it possible to support al-Wihdat as a symbol of Palestinian identification, despise al-Faisaly as the antagonist team that represents the regime, and yet feel comfortable with being genuinely Jordanian citizens at the same time. For example, one day a friend told me that a man, disguised as a Wihdat fan but suspected of being a Faisaly supporter, managed to access the online forum of the al-Wihdat football team – informally called al-mouq’e (the site). Apparently, the man posted insults, threats and other obscenities on the forum based on the alleged ethnic origin of the team and its supporters. The event left my informant quite puzzled, which commented on the foolishness of the episode: ‘We are all Jordanian [. . .] I do not see what Palestine and Palestinians have to do with the Wihdat team. Why would you insult Palestinians if you don’t like the team? Insult the team, if you really have to!’ The irreverent nature of these events points to yet another dimension of fun: its creative capacity.26 Against the backdrop of the disastrous political situation in the Occupied Territories and the discrimination faced in host countries, fun does not simply make it possible for camp dwellers to infuse new life into Palestinian nationalism and to use it to counterbalance their shared experience of loss and marginalisation in Jordan. More than that, the creative power of fun enables youths in the camp to give new meaning to the

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notion of ‘Palestinianness’, and a new way to pledge their allegiance to Palestinian nationalism, one more suited to their lives in Jordan. Not surprisingly, the fun experienced during football matches in effect not only sets camp dwellers apart from the so-called native Jordanians; at times it also serves to unify the population of Jordan. The support for the Jordanian football team is a case in point. Most of my friends have an ambivalent attitude toward this team. Some are genuine supporters because Jordan is their country as well as the country of their fathers. Others instead denounce the abuse and the discrimination that they have undergone as ‘second-class citizens’, and complain about the normalisation of relationships with Israel as reasons why they would never support Jordan. However, as a large number of the players of the Jordanian team are PalestinianJordanians who also play for the beloved al-Wihdat team, so the victory of the national team seldom leaves my friends in al-Wihdat unmoved. For example, when Jordan seized an important victory against the Syrian national team in the Arab football championship

Figure 5.3

Fariq al-wihdat (source: Jihad Nijem)

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of 1997, the success eventually triggered a wave of enthusiasm on the streets of the capital as well as in al-Wihdat that was universally hailed as a sign of Palestinian–Jordanian common national identity. At the end of the game, which most of the people of Jordan watched on satellite television at home or in cafes, thousands of people and cars crowded the streets of Jordan’s cities and towns, especially Amman, where cars stopped in the middle of the streets and young men and women danced, bringing traffic to a complete halt for hours. King Husayn chartered a plane to bring the players home from Beirut. Upon arrival, the team toured Amman’s streets in a massive convoy with supporters (men and women) lining all of Amman’s major thoroughfares. Many Jordanian news columnists saw this as a sign of Palestinian– Jordanian unity under one Jordanian identity.27 In this sense, what football ultimately shows is the difficulty of containing the political, which tends to exceed its institutional formats and infiltrate other areas of camp dwellers’ lives. But it is also illustrative of the capacity of ordinary dimensions of everyday life to

Figure 5.4

Al-Wihdat fans (source: Jihad Nijem)

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Figure 5.5

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Al-Faisaly fans waving Jordanian hatta (source: Jihad Nijem)

limit, if not block, the disturbing dialectic of enemy/friend that otherwise could have disastrous consequences (Figures 5.3– 5.5).

Conclusion In al-Wihdat, camp dwellers have actively sought an escape from boredom and the overwhelming presence of the political by becoming engaged in a range of activities. Political commemorations become occasions of fun; football matches turn into political unrest. Camp dwellers do this for fun, as a playful alternative to the boredom experienced daily in the camp, and as a reaction to the condition of being ‘fed up’ of politics and political parties. The momentary suspension of the political creates new spaces of agency that allow refugees to accommodate their need to live an ordinary life as Jordanian citizens with their ‘extraordinary’ existence as living symbols of Palestinian nationalism. We have already seen how refugees have sought to accomplish this goal through the pursuit of social and economic integration (Chapters 1 and 2) as well as through the performance of a moral and masculine self (Chapters 3 and 4). Likewise, to relieve their existence from boredom, and hence

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overexposure to the political, refugees turn to the non-political grammar of loitering. Engagement in these activities, however, is not a way for refugees to neglect their nationalistic ideals,28 but rather a mode through which they readapt these to the concurrent and powerful need to live an ordinary life. By making a nationalist commemoration an irresistible opportunity to meet girls and listen to live music or simply escape boredom, and turning a fun event such as a football match into a political demonstration, my friends infused Palestinian nationalism with ordinariness: doing so injected it with vitality and adapted it to the protracted temporariness or fragile ordinariness of being both refugees and citizens in Jordan. Is refugees’ engagement with these activities entirely political? I would urge that we refrain from seeing them as such, as this would run the risk of removing the very thing that enables the political: the non-political.29 It is the very dialectic between these two dimensions that allows the adaptation of Palestinian nationalist discourse and the imperative of resistance to the exigencies of living a normal life. For example, the ritualism of watching football together, hanging around on the streets of the camp, or attending nationalist commemorations, contribute to effectively strengthening a sense of intimacy and, in so doing, the ideal values of political unity. Allegiance to national symbols and identity is often re-enacted in the course of these activities. But ‘loitering’ cannot be framed in functionalist terms as a social ritual that serves to reinscribe the subject with nationalist values. Neither are these activities, in line with the tradition of resistance studies, a space where the hegemony of Palestinian nationalism is challenged and resisted. While the centrality of Palestine is never called into question, the politics of ‘loitering’ never fully subscribes to nationalist ideals. These activities are an expression of the redundant and fundamentally boring nature of the political in the camp, and the fun generated by them is the reflection of camp dwellers’ wish to carry out a normal life. At the same time, however, the fun and ludic dimensions of time-off activities enables camp dwellers to reinterpret and reproduce the ideal and ethical values of Palestinian nationalism in a new way that is more suited to their need to live a normal life – that is, outside the imperative of active militancy.

CONCLUSION

Despite the escalation of protests that led many demonstrators to demand the abdication of King Abdullah II and the end of the Hashemite rule in the winters of 2012 and 2013, the Arab Spring in Jordan has failed to produce the massive political upheaval seen elsewhere in the region. Along with Jordan’s fragmented political field and the security forces’ deftness, commentators and scholars hold the political disengagement of the largely Palestinian population of East Amman and central Irbid mostly accountable for the split of the protest into a number of isolated demonstrations. This is arguably true, and it certainly accounts for a great deal of the outcome. In this book, I have argued about the importance for camp dwellers in al-Wihdat of living an ordinary and non-political life, to limit, control and hold back from the upsetting dynamics of the agonistic world of the political. Of course, it is hard to foresee whether a greater political involvement of Palestinian refugees can challenge the discriminatory politics of the government and their progressive marginalisation or, in contrast, generate further negative reactions from Jordanian nationalists and oppression by the state security apparatus. An answer of this kind goes beyond the scope of this book. The present study has instead sought to address how camp dwellers deal with the complexities associated with their ambiguous status in Jordan. In doing so, the story that this book tells is based on

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the lives of a relatively small group of boys and young men. The reader is left to wonder whether and how this sample group is representative of the larger population of Palestinians in Jordan, which enjoy a wide diversity of lifestyles. However, what is important here is that their example offers an invitation to reject political participation as something intrinsically positive and desirable. Jordanian and Palestinian as opposed collectivities are not self-contained groups whose divisions the political process can somehow manage and heal. Quite the contrary: they are in many instances the consequence of the working of the political.1

On fear and boredom: a brief digression into the political The political is a real source of anxiety in the camp. Political talks, for example, expose people to the danger of being overheard. The government takes any sort of criticism towards it seriously. Many people collaborated with the mukhabarat (the Arab secret service), I was told, and a vast network of secret agencies is believed to liaise with the local authorities – most notably the CIA and Mossad.2 In the camp, many stories circulate about people being stopped, questioned and occasionally detained for expressing their disapproval of the royal family. Not surprisingly, almost everybody avoids publicly expressing opinions about the King and his entourage. One day, for example, a friend started a long diatribe in his house whose main target was the government (hukuma) and the King (al-malik). There was nothing serious about it – or so it seemed to me – nothing that could have vaguely suggested seditious dispositions; there were ‘merely’ a number of insults and injuries addressed to the political leaders. But while one friend was expressing a point of view, another was anxiously gesturing to him to stop. I suspected that I was probably the problem. Besides my sincere friendship with them, I was a researcher and thus potentially a security leak. Determined to put an end to this, I decided – as a joke – to show them my passport. But as I was in the act of putting my hands in the inside pocket of my jacket to take the document, my friends froze with fear. Only the sight of my passport relieved them from the deep anxieties that what

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I was showing was neither a tape recorder nor some sort of badge. The whole episode brought to my mind that just a few months earlier I had heard, with a hint of bitterness and anger, certain rumours. Apparently, the father of one of my friends was firmly convinced I was a secret agent, a spy ( jasus), from the mukhabarat. The brief visit I paid to his house upon his invitation only seemed to confirm his suspicions. According to the old him my shaky Arabic was only an attempt to dissimulate my true intentions and secret plans. But not only did the old man not hesitate to express his suspicions, he even urged my friends to chase me out of the camp. Luckily, they reassured me that I should not pay too much attention to the ravings of old men as they did not reflect what they thought about me – ‘in truth, old people are always suspicious [ fil hagiga khitiarin da’iman mashkulin]’. Yet, that day, when I took out my passport, I could still clearly perceive their unease. Only after spending months together did my friends indulge in open political speculation in front of me. Yet, the spectre of being thought a spy taunted me for the whole period of my stay in al-Wihdat. And toward the very end of my fieldwork, just a few weeks before I was leaving, a man – an Egyptian who worked as a peddler in the market of the camp and to whom I had been introduced months earlier – approached me in the street. With extreme consideration, he warned me that I could have been killed because there were people who suspected me of being a Jewish spy: ‘people here think that any stranger works for the mukhabarat, Mossad, or CIA. When I came here they thought the same about me, and there is someone who still believes I am a spy!’ Luckily, nothing happened to me and, as I suspected, the man overestimated the risk of my opinionated friend. Yet these episodes remain relevant in showing the extent of this paranoia in al-Wihdat. However, it was not only fear but also boredom that the political inspired in the lives of my informants.3 After a few months of fieldwork in al-Wihdat, I finally managed to go to Lebanon on a trip that I had long been planning with a friend from the camp. My travelling companion, Ashraf, picked me up with a friend from my house in al-Wihdat. We took a service (public taxis) from Abdali – once Amman’s main bus station4 – to Beirut, via

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Damascus. We approached the city five hours later, where we planned to stay for a short, two-day trip. Our goal was to do some sightseeing and enjoy the nightlife that makes Beirut so popular among many youths in the Middle East. On my side, however, I also hoped that our short joint travel to Beirut could turn into a good occasion to observe my friend’s attitude and relationship to a city that has been of central importance to Palestinian political memory. Engraved in the streets and corners of Beirut there are still memories and physical reminders of the Palestinian history of suffering and nationalist struggles which are decipherable by interested eyes. As well as the ruins of Tal al-Za’tar and the still existing refugee camp of Shatila,5 stories and images of sorrow, devastation and heroism pervade the narratives of those who, like Palestinians, were protagonists of these events; they saturate their political imaginations. It did not take long for the right occasion to arise. Hanging around on the streets of downtown Beirut, we ended up in front of the historical headquarters of the Lebanese Phalange. A sturdy Phalangist6 approached us, questioning in a somewhat intimidating way what we were doing there. Reassured about our intentions, he left. I asked Ashraf whether he knew the man. ‘No, I don’t know him’, he replied. ‘He’s one of those who killed so many Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila’, I said. ‘Ah!’ he replied rather listlessly. Ashraf, like everybody else in the camp, knew about the stories of violence and sorrow that took place in the city of Beirut yet he did not seem to care greatly about it. On my part, I was rather disappointed by his answer: after all, Ashraf’s patriotism and loyalty to the Palestinian cause was one of my main reasons for travelling with him to Beirut. I was puzzled by the fact that Ashraf did not seem to care about a man who was obviously a member of a militia that had played a central role in one of the worst massacres to have taken place in Palestinian history. Even more puzzling was what was about to follow. After the incident, I proposed to him that we visit the Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut. Ashraf seemed a little surprised by my proposition and asked me why I thought we should do something like that. I told him that these were places important to the history of the Palestinian national struggle. No longer surprised but visibly annoyed by my admittedly

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rather unremitting insistence on talking about Palestinian issues, he cut me short: ‘Luigi, ehna zahganin min al-mukhayyamat [we are fed up of refugee camps]!’ I was taken aback by his response, for I had expected Ashraf to express feelings of pride, sorrow or even anger in relationship to the many symbols that stand prominently in the Palestinian nationalistic discourse in Beirut; but at that point in my fieldwork, I was not yet prepared to encounter ‘boredom’ among the normative feelings of Palestinian nationalism.7 During the rest of our time in Beirut, we went on sightseeing. Ashraf never approached the topic of politics again and neither did I. What these two vignettes ultimately show us is the complexities for camp dwellers of living an ‘ordinary life’ (haya ‘adiye). The real obsession with secrecy and treachery in the camp is indicative of the intrinsic fragility of this project. Mistaking the act of taking my passport as a potential threat exposed the exceptionality of their condition. The extraordinariness of refugees’ political status is always there, ready to emerge, and apt to jeopardise the prospects of an ordinary life. Likewise, when Ashraf reproached me for my continuous insistence on uncovering the political (ehna zahganin min al-mukhayyamat’), his was an invitation to cut short the exceptionality of his life as a Palestinian refugee and let him relax within the comfort of a life carried out in an apparently banal ordinariness – something my friend conceived of in terms of flirting with girls or simply walking around Beirut’s nightlife district. Boredom and fear are in large part the consequence of not being able to carry out an ‘ordinary life’. But the two anecdotes above tell us something more: boredom and fear are brought to light with even more intensity during refugees’ encounters with what they perceive to be the corrupted world of the political. If, in many anthropological accounts, the political serves as a vehicle through which such contradictions are co-opted or challenged,8 for the majority of camp dwellers it is instead an arena where these contradictions are more intensely experienced. More specifically, refugees interpret the political as the site in which the tension between competing acts of loyalty is most frequently re-enacted. In this sense, the findings of my research confirm Carl

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Schmitt’s specific understanding of the political as the locus of the distinction between enemy and friend.9 Asking Ashraf his opinion on refugee camps and political leaders tied to Palestinian history surely uncovered painful memories. But my insistence also operated in the sense of continuously reminding him to take a clear stance on his national identity. It sounded like: ‘Are you Palestinian, or not?! If so, behave as such and show more commitment.’ Ashraf’s answer was symptomatic of the fact that, at least at that moment, he did not want to take any categorical and exclusivist political position. These dynamics were even more evident during the first vignette. Indeed, if the political exacerbated the ambiguities of being Palestinian refugees in Jordan, these contradictions were then most intensely experienced by camp dwellers in al-Wihdat – a space endowed with ‘thick’ political meanings. For its history and reputation, the camp was intrinsically political. It was as though refugees were constantly forced to take a position either as Jordanian citizens or Palestinian refugees. The anxiety and uneasiness generated by this question took the form of a ubiquitous and chronic fear of treachery. The label of being a spy or a traitor can indiscriminately be stuck on anyone in fact; refugees from the camp are even more liable to fall into these categories than ‘outsiders’ such as myself. If the political requires a positioning either as Palestinian refugees or Jordanian citizens that camp dwellers are unwilling to take, a descent into the ordinary gives them hopes of transcending the absolute political incommensurability of ‘us’ versus ‘them’. Of course, this is not to say that refugees never act politically. The outbreak of violence at the aftermath of a football match is an example indicative of the intrinsic fragility of this project of accommodation and the pervasiveness of the political in their lives. The dialectic of friend versus foe is always there, ready to emerge, and apt to jeopardise the prospects of a reconciliation. Unlike Schmitt, however, refugees do not generally look at the political as an inescapable dimension of everyday life. The ordinary mitigates the oppositional rhetoric of the political and allows refugees to enact seemingly incompatible ethno-national identities concurrently, if not simultaneously. For these reasons, I have argued throughout this

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book that if we want to explore refugees’ agency, it is on the apparently ‘ordinary’ that we should focus – which is both what refugees do for a large part of the day and what they aspire to achieve. While exploring the interplay of the political and non-political may strike some observers as trivialising the nationalist struggles of the refugees, an investigation of this kind is important if we want to produce humanising accounts of the everyday lives of Palestinian refugees (and others living in similar circumstances).

On Palestinian refugees in Jordan A central concern of this study has also been to explore the political aspects of the everyday lives of the refugees living in al-Wihdat refugee camp in a manner that does not fall into the trap of treating them as one-dimensional political beings. This is important on different levels. First, this book contributes to Palestinian refugee studies. My account of political life in al-Wihdat differs in substantial ways from other treatments of the nature of political agency among Palestinian refugees. It remains too often assumed in popular accounts, and to a lesser extent also in scholarly work, that Palestinians are either irreducible, oppositional others, or passive victims emplaced in disciplinary spaces. I have shown the crucial and seemingly paradoxical fact that for a great number of Palestinian refugees in al-Wihdat, the fundamental values of Palestinian nationalism are of genuine importance, despite the fact that many of their everyday practices do not recoil from a progressive integration within the Kingdom of Jordan. Obviously, while Palestinian refugees have enjoyed full citizenship rights since they first came to Jordan, there remains the potential for friction. In the eyes of many camp dwellers, the causes of these unsettled tensions are often seen as the consequences of ethnic and social discrimination exerted by the authorities and the government. Refugees often lament a not-so-subtle favouritism for East Bankers exerted by the regime in the economic and social spheres, forms of harassment when dealing with the authorities, blocked upward political and economic mobility, and so on. This is a situation

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that has substantially deteriorated since the emergence and consolidation of that branch of Jordanian nationalism that considers Jordanian-Palestinians as unwelcomed guests. What I have found, however, is striking because it contradicts popular expectations on refugees’ failure to reach full integration in Jordan. Despite effective discrimination and lasting representations, most camp dwellers devote a great deal of their energies seeking to overcome discrimination and reach full integration in Jordan. In so doing, they actively seek to build social and economic relationships that extend far beyond the administrative borders of the camp. The material presented here is all the more interesting because the research on which this book is based was conducted in a refugee camp, a place that in the Agambanian and Foucauldian tradition is popularly depicted as a space where the state’s total control is most effective. This challenges the idea that Palestinian refugee camps might somehow fit into the dichotomy that has cast them either as spaces for passive victims or, conversely, as sites of radicalism and irreducible resistance. My focus on the place that the ordinary plays in the constitution of political subjectivity and agency allows a reconsideration of the space of the camp beyond overly determinist modes of analysis that would not adequately capture the complex and ambiguous nature of al-Wihdat. As I have showed throughout the book, refugees living in al-Wihdat have maintained a sense of connection with the camp, a distinct sense of cultural, and sometimes class, identity that sets them apart from Palestinians outside, people with whom they share material conditions of ethnic discrimination. At the same time, the process of reappropriation of the camp space has fostered the socio-economic integration of the camp in Amman. Historically, camp dwellers have developed intricate social relations with the ‘world’ outside the camps. Al-Wihdat is an open space, fully integrated in the urban fabric of the city. Its physical structure recalls more the intricate maze of alleys and paths of an Arab souk than the modular structure of a ‘total institution’ where bodies are subject to the normalising effects of a disciplinary regime. Through their daily concerns and life trajectories, refugees have radically transformed the physical and socio-economic space of a camp that still remains

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paramount in their nationalist struggles; so that, at the time of my research, al-Wihdat was simultaneously home of Palestinianness in exile and a low-income residential area well connected with the expanding neighbourhoods of Amman. My exploration problematises approaches to the study of Palestinian–Transjordanian relationships that have emphasised the separate and rigid nature of categories such as ‘Transjordanian’, ‘Jordanian’, ‘Palestinian of Jordanian origin’, and ‘camp dwellers’.10 This study sheds light on the diverse spheres where this process of ‘blending’ has taken place. With this I do not mean to suggest that economic disparities and ethnic discrimination do not play a role in structuring the relationship between camp dwellers and the so-called ‘Transjordanians’ – as we have seen, they clearly do. Indeed, documenting the multi-dimensional aspect of being refugees does not mean hailing its unbounded fluidity. My account has sought to shed light on the unevenness of camp dwellers’ power to live, manage and manipulate the interconnected nature of camp space. Camp dwellers attempting to navigate the complexities of everyday life do not always succeed: paranoia, frustration and boredom are part of the complexity of such an endeavour. Yet many refugees have negotiated these differences on a daily basis. This confirms the conclusions of those few studies that have suggested how important dimensions of ‘state sponsored Jordanian national identity are not repudiated, but rather adopted and internalised as they are not taken as substitutes for or competitive with Palestinian national identity, but rather as complementary’.11

On anthropology and politics With the ambiguities inherent in their exile in Jordan, Palestinian refugees in al-Wihdat afford us a unique glimpse into the making of national subjectivities. By shedding light on how Palestinian refugees handle nationalist pressures and accommodate them with the facts of their displacement in al-Wihdat, this book uses the case to advance scholarly understandings of political agency and subjectivity more generally.

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For its history and urban geography, al-Wihdat is not only radically different from other settings densely populated by Palestinians in the area, but also from the other refugee camps established in Jordan. This difference has doubtless had a great impact on fashioning specific forms of political agency in the camp. However, investigating the ways in which refugees have sought to accommodate their wish to live as Jordanian citizens with their genuine allegiance with Palestinian national symbols and ideals has signified a critical reassessment of ‘the Foucault–Agamben canon’12 and has important repercussions also on political anthropology in general. By building on Foucault’s and Agamben’s analyses of the mechanisms through which the state creates the subject-citizen, I have argued that refugees in Jordan have progressively identified themselves as citizens of the Kingdom. Their lives are oriented toward a progressive integration rather than resisting assimilation. At the same time, however, I moved forward by drawing on a growing scholarship that has expressed criticism of some of the limitations inherent in this approach.13 In their daily lives, refugees have displayed forms of agency that cannot be fully explained by ‘universal schemata of force/power relations such as “pouvoir-savoir”

Figure C.1 Nijem)

Jordanian flag painted on a shelter in al-Wihdat (source: Jihad

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and “sovereignty”.’14 If the increasing inscription of refugees’ lives within the Jordan state order has certainly enabled the production of refugees as (relatively) integrated citizens, it has also supported the creation of a zone of subjectivity (as Palestinian refugees) that the state itself did not foresee and is not able to account for or explain. Indeed, refugees’ pursuit of social and economic integration, their legal and political assimilation within the territory of Jordan, and their desire to be ‘ordinary’ – as any other Jordanian citizen – are what have ultimately allowed the reproduction of the ideals and messages of Palestinian nationalism. To put it simply, the more refugees have been assimilated, the more they have breathed new life into a nationalist ethos that is otherwise dominated by frustration and despair. The opening up of this new zone of agency and subjectivity within the very context of their integration has signified refugees’ capacity to escape the state’s power to fully determine individuals’ subjectivity. In this sense, refugees managed to subvert the Jordanian state’s attempts at total control by constituting themselves as both Jordanians and Palestinians. And they did that by actively pursuing integration. In so doing, camp dwellers not only expose the state’s control and its power of subjectification, but also demonstrate that this very power can be deployed in multiple ways.

GLOSSARY

‘adi ‘ashira asl balad banat byut, singular beit dabke dawanji, plural dawawin dishdasha faqir, plural fuqara’ fariq fellah, plural fellahin filastin filastinin, singular filastini ghajar, plural ghajarin ghani, plural aghnia ghurba hadith, plural ahadith hafle zafaf hafle shabab haya ‘adie

normal, ordinary tribe origins country, land, or town girls homes a Palestinian traditional dance troublemaker, unruly and violent individuals an ankle-length garment with long sleeves, similar to a robe poor football team peasant Palestine Palestinian Gypsy the rich exile exemplary speech and actions ascribed to the Prophet wedding party stag party ordinary life

GLOSSARY hajj

haki fadi haqq al-awda hara, plural harat hatta hijab hizb, plural ahzab hukuma iftar al-ihtisham iltizam jil jumhur kafir, plural kuffar laji’i, plural laji’in laji’in filastinin malal malik malja’ (or ma’wa) masakin masri, plural masrin mubara muhajjabe muhtaram al-mukhabarat mukhayyam, plural mukhayyamat Ibn al-mukhayyam, plural awlad al-mukhayyam/mukhayyamjiyye mushkalgiyye mutaharat al-nakba

203

one of the five pillars of Islam, the pilgrimage to Mecca that Muslims have to accomplish at least once in their life between the 8th and 12th of the last month of the Islamic calendar empty words right of return neighbourhood head-gear veil political party government evening meal female modesty religious commitment generation supporters, crowd apostate, infidel refugees Palestinian refugees boredom king shelters the wretched ones, the poor Egyptian football match veiled honourable/respectable intelligence agency refugee camp camp dweller(s), literally ‘son of the camp/children of the camp’ similar to dawawin political demonstrations ‘the catastrophe’ – the Zionist expulsion of Palestinian Arabs, 1948

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al-naksa nawar rujuliyye salat shabab shar’a shurta shaykh, plural shuyukh siyase siyasin sumud ta’hil tawjihi tawtin al-thawra umra al-urdunn urdunniyyin al-wade’ wasta watani wilayat dimashq yahudi zahgan zakat

‘the setback’ – the Israeli take-over of the West Bank, 1967 literally ‘blacksmith’ or ‘fire-worshipper’, a derogatory term for Gypsy manliness prayer youths street police man of piety or, alternatively, elder politics politicians steadfastness socio-economic rehabilitation secondary examination permanent resettlement ‘the revolution’ – Palestinian armed rebellion, 1969– 82 ritual pilgrimage to Mecca that can be performed at any time of the year Jordan Jordanians, often used by camp dwellers to refer to Transjordanians the (Palestinian political) situation connections, relationships of patronage national the Province of Damascus under Ottoman rule the Jews being fed up alms-giving

NOTES

Introduction 1. Throughout the book, I have used fictitious names to preserve the anonymity of my subjects. 2. See, for example, L. Brand, ‘Palestinians and Jordanians: a crisis of identity’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 24 (1995), pp. 46 – 61; S.S. al-Khazendar, Jordan and the Palestine Question: The Role of the Islamic and Left Forces in Foreign Policy-Making (Reading, Ithaca Press, 1997); S. Mishal, Bank/East Bank: The Palestinians in Jordan, 1949– 1967 (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1978). 3. J. Peteet, Landscape of Hope and Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps (Philadelphia and Bristol, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005), p. 95. 4. For example, K. Salibi, The Modern History of Jordan (London and New York, I.B.Tauris, 1993). 5. For example, al-Khazendar, Jordan. 6. Also known as the Arab – Israeli War, the ‘Six-Day War’ was fought in June 1967 between Israel and the neighbouring states of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. 7. See L. Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). 8. M. Siddiq, Man is a Cause: Political Consciousness and the Fiction of Ghassan Kanafani (Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1984). 9. Quoted in Y. Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949– 1993 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 179. 10. Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs, p. 84. 11. See the section ‘Dynamics of exclusion’ in Chapter 1 for a more detailed account of ‘Black September’ and its aftermath in Jordan.

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NOTES TO PAGES 6 –10

12. A. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, Palestinians, and the Hashemite Kingdom in the Middle East Peace Process (Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999). 13. On the status of Palestinian refugees in international law, see L. Takkenberg, The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law (New York, Oxford University Press, 1998). 14. See S. Tamari, Palestinian Refugee Negotiations: From Madrid to Oslo II (Washington, D.C., Institute for Palestine Studies, 1996). Although the Oslo Peace Agreements have relegated refugees and refugee camps to the margins of Palestinian nationalist discourse, it should also be noted that the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada has, in part, brought them back to the centre of the political stage by dissipating any hope of peace (see Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs, pp. 57 – 8). 15. In 2006, the frictions between the two main Palestinian parties – Hamas and Fatah – resulted in the creation of two separate governments: the Hamas government in Gaza and the Fatah-ruled Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank. 16. al-Dustour, ‘al-Dustour’s opinion: investigating the al-Wihdat events’, 30 March 2004. 17. K. Furani and D. Rabinowitz, ‘The ethnographic arriving of Palestine’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 40 (2011), p. 484. 18. Scholars working in this vein have tended to document the conceptual and practical resources that refugees have deployed to resist or subvert domination. Rosemary Sayigh’s ground-breaking series of studies among camp dwellers in Lebanon shed light on the importance of collective memory and national commemorations in mobilising both coping and resistance strategies: R. Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries: A People’s History (London, Zed Press, 1979); Too Many Enemies (London, Zed Books, 1994); ‘Dis/ Solving the refugee problem’, Middle East Report, 207 (1998), 19 – 23. The transmission and refashioning of specific forms of identity from one generation to the next would lead to acts of resistance against the adversities of living in exile, poverty and discrimination. In a series of perceptive articles, Julie Peteet and Iris Jean-Klein have provided insights into some of the ways in which refugees have used gender and their bodies as sites and resources of resistance against Israeli occupation: J. Peteet, ‘Male gender and rituals of resistance in the Palestinian intifada: a cultural politics of violence’, American Ethnologist, 21, (1994); ‘The writing on the walls: the graffiti of the intifada’, Cultural Anthropology, 11 (1996), 139– 59; I. Jean-Klein, ‘Mothercraft, statecraft, and subjectivity in the Palestinian intifada’, American Ethnologist, 27 (2000), 100. By taking into consideration differences of class, gender, generation and religious activism, another body of ethnographic work on Palestinian refugees has investigated the heterogeneity of Palestinian refugee experience in Jordan. Randa Farah documents the role of popular memory and resisting permanent resettlement among refugees living in Baq’a refugee camp in the context of

NOTES TO PAGES 10 –11

19.

20. 21. 22.

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a radical shift in Palestinian nationalist politics: R. Farah, Popular Memory and Reconstructions of Palestinian Identity: al-Baq’a Refugee Camp, Jordan, PhD dissertation, University of Toronto (1999). Other authors explore the ways in which refugees have challenged the attempt to be silenced and resettled by manipulating the bureaucratic system (S. Latte-Abdallah, Destinies den femmes et liens familiaux dans les camps de re´fugie´s palestiniens en Jordanie 1948– 2001, PhD dissertation, EHESS (2004)), through the performance of particular styles of masculinity (J. Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity: adolescence and the Palestinian nation-in-exile’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 21 (2008)), or by reappropriating the space of the camp (B. Destremau, ‘L’espace du camp et la production du provisoire: le camps de re´fugie´s palestiniennes de al-Wihdat at Jabal Hussein a` Amman’, in R. Bocco and M. Djalili (eds), Moyen-Orient, De´mocratisation, Me´diation (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1994); H. Jaber, ‘Le camp de al-Wihdat, entre norme et transgression’, Revue d’etudes palestiniennes (1996), 37 – 48). For example, J. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (London, Yale University Press, 1985). For another example, in a widely cited article, Sherry Ortner criticises resistance studies for not containing enough politics and being too ‘thin on the internal politics of dominated groups, thin on the cultural richness of those groups, thin on the subjectivity – the intentions, desires, fears, projects – of the actors engaged in these dramas’: S. Ortner, ‘Resistance and the problem of ethnographic refusal’, Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History, 37, 1 (1995), p. 190 (for a critique, see I. Jean-Klein, ‘Nationalism and resistance: the two faces of everyday activism in Palestine during the intifada’, Cultural Anthropology, 16 (2001), 83 – 126). Furani and Rabinowitz, ‘The ethnographic arriving’. Peteet, ‘Male gender and rituals of resistance’, p. 31. J. Laidlaw, ‘Agency and responsibility: perhaps you can have too much of a good thing’, in M. Lambek (ed.), Ordinary Ethics: Anthropology, Language, and Action (New York, Fordham University Press, 2010), p. 144. This approach is well exemplified, for example, in the Manichean divide between power and resistance, typical of a certain strand of resistance studies, for example R. Guha, Subaltern Studies: Writings on South Asian History and Society (Delhi and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982); for a criticism, see J. Spencer, Anthropology, Politics and the State: Democracy and Violence in South Asia (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2007). This divide is also typical of a certain strand of feminist studies, for example J. Boddy, Wombs and Alien Spirits: Women, Men, and the Zar Cult in Northern Sudan (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1989); for a criticism, see S. Mahmood, Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005). For a more recent account of this approach in the Middle East, see for example Lisa Wedeen’s study of the authoritative rule in President Assad’s Syria: L. Wedeen, Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1999); for a criticism, see, among others,

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23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

NOTES TO PAGES 11 –13 A. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2006). Mahmood, Politics of Piety, p. 14. Here I deliberately choose the broadest possible meaning for ‘resistance’ as being the capacity to assert the Palestinian national predicament – and not the more politically and historically connoted term of muqawama (resistance). In her book Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine (2007), Laleh Khalili individuates successive but overlapping transnational discourses appropriated and adapted by various strands of the Palestinian national movement since the 1960s. With great approximation, we can identify four discursive ‘schisms’ in Palestinian nationalism: the nation-statist discourse, liberationist discourse, the Islamist discourse and the humanitarian discourse. The centrality of ‘resistance’ in Palestinian nationalism is remarkable in the persistence that this motif has in each of these authoritative discourses under the guise of narratives of heroic resistance, sumud [steadfastness] and suffering. As Khalili writes, these narratives ‘have all been broadly effective in achieving a great many of their goals: keeping the Palestinian conflict and the predicament of Palestinian refugees at the forefront of the international stage (even if in the last instance, remedies to the problems are difficult to find) and ensuring that the voice of the refugees would not be ignored at their leadership’s negotiating tables’ (p. 225). See, among them, W. Keane, ‘Self-interpretation, agency, and the objects of anthropology: reflections on a genealogy’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 45 (2003), 222– 48; J. Laidlaw, ‘For an anthropology of ethics and freedom’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 8 (2002), 311–32; Laidlaw, ‘Agency and responsibility’; S. Mahmood, ‘Feminist theory, embodiment, and the docile agent: some reflections on the Egyptian Islamic revival’, Cultural Anthropology, 16 (2001), pp. 202–36; and Yurchak, Everything Was Forever. M. Foucault, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings, 1972/1977 (Brighton, Harvester Press, 1980). J. Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York and London, Routledge, 1999). Ibid. Mahmood, Politics of Piety, p. 20. Ibid.; Mahmood, ‘Feminist theory’. Mahmood, ‘Feminist theory’, p. 212. J. al-Husseini and R. Bocco, ‘The status of the Palestinian refugees in the Near East: the right of return and UNRWA in perspective’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 28 (2010), 2 – 3. A survey carried out in 2003 in Jordan among Palestinian refugees seems to confirm these findings. Despite the fact that virtually all refugees demand the recognition of the ‘right of return’, only 5 per cent of them would actually be eager to implement it. See Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, Results of PSR Refugees’ Polls in the West Bank/Gaza Strip, Jordan and Lebanon on Refugees’ Preferences and Behavior in a Palestinian – Israeli Permanent Refugee

NOTES TO PAGES 13 –19

34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42. 43.

44. 45. 46. 47.

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Agreement. Available at www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/refugeesjune03.html (accessed 8 August 2014). For an example of this theory, see Wedeen, Ambiguities. See especially M. Marsden, Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005); C. Osella and F. Osella, ‘Nuancing the migrant experience: perspectives from Kerala, South India’, in S. Koshy and R. Radhakrishnan (eds), Transnational South Asians: The Making of a Neo-Diaspora (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008); G. Simon, ‘The soul freed of cares? Islamic prayer, subjectivity, and the contradictions of moral selfhood in Minangkabau, Indonesia’, American Ethnologist, 36 (2009), 258 – 75; and B. Soares and F. Osella, ‘Islam, politics, anthropology’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15 (2009), S1 – S23. G. Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1998); C. Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox (London, Verso, 2000). P. Anderson, Spectrum (London, Verso, 2005), p. 5. C. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (New Brunswick, Rutgers, 1976), p. 35. Mouffe, The Democratic Paradox; C. Mouffe, On the Political (London, Routledge, 2005). However, it is important to point out that Mouffe distinguishes ‘agonism’ from ‘antagonism’: ‘while antagonism is a we/they relation in which the two sides are enemies who do not share any common ground, agonism is a we/they relation where the conflicting parties, although acknowledging that there is no rational solution to their conflict, nevertheless recognize the legitimacy of their opponents’ (Mouffe, On the Political, p. 20). According to Mouffe, agonism does not postulate the demise of contemporary democracy; it is rather the true test, the real strength of liberal democracies. Mouffe, On the Political, p. 16. E. Lust-Okar, ‘Reinforcing informal institutions through authoritarian elections: insights from Jordan’, Middle East Law and Governance, 1 (2009), p. 13. See M. Candea, ‘“Our division of the Universe”: making a space for the nonpolitical in the anthropology of politics’, Current Anthropology, 52 (2011), 309–34, and Spencer, Anthropology; see also Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, and comments by Dominic Boyer. See Laidlaw, ‘Agency and responsibility’, Mahmood, Politics of Piety and A. Yurchak, ‘Necro-Utopia: the politics of indistinction and the aesthetics of the non-Soviet’, Current Anthropology, 49 (2008), 199–224, among others. For example, J. Ferguson, The Anti-Politics Machine: ‘Development,’ Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994). Candea, ‘Our division’, p. 320. Yurchak, ‘Necro-Utopia’, p. 213.

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48. Ibid. 49. Cf. T. Kelly, ‘The attractions of accountancy’, Ethnography, 9 (2008), 351– 76. 50. For a critique of Mouffe’s ontologisation of the political, see C. Barnett, ‘Situating the geographies of injustice in democratic theory’, Geoforum, 43 (2012), 2 – 42. 51. Candea, ‘Our division’, p. 321. 52. See J. Vincent, The Anthropology of Politics: A Reader in Ethnography, Theory, and Critique (Oxford, Blackwell, 2002). With this opening up, a wide range of politics has been progressively discovered in language, food, music and football, as well as in other dimensions of everyday life. Under the influence of French post-structuralism, anthropologists and scholars from various disciplines have documented the importance of the ordinary and its analogues, the everyday and the mundane, in the reproduction of social structures, for example: P. Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1979); Butler, Gender Trouble; A. Giddens, The Constitution of Society: Introduction of the Theory of Structuration (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984); E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London, Verso, 1985); R. Williams, Culture and Society, 1780– 1950 (London, Chatto & Windus, 1958). A compelling body of work on political activity and processes has shed light on the ways through which everyday life has provided the space and the opportunity to resist and transform hegemonic order: B. Aretxaga, Shattering Silence: Women, Nationalism and Political Subjectivity in Northern Ireland (Princeton and Chichester, Princeton University Press, 1997); M. de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1984); E. Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (London, Penguin, 1990); Scott, Weapons of the Weak. The ordinary has also circulated in scholarly discourse specialising in the study of nationalism: A.M. Alonso, ‘The politics of space, time and substance: state formation, nationalism and ethnicity’, Annual Review of Anthropology, 23 (1994), 379– 405; H. Bhabha, Nation and Narration (London, Routledge, 1990); M. Billig, Banal Nationalism (London, Sage, 1995). In a seminal article, for example, Iris Jean-Klein shows how nationalistic practices are fashioned by Palestinians living in the West Bank through distinctive narratives and actions woven into everyday practices (Jean-Klein, ‘Nationalism and resistance’). 53. Candea, ‘Our division’. These dangers are felt, then, with particular intensity especially in the field of Palestinian studies, where the main goal of the last generation of anthropologists was to ‘question Israel’s effort to repress Palestinian nationalism and to normalise its own colonial and racial character’ (Furani and Rabinowitz, ‘The ethnographic arriving’, p. 481). 54. Other anthropologists have encountered similar valuation of the political among their informants. See, for example, T.B. Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay (Princeton and Woodstock, Princeton University Press, 2002); J. Lerche, ‘Is bonded labour a bound category? Reconceptualising agrarian conflict in India’, The Journal of Peasant Studies,

NOTES TO PAGES 23 –29

55. 56.

57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

62.

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22 (1995), 484– 515; A. Ruud, ‘Talking dirty about politics: a view from a Bengali village’, in C.J. Fuller and V. Benei (eds), The Everyday State and Society in Modern India (London, Hurst & Co, 2001); and Spencer, Anthropology. See, for example, al-Khazendar, Jordan. After conducting preliminary research in the Palestinian refugee camps of Jordan from May to December 2004, field research for this book was carried out in the al-Wihdat refugee camp from July 2009 to September 2010.During this time, I have also conducted some research and paid occasional visits to friends in other camps, most notably Souf camp and Hussein camp. UNRWA is a relief and human development agency established in December 1949. The agency today provides education, health care, social services and emergency aid to approximately 5 million Palestinian refugees. The Nadi al-Wihdat was established by the UNRWA and the international community in 1956. According to its original mandate, it was founded to help people in the camp and to give them a place where they can meet together and spend time. At the time of its institution the Nadi operated in two main domains: education and social activities. Although it is now the most important ‘sphere of action’ of the Nadi, ‘sport’ was added only later on, in 1976. Originally called ‘markez shabab al-wihdat’ (Wihdat Youth Centre), it became the Nadi al-Wihdat 20 years after its establishment. The word ‘Nadi’ (club), which is mainly associated with sport, underlines a paradigmatic shift in the agenda of the club, from social and humanitarian activities to sport. M. Viroli, ‘The revolution in the concept of politics’, Political Theory, 20 (1992), 473– 95. Voluntary organisations established with the task of collecting and distributing zakat funds: a small percentage of annual savings given by Muslim as alms. Zakat is one of the five pillars of Islamic beliefs and practices. See, for example, Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity’; C. Jeffrey, Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010); D. Mains, ‘Neoliberal times: progress, boredom, and shame among young men in urban Ethiopia’, American Ethnologist, 34 (2007), 659 – 73; A. Masquelier, ‘The scorpion’s sting: youth, marriage and the struggle for social maturity in Niger’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (2005), 59 – 83; S. Schielke, ‘Boredom and despair in rural Egypt’, Contemporary Islam, 28 (2008), 251 – 70; B. Weiss, Street Dreams and Hip Hop Barbershops: Global Fantasy in Urban Tanzania (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009). Literally ‘the catastrophe’, the term ‘nakba’ refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians from their houses and villages following the atrocities perpetrated by Zionist forces in the aftermath of the establishment of Israel in the period between 1947 and 1949.

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NOTES TO PAGES 33 – 35

Chapter 1 It Feels Like Home 1. I am building here on a body of scholarship that looks at closeness and openness of borders as aspects ultimately interconnected; see M. Marsden, ‘Muslim cosmopolitans? Transnational life in northern Pakistan’, The Journal of Asian Studies, 67 (2008), 213– 47; M. Pelkmans, Defending the Border: Identity, Religion, and Modernity in the Republic of Georgia (Ithaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2006); A. Walker, The Legend of the Golden Boat: Regulation, Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Laos, Thailand, China and Burma (Richmond, Curzon, 1999). 2. A. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, Palestinians, and the Hashemite Kingdom in the Middle East Peace Process (Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999). 3. Along with Palestinian refugees and the native Arab Bedouins and villagers, the population of Jordan includes Circassians, Chechens, Lebanese Shias, as well as a substantial number of traders, migrant workers and refugees from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. Some of them arrived in the region even before the establishment of the country in the early 1920s. Whereas the large majority of Palestinians living in Jordan are the descendants of those who fled the territory of Mandatory Palestine following the Arab – Israeli war, a minority of Palestinians in Jordan moved to the country before this date; see J. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York, Columbia University Press, 2001). 4. R. Bocco, ‘Asabiyaˆt tribales et e´tats au moyen-orient’, Monde Arabe. MaghrebMachrek, 147 (1995), 3 – 12; A. Shryock, ‘“Tribaliser” la Nation, “nationaliser” la Tribu’, Monde Arabe. Maghreb-Machrek, 147 (1995), 121– 31. 5. See Massad, Colonial Effects. 6. For the role of the Emir, see Abu-Odeh, Jordanians; for the role of the educational system, see B.S. Anderson, ‘Writing the nation: textbooks of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 21 (2002), 5 – 14; for the role of the census, see F. De Bel-Air, Population, politique et politiques de population en Jordanie 1948– 1998, PhD dissertation, Ecole des Hautes e´tudes en Sciences Sociales (2003); for the role of the museum, see I. Maffi, ‘The emergence of cultural heritage in Jordan: the itinerary of a colonial invention’, Journal of Social Archaeology, 9 (2009), 5 – 34. 7. Complete sovereignty had to be achieved only a decade later when the monarchy sacked the British personnel serving in the Jordanian army. 8. I will not refer to Palestinians as a diasporic group, though their exodus presents many characteristics typical of such groups; see J. Clifford, ‘Diasporas’, Cultural Anthropology, 9, 3 (1994), 302– 38. For geographic, temporal, semantic and political reasons specific to the Palestinian case, the employment of the concept of diaspora would mask more than unveil the political issues behind their flight;

NOTES TO PAGES 35 –39

9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17.

18.

19. 20. 21. 22. 23.

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see J. Peteet, Landscape of Hope and Despair: Palestinian Refugee Camps (Philadelphia and Bristol, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). See B. Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947– 1949 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 130– 1. Both Israeli (e.g. B. Kimmerling and J. Migdal, The Palestinian People: A History (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2003); Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem) and Palestinian (e.g. R. Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness (New York, Columbia University Press, 1997)) historians have criticised official Israeli claims that Palestinians left their houses and land following their own decision or the order of Arab leaders. In contrast, these authors have pointed out how the attacks and raids perpetrated by Zionist forces were at the origin of this exodus. Kimmerling and Migdal, The Palestinian People. E. Zureik, Palestinian Refugees and the Peace Process (Washington, D.C., Institute for Palestine Studies, 1996). Quoted in Massad, Colonial Effects, p. 230. Article 2, in Massad, Colonial Effects, p. 39. L. Brand, ‘Palestinians and Jordanians: a crisis of identity’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 24 (1995), p. 50. The term ‘Transjordanian’ has been used in the relevant literature to indicate the population that became citizens of the State of Transjordan, and later citizens of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, by virtue of the nationality laws of 1928 of the Emirate of Jordan. See, for example, Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, Massad, Colonial Effects. There is not an exact equivalent of ‘Transjordanians’ in the camp. In daily usage, refugees would refer to Transjordanians either with the general term of urdunniyyin (which literally means ‘Jordanians’) or with the word badawi (Bedouins). Massad, Colonial Effects; S. Mishal, Bank/East Bank: The Palestinians in Jordan, 1949– 1967 (New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1978). The Karameh camp was destroyed during the homonymous battle. On 21 March 1968, the Israeli army attacked the camp and the nearby village of Karameh in retaliation for cross-border guerrilla operations. Although the fight resulted in a clear military defeat for the PLO forces, the losses suffered by the Israeli military made the Karameh battle a central symbol of Palestinian heroism. A. al-Hamarneh, ‘The social and political effect of transformation processes in Palestinian refugee camps in the Amman metropolitan area (1989 – 99)’, in G. Joffe´ (ed.), Jordan in Transition, 1990– 2000 (London, Urst & Company, 2002). Abu-Odeh, Jordanians. Massad, Colonial Effects, p. 233. al-Hamarneh, ‘The social and political effect’. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, p. 139. Ibid.

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NOTES TO PAGES 40 – 46

24. Quoted in Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, p. 140. 25. I. Fruchter-Ronen, ‘Black September: the 1970– 71 events and their impact on the formation of Jordanian national identity’, Civil Wars, 10 (2008), 244– 60. 26. Massad, Colonial Effects, p. 234. 27. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, p. 177. 28. For an analysis of the impact of Black September on the formation of a Jordanian national identity and the politics of de-Palestinisation implemented by the regime in government departments and public institutions after the civil war, see among others Fruchter-Ronen, ‘Black September’. 29. Massad, Colonial Effects; Y. Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949– 1993 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997). 30. Sayigh, Armed Struggle. 31. C. Jungen, ‘Tribalism in Kerak: past memories, present realities’, in G. Joffe´ (ed.), Jordan in Transition 1990–2000 (London, Urst & Company, 2002), p. 201. For an analysis of how the monarchy encouraged the promotion of tribal components in the process of national construction, see Bocco, ‘Asabiyaˆt tribales’ and Massad, Colonial Effects; for the role of the tribes in the Hashemite regimes, see L. Layne, Home and Homeland: The Dialogics of Tribal and National Identities in Jordan (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1994); on the reappropriation of a tribal discourse by Transjordanian nationalists, see Jungen, ‘Tribalism’ and A. Shryock, Nationalism and the Genealogical Imagination: Oral History and Textual Authority in Tribal Jordan (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1997). 32. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, pp. 211–12. 33. The Palestinian-Jordanian statesman and historian Adnan Abu-Odeh identifies three main clusters of Transjordanian nationalism – the pragmatic group, the clan/tribe-based group, and the radical group – that stretch from a moderate stance to an extremist position; ibid., p. 241). 34. L. Brand, ‘Palestinians and Jordanians: a crisis of identity’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 24 (1995), pp. 46 – 61. 35. See Shryock, Nationalism. 36. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians; Massad, Colonial Effects; S. Nanes, ‘Choice, loyalty, and the melting pot: citizenship and national identity in Jordan’, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 14 (2008), 85 – 116. 37. Nanes, ‘Choice, loyalty, and the melting pot’, p. 91. 38. On Jordanian national identity and security forces, see Panayiotis Vatikiotis (1998). 39. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians. 40. Massad, Colonial Effects, p. 250. 41. Ibid. 42. The battle over national identity was not confined only to the hatta; it also ˙˙ involved other dimensions of daily life such as language, football and even food (see Massad, Colonial Effects). 43. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians.

NOTES TO PAGES 46 – 48

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44. The first waves of migrant refugees were single men who left in the late 1940s and early 1950s in search of job opportunities in the expanding market of the Gulf. Palestinians found employment either as highly qualified labourers or as unskilled ones respectively in the oil and construction sectors. With their remittances, they supported their families still living in Jordan. A decade later, a second wave of Palestinians followed; but this time, as a result of the elimination of visa requirements for Arab citizens, the new migrants brought their families with them; see Y.L. Troquer and R.H. Al-Oudat, ‘From Kuwait to Jordan: the Palestinians’ Third Exodus’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 28 (1999), 37–51. Although the majority of them had never lived in Jordan before, they acquired Jordanian citizenship through the unification of the East and West Banks in 1951 (Zureik, Palestinian Refugees). 45. Troquer and Al-Oudat, ‘From Kuwait to Jordan’. 46. An appellative that they gained for being the descendants of Palestinian refugees who had resided for some time in Jordan. 47. Troquer and Al-Oudat, ‘From Kuwait to Jordan’. 48. Reuters, ‘Jordan tribes threaten revolution over country’s Palestinian Queen Rania’, Haaretz, 21 February 2011. 49. Respectively, Abdel-Karim Abul Heija (Director of the Jordanian Department of Palestinian Affairs in Arab al-Yawm) and Ma’rouf Bakhit (ex-Prime Minister), in J. al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan: between logics of exclusion and integration’, in M. Ababsa and R. Daher (eds), Villes, pratiques urbaines et construction nationale en Jordanie (Beirut, Presses de l’IFPO, 2011), p. 191. 50. Massad, Colonial Effects; see also C. Ryan, ‘Islamist political activism in Jordan: moderation, militancy, and democracy’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 12 (2008), 1 – 13. 51. ‘Gazans’ are displaced persons – refugees and non-refugees – who were originally forced to move to Jordan as a result of the 1967 Arab – Israeli war. Their number today is around 200,000. The very large majority of them are not granted citizenship rights because they were not in the territory of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan at the moment of the extension of citizenship; see O. el Abed, ‘Immobile Palestinians: on-going plight of Gazans in Jordan’, Forced Migration Review, 26 (2006), 17. 52. Human Rights Watch, ‘Jordan: bias at the Syrian border’, 4 July 2012. Available at www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/04/jordan-bias-syrian-border (accessed 15 August 2014). Unfortunately, since 2014, the situation has deteriorated considerably for all Syrian refugees: Jordan adopted a no-entry policy that prevented the large majority of Syrians access to the Kingdom. See L. Achilli, ‘Syrian Refugees in Jordan: a Reality Check’, Migration Policy Center, Policy Brief, February (2015). 53. See www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id¼86. It must be noted that this was simply an operational definition employed by the UNRWA to establish the parameters for determining who was entitled to receive its services. As Palestinian refugees fell under the general assistance mandate of the UNRWA when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was

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54. 55. 56. 57.

58. 59.

60.

61. 62.

63. 64. 65. 66.

NOTES TO PAGES 48 –54 established, they were not included in the official definition of refugee. This has had important consequences. First, Palestinian refugees are not officially entitled to those fundamental rights enjoyed by those who meet the criteria set by the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees – i.e. repatriation, permanent resettlement in country of residence, or resettlement in a third country. Second, unlike the UNHCR, UNRWA does not provide protection of refugees, and its mandate is limited only to basic services. Please see the UNRWA website: www.unrwa.org. S. Latte-Abdallah, Destinies den femmes et liens familiaux dans les camps de re´fugie´s palestiniens en Jordanie 1948– 2001, PhD dissertation, EHESS (2004). Ibid. These people made up about three-quarters of the refugee population in Jordan; J. al-Husseini and R. Bocco, ‘The status of the Palestinian refugees in the Near East: the right of return and UNRWA in perspective’, Refugee Survey Quarterly, 28 (2010), 2 – 3. UNRWA, General Assembly, A/RES/302 (IV), 8 December 1949. Available at www.unrwa.org/content/general-assembly-resolution-302 (accessed 4 September 2014). al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’, p. 184. In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee problem, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed the UNRWA’s mandate. Given the exceptionally high percentage of Palestinian refugees employed in the ranks of the UNRWA, the history of the UNRWA has been strictly intertwined with the vicissitudes of Palestinian refugees in the Middle East; see B. Schiff, Refugees unto the Third Generation: UN Aid to Palestinians (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1995). On the political dimension of UNRWA’s mandate and its relationships with the PLO, see J. al-Husseini, ‘UNRWA and the Palestinian nation-building process’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 29, 2 (2000), 51 – 64; on the evolution of UNRWA programmatic agenda, see Schiff, Refugees. The land – rented for a period of 99 years – is expected to be returned to the original owners once a solution to the Palestinian issue is found. B. Destremau, ‘L’espace du camp et la production du provisoire: le camps de re´fugie´s palestiniennes de al-Wihdat at Jabal Hussein a` Amman’, in R. Bocco and M. Djalili (eds), Moyen-Orient, De´mocratisation, Me´diation (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1994); H. Jaber, ‘Le camp de al-Wihdat, entre norme et transgression’, Revue d’etudes palestiniennes (1996), 37 – 48. See Destremau, ‘L’espace du camp’ and al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’. UNRWA, Report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East, 1 July 1954 –30 June 1955, Supplement no. 15 (A/2978) (New York, 1955). See al-Husseini, ‘UNRWA’. In 2004–5, for example, only 36 per cent of the children living outside the camps went to the UNRWA’s primary schools, while 85 per cent of children living in

NOTES TO PAGES 54 –59

67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79.

80. 81. 82. 83.

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the camps attended them. The practical implications of the agency’s management inside the camps extend also to tasks that are managed by municipalities outside the camp such as garbage collection and shelter maintenance and rehabilitation (al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’). Ibid., p. 54. Schiff, Refugees. al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’. Ibid. I am building here on Ismail’s argument that neo-liberal practices and principles of governmentality are also possible in authoritarian states and in contexts where the Western conception of state is absent; see S. Ismail, Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2006). On 26 October 1994, one year after the signature of the Oslo agreements, Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty at Wadi Araba that laid the foundation for bilateral co-operation between the two countries and set the basis for the permanent resettlement of Palestinian refugees in Jordan; see al-Husseini and Bocco, ‘The status of the Palestinian refugees’. See, for example, al-Husseini and Bocco, ‘The status of the Palestinian refugees’. al-Hamarneh, ‘The social and political effect’. Headline of the Islamist weekly newspaper al-Sabil, 24 December 2000 (in alHusseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’, p. 200). al-Husseini and Bocco, ‘The status of the Palestinian refugees’. L. Malkki, Purity and Exile: Violence, Memory, and National Cosmology among Hutu Refugees in Tanzania (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1995). ‘Bio-power’ is a term coined by Michel Foucault and first used during his lecture courses at the Colle`ge de France. As Paul Rabinow writes, the terms refers to the ‘numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations [. . .] As for population controls, one notes the emergence of demography, the evaluation of the relationship between resources and inhabitants, the constructing of tables analyzing wealth and its circulation’ (P. Rabinow, The Foucault Reader (New York, Pantheon Books, 1984), p. 262). Peteet, Landscape of Hope and Despair, p.76. For a comparative case, see, among others B. Harrell-Bond, ‘The experience of refugees as recipient of aid’, in A. Ager (ed.), Refugees: Perspectives on the Experience of Forced Migration (London, Continuum, 1999); for an excellent investigation of the UNRWA and its techniques of bio-politics in Jordan, see S. Latte-Abdallah, Destinies den femmes. See, for example, Peteet, Landscape of Hope and Despair. G. Bisharat, ‘Displacement and social identity: Palestinian refugees in the West Bank’, Center for Migration Studies, 11, 4 (1994), 163– 88. Sayigh, Armed Struggle. For example, see al-Hamarneh, ‘The social and political effect’; Jaber, ‘Le camp de al-Wihdat’; D. Tuastad, ‘The political role of football for Palestinians in

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84. 85. 86.

87. 88. 89. 90. 91.

92. 93. 94. 95. 96. 97.

NOTES TO PAGES 59 –73 Jordan’, in G. Armstrong and R. Giulianotti (eds), Entering the Field: New Perspectives on World Football (Oxford, Berg, 1997). R. Farah, Popular Memory and Reconstructions of Palestinian Identity: al-Baq’a Refugee Camp, Jordan, PhD dissertation, University of Toronto (1999). Peteet, Landscape of Hope and Despair, p. 100. I ignore the origin of this resentment, which is, however, not shared by everybody. Every time I asked for explanations, people would shrug their shoulders and say: ‘They are Bedouins’. Sab’awi were historically Bedouins from the city of Bir al-Saba’a in the Negev desert, now located in southern Israel. Jaber, ‘Le camp de al-Wihdat’. Ibid. A. Bayat, Street Politics: Poor People’s Movements in Iran (New York, Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 7. In refugee camps such as al-Wihdat, density rates reach to 103 persons/sq. km. Generally, the rent for unfurnished accommodation is around 100 JOD (Jordanian Dinar) a month – which is quite expensive, especially considering that the average monthly salary for labour in and from the camp is slightly more than 200 JOD. (The Jordanian Dinar is the currency of Jordan. It is fixed at 1 US dollar ¼ 0.709 dinar most of the time, which translates to approximately 1 dinar ¼ 1.41044 dollars.) In 1997, a report of the DPA calculated that around 25 per cent of the housing units were rented by their original tenants; DPA, The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: The Annual Report (Amman, 1997). Destremau, ‘L’espace du camp’, p. 97. al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’. al-Hamarneh, ‘The social and political effect’. Peteet, Landscape of Hope and Despair, p. 95. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians. al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’.

Chapter 2 Imperatives of Work 1. See, for example, R. Sayigh, ‘Dis/Solving the refugee problem’, Middle East Report, 207 (1998), 19 – 23. 2. This assumption reflects in part a scholarly debate that dates back to the 1960s over the potential of the ‘poor’ to be a destabilising force to the existing social order; see S.P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996); J. Nelson, ‘The urban poor: disruption or political integration in third world cities?’, World Politics, 22 (1970), 393– 414. Such a preoccupation informs a theoretical approach to the politics of the poor that frames agency solely in the binary terms of being revolutionary/being passive; for a critique, see A. Bayat, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford, Stanford University Press,

NOTES TO PAGES 73 –76

3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9.

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2010). The distinct perspectives ensuing from this debate are all located within the poles of this dichotomy as they share an essentialist reading of subaltern groups’ political agency as non-existent: O. Lewis, Five Families: Mexican Case Studies in the Culture of Poverty (New York, Basic Books, 1959); as manifested in collective action and urban movements: e.g. M. Castells, The City and the Grassroots: A Cross-Cultural Theory of Urban Social Movements (London, Edward Arnold, 1983); J. Friedmann, Empowerment: The Politics of Alternative Development (Cambridge and Oxford, Blackwell, 1992); or as consciously aimed at resisting the ubiquity of power: e.g. J. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (London, Yale University Press, 1985). Zaffa – which in the camp is played in the street long before the beginning of the wedding – is a musical procession that loudly announces that the wedding party is about to begin. For an analysis of the imbrication of national identity and language, see Y. Suleiman, A War of Words: Language and Conflict in the Middle East (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004). Unlike the hijab, the niqab not only covers a woman’s head, neck and ears, but also her face. See R. Sayigh, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries: A People’s History (London, Zed Press, 1979). See also R. Farah, Popular Memory and Reconstructions of Palestinian Identity: alBaq’a Refugee Camp, Jordan, PhD dissertation, University of Toronto (1999). This is confirmed by recent studies carried out by using national-level data from the 1996 census; see M. Arneberg, Living Conditions among Palestinian Refugees and Displaced in Jordan (Fafo, Oslo, 1997); J. Hanssen-Bauer, J. Pedersen and A. Tiltnes (eds), Jordanian Society: Living Conditions in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Oslo, Fafo, 1998); M. Khawaja, ‘Migration and the reproduction of poverty: the refugee camps in Jordan’, International Migration, 41 (2003), 27 – 57; M. Khawaja and A. Tiltnes, On the Margins: Migration and Living Condition of Palestinian Camp Refugees in Jordan (Oslo, Fafo, 2002). According to these studies, the annual income of a large number of people living in camps is less than 900 JOD (around $1,250) – a very small amount by local standards. A similar socio-economic differentiation has been noted not only in Palestinian refugee camps set in other host countries (i.e. Lebanon, Jordan and Syria) but even among those established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip; see F. Lapeyre and M. Bensaid, Socio-Economic Profile of UNRWA Registered Refugees (Geneva/ Amman, IUED/Louvain-La-Neuve/UNRWA survey, 2006). See, for example, S.S. al-Khazendar, Jordan and the Palestine Question: The Role of the Islamic and Left Forces in Foreign Policy-Making (Reading, Ithaca Press, 1997). This dimension of their identity is the focus of a large body of scholarship that demonstrates how the memory of hardship endured by refugees is a central component of the political identity of Palestinians living in Jordan (Farah, Popular Memory), Lebanon (e.g. L. Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge, Cambridge University

220

10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

18.

NOTES TO PAGES 76 –82 Press, 2007)), and the Occupied Territories (L. Allen, Suffering through an Uprising: The Cultural Politics of Violence, Victimization and Human Rights in Palestine, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago (2005); A. Sa’di and L. Abu-Lughod (eds), Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory (New York, Columbia University Press, 2007)). For a discussion of narratives of sumud, see Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs and H. Lindholm-Schulz, The Reconstruction of Palestinian Nationalism: Between Revolution and Statehood (Manchester, Manchester University Press, 1999). The figure of the ‘fellah’ (peasant) has been reappropriated by the Palestinian national movement in order to conceal significant differences within Palestinian society and favour the emergence of a unified Palestinian national identity; T. Swedenburg, ‘Popular memory and the Palestinian national past’, in J. O’Brien and W. Roseberry (eds), Golden Ages, Dark Ages: Imagining the Past in Anthropology and History (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991). For this purpose, see Iris Jean-Klein’s analysis of the process of selfnationalisation through self-deprivation: I. Jean-Klein, ‘Nationalism and resistance: the two faces of everyday activism in Palestine during the intifada’, Cultural Anthropology, 16 (2001), 83 – 126. R. Daher, ‘Amman: disguised genealogy and recent urban restructuring and neoliberal threats’, in Y. Elsheshtawy (ed.), The Evolving Arab City: Tradition, Modernity and Urban Development (New York, Routledge, 2008); C. Parker, ‘Tunnel-bypasses and minarets of capitalism: Amman as neoliberal assemblage’, Political Geography, 28 (2009), 110– 20. J. Schwedler, ‘Amman Cosmopolitan: spaces and practices of aspiration and consumption’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 30, 3 (2010), 547– 62. For comparative literatures, see also P. Johnson, L. Abu Nahleh and A. Moors, ‘Weddings and war: marriage arrangements and celebrations in two Palestinian intifadas’, Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 5, 3 (2009), 11 – 35. Cf., for example, A. Masquelier, ‘The scorpion’s sting: youth, marriage and the struggle for social maturity in Niger’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (2005), 59 –83. On changes in understandings of masculinity as people become part of different political economies, also see T. Kelly, ‘The attractions of accountancy’, Ethnography, 9 (2008), 351– 76; M. Gilsenan, Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996); and C. Jeffrey, Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010). Studies in Jordan have documented the significance of camp dwellers on regional economies in the Middle East, e.g. Khawaja, ‘Migration and the reproduction of poverty’; A. Plascov, The Palestinian Refugees in Jordan 1948– 1957 (London, F. Cass, 1981). J. al-Husseini, ‘UNRWA and the Palestinian nation-building process’, Journal of Palestine Studies, XXIV, 2 (2000), 51 – 64.

NOTES TO PAGES 83 –85

221

19. See B. Schiff, Refugees unto the Third Generation: UN Aid to Palestinians (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1995). Although Palestinian refugees constitute approximately 99 per cent of UNRWA staff, less than 3 per cent of the employed persons in camps work in the Agency (Khawaja and Tiltnes, On the Margins). 20. Khawaja and Tiltnes, On the Margins. 21. For a socio-historical analysis of the evolution of the role of Palestinian refugee women living in camps in Jordan, see S. Latte-Abdallah, ‘Fragile intimacies: marriage and love in the Palestinian camps of Jordan (1948– 2001)’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 38 (2009), 47 – 62. For a study of the socio-political aspects of gender and migration in and outside refugee camps in Jordan, see F. De Bel-Air, Population, politique et politiques de population en Jordanie 1948– 1998, PhD dissertation, Ecole des Hautes e´tudes en Sciences Sociales (2003). 22. Khawaja and Tiltnes, On the Margins. 23. Although labour migration among adults remains quite low – accounting for only 6 per cent of adults – research indicates that nearly 60 per cent of camp residents have relatives abroad (ibid.). 24. Economic precariousness has had important consequences on camp dwellers’ cross-gender relationships. On the one hand, the first decade of the twenty-first century has seen a ‘feminization of camp families’ (Latte-Abdallah, ‘Fragile intimacies’): male emigration, high divorce rates and the rise of female celibacy have de facto left many women in charge of the daily running of the household. In refugee camps such as Jabal Hussein and Gaza camp, more than half of camp households’ heads are women. Economic insecurity has had an erosive effect on men’s domestic authority. On the other hand, women’s greater independence does not reflect a clear moment of self-empowerment. As Latte-Abdallah writes, women’s work is now ‘associated with need in response to family hardship (rather than personal fulfilment) and is therefore less valued’ (Latte-Abdallah, ‘Fragile intimacies’, p. 58). For comparative studies, see I. Jean-Klein, ‘Mothercraft, statecraft, and subjectivity in the Palestinian intifada’, American Ethnologist, 27 (2000), 100. 25. ‘East Banker’, along with ‘Transjordanian’, is the term used to indicate residents of Jordan before the arrival of the first wave of Palestinians in 1948. 26. Schiff, Refugees. 27. R. Farah, ‘Refugee camps in the Palestinian and Sahrawi national liberation movements’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 38 (2008), p. 81. 28. Unlike other accounts on similar figures – see most notably Hansen’s dada (gangsters) in India (T.B. Hansen, Wages of Violence: Naming and Identity in Postcolonial Bombay (Princeton and Woodstock, Princeton University Press, 2002)) – these people are not suffused with a mythical aura. They are not hustlers or community leaders who derive their power from their superior knowledge of the urban environment and capacity to arrange and use alliances. Since anybody can act as wasta once in his/her life, this figure is ˙ more) the manifestation of the daily importance of informal networks in

222

29.

30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35.

36.

37.

NOTES TO PAGES 85 – 90 furthering common or individual interests; see D. Singerman, Avenues of Participation: Family, Politics, and Networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1995). For an analysis of wasta in ˙ Jordan, its evolution and present-day practice, see R. Cunningham and Y. Sarayrah, Wasta: The Hidden Forces in Middle Eastern Society (London, Praeger, 1993); and B. Sakijha and S. Kilani, Wasta in Jordan: The Declared Secret (Amman, Press Foundation, 2002); on the imbrication of wasta and ˙ election in Jordan, see E. Lust-Okar, ‘Reinforcing informal institutions through authoritarian elections: insights from Jordan’, Middle East Law and Governance, 1 (2009), 3 – 37. The ambivalence expressed here finds a parallel in the work of Mayfair Yang where the ‘you’ – the person capable of manipulating relationships of patronage – is simultaneously admired and despised: M. Yang, Gifts, Favors, and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1994). Practices of wasta underline the importance and primacy of ˙ personal relationships and their role in meeting the needs of everyday life in conditions of shortages and state discrimination. The working of wasta might ˙ be compared with the practices of guaxi and blat in China and Russia: systems of informal networks and personal contacts; see A. Ledeneva, Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchanges (New York, Cambridge University Press, 1998); D.L. Wank, ‘The institutional process of market clientelism: Guanxi and private business in a South China city’, The China Quarterly, 147 (1996), 820– 38. See also J. Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity: adolescence and the Palestinian nation-in-exile’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 21 (2008). Sayigh, ‘Dis/Solving the refugee problem’. J. al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan: between logics of exclusion and integration’, in M. Ababsa and R. Daher (eds), Villes, pratiques urbaines et construction nationale en Jordanie (Beirut, Presses de l’IFPO, 2011). See, among other, F. Osella and C. Osella, Social Mobility in Kerala: Modernity and Identity in Conflict (London, Pluto Press, 2000). Ibid. A conviction that Caroline and Filippo Osella describe as akin to a folk notion of Bourdieu’s ‘habitus’ (C. Osella and F. Osella, ‘Nuancing the migrant experience: perspectives from Kerala, South India’, in S. Koshy and R. Radhakrishnan (eds), Transnational South Asians: The Making of a Neo-Diaspora (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 147). For a compelling study on the collaboration between state power and highly mobile traders in cross-border areas, see A. Walker, The Legend of the Golden Boat: Regulation, Trade and Traders in the Borderlands of Laos, Thailand, China and Burma (Richmond, Curzon, 1999). Fariq al-wihdat (Wihdat Football Team) and fariq al-faisaly (Faisaly Football Team) are the main football clubs in Jordan, which every year contest the local

NOTES TO PAGES 90 –100

38. 39.

40. 41.

42.

43. 44. 45. 46.

47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

223

championship. Whereas the former was established in al-Wihdat refugee camp and counts among its supporters mostly Jordanians of Palestinian origins, Faisaly is generally associated with the native Bedouins (or Transjordanians/East Bankers). I will explore the significance of football in refugees’ daily lives in greater detail in Chapter 6. Khawaja and Tiltnes, On the Margins. A. al-Hamarneh, ‘The social and political effect of transformation processes in Palestinian refugee camps in the Amman metropolitan area (1989 – 99)’, in G. Joffe´ (ed.), Jordan in Transition, 1990– 2000 (London, Urst & Company, 2002); al-Husseini, ‘UNRWA’. DPA, 60 Years Serving Refugee Camps (Amman, Department of Palestinian Affairs, 2009). Hana Jaber, for example, notes how village endogamy was still widely practised in al-Wihdat when she conducted her fieldwork, explaining this practice as the desire to reproduce a social uniformity and conserve the memory of origins: H. Jaber, ‘Le camp de al-Wihdat, entre norme et transgression’, Revue d’etudes palestiniennes (1996), 37 – 48. G. Chatelard, ‘What visibility conceals: re-embedding refugee migration from Iraq’, in D. Chatty and B. Finlayson (eds), Dispossession and Displacement: Forced Migration in the Middle East and North Africa (New York, Oxford University Press, 2010). Some authors estimate, for example, that over 10,000 Egyptian workers are today living inside al-Wihdat camp (al-Husseini, ‘The evolution of the Palestinian refugee camps’). Bayat, Life as Politics. M. al-Khatib and M. al-Ali, ‘Language and cultural maintenance among the Gypsies of Jordan’, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 26, 3 (2005), 187– 215. Studies have documented the importance of ideas of pollution that Gypsies hold, and the ways in which these form boundaries between themselves and non-Gypsies; see, for example, J. Okely, The Traveller-Gypsies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1983). Interestingly, the stereotypes associated with pollution and immorality have also been deployed against so-called nomads in a variety of settings; see Y. Slezkine, The Jewish Century (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2011), Chapter 1. Bayat, Life as Politics. P. Gilroy, ‘Multiculture, double consciousness and the war on terror’, Patterns of Prejudice, 39 (2005), 431– 43. Osella and Osella, Social Mobility in Kerala. O. Verkaaik, ‘The cachet dilemma: ritual and agency in new Dutch nationalism’, American Ethnologist, 37 (2010), p. 68. Osella and Osella, Social Mobility in Kerala, p. 117.

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NOTES TO PAGES 102 –104

Chapter 3

Politics and Islam

1. In Arabic, ‘shaykh’ is an honorific appellative that can be literally translated as ‘elder’. It is commonly used to refer to a tribal leader or a spiritual guide such as an Islamic scholar. In Jordan, the term was popularly associated with people who were deemed to be well versed in Islamic practice and knowledge. I decided to loosely translate the term as ‘man of piety’. The term and its significance in the camp will be analysed in greater detail in Chapter 5. 2. For example, B. Barber, Jihad vs. McWorld (New York, Ballantine Books, 1996); B. Lewis, ‘The roots of Muslim rage’, Policy, 17 (2002), 17– 26. 3. See F. Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2005); N.R. Keddie, ‘The new religious politics: where, when, and why do “fundamentalisms” appear?’ Comparative Studies in Society and History, 40 (1998), 696– 723; G. Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2002); O. Roy, The Failure of Political Islam (London, I.B.Tauris, 1994). 4. For a critique, see B. Soares and R. Otayek, ‘Introduction: Islam and Muslim politics in Africa’, in B. Soares and R. Otayak (eds), Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa (London and New York, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). 5. Roy, The Failure of Political Islam. 6. Kepel, Jihad. 7. A. Bayat, Making Islam Democratic: Social Movements and the Post-Islamist Turn (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2007). 8. See also B. Soares and F. Osella, ‘Islam, politics, anthropology’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15 (2009), S1– S23. 9. For recent work on Salafi Islam in Jordan, see Q. Wiktorowicz, ‘The Salafi Movement in Jordan’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 32 (2000); according to Wiktorowicz, Salafists ‘are considered to be “tied to Saudi” because they receive Saudi financial support through contributions for proselytizing and publishing and are unwilling to articulate a challenging discourse that would threaten the Saudi regime’ (p. 232). For comparative literature in the area, see Wiktorowicz, ‘Islamists, the state, and cooperation in Jordan’, Arab Studies Quarterly, 21 (1999), 1 – 17 among others. 10. Nonetheless, this polarisation has never taken the shape of sectarian violence. 11. S. Brenner, ‘Reconstructing self and society: Javanese Muslim women and the veil’, American Ethnologist, 23 (1996), 673–97; L. Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006); H. Henkel, ‘The location of Islam: inhabiting Istanbul in a Muslim way’, American Ethnologist, 34 (2007), 57–70; C. Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (New York, Columbia University Press, 2006); S. Ismail, Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2006); S. Mahmood, Politics of

NOTES TO PAGES 104 –110

12. 13. 14.

15. 16.

17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

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Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2005). See especially M. Lambek, ‘The anthropology of religion and the quarrel between poetry and philosophy’, Current Anthropology, 41 (2000), 309– 20. Soares and Otayek, ‘Introduction: Islam and Muslim politics in Africa’. Scholars working in this vein have hence sought to document the ambiguities and inconsistencies of living a Muslim life (e.g. G.S. Gregg, Culture and Identity in a Muslim Society (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2007); M. Marsden, Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005); S. Schielke, ‘Being good in Ramadan: ambivalence, fragmentation, and the moral self in the lives of young Egyptians’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 15 (2009), S24 –S40; Soares and Otayek, ‘Introduction: Islam and Muslim politics in Africa’). Cf. Deeb, An Enchanted Modern. For an analysis of the growing popularity of the Brotherhood in and outside refugee camps in Jordan, see Wiktorowicz, ‘Islamists’. On Hamas in the Occupied Territories, see Z. Chehab, Inside Hamas: The Untold Story of Militants, Martyrs and Spies (London, I.B.Tauris, 2007); L. Lybarger, Identity and Religion in Palestine: The Struggle between Islamism and Secularism in the Occupied Territories (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2007); B. Milton-Edwards and S. Farrell, Hamas: The Islamic Resistance Movement (Cambridge, Polity, 2010); S. Mishal and A. Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence and Coexistence (New York, Chichester, Columbia University Press, 2000). For the relationship between Hamas and the Brotherhood, see K. Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington, D.C., Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000). Wiktorowicz, ‘Islamists’. Ibid., p. 7. P. Larzillie`re, ‘Political commitment under an authoritarian regime: professional associations and the Islamist movement as alternative arenas in Jordan’, International Journal of Conflict and Violence, 6 (2012), 11 – 25. Wiktorowicz, ‘Islamists’. Ibid. For comparative literature on Islamic grassroots politics, see Jenny White’s study of Islamist mobilisation in Turkey: J. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Washington, D.C., University of Washington Press, 2011). Wiktorowicz, ‘Islamists’. According to the Brotherhood, the defeat was caused by the involvement of the state in large-scale election rigging; see C. Ryan, ‘Islamist political activism in Jordan: moderation, militancy, and democracy’, Middle East Review of International Affairs, 12 (2008), 1–13. This eventually convinced the IAF not to participate in the 2010 and 2013 elections.

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NOTES TO PAGES 110 –120

25. In P. Larzillie`re, ‘The Jordanian monarchy: Islamic social hegemony versus authoritarian liberalism?’, conference paper, ‘Monarchies in transition’, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, University of Stanford, 5/6 June 2008, p. 9. 26. Ibid. 27. G. Kra¨mer, ‘L’inte´gration des inte´gristes: une e´tude comparative de l’Egypte, la Jordanie et la Tunisie’, in G. Salame (ed.), De´mocraties sans de´mocrates (Paris, Fayard, 1994), p. 278. 28. See A. Amawi, ‘The 1993 elections in Jordan’, Arab Studies Quarterly, 16, 3 (1994), pp. 15 – 27. 29. See also L. Allen, ‘Martyr bodies in the media: human rights, aesthetics, and the politics of immediation in the Palestinian intifada’, American Ethnologist, 36 (2009), 161– 80; T. Kelly, ‘The attractions of accountancy’, Ethnography, 9 (2008), 351– 76. 30. Similarly, Hamas, germane to the Brotherhood in Palestine, has lost much of its appeal among camp dwellers. Disguised behind the empty words and boastful statements of its leaders, the weakening of Hamas resistance in Palestine is often explained to me as a result of their hidden intention of coming to terms with Israel. In addition, Hamas is also widely blamed for having lost a clear agenda by engaging in what most see as a sterile conflict with Fatah. 31. The role of the so-called Islamic movement in the political sphere has generated anxiety among a Western audience worried about the politicisation of Islam and the rise of movements fundamentally opposed to democracy; see S.P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996). Writings on the issues seems to assume, however, that the delegitimisation of the Muslim Brothers and other moderate Islamist groups in Jordan is likely to contribute to the radicalisation of their exsupporters and sympathisers (e.g. Ryan, ‘Islamist political activism’), especially among the most destitute subjects such as the Palestinian refugees living in camps; see S.S. al-Khazendar, Jordan and the Palestine Question: The Role of the Islamic and Left Forces in Foreign Policy-Making (Reading, Ithaca Press, 1997). For a similar argument in Lebanon, see B. Rougier, Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Palestinians in Lebanon (London, Harvard University Press, 2007). 32. Mahmood, Politics of Piety. 33. Hirschkind, The Ethical Soundscape; Lambek, ‘The anthropology of religion’; Mahmood, Politics of Piety. 34. Mahmood, Politics of Piety; cf. G. Simon, ‘The soul freed of cares? Islamic prayer, subjectivity, and the contradictions of moral selfhood in Minangkabau, Indonesia’, American Ethnologist, 36 (2009), 258– 75. 35. See also Mahmood, Politics of Piety. 36. The category ‘orphan’ loosely encompasses any child whose father is physically absent for a number of reasons – such as death or labour migration. 37. Cf. Deeb, An Enchanted Modern.

NOTES TO PAGES 126 –136

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38. S. Schielke, Frustrating Promises: Religiosity, Morality and Aspiration in Egypt on the Eve of the Revolution (forthcoming), p. 22. 39. According to Quentin Wiktorowicz, there is a split in the Salafi movement in Jordan between reformist and jihadist factions. On one side, there are those who believe that armed struggles against other Muslims require absolute proof of their apostasy. As this certainty is rarely available, jihad against other Muslims is not permitted. On the other side, there is the jihadi group, ‘which argues that even if a regime practises Muslim rituals, any failure to uphold Islamic law marks it as unbelieving and therefore subject to violence’ (Wiktorowicz, ‘The Salafi Movement in Jordan’, pp. 223– 4). 40. See, for example, K.P. Ewing, Arguing Sainthood: Modernity, Psychoanalysis, and Islam (Durham, Duke University Press, 1997); Marsden, Living Islam; and Soares and Otayek, ‘Introduction: Islam and Muslim politics in Africa’. 41. It is worthwhile to draw a link between this and Gregory Simon’s investigations in Minangkabau, Indonesia, on the importance of Islam in the life of the people. According to Simon, ‘although the practice of prayer may thus serve as a vehicle through which such contradictions can be challenged, and sometimes even transcended, it may also be a vehicle through which the intransigence of these contradictions is more directly experienced’ (Simon, ‘The soul freed of cares?’, p. 259). 42. On the centrality of critical thinking and reflectiveness to the way young Muslims assess religious authorities and their Islamising messages, see especially M. Marsden, ‘All-male sonic gatherings, Islamic reform, and masculinity in northern Pakistan’, American Ethnologist, 34 (2007), 473–90.

Chapter 4 Ordinary Masculinities 1. Not to mention Transjordanian nationalists who see camp dwellers and Palestinian refugees in general as an internal threat. 2. S.S. al-Khazendar, Jordan and the Palestine Question: The Role of the Islamic and Left Forces in Foreign Policy-Making (Reading, Ithaca Press, 1997), pp. 35 – 6; see also L. Brand, ‘Palestinians and Jordanians: a crisis of identity’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 24 (1995), p. 49. 3. K.P. Ewing, Stolen Honor: Stigmatizing Muslim Men in Berlin (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2008), pp. 3 –6. 4. Ibid., p. 3. 5. The contribution of social science to the study of gender and nationalism has been conspicuous, to say the least. The discursive construction of masculinity has been a central theme of investigation in a body of well-established scholarship that has explored the role of gender in the imaginative and material production of the nation and highlighted the fictitious character of masculinity. See, for example, D. Kandiyoti, Women, Islam and the State (Basingstoke,

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6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

NOTES TO PAGE 136 Macmillan, 1991); M. Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2006); A. McClintock, A. Mufti and E. Shohat, Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives (Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press, 1997); G. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York, Oxford University Press, 1996); J. Mostov, ‘Sexing the nation/desexing the body: politics of national identity in the former Yugoslavia’, in T. Mayer (ed.), The Gender Ironies of Nationalism Sexing the Nation (New York, Routledge, 1999); A. Parker, Nationalisms and Sexualities (London, Routledge, 1992); E. Povinelli, ‘Native sex: sex rites, land rights, and the making of Aboriginal civic culture’, in T. Mayer (ed.), The Gender Ironies of Nationalism Sexing the Nation (New York, Routledge, 1999); N. Yuval-Davis, Gender and Nation (London, Sage, 1997); N. Yuval-Davis, F. Anthias and J. Campling, Woman – Nation – State (Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1989). R. Connell, Gender and Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (Cambridge, Polity, 1987); R. Connell and J. Messerschmidt, ‘Hegemonic masculinity: rethinking the concept’, Gender & Society, 19 (2005), 829– 59. See, for example, P. Johnson and E. Kuttab, ‘Where have all the women (and men) gone?’, Feminist Review, 69 (2001), 21 – 43; J. Peteet, Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement (New York, Columbia University Press, 1991); J. Peteet, ‘Male gender and rituals of resistance in the Palestinian intifada: a cultural politics of violence’, American Ethnologist, 21 (1994). See, for example, S. Kanafani, ‘Leaving mother-land: the anti-feminine in Fida’i narratives’, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 15 (2008), 297– 316; A. Sa’ar and T. Yahia-Younis, ‘Masculinity in crisis: the case of Palestinians in Israel’, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 35 (2008), 305– 23. For an analysis of the highly gendered character of the Palestinian national discourse, see, among others, J. Massad, ‘Conceiving the masculine: gender and Palestinian nationalism’, Middle East Journal, 49 (1995), 467 – 83; R. Sayigh, ‘Palestinian women and politics in Lebanon’, in J. Tucker (ed.), Arab Women: Old Boundaries, New Frontiers (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1993). See, for example, R. Kanaaneh, ‘Boys or men? Duped or “made”? Palestinian soldiers in the Israeli military’, American Ethnologist, 32, 2 (2005), 260– 75; D. Monterescu, ‘Stranger masculinities: gender and politics in a Palestinian – Israeli third space’, in L. Ouzgane, (ed.), Islamic Masculinities (London, Zed, 2006). J. Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity: adolescence and the Palestinian nation-inexile’, Journal of Refugee Studies, 21 (2008), p. 1. A comment is in order to avoid hasty conclusions about the constitution of masculinity in the camp. As the specific focus of this chapter is the imbrication of masculinity and nationalism, I will emphasise the role of the Palestinian quest for self-determination in shaping camp dwellers’ masculinities. However, while it is significant to investigate the place of nationalist values and ideals in

NOTES TO PAGES 136 –139

13. 14.

15.

16. 17.

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the making of proper men, it is equally important not to forget that the articulation of masculinities in and outside the Middle East depends on broader socio-economic and political forces. In this sense, I build on Farha Ghannam’s call to take into account the whole array of social structures – especially class, religion, age and race – that concur in shaping masculine subjectivities for an exhaustive conceptualisation of how masculinity is enacted, challenged and reinforced; see F. Ghannam, Live and Die Like a Man: Gender Dynamics in Urban Egypt (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2013), p. 12. See, for example, Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity’. As Marcia Inhorn put it, the notion of hegemonic masculinity ‘obscures the lived reality of different forms of masculinity as ever-changing social strategies enacted through practice. Actual men’s performances of gender are constantly in flux and may change radically as their social-physical circumstances change’ (M. Inhorn, The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2012), p. 45). In this sense, the performance of masculinity among young men in al-Wihdat might be partly explained by Demetriou’s notion of a ‘hybrid block’ or Inhorn’s concept of ‘emergent masculinities’. Both authors take positions against Connell’s ‘hegemonic masculinity’ by problematising gender hierarchies and emphasising how male selfhood is not a constant, but an ongoing act. The way young men in al-Wihdat enact different forms of masculinities in their daily lives reflects processes of social, political and economic change, as men navigate and adapt to their changing world. However, in my analysis I do not privilege emergent forms of masculinity to the detriment of the old ones. New masculinities do not necessarily displace older ideals of manhood; both can be present simultaneously in people’s lifecycles. Such an understanding acknowledges the coexistence of these different registers and, more important, accounts also for the anxieties and contradictions that such coexistence entails. See D.Z. Demetriou, ‘Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity: a critique,’ Theory and Society 30 (2001), 337– 61; Marcia C. Inhorn and Emily A. Wentzell, ‘Embodying emergent masculinities: men engaging with reproductive and sexual health technologies in the Middle East and Mexico,’ American Ethnologist 38 (2011), 801– 15; Inhorn, The New Arab Man. Connell would call them ‘complicit’ in this respect. Scholars have documented in considerable detail the importance of violence – endured, narrated or performed – to the creation and reproduction of masculinity in the Arab Middle East. On violence and masculinity, see M. Gilsenan, Lords of the Lebanese Marches: Violence and Narrative in an Arab Society (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1996); on violence and patriarchy, see S. Joseph, ‘Brother/ sister relationships: connectivity, love, and power in the reproduction of patriarchy in Lebanon’, American Ethnologist, 21 (1994), 50–73. More specifically, violence and masculinity have been addressed in literature dealing with Palestinian experiences of the first intifada; see Julie Peteet (Peteet, Gender in

230

18.

19. 20. 21. 22.

23.

24.

25. 26.

NOTES TO PAGES 139 –145 Crisis; Peteet, ‘Male gender and rituals of resistance’; Peteet, ‘The writing on the walls: the graffiti of the intifada’, Cultural Anthropology, 11 (1996), 139–59). On nicknames, see, among others, G. Vom Bruck and B. Bodenhorn, The Anthropology of Names and Naming (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006); on nicknames in Jordan as a device of social control, see R. Antoun, ‘On the significance of names in an Arab village’, Ethnology, 7 (1968), 158 –70; on the use of nicknames among criminals, see D. Gambetta, Codes of the Underworld: How Criminals Communicate (Princeton and Woodstock, Princeton University Press, 2009). See also Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity’. In the camp, for example, people used the appellative of ‘shuyukh’ also to refer to the Muslim Brothers. An ankle-length garment with long sleeves, similar to a robe. Studies on young men and free time underline the importance of particular sites in the production of distinctive forms of masculinity; see, for example, D. Chakrabarty, ‘Adda, Calcutta: dwelling in modernity’, Public Culture, 11 (1999), 109–45; J. Cowan, ‘Going out for a coffee? Contesting the grounds of gendered pleasures in everyday sociability’, in P. Loizos and E. Papataxiarchis (eds), Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991); M. Herzfeld, The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1985); C. Jeffrey, Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010); B. Weiss, Street Dreams and Hip Hop Barbershops: Global Fantasy in Urban Tanzania (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009). This recalls a pattern highlighted by other anthropological work conducted in the Arab Muslim world that points to some of the ways in which the path from youth to adulthood involves young men being confronted with the choice to join either ‘the party of drugs’ (hizb al-zalta) or the ‘party of the mosque’ (hizb al-jami’a); see S. Ismail, Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters: Encountering the Everyday State (Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2006). For a similar and more in-depth analysis of the moral (and political) bearing of language on Muslims in Pakistan, see P. Rollier, ‘Texting Islam: text messages and religiosity among young Pakistanis’, Contemporary South Asia, 18 (2010), 413– 26; for comparative work on adab in the Middle East and in South Asia, see B. Metcalf, ‘Islamic arguments in contemporary Pakistan’, in W.R. Roff (ed.), Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning: Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse (London and Sydney, Croom and Helm, 1987). On the imbrication of piety and modernity in the Middle East, see L. Deeb, An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2006). The world ‘dawawin’ (plural of dawanji) is often used for both singular and plural cases.

NOTES TO PAGES 145 –152

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27. L. Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007); M. Layoun, Wedded to the Land? Gender, Boundaries, and Nationalism in Crisis (Durham, Duke University Press, 2001). 28. It must be noticed that the rise of the ‘shaykh’ model is not unique to alWihdat, but it needs to be situated within the contexts of the general rise of Islamism in the Middle East, the increasing power of Hamas in the Occupied Territories, and the concomitant loss of influence of the PLO (see Chapter 3). On ‘political Islam’ in the Muslim world, see F. Devji, Landscapes of the Jihad: Militancy, Morality, Modernity (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2005); N. Keddie, ‘The new religious politics: where, when, and why do “fundamentalisms” appear?’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 40 (1998), 696–723; G. Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2002); O. Roy, Globalized Islam: The Search for a New Ummah (New York, Columbia University Press, 2004). For an anthropological critique of the concept, see C. Hirschkind, ‘What is political Islam?’, Middle East Report, 27, 4 (1997), 12–14. 29. See especially Roy, Globalized Islam; S. Zubaida, ‘Islam and nationalism: continuities and contradictions’, Nations and Nationalism, 10 (2004), 407– 20. 30. K. Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice (Washington, D.C., Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000); Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs. 31. For comparative literature on the dawanji-shaykh continuum, see Ismail, Political Life and Wilson C. Jacob’s discussion of the futuwwa-baltagi type: W. Jacob, ‘Eventful transformations: al-futuwwa between history and the everyday’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 49 (2007), 689 – 712. This confirms the findings of other studies that have explored the hegemonic position of masculinity in the reproduction of a Palestinian national identity. In a compelling article, Joseph Massad points out how the ‘national agent’ in the Palestinian nationalistic discourse is a young, muscular and self-assertive male. Although militaristic virtues and prowess in fighting do not encompass the full extent of his masculinity, the ultimate expression of this manhood is the capacity of acting and being an agent of change. This image is counterpoised to a rather passive ideal of femininity: ‘while men actively create glory, respect, and dignity, women are merely the soil on which these attributes, along with manhood, grow’ (Massad, ‘Conceiving the masculine’, p. 474). 32. For comparative literature on the political significance of the commodification and transnational circulation of the images of Che Guevara, see R Parvathi, ‘Che Guevara and neoliberal alienation in London’, in H. West and R. Parvathi (eds), Enduring Socialism: Explorations of Revolutions and Tranformation, Restoration and Continuation (London, Berghahn Books, 2009). 33. Massad, ‘Conceiving the masculine’, p. 478. 34. Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity’.

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35. As recent work on the Middle East has demonstrated, the incapacity to fully enact the code of dominant masculinity would expose the ‘failed men’ to experience of frustration and inadequacy: see, for example, Salwa, Political Life; Kanafani, ‘Leaving mother-land’; Sa’ar and Yahia-Younis, ‘Masculinity in crisis’. Equally important has also been the recognition of the flexibility of Palestinian conceptions of masculinity and ways in which young men strategically soften a kind of hyper-masculinity in order to facilitate their socio-economic integration within the broader Jordanian society: see, for example, Monterescu, ‘Stranger masculinities’ and Hart, ‘Dislocated masculinity’. What, however, this scholarship fails to document is the fact that this flexibility does not necessarily herald a withdrawal from ideological commitment. 36. T. Kelly, ‘The attractions of accountancy’, Ethnography, 9 (2008), p. 362. 37. Cf. Peteet, ‘Male gender and rituals of resistance’. 38. See also Ismail, Political Life in Cairo’s New Quarters. 39. For comparative literature, see A. Masquelier, ‘The scorpion’s sting: youth, marriage and the struggle for social maturity in Niger’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 11 (2005), 59 – 83. 40. Al-Tafila is a town located 183 kilometres southwest of Amman, known to be inhabited predominantly by Transjordanian families. 41. See T. Swedenburg, ‘The Palestinian Peasant as national signifier’, Anthropological Quarterly, 63 (1990), 18 –30. 42. Laleh Khalili has written about Palestinians who live in refugee camps in Lebanon: ‘as the generation that remembers living in Palestine passes away, commemoration of quotidian life in Palestine becomes for subsequent generations not merely a narrative or practice of remembering and reconstructing, but the basis of their political identity and the motivation for their political mobilisation’ (L. Khalili, ‘Grass-roots commemorations: remembering the land in the camps of Lebanon’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 34 (2004), p. 19). 43. See also R. Farah, Popular Memory and Reconstructions of Palestinian Identity: alBaq’a Refugee Camp, Jordan, PhD dissertation, University of Toronto (1999). 44. Massad, ‘Conceiving the masculine’. 45. On 21 March 1968, in reprisal for a series of raids by the PLO against Israel, around 15,000 Israeli troops, armoured vehicles and helicopters attacked the small town of Karama. As the village was located on the east bank of Jordan River, the Jordanian army decided to fight alongside the Palestinian Fedayeen. On a military level the battle ended in favour of Israel. Karama Battle resulted in massive losses for Fatah’ forces, which lost 120–200 fighters and saw a large part of the city destroyed. However, the Israeli army also suffered heavy losses: 28 Israeli soldiers were killed and 12 tanks were captured. Because of these losses, the battle became an epic victory of Palestinians against Israel celebrated throughout the Arab world (see Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs, pp. 156–7). 46. See also Masquelier, ‘The scorpion’s sting’. 47. Ewing, Stolen Honor, pp. 6 –11.

NOTES TO PAGES 164 –168

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Chapter 5 Time Off! ‘Loitering’ in the Camp 1. There is an emerging body of scholarship in the social sciences that has investigated the connections between boredom and the frustrated aspirations of youths in the neo-liberal economies in Africa and South Asia: see K. Hansen, ‘Getting stuck in the compound: some odds against social adulthood in Lusaka, Zambia’, Africa Today, 51 (2005), 3– 16; C. Jeffrey, Timepass: Youth, Class and the Politics of Waiting in India (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010); D. Mains, ‘Neoliberal times: progress, boredom, and shame among young men in urban Ethiopia’, American Ethnologist, 34 (2007), 659– 73; S. Schielke, ‘Boredom and despair in rural Egypt’, Contemporary Islam, 28 (2008), 251– 70; O. Verkaaik, Migrants and Militants: Fun and Urban Violence in Pakistan (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2004); Musharbash, Y., ‘Boredom, time, and modernity: an example from aboriginal Australia’, American Anthropologist, 109, 2 (2007), 307– 17. 2. L. Allen, ‘Martyr bodies in the media: human rights, aesthetics, and the politics of immediation in the Palestinian intifada’, American Ethnologist, 36 (2009), p. 473. 3. T. Kelly, ‘The attractions of accountancy’, Ethnography, 9 (2008), p. 353. 4. A type of smoking pipe used in eastern countries in which the smoke is filtered through a water pipe before reaching the inhaler pipe. 5. The tradition of young men gathering in recreational spaces and engaging in social practices of conviviality is definitely not singular to al-Wihdat. Other researches carried out in different geographical areas have investigated how fun and time-off activities are the means through which youths navigate their social malaise: for example P. Corrigan, ‘Doing nothing’, in S. Hall and T. Jefferson (eds), Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in Post-War Britain (London, University of Birmingham, 1976); J. Cowan, ‘Going out for a coffee? Contesting the grounds of gendered pleasures in everyday sociability’, in P. Loizos and E. Papataxiarchis (eds), Contested Identities: Gender and Kinship in Modern Greece (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991); Jeffrey, Timepass; W.F. Whyte, Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1969). 6. See, for example, I. Jean-Klein, ‘Nationalism and resistance: the two faces of everyday activism in Palestine during the intifada’, Cultural Anthropology, 16 (2001), 83 – 126. 7. The nexus between emotions, politics and morality is not something new in anthropology. Much anthropological work focuses on the ways in which leisure activities do not simply communicate a desire for escapism. As scholars have suggested, and recent events in the Middle East and North Africa have abundantly demonstrated, new technologies and social networks have played a pivotal role in sparking debate and fostering political change in the Arab world: for example, D.F. Eickelman and J.W. Anderson, New Media in the Muslim

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NOTES TO PAGES 168 –171

World: The Emerging Public Sphere (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1999). Studies have also investigated how a specific ‘sub-political consciousness’ is at times re-enacted inside spaces of leisure such as taverns and saloons (E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, Gollancz, 1963), pp. 55 – 9) or through sport (J. MacClancy, Sport, Identity and Ethnicity (Oxford, Berg, 1996)) and other particular forms of leisure (N. Kumar, The Artisans of Banaras: Popular Culture and Identity, 1880– 1986 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988)). Another body of work has shown how gender and kinship politics are reproduced within coffee shops: Cowan, ‘Going out for a coffee?’; M. Herzfeld, The Poetics of Manhood: Contest and Identity in a Cretan Mountain Village (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1985). Other studies on young men and free time underline the importance of ‘hanging around’ in the production of distinctive forms of masculinity: for example, D. Chakrabarty, ‘Adda, Calcutta: dwelling in modernity’, Public Culture, 11 (1999), 109–45; B. Weiss, Street Dreams and Hip Hop Barbershops: Global Fantasy in Urban Tanzania (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009). In his book Timepass (2010), for example, Craig Jeffrey hints at the possibility that idleness is not only an expression of social suffering, but also something else – perhaps a cultural and political practice, a mode of self-fashioning and self-expression. Magnus Marsden, in his research among Chitrali Muslims in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, sheds lights on the political significance of istok, all-male musical gatherings that are very popular in the region. The fun of these musical events, he claims, is often ‘framed and invested with political and affective significance by participants in a way that creatively builds on the theories of emotion advanced by their Islamist detractors’ (M. Marsden, ‘All-male sonic gatherings, Islamic reform, and masculinity in northern Pakistan’, American Ethnologist, 34 (2007), p. 474). The interplay of specific forms of masculinity and emotion during the istok challenges the parameters of morality advanced by the region’s ‘men of piety’. In a similar fashion, Oskar Verkaaik shows how militants of the Muhajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) perceive their participation in the nationalist movement as a good opportunity to have fun. Fun is the channel through which MQM produces its own nationalistic discourse, promoting a Muslim identity that is ‘a paradoxical reconciliation of complementary but contradictory discourses on Muslim nationalism and ethnic solidarity, Islamic modernism and Sufism’ (Migrants and Militants, p. 185). My argument moves along similar lines in so far as I am interested in documenting how fun and entertainment were central to the refashioning of the political. Chakrabarty, ‘Adda, Calcutta’. The name is fictitious. Jeffrey, Timepass; Verkaaik, Migrants and Militants. Herzfeld, The Poetics of Manhood, p. 3. This discourse of male idleness bears similarity to the distinction Craig Jeffrey made regarding Indian students who ‘imagined themselves as intelligent, unflustered observers of urban life and spoke of illiterates as slack-jawed, easily

NOTES TO PAGES 171 –184

13. 14.

15.

16.

17. 18. 19. 20.

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riled buffoons – the lowest common denominators of urban street culture’ (Jeffrey, Timepass, p. 475). See also Schielke, ‘Boredom and despair’. These ways of having fun have therefore transcended a sharp divide between pious forms of pleasure and apparently more authentic expressions of joy and challenged the idea advanced by those who see the playful spontaneity of ‘authentic fun’ as necessarily incompatible with the moral ideal advanced by Islamist and pious-minded people; see A. Bayat, Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2010), Chapter 7; cf. M. Marsden, Living Islam: Muslim Religious Experience in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2005); P. Rollier, ‘Texting Islam: text messages and religiosity among young Pakistanis’, Contemporary South Asia, 18 (2010), 413– 26; Verkaaik, Migrants and Militants. See, among others, S. Farmer, Martyred Village: Commemorating the 1944 Massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane (Berkeley and London, University of California Press, 1999); R. Sayigh, Too Many Enemies (London, Zed Books, 1994); C. Tilly, ‘Afterword: political memories in space and time’, in J. Boyarin (ed.), Remapping Memory: The Politics of Timespace (Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press, 1994). The significance of the Nakba (the catastrophe of 1948) and its associated objects of memory in the political life of Palestinians – olive trees, house keys, embroidered dresses, and village life in general – has been explored extensively; see, for example, A. Sa’di and L. Abu-Lughod (eds), Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory (New York, Columbia University Press, 2007); L. Khalili, ‘Grass-roots commemorations: remembering the land in the camps of Lebanon’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 34 (2004), 6 – 22; S. Slyomovics, The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998); T. Swedenburg, ‘The Palestinian Peasant as national signifier’, Anthropological Quarterly, 63 (1990), 18 – 30. Recent studies have also focused on commemorative practices that celebrate Palestinian heroes and martyrs from the start of the nationalist movement in 1960 and its tragic development during the second intifada; see, for example, L. Allen, Suffering through an Uprising: The Cultural Politics of Violence, Victimization and Human Rights in Palestine, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago (2005); and L. Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs, p. 5. A. Yurchak, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation (Princeton and Oxford, Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 24. Verkaaik, Migrants and Militants; Yurchak, Everything Was Forever. The relationship between politics and football has been abundantly documented in the Middle East as well as elsewhere; see, for example, G. Armstrong and R. Giulianotti, Entering the Field: New Perspectives on World Football (Oxford, Berg,

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21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29.

NOTES TO PAGES 184 –193 1997); A. Ben-Porat, ‘“Biladi, Biladi”: ethnic and nationalistic conflict in the soccer stadium in Israel’, Soccer & Society, 2 (2001), 19–38; J. Dorsey, ‘Pitched battles: the role of ultra soccer fans in the Arab Spring’, Mobilization: An International Quarterly, 17, 4 (2012), 411–18; B. Fozooni, ‘Religion, politics and class: conflict and contestation in the development of football in Iran’, Soccer & Society, 5 (2004), 356–70; T. Sorek, Arab Soccer in a Jewish State: The Integrative Enclave (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007), among others. D. Tuastad, ‘The political role of football for Palestinians in Jordan’, in G. Armstrong and R. Giulianotti (eds), Entering the Field: New Perspectives on World Football (Oxford, Berg, 1997). For example, K. Abu Toameh, ‘Amman revoking Palestinians’ citizenship’, The Jerusalem Post, 21 July 2009; R. Omari, ‘Probe continues into Friday footballrelated violence’, The Jordan Times, 12 December 2010. H. Keinon, ‘WikiLeaks: “East Bank” team’s fans mock Hashemite Kingdom’s Queen Rania’s Palestinian origins: “divorce her, and we’ll marry you two of ours”’, The Jerusalem Post, 12 July 2010. Tuastad, ‘The political role of football’, p. 118. See Verkaaik, Migrants and Militants Ibid. J. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York, Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 257. Cf. I. Jean-Klein, ‘Nationalism and resistance’. M. Candea, ‘“Our division of the Universe”: making a space for the non-political in the anthropology of politics’, Current Anthropology, 52 (2011), 309–34.

Conclusion 1. See J. Spencer, Anthropology, Politics and the State: Democracy and Violence in South Asia (Cambridge and New York, Cambridge University Press, 2007); J. Spencer, ‘Performing democracy and violence, agonism and community, politics and not politics in Sri Lanka’, Geoforum, 43 (2012), 725– 31. 2. The Jordanian mukhabarat and the Israeli secret service are both widely known for being the most effective intelligence agencies in the Middle East – rumours, poetry and lately cinematographic transpositions have contributed to strengthen this idea. 3. On the relationship between boredom and fear, see also T. Kelly, ‘The attractions of accountancy’, Ethnography, 9 (2008), p. 362, and M. Taussig, Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man: A Study in Terror and Healing (Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1986). 4. Although no buses departed from Abdali any longer (the station was closed down because of the types of property speculation that were affecting many areas of the city at the time of my research), services continued to connect the

NOTES TO PAGES 193 –201

5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

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capital with other important locations such as Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus and Aleppo. In 1976, over 4,000 people died following the destruction of Tal al-Za’tar refugee camp at the hands of Maronite militias during the Lebanese Civil War. Six years after, in the refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, the Lebanese Forces and South Lebanese Army, with the logistic support of the Israeli army, perpetrated another massacre, killing more than 1,000 Palestinian refugees; see Y. Sayigh, Armed Struggle and the Search for State: The Palestinian National Movement, 1949– 1993 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997). See also L. Khalili, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007). A member of the Lebanese Phalange Party – a right-wing paramilitary and political organisation, mainly supported by Maronite Christians. L. Allen, ‘Martyr bodies in the media: human rights, aesthetics, and the politics of immediation in the Palestinian intifada’, American Ethnologist, 36 (2009), p. 473. See, for example, J. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (London, Yale University Press, 1985). See C. Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (New Brunswick, Rutgers, 1976). See, for example, L. Brand, ‘Palestinians and Jordanians: a crisis of identity’, Journal of Palestine Studies, 24 (1995), pp. 46– 61. J. Massad, Colonial Effects: The Making of National Identity in Jordan (New York, Columbia University Press, 2001), p. 257. See also A. Abu-Odeh, Jordanians, Palestinians, and the Hashemite Kingdom in the Middle East Peace Process (Washington, D.C., United States Institute of Peace Press, 1999). See A. Yurchak, ‘Necro-Utopia: the politics of indistinction and the aesthetics of the non-Soviet’, Current Anthropology, 49 (2008), 199– 224, and comments by Dominic Boyer. M. Candea, ‘“Our division of the Universe”: making a space for the non-political in the anthropology of politics’, Current Anthropology, 52 (2011), 309–34. See Yurchak, ‘Necro-Utopia’, and comments by Dominic Boyer, p. 216.

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INDEX

Abadi, Bedouin tribe, 46 Abbas, Mahmoud, 102,103 Abdali, 78, 193 Abdullah I, King, 34, 36, 37, 38, 43 Abdullah II, King, 2, 46, 46, 78, 156, 164, 168, 185, 191, 192 Abu-Odeh, Adnan, 42 activism, 2, 3, 7, 56, 69, 106, 108, 109, 112, 154, 180 adolescents, 3, 9, 28, 29, 59, 119, 135, 138, 139, 152, 153, 165, 168, 175, 180, 183 adulthood, 79, 81, 99, 121, 150, 155, 157, 160, 161 Afghanistan, 128, 130, 147, 148, 149, 153, 184 Agamben, Giorgio, 200 agency, 4, 8 – 15, 19, 20, 29, 33, 89, 101, 137, 153, 155, 159, 160, 189, 197, 198, 199, 200, 201 Algeria, 4, 68 Allen, Lori, 165 allied forces, 34 alms-giving, 117, 144 Amman, 1, 2, 7, 21, 26, 31, 33, 37, 38, 39, 42, 46, 48, 52, 56, 57, 61, 68, 74, 75, 76, 78, 79, 87, 89, 90, 94,

104, 108, 134, 135, 151, 155, 156, 163, 164, 181, 188, 191, 193, 198, 199 Amman Metropolitan Area (AMA), 48, 87 animality, 95 ansar (supporters), 43 Aqaba, 123, 124, 156, 158 Arab cause, 39 Arab forces, 35, 41 Arab – Israeli conflict, 48 See also: Arab – Israeli war Arab – Israeli war, 36 See also: Arab – Israeli conflict Arab League, 38, 44 Arab Muslim, 116, 146 Arab Spring, 2, 8, 18, 191 Arab State, 6, 40 Arab uprisings, 7 Arafat, Yasser, 3, 46 Argentina, 181 Ashrafiyya, 30, 57, 84 assimilation, 3, 8, 9, 71, 137, 200, 201 asylum seekers, 48 Australia, 87 al-’Awda (the return), 156, 178, 180, 181

INDEX awlad al-mukhayyam/mukhayyamjiyye (Camp dwellers), 31, 86 Ba’thism, 108 Balfour Declaration, 122, 125 Bani Sakhr, Bedouin tribe, 46 Baq’a camp, 39, 89, 90, 156, 157 Barcelona, 180 barnamaj al-aytam (the orphans’ programme), 106, 111, 119– 125, 131, 143, 148, 167, 171, 172 Bayat, Joseph, 61 Bedouin tribes, 46 Bedouins, 4, 44 Beirut, 126, 188, 193, 194 Berlin, 135 Bin Laden, Osama, 104, 131, 147 Black September, 6, 7, 29, 42, 43, 44, 47, 56, 59, 69, 103, 108, 112, 145, 150, 160, 184 boredom, 9, 163, 164– 170, 176, 178, 180, 189, 190, 192, 193, 195, 199 Brand, Laurie, 37 Brazil, 181 Britain, 34 British Mandate, 34, 35 Butler, Judith, 12, 13, 14 Cairo, 2 camp dwellers’ self-representation, 64 Camp Service Committee, 27, 62 Canada, 87 Candea, Matei, 19, 22 Castro, Fidel, 147 celebrations, 79, 81, 96, 175–180 Chakrabarty, Dipesh, 169 China, 65, 87, 96 CIA, 192, 193 citizenship, 3, 6, 7, 17, 36, 38, 46, 47, 136, 197 Communism, 108

251

Community Based Organisations (CBOs), 56 Community Infrastructure Program (CIP), 57 community, national, 37, 55, 60, 82, 100, 136 consciousness, political, 6, 11, 14, 28, 169 cosmopolitanism, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 101 cosmopolitanism, everyday, 94, 101 criticism, post-modernist, 27 cultural intimacy, 169 dabke (a Palestinian traditional dance), 176 Damascus, 34, 194 Darwish, Faraj, 156 Darwish, Mahmoud, 165, 175 dawanji, dawawin (troublemaker), 2, 95, 121, 135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 152, 153, 160, 171, 172, 173, 174 Dayr Ammar, 59 democracy, 16, 17, 103 Department of Palestinian Affairs (DPA), 55 depoliticisation, 9, 19, 22 Derrida, Jacques, 12 discrimination, 15, 17, 18, 21, 41, 81, 84, 86, 99, 110, 150, 154, 155, 156, 157, 161, 166, 169, 270, 186, 187, 197, 198, 199 disengagement Jordanian, 55 from politics, 7, 44, 55, 69, 191 displacement, 3, 20, 60, 99, 199 Dome of the Rock, 38, 175 East Bank, 4, 36, 38, 39, 41, 69, 84, 182, 197 Economic and Social Productivity Program (ESPP), 57

252

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND IDENTITY

economy, neo-liberal, 165 Egypt, 1, 35, 39 Emirate of Transjordan, 34 Engineering Association Council, 108 England, 180 Europe, 87, 89 everyday experience, 14, 15 everyday life, 4, 8, 9, 12, 15, 23, 27, 29, 73, 96, 105, 116, 117, 118, 121, 126, 138, 144, 164, 188, 196, 199 everyday practices, 15, 197 exile, 15, 18, 57, 59, 60, 61, 68, 70, 82, 89, 93, 99, 101, 122, 125, 126, 136, 137, 138, 153, 160, 199 faith, man of, 1 See also: shaykh Farah, Randa, 84 Fatah, 3, 7, 26, 41, 42, 59, 103, 107 fedayeen (guerrilla fighters), 5, 18, 41, 42, 59, 80, 103, 149, 158 fellahin (peasants), 77 football, 26, 90, 95, 119, 122, 131, 163, 164, 167, 173, 175, 180– 189, 190, 196 Arab championship, 187 ludic dimension of, 184 matches, 23, 175, 180, 182, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 196 political significance of, 184 football team Faisaly, 181 Jordanian, 187 al-Wihdat, 59, 184 Wihdat, 1, 181, 186 Foucault, Michel, 12, 200 France, 34 freedom, 11, 13, 147, 153 friend/enemy, dichotomy of, 17 Gaza, 35, 36, 47, 51, 60 82, 107, 122, 123, 125, 131, 178, 181 Ghor, 65

globalisation, 103 God, 40, 72, 85, 107, 114, 115, 116, 117, 119, 122, 123, 129, 130, 142, 143, 144, 147, 149, 172, 183 Greater Syria, 38 guerrilla, 5, 6, 41, 42, 123, 145, 158, 178, 184, 185 Guevara, Ernesto ‘Che’, 147 Gulf countries, 82, 108 Gulf War, 46, 82, 85 Gypsies, 68, 94, 95, 96, 97, 101, 140, 149 Habash, George, 3 Haganah, 35 Hamas, 3, 7, 106, 107, 109, 113 Hart, Jason, 136 Hashemite family, 4 Hashemite governance, 17 Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, 35, 36, 177 Hashemite monarchy, 37 Hashemite regime, 47 Hebron, 36 Heroism, narratives of, 5 Herzfeld, Michael, 169 Hettin camp, 39 Hezbollah, 109 Hobbes, Thomas, 16 homeland, 8, 18, 45, 60, 63, 68, 88, 147 homeliness, 88, 93, 99 Housing Projects for the Poor (HPP), 57 Human Rights Watch, 48 Huson camp, 39 Hussein camp, 38, 42 al-Hussein, Hejazi Emir Abdullah I bin, 34 Al-Husseini, Jalal , 54 Hussein, King, 5, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 47, 104 Hussein, Saddam, 46, 94, 178 hybridity, 93

INDEX Ibn al-mukhayyam (son of the camp), 98 ideals, Palestinian nationalistic, 14, 15 identity, ethno-national, 98 identity, national, 14, 17, 33, 35, 37, 40, 43, 44, 45, 47, 60, 69, 74, 87, 90, 98, 101, 136, 137, 164, 188, 196, 199 identity, Palestinian, 10, 11, 47 identity, political, 9, 15, 25, 90, 100, 160 Iftar (evening meal), 120 al-ihtisham (‘proper’ female modesty), 75 immigration, 93, 101 immorality, 70, 78, 97, 101, 112, 115, 117, 120, 130, 131, 174 imperialism, western, 105, 116, 146 integration, 4, 8, 13, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 33, 38, 46, 47, 51, 53, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 68, 69, 73, 74, 82, 86, 87, 90, 93, 99, 101, 106, 137, 153, 157, 160, 161, 164, 168, 189, 197, 198, 200, 201 integration, socio-economic, 8, 19, 21, 74, 86, 87, 93, 99, 101, 153, 164, 198 intelligence agency (al-mukhabarat), 45 See also: al-mukhabarat International Crisis Group, 110 intifada, 28, 29, 44, 56, 57, 122, 123, 125, 165, 168 invasion, Iraqi, 46 Iraq, 34, 46, 62, 68, 94, 95, 97, 101, 130,147, 148, 153 Irbid, 37, 38, 46, 110, 191 Islam mondain, 105 Islam, 9, 43, 75, 77, 95, 101– 133, 135, 142, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 153, 158, 159, 172, 173 Islamic Action Front (IAF), 107 Islamic Centre Charity, 110 Islamic discourse , 106 Islamic duties, 120 Islamic ethos, 120

253

Islamic groups, 103, 104, 109, 112 Islamic knowledge, 118, 120, 142 Islamic law, 128 Islamic lifestyle, 105 Islamic locutions, 118 Islamic moral regulations, 126 Islamic parties, 106, 132 Islamic radicalism, 103, 132 Islamic state, 43 Islamic symbolism, 106 Islamic teachings, 143, 147 Islamic terrorists, 135 Islamist politics, 131 Israel, 1, 11, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 44, 48, 54, 57, 63, 71, 107, 109, 110, 111, 122, 123, 125, 131, 145, 156, 157, 158, 187 Israeli occupation, 44, 107 Jabal Amman, 30, 74, 77, 163 Jabal Ashrafiyya, 30 Jabha al-Amal al-Islami, 107 Jaffa, 77 Jameson, Fredric, 19 Jarash camp, 39 Jenin, 36 Jerusalem, 36, 38, 77, 111, 119, 183 Jews, 77, 107, 123 jihad, 128, 146, 147 Jihadi Salafists, 128 jil al-thawra (the generation of the revolution), 80 Jordan first (al-urdunn awalan), 47, 69 Jordan Valley, 37, 65 Jordan army of, 42, 59, 145 authorities of, 23, 47, 48, 55, 69 citizens of, 14, 18, 21, 29, 33, 94, 110, 186, 189, 196, 200 citizenship of, 38, 47 Government of, 27, 38, 40, 41, 47, 51, 52, 56, 69, 109, 146 monarchy of, 59 society, 33, 38, 75, 76, 86, 137, 143

254

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND IDENTITY

Jordan cont. State, 6, 18, 33, 37, 45, 135, 201 territory of, 53 Jordanian Popular Democratic Unity Party, 3 Jordanianess, 17, 23, 45 Jordanisation, 69 Jungen, Christine, 43 kafir (apostate, plural kuffar), 128, 153 Kanafani, Ghassan, 175 Karama, Battle of, 158 Karameh, the battle of, 37 kashash (pigeon trainer), 162, 169, 173, 174 Kelly, Tobias, 154, 165 Khalili, Laleh, 175 kingdom, 14, 20, 35, 36, 37, 38, 37, 41, 42, 43, 46, 52, 55, 57, 75, 108, 145, 157, 161, 177, 197, 200 Kuwait, 46, 82, 87 laji’in (Palestinian refugees), 4, 72, 73, 166 See also: Palestinian refugees Larzillie‘re, Pe´ne´lope, 110 Law of Jordanian Nationality, 36 Lebanon, 5, 6, 7, 34 Liberation Organisation (PLO), 105 Lion Cubs, 59 Loyalty March, 2 ma’askar (military training camp), 5 Madi, Sandra, 156 Mahmood, Sabah, 13, 14, 15, 96 malja’ (shelters), 32, 61 manhood, 136, 138, 145, 151, 152, 160 manliness, 144, 151, 152 Maqdisi, Abu Muhammad, 104 March 24 Youth Movement, the, 2, 18 marginalisation, 44, 73, 85, 92, 131, 137, 139, 145, 164, 186, 191 marriage, 74, 79, 87, 89, 93, 95 See also: wedding

martyrdom, 123, 158 masculinity construction of, 136, 143 crisis of, 155 dawanji, 145 dominant, 138 hegemonic, 136, 137, 138 militarisation of, 147 model of, 136, 139, 140, 158, 160 nationalist, 156, 157 normative conceptions of, 157 ordinary, 138, 153, 154, 161 Palestinian nationalist, 156 performance of, 9, 137, 138 pious, 143, 157, 158 practices of, 146 shaykh, 145, 153, 160 Mecca, 34, 116, 123, 125 Medina, 43 Middle East, 3, 4, 7, 10, 51, 59, 69, 103, 132, 146, 194 militancy, 7, 20, 80, 106, 132, 152, 190 militant Islamic group, 133 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 56 Ministry of Youth and Sport, 56 Muhammad, Prophet, 116, 124, 128 See also: Prophet morality, 70, 77, 78, 97, 101, 105, 112, 115, 117, 120, 130, 131, 143, 169, 173, 174 mosque al-Aqsa, 111, 165, 185 King Hussein, 104 Mossad, 192, 193 Mouffe, Chantal, 16, 22 Mubarak, Hosni, 2 al-mukhabarat, 45 mukhayyam (refugee camp), 3, 4, 5, 14, 31, 72, 73, 75, 76, 86, 98, 101, 145, 151, 153, 166, 167, 169, 195 Muslim Brothers, 104, 107, 110, 111, 113 Muslim life, 129

INDEX Muslim personhood, 129 Muslim tradition, 173 Muslim shia, 104 Muslim sunni, 104 Nablus, 36 Nadi al-Wihdat, Department of Children, 96 Nakba, 29, 80, 157, 158, 175, 176, 177, 179, 182 Naksa, 39, 175, 176 narratives commemorative, 175 nationalistic, 175 Nasser, Gamal, 108 nationalism, 43, 69 nationalism, Palestinian, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 28, 33, 54, 59, 64, 71, 74, 100, 101, 105, 106, 116, 133, 136, 137, 138, 146, 153, 160, 164, 165, 179, 180, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 195, 197, 201 nationality, Jordanian, 36, 39 Nationality Law, 35 nationhood, 175 naturalisation policy, 13 neo-colonialism, 133 neoliberalism, 78 NGOs, 27, 56, 108 Occupied Territories, 44, 57, 107, 145, 158, 165, 186 open-bridge policy, 39 ordinariness, 15, 16, 19, 20, 81, 190 the ordinary, 4, 8, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 29, 33, 61, 74, 100, 101, 106, 118, 126, 128, 129, 133, 138, 140, 151, 152, 153, 154, 161, 164, 188, 189, 190, 191, 195, 196, 197, 198, 201 ordinary life, 9, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, 29, 33, 100, 101, 106,

255

126, 128, 129, 133, 153, 161, 189, 190, 195 Oslo peace agreements, 7 Oslo peace process, 64 Otayek, Rene´, 105 Ottoman Empire, 34 Ottoman jurisdiction, 34 Palestine liberation of, 38 occupation of, 131 president of, 102 state institution, 8 Palestinian Authority, 7 Palestinian cause, 7, 39, 77, 78, 90, 178, 194 Palestinian celebrations, 95, 175 Palestinian community, 41, 44, 54, 90, 98, 176 Palestinian experience of displacement, 60 Palestinian government, 6 Palestinian, identity, 10, 11, 47 Palestinian – Jordanian relationships, 40 Palestinian national belonging, 31 Palestinian national consciousness, 5, 72 Palestinian national movement, 7 Palestinian nationalism, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 28, 33, 54, 59, 64, 71, 74, 100, 101, 105, 106, 116, 133, 136, 137, 138, 146, 153, 160, 164, 165, 179, 180, 184, 185, 186, 187, 189, 190, 195, 197, 201 Palestinian nationalist discourse, 151, 190 Palestinian, political identity, 15, 160 Palestinian, political memory, 194 Palestinian resistance movements (PRM), 40 Palestinian State, 7, 48 Palestinian steadfastness, 176

256

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND IDENTITY

Palestinian struggle for national sovereignty, 126, 146 Palestinian symbols, 176 Palestinian villages, 35, 60 de-Palestinisation, 45, 69 Pan-Arabism, 108 Pan-Arab ideals, 37 parliament, 6, 17, 39, 109, 110 participation, political, 7, 16, 17, 22, 40, 107, 192 parties, political, 3, 7, 17, 112, 114, 116, 133, 166, 180, 189 patriotism, 179, 194 personhood, 20, 129, 143 Peteet, Julie, 4, 58, 60 Phalange, Lebanese, 194 piety, 9, 76, 77, 103, 104, 105, 106, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 125, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 138, 142, 143, 148, 151, 152, 172, 173 pigeon trainers, 173 See also: kashash pilgrimage to Mecca, 116, 125 political activity, 7, 23, 47 political commemorations, 175, 189 political commitment, 99 political consciousness, 6, 11, 14, 28, 169 political demonstrations, 2, 3, 112, 180, 182, 184 political identity, 9, 15, 25, 90, 100, 160 political Islamism, 104 political participation, 7, 16, 17, 22, 40, 107 political subjectivity, 13, 19, 23, 19, 58, 76, 77, 99, 137, 174, 198 political, suspension of the, 19, 20, 21, 189 politicisation, 9, 19, 20, 22, 54, 60, 69 politics, 2, 3, 8, 9, 11, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 28, 103, 105, 106, 107, 110, 113, 114, 115, 131,

132, 165, 166, 167, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 186, 189, 190, 191, 195 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the (PFLP), 26 Post-Islamism, 103, 104, 106 Pratt Ewing, Katherine, 135 prayer, 38, 117, 199, 122, 123, 124, 126, 129, 130, 131, 144, 149, 163 See also: salat predicament, nationalistic, 142 Prophet, 43, 65, 103, 118, 122, 124, 128, 130, 146 See also: Muhammad Provisional Government of Israel, 35 al-Qaida, 134 Qur’an, 96, 118, 119, 122, 123, 127, 128, 129, 131, 133, 144, 172, 173, 177 Qwesmeh, 84, 163, 181 Rabat, 44 radicalism, 9, 103, 132, 135, 136, 153, 198 Ramadan, 109, 116, 120, 127 Ramallah, 36, 74 Rania, Queen, 46 Real Madrid, 180 refugee camp, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 14, 23, 25, 26, 28, 31, 33, 35, 39, 42, 48, 50, 51, 52, 57, 58, 59, 63, 68, 69, 72, 73, 76, 78, 82, 83, 84, 86, 89, 90, 100, 101, 104, 108, 109, 135, 136, 156, 159, 166, 180, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 200 refugees, Iraqi, 62, 68, 101 religion, 40, 114, 115, 118, 127, 128 religious commitment, 113, 130, 144 resettlement, 33, 50, 52, 53, 57, 58, 58, 60, 63, 70 resistance, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12, 19, 20, 40, 58, 59, 61, 80, 99, 100, 106, 108, 123, 133, 136, 137, 144,

INDEX 145, 152, 168, 175, 178, 180, 181, 190, 198 resistance, political, 58, 168 resistance studies, 4, 10, 12, 190 resistance, symbol of, 178 Resolution 302, 51 revolution, 2, 5, 80, 178 right of return, 4, 7, 20, 38, 53, 54, 63, 70 Ruseifa, 37 Russia, 19 Sahara, 84 Sahrawi refugee camps, 84 Saladin, 111, 116 Salafism, 104, 106 Salafism, activits, 129 salat (ritual prayers), 117, 123, 124, 129, 130, 172 See also: prayer Salt, 37 Saudi Arabia, 82, 87, 104 Schielke, Samuli, 126 Schmitt, Carl, 16, 22, 196 secrecy, 195 self, moral, 105, 116, 117, 119, 126, 131, 133 self-fashioning, ethical, 105, 118, 126, 133 self-representation, 64, 79 shabab (young men), 28, 30, 76, 81, 83, 86, 95, 122, 141, 142, 147, 148, 151, 153, 154, 156, 158, 159, 162, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185 shadda (card games), 139, 172 Shatila, refugee camp of, 5, 194 shaykh (man of faith), 3, 7, 103, 111, 112, 118, 127, 131, 137, 138, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 149, 153, 160, 173 Six-Day War, 5, 39, 41 Soares, Benjamin, 105

257

socialism, 19 South Korea, 87, 89 sovereignty, 4, 6, 8, 10, 35, 41, 44, 121, 126, 130, 146, 201 Soviet Union, 176 spy, 193, 196 Stadium, King Abdullah II, 163, 181 stateless, 6, 48 struggle, nationalistic, 18 subjectification, 12, 13, 201 subjectivity, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 23, 29, 33, 58, 76, 77, 99, 100, 137, 168, 174, 198, 199, 201 Suf (camp), 39 Suleiman, Elia, 165 Syria, 39, 48, 50, 51, 82, 89, 94, 101, 158, 187 Tahrir Square, 2 Tal al-Za’tar, ruins of, 194 Talal, King, 39 Talbieh, camp, 39 Taliban, 128, 132 Tel-Aviv, 35 Temple of David, 111 Thailand, 87 time-off, 9, 172, 190 Transjordan’s Organic Law, 35 Transjordanian identity, 37 Transjordanian nationalism, 43, 69 Transjordanian nature, 43 Transjordanian population, 41 Transjordanian, exclusivist discourse, 47 Transjordanianness, 45 Transjordanians, 42, 43, 44, 45, 68, 77, 84, 155, 199 treachery, 195, 196 Tunisia, 2 Turkey, 135, 157 UN General Assembly, 51 United Arab Emirates, 82 United Kingdom, 75

258

PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND IDENTITY

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees in the Near and Middle East (UNRWA), 24, 27, 32, 33, 37, 39, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55,56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 68, 69, 72, 81, 82, 83, 85, 107, 154, 159, 166, 167, 180 ID card, 54 registration card, 54 United States, 65, 71, 87, 91, 92 Verkaaik, Oskar, 98 violence, performance of, 142, 144 Wadi Araba Treaty, 57, 70 Wasat al-Balad, 2 wasta (relationships of patronage), 82, 84, 85, 86, 91, 155 wedding, 27, 74, 75, 79, 81, 167, 175 See also: marriage West Amman, 30, 76, 94 West Bank, 7, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 47, 51, 55, 59, 69, 74, 82, 107, 165

Wihdat market, 30, 97 refugee camp, 28, 180, 197 See also: Amman New camp Committee for Culture, 177 Football Club, 59, 183, 184 Youth Club, 1 al-Wihdat Tahtwir (low al-Wihdat), 64 WikiLeaks, 184 Women’s Program Centres, 56 World Cup, 180, 181 al-Yarmouk district, 68 Yarmouk University, 108 Yassin, Shaykh, 3, 7 Yurchak, Alexei, 19, 176 zaffa, 74 Zakat committees, 27, 56, 109 Zarqa, 37, 39, 42, 46, 110 Zarqa camp, 37 Zarqawi, 104, 130, 147 Zionism, 105, 116, 146 Zionist colonies, 35