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‘We Cry and They Profit from Our Tears’:
An Alternative Exploration of Life in Shatila
Figure 1: Street in Shatila, Beirut
Djoera Otter 10742476
djoeraotter95@gmail.com
Culturele Antropologie en Ontwikkelingssociologie Gerben Nooteboom en Thijs Schut
22 April 2018 Word count: 11 796
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Table of content
Introduction……….3
The History of Shatila………….………...……….………7
External Forces, Misery and Theories……..……….10
Electricity Wires and an Arena………..………...……….15
Rewriting History………….………...……….…………....…….19
Politics and Electricity Wires Again………...……....……...23
Conclusion………..……….…..26
3 I have never set foot in a Palestinian refugee camp, nevertheless I could easily tell you a hundred stories about one particular camp located at the outskirts of Beirut; Shatila. This camp has been researched in abundance, hence my extensive knowledge on many of its residents and their stories. So, let me paint you a picture. We could start with Fatima’s story; a story of an unmarried woman who set up her own convenience store. It would be a testament to her inventiveness, perseverance and wit, considering that she also established herself as an unofficial moneylender providing loans to a close network of costumers and friends (Allen, 2013: 85). Then I would move on to describe how young men flock to the rooftops at dusk to have one of their pigeon flying competitions. It is a chaotic and exciting spectacle in which the young men try to command their own flock of birds whilst simultaneously trying to coerce the opponent’s pigeons to join one’s own flock in flight (ibid.: 161). Or I could narrate everyday life in the house of Umm Mahmud and her husband Munir and discuss how they have kinship-like relations with their neighbours or how they created an intelligent system to get electricity to their house, even when there is a power outage (ibid.: 101-102). We could talk about the heroic resistance, martyrdom and the ever-continuing struggle to return to the motherland. However, we should then also talk about the refugees who just want to move on and not dedicate their life to the return to Palestine by remaining a refugee for an undermined amount of time (ibid.: 191). I can tell you about other ways in which Shatila is divided; the political landscape of the camp is fragmented with many political factions trying to organise the Palestinian refugees (Hanafi & Long, 2010: 6).
This leads me to the grimmer stories of Shatila. One of these is Mustafa’s story – he has been denied many jobs in Lebanon because of his Palestinian nationality.1 His story is not an exception to the Palestinian struggle in Lebanon: besides facing structural discrimination Palestinians are banned from fifty professions in Lebanon (Allen, 2013: 19). This has caused the Palestinians refugees living in Lebanon to be one of the poorest groups of Palestinians (ibid.: 17). The miserable material state of the camp also deserves our attention – water runs in the streets and not in the houses, power outages are a common phenomenon and the wires supplying the irregular stream of electricity dangle dangerously low above the narrow streets of the camp.2 In these streets children try to play and experience some kind of childhood – if they are not forced to start working at a way too early age (Anonymous, 1999: 52). And lastly, I could discuss the repercussions of the tragedy of 1982 in which 8500 refugees lost their lives due to the attacks of a Christian militant force. It is no wonder then that the native
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnNI869yOfs 2
4 Lebanese in Beirut have nicknamed Shatila and the other Palestinian refugee camps located in the city ‘the misery belt’ seeing that the Palestinians are deprived of basic human needs (Martin, 2015: 10).
Shatila might only cover a modest square kilometre of Beirut, but the camp and its residents have over time become a complex and diverse social organism (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012: 497). Shatila’s location is a heaven for researchers of any kind; it is located in a relative safe city in the Middle East, close to an airport and it is easy to access (ibid.: 499). Therefore, life in exile in this refugee camp has been documented in abundance by journalists, independent philanthropists, humanitarian workers and most frequently by academics of various disciplines. The latter having created over 223 articles and 128 books concerning Shatila refugee camp (ibid.: 498). This thesis will add to those articles, since its primary focus is on the Palestinian refugees in Shatila and their lived experiences of life in the camp.
If Shatila is can be considered a complex and diverse place its documentation is expected to mirror this complexity and diversity. However, most of these already existing articles have been documenting a very one-sided story of the life in Shatila by primarily focussing on the lack of rights and dire living conditions refugees face. This seems odd, considering that, as was described at the beginning of this chapter, Shatila harbours many different stories of both hope and despair.
This focus can be partly explained by the currently fashionable schools of thought within refugee studies, which emerged in the mid-2000s (Tuastad, 2016: 1). These schools are inspired by the theories of philosophers Giorgio Agamben and Michel Foucault (Tuastad, 2016, Redfield, 2005). Giorgio Agamben introduced the concept of the refugee as homo sacer living in a state of exception in which the refugee has lost their citizenship and therefore no longer has a meaningful social life, nor do they have a political one (Agamben, 1998). Michel Foucault’s concept biopolitics, which he used to describe the operation of state power, now has found its way in refugee studies as minimalist biopolitics. This concept, coined by Peter Redfield, refers to the regulatory practices of demographic characteristics of the camp that humanitarian organisations employ to govern over refugee camps. This has led humanitarian organisations to be mostly concerned with the biological needs of the refugees (Redfield, 2005: 336-337).
Both philosophers have contributed to creating a theoretic lens with which refugee camps are often analysed (Tuastad, 2016: 2). By using the concepts of the state of exception
5 and minimalist biopolitics, one automatically takes the dire conditions refugees find themselves in as a focal point, creating a narrative of pure victimhood (Tuastad, 2016: 4, Sanyal, 2011: 879, Martin, 2015: 11, Agier, 2011: 183). Ethnologist Simon Turner argues that this creation of victimhood is dominant in academia because it mirrors the discourse within the humanitarian field. This discourse needs refugees to have the image of ‘pure victims’ because they are expected to appeal to the ‘humanitarian compassion and a philanthropic will to help fellow human beings in need’ – in other words refugees have to look helpless in order for donors to care for them (Turner, 2015: 143). If refugees would voice their political views, people could feel less inclined to support them because they might not agree with those views (ibid.). This discourse produced by humanitarian organisations seems to have seeped through into the academic analyses of the state of refugees and refugee camps. By using Agamben’s and Foucault’s theories academics might be able to radically critique the discriminatory and often inhumane practices towards refugees in general by (host)states and humanitarian organisations (Fresia and Känel, 2015: 253). However, it does put the refugee in the role of being a victim of those (host)states and humanitarian organisation; portraying the refugee again as a being left at the mercy of those powerful actors (ibid.).
Although using Agamben and Foucault’s theories allow for a fierce critique on the state refugees find themselves in, this paradigm leaves little room for other narratives outside the dominant paradigm of victimhood (Allen, 2013: 25). The academic text concerning Shatila are no exception to this theoretic trend, which has led to a great frustration amongst the refugees in Shatila. Many of Shatila residents have seen a vast number of researchers, documentary makers, journalists coming to Shatila to document the saddest stories, but never did the refugees experience the benefits of those interviews. Refugees increasingly have been critiquing researches for taking advantage of the Palestinian refugees to only further their own career (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012: 500). Thus, refugees are voicing their discontent by stating that Palestinians ‘only cry and they [researchers] profit from our tears’ (Allen, 2013: 64). Some Shatila residents have stated that ‘researchers like blood, and once there is something in the media, researchers all decide to focus on it.’ (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012: 499). This statement refers to the growing frustration within the Shatila community towards the ‘hot topic’ oriented approach academia has taken in recent years (ibid.: 499). Agamben and Foucault’s theories have created these lenses in which ‘hot topic’ research concerns the dire conditions in refugee camps, the powerlessness of the refugees and the (brutal) power exercised over them by external actors.
6 A different theoretic perspective is needed at this point, considering that the literature regarding (Palestinian) refugees in general is becoming more homogenous (Tuastad, 2016: 1). It must be stressed at this point I do not want to completely dismiss these theoretic lenses. They exist for a reason and discuss an important aspect of the refugee experience, but they have their blind spots. These theories, besides victimizing the refugees and giving more salience to the power of the external actors, overlook the dynamic nature of the camp and more importantly the capability of the refugees to shape their own life and navigate through all the power structures existent in the camp. Refugees are not only passive victims; they have their agency to create a life for themselves by navigating the complex reality that is the refugee camp (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012: 498). The blind spots in these theories are too big and need to be addressed to help the academic world to understand the refugee camp better. Moreover, the informants that live in these conditions have voiced their discontent with the research and interview questions that these theories produce. The latter being of critical importance; the research conducted does not align itself with the reality of its subjects. Therefore, I want to propose a new theoretic approach to analyse Shatila; a more dynamic way of approaching the refugee camp, one which captures both the external actor’s power but
also the power of the refugees in the camp.
This approach is founded in the theories Michel Agier and Dorothea Hilhorst. A combination of both theories will allow us to investigate the multidimensional space of the refugee camp which is shaped by many actors. Firstly, both authors acknowledge that being a refugee in a refugee camp is no walk in the park. This might sound a bit obvious, but it is a common phenomenon that those few researches who do not adhere to the dominant paradigm tend to romanticise the refugee experience (Tuastad, 2016: 6). In other words: Agier and Hilhorst leave room in their theories for the capability of the refugees to construct social, political and material sphere of the refugee camp they inhabit. Agier argues that the camp resembles a ghetto or slum now. Originally these camps were ‘bare spaces’ but are now populated by people whom have established political, social, cultural and trade relations out and inside the camp (Agier, 2011: 189). In her turn Hilhorst sees the humanitarian refugee camp as an arena in which NGOs, refugees and governments create the refugee camp together (Hilhorst 2018: 2). Hilhorst approaches the refugee camp as if it were a field in which all actors concerned have some sort of agency or power to pursue their goals. These goals either being social, political or material (ibid.: 6). This theory does not only focus on the influence of external powers in the camp, but also focusses on the actions and political agency of the
7 refugees in the camp. This perspective’s main focal point is not the victimization and the lack of basic needs and rights that refugees experience. It enables an analysis of how the Palestinians deal with these setbacks. It allows for a dynamic approach of the refugee camp in which not the only shaping actors are either states or humanitarian organisations.
As said before, this thesis will focus on the everyday life of the Palestinian refugees in Shatila. Contrary to the paradigm currently fashionable in refugee studies this thesis will concern itself with capturing the dynamics of the camp by investigating how the Palestinians navigate through the arena that is Shatila. To show the agency of the refugees and simultaneously show what is missed when one uses the current theoretical paradigm. In order to do so, firstly the history of the camp will be discussed to situate the case study and to lay a foundation for an understanding of the local identity of the Palestinian refugees. Secondly, the Agamben and Foucauldian paradigm will be examined to enhance the understanding of what these schools of thought entail, what kind of analyses they create and how they became so popular in the first place. Thirdly, the alternative to these theories will be introduced to illustrate what dynamic interaction is missed when only using Agamben and Foucault theories. Lastly, the new theoretic frame will be applied to the complex everyday reality of the Palestinian refugees in Shatila to show what realities of everyday one misses with the Agamben and Foucauldian lens.
The History of Shatila
Shatila was originally established in 1949 by the Red Cross in response to the mass displacement of Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948. Over the years Shatila became a settlement and its tents were replaced by self-constructed houses. These houses only growing in height since the Lebanese government prohibited the camp to expand its surface. Whilst the camp grew, the city of Beirut did so too; the camp has been swallowed up by the developing city and is now located between two affluent suburbs (Martin, 2015: 10). The refugee camp, that was once meant to be a temporarily solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, has now become the home to the fourth generation of Palestinian refugees living in exile (Allen, 2013: 51).
From 1950 onwards, the Red Cross handed the regulation and care of the refugees over to a humanitarian organisation specifically founded for Palestinian refugees: The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). This UNWRA is dictated to only assist the Palestinian victims of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It does so by providing jobs
8 and goods to the dispersed Palestinian refugees (Knudsen, 2005: 217). Furthermore, in the nineteen fifties Shatila became the birthing place of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO): one of the first Palestinian political organisation which wanted to fight for the liberation of Palestine.
In the second half of the nineteen sixties the PLO adjusted it strategies to regain Palestine to more violent ones and started to organise guerrilla attacks in Israel (ibid.: 217-218). This led to the invasion of Southern Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) in 1982 to combat the threat that the PLO had become to the Israeli society. The IDF fought on Lebanese territory for three years, attacking both Palestinians and Lebanese military bases, civilians and refugees. To make matters worse, the Israel – Lebanon war was not the only conflict ravaging Lebanon at that time; the country was simultaneously plagued by a civil war which had already started back in 1975 (ibid.: 222-223). This war was fought between an oppressed Muslim majority and a Christians elite. In 1975 the Muslims started rebelling against their oppressors. They were aided by the Palestinians of which a majority identifies as Muslim and who recognised themselves in the struggle of the Muslims in Lebanon (Farah, 2013: 44-45). The PLO fought on the side of the Muslims and was the biggest and most well-coordinated Muslim organisation in the conflict. Until, of course, they were brutally evicted out of Lebanon by the IDF in 1982 (Knudsen, 2005: 222-223).
Days after the invasion of the IDF the PLO withdrew itself from Lebanon. The political leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, concluded that under no circumstances the PLO could both fight a civil war and fight the unmatched IDF (Khalili, 2004: 9). To safe his organisation and blood of his people Arafat and the PLO left Lebanon in July of 1982. With the PLO’s defeat the Palestinian refugees were left to their own devises, having no political organisation or military force to protect them, nor did they have any representatives whom could pursue their political interest in Lebanon (Allen, 2013: 11, Hanafi and Long, 2010: 5). The repercussions for the Palestinian of the exit of the PLO started to show within the span of a month. From September 16 to September 18 two refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila, were attacked by Christian militia troops supported by Israel (Hanafi and Long, 2010: 5, Knudsen, 2005: 224). It is hard to say how many refugees died in those three days, since many went missing because they were either abducted and probably killed elsewhere or they were buried under the rubble of their self-built houses which the militia troops blew up. The estimated death toll of those three days varies between 3500 and 8500. These days have gone down in history as the Sabra and Shatila massacre (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012: 498).
9 Unfortunately, this was not the end of the Palestinian suffering in Lebanon. After the massacre and the PLO’s sudden exit, the political Lebanese Palestinian landscape became fractured. Many political factions arose and with them different political goals. All aspired to power and combined with their clashing views resulted in another conflict in and between the refugee camps. This conflict – called the War Between the Camps – between different Palestinian parties lasted from 1982 to 1987 and again took many lives (Knudsen, 2005: 217-220).
By the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990, the Palestinian refugees had lost their political leaders and most importantly many had lost friends, lovers, neighbours and family. Besides personal losses the Palestinians had to endure political defeats as well. The Palestinians received the blame for inciting the Lebanese Civil War because they ‘allegedly’ started the civil war in the first place to disrupt Lebanese society and gain more power (Sanyal, 2011: 878). The PLO, and therefore the Palestinians, were also blamed for providing arms to the rebel groups that joined them, causing more blood-shed than necessary. This blame that befell the Palestinians enabled the Lebanese government, which from the start was not keen on offering Palestinian refugees a safe space, to legitimise further exclusion of the Palestinians from Lebanese society (Knudsen, 2005: 221). Now the only big organisation taking care of the Palestinians was the UNWRA. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s the funds of the UNWRA dramatically declined because of ‘donor fatigue’ (Allen, 2013: 16). The crisis surrounding the Palestinians simply lasted too long and too little changed for those who supported the cause, which resulted in them withdrawing their money. This has left the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as one of the poorest groups of Palestinians living in the world today (ibid.: 17).
Besides being excluded from Lebanon the Palestinian refugees found themselves forgotten by the Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories in the Oslo Accords of 1993 (Sayigh, 2001: 96, Allen, 2013: 39). With these accords Yassar Arafat agreed on the Two-State solution with Israel. This agreement stated that the land that was currently occupied by Israel would be accepted by Palestine and the rest of world as officially being part of the Israeli state, leaving Gaza and the West-Bank to the Palestinians. At the time this seemed the best possible solution to the conflict, however this solution completely ignored the refugees whose home was located in the territory that was now promised to Israel. These refugees saw their right to return vanish completely, since Israel would not allow refugees back into the country (Khalili, 2004: 9-10, Sayigh, 2001: 96-97). The Oslo Accords left the Palestinians in
10 Lebanon feeling excluded from the peace negotiation and, more importantly, the solution to the conflict (Allen, 2013: 39). The Oslo Accords landed in the bin after the second Intifada in 2000, however the sentiment of abandonment has yet to disappear in Shatila (Khalili, 2004: 12).
Shatila and its residents have experienced some of the most gruesome acts of war throughout it short-lived history. The massacre leaving the biggest scar, with it becoming an identity marker of the Palestinian refugee living in Shatila. These historic processes have formed the camp and its residents in what and who they are today – the history of Shatila created a specific local identity amongst its residents. They are the survivors of a very violent episode in Lebanese history, are excluded from Lebanese society on the bases of, in their eyes, a false accusation and they are excluded from the general narrative of the Palestinians as a whole. How this all takes shape in the everyday live in Shatila will be discussed in
Rewriting History. However, this history and current predicament of the refugees in Shatila
lends itself eminently for a specific theoretic analysis: the theories designed by Agamben and Foucault. How this history and current state of the camp fits the Agamben and Foucauldian perspective so well, will be discussed in the following section.
External Forces, Misery and Theories
‘I’m just a bird in a cage. I eat, drink, sleep, nothing else. I don’t go anywhere.’ Ahmed Rushdy 3
The first impression researchers have of Shatila must be similar to the picture painted by the documentary Life in the Shadows: Palestinians in Lebanon. This documentary produced by
Aljazeera shows the life of Palestinians inside multiple refugee camps located in Lebanon.
Between the close-up interviews with the refugees we can see interchangeable shots of badly built houses, electricity wires, grey skies and dirty streets all set to a glooming film score without the documentary giving any historical, local or social context to these images; we only see the general misery of living in camp in Lebanon. The documentary does not pay attention to the local context of each individual camp, nor does it even consider showing the resilient side of the camp, which can be illustrated by the way they frame the stories of local business owners. Palestinian refugees are filmed sitting in their own shops, which they set up from scratch, but no attention is payed to that side of the story: the only stories the documentary makers are interested in is how these show owners have not been able to find
11 work in Lebanon.3 The narrative in all refugee story emphasizes the exclusion of the refugees: concerning work, the right to own a business or property, health care and other basic services.4
As stated before the theoretical ‘tool’ used in analysing the predicament of the refugees is often Agamben in combination with Foucault – this marriage coming into existence partly because Agamben was inspired by Foucault’s theory of biopolitics in his theoretical conceptions of the state of exile and homo sacer (plural: homines sacri) (Genel, 2006: 43-45, Tuastad, 2016: 2). These theoretic conceptions being an exquisite means of analyses when one want to focus on the tragedy surrounding the Palestinian refugees. This theory allows for an analysis of how powerful state-like actors can determine and shape the life of those who live in the camp (Sanyal, 2011, Tuastad, 2016: 2).
Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben states that homines sacri is one of the three categories of people that constitute society (Agamben, 1998: 71). The first being bios, a person’s political life and second being zoë; a person’s biological life. Homo sacer being the third category and with that consequently being the main focus of Agamben’s theory. A homo
sacer is a person is banned from society, banned from any political order and sovereign to
adhere to. It is someone who has been stripped from their rights and are therefore expelled from their political life, their bios (Redfield, 2005: 339-340). They no longer belong to any sovereign and therefore receive no protection which means that the homo sacer can be killed without impunity. Since they have no rights or are part of any society that grants them the right to life – they find themselves in a state of exception (Agamben, 1998: 76). Homines
Sacri are reduced to ‘bare life’ as if they are naked and not covered by a protective cloak of
rights that give them a right to live (Redfield, 2005: 341). Agamben continues to argue that when one is a homo sacer one is excluded from having a meaningful social existence (Agamben, 1998: 179, Fresia and Känel, 2015: 253).
According to Agamben governments can abolish the entire constitution in a state of emergency for either the entire population or a specific group within society. In a state of crisis entire groups of people can become homines sacri (Redfield, 2005: 341, Agamben, 1998: 89-90). This makes their life not valuable and also implies that it might they die no one will have to take responsibility for their deaths (Taustad, 2016: 1). Refugees tie into this theory because they are a product of crisis and often are the group of people whom have lost
3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=991&v=vnNI869yOfs 4
12 their right to life in their society. They are the modern day homines sacri (Redfield, 2005: 340-342). The humanitarian refugee camps are claimed to be a physical manifestation of the state of exception since they contain people whom have been expelled from their citizenship and fall outside society (Turner, 2015: 143). Many scholars argue that in these camps people not so much regain their political life but are kept alive by the humanitarian organisations.
If we cast our minds back to the history and current state of the camp it is not odd that so many scholars chose to analyse refugees in Shatila according Agamben’s theory. First, the Palestinians lost their citizenship, ergo their rights, when Israel expelled them from their homes. When the Palestinians found refuge in Lebanon, they regained some new rights in the form of human rights and therefore some protection by the humanitarian apparatus, until the sovereigns like Israel and Lebanon decided against it. The massacre of Sabra and Shatila show how easily the rights of the refugees are taken away and how they can be killed without impunity.
Furthermore, Palestinians have been excluded from Lebanese society for decades now (Sayigh, 2005: 18). Mostly within discriminatory practices concerning work. Palestinians have been banned from over fifty professions, such as ‘all administrative and mercantile work of whatever nature, in particular the work of director general, director, personnel manager, treasurer, secretary, archivist, file clerk, computer, commercial officer, [..] electric mains, electronic works, [..] doorkeeper’ and many more (Amnesty International, 2007). In this respect Agemben’s theory is applicable: it has been made impossible for the Palestinians to have a meaningful social life, seeing they have been excluded from Lebanese society, live in absolute poverty and have very little to say regarding what happens to them in the refugee camp (Allen, 2013: 16-18).
Moreover, when people are found to be in the state of Agamben’s ‘bare life’, humanitarian organisations seem to be only concerned with the matters of biological survival whilst simultaneously governing the refugees (Robins, 2009: 239). Therefore, this governing has, according to many scholars, a biopolitical character (Jaji, 2011: 228). Foucault developed the concept biopolitics to analyse the workings of state power. Foucault states that human biology has become part of the state’s control to ensure the long-lasting productive and healthy life of the population (ibid.: 239-240). Consequently, the state’s main concern is the longitudinal demographical aspects of its population, such as overall health, age and family composition (ibid.: 242-245). According to Foucault not only states can exercise this form of power: charities have been called into existence to handle the crisis that states failed to
13 address or handle, which is often the case when dealing with ‘weaker’ states. In the case of an emergency these charities are able to regulate the population (ibid.: 244).
Foucault already linked charities and biopolitics in his initial formulation of his theories, and many scholars have taken this theory further in refugee studies (Robins, 2009: 238). These scholars argue that once people are in the state of ‘bare life’, when they are
homines sacri humanitarian organisations are the ones governing the refugees. Scholars argue
that the main objective of humanitarian organisations it the biological survival of the refugees (Redfield, 2005.: 239). Peter Redfield coined a term based on these observations: minimalist
biopolitics which he describes as a ‘form of welfare that is primarily concerned with physical
survival rather than social fulfilment’ (ibid.). This again allows academics to critique humanitarian organisations for contributing towards the creation of refugees as mere biological beings, denying them any sort of political and social identity, nor any fulfilment and human rights disappear. Humanitarian organisations are accused of just seeing refugees as bodies that need 2100 calories a day, a roof over their head, and some clothes and nothing more (ibid.: 240-243). This has resulted in many articles focussing on how these biopolitical regimes dictate the life of the refugee in a camp.
Thus, many articles and documentaries paint the same bleak picture. In the documentary Life in The Shadows all Palestinians whom are interviewed express their need and want for having a fulfilling life, even if they are just awaiting their return to their homes, as one of them says ‘we have a right to dignity, even if we are waiting to return home’. 5 This narrative is not uncommon. Anthropologist Diana Allen, whom has spent over ten years in Shatila has documented stories of both hope and despair. In her ethnography Refugees of the
Revolution: Experiences of Palestinian Exile she documents the sheer frustration of Shatila’s
inhabitants whom state that the laws surrounding refugees in Lebanon only exist to ‘keep Palestinians poor, so de they won’t settle’ (Allen, 2013: 13). The situation in the camps is also everything but ideal – the refugees feel they are dependent on the UNWRA, which many find humiliating. First, because they want to see themselves as capable individuals who can take care of themselves and do not have to depend on a third party. Second, because the aid that is provided is so basic in terms of biological survival and insufficient that the refugees do not feel like they are taking seriously as human beings (ibid.: 15-16). UNWRA policy states that when a person passes the age of sixty the UNWRA will no longer pay for medical care, older people tend to need more health care and due to budget cuts the UNWRA simply cannot
5
14 afford these expenses (Feldman, 2017: 54). Even the biopolitical regime of the UNWRA is starting to fail to keep the refugees alive, simply because it does not have the means to do so.
Agamben published his book The State of Exception in 2005 and not even a year later a conference was held in Dublin amongst scholars studying Palestine. This conference was
called Palestine as a State of Exception – A Global Paradigm (Tuastad, 2016: 2). Three years
later the edited volume of the conference Thinking Palestine was published and a year later another edited volume supporting Agamben’s theory saw the light of day (ibid.). Simultaneously, inspired by the conference and the edited volumes many scholars started publishing numerous articles concerning Palestinian refugees and Palestine in which Agemben’s theory of a state of exception was used to analyse the predicament of these Palestinian refugees (Tuastad, 2016: 2, Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012: 498, Fresia and Känel, 2015: 253). This theory is especially useful when one wants to critique the miserable state of the camp. Refugees have no citizenship and are therefore left to the mercy of powerful actors such as host countries, international political organisation and humanitarian organisations (Fresia and Känel, 2015: 253 -254). Therefore, the latter three actors have the power to do whatever with the refugees and are the driving force in shaping the life of the refugees. In using this theory scholars are able to critique and blame the humanitarian organisations, states and international political organisations for the absolute mess and misery refugee camps sometimes are (ibid.: 253-355). Thus, choosing these theories has a political motivation, which, combined with the fashionable usage of these theories, has steered researchers in a certain direction of inquiry when they go and visit refugee camps such as Shatila.
Considering the situation described above all these scholars adhering to Agamben and Foucault have a valid argument: Shatila is a site where the outcasts of the world live and where the main objective of the UNWRA is to keep refugees alive. However, only focussing on this aspect of ‘refugeeness’ leaves out many important aspects of the life of a refugee which are also very much part of refugee camp. In using Agamben and Foucault the researchers merely ‘tends to focus on the impact of external forces on the refugees’ socio-economic condition and political situation’ (Tuastad, 2016: 1). Using Agamben’s theories only considers one source of power – namely the state. Since they can decide on the predicament of entire categories of people and then completely regulate their lives accordingly (Fresia and Känel, 2015: 255). Whilst this neglects the agency and political power the refugees themselves still have (Ramadan, 2013: 67-68). Alarmingly, Agamben is
15 becoming more of a readymade model, applicable to any and every refugee camp that has ever existed (Ramadan, 2013: 68).
In only discussing the ‘bare life’ aspect the perspective and the ability of the refugees to shape themselves and social surroundings is completely ignored. This neglect does not sit well with the refugees themselves: they consider themselves political beings and would like to be treated as more than just living organisms (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012: 495-497). This theoretic paradigm merely creates passive victims: people who live (suffer) the ‘bare life’. In many aspects this is simplifying the situation of the refugees and does not do justice to the complex reality that is the refugee camp (Tuastad, 2016: 2). It also draws all attention to actors outside the camp and how they have the power to shape it – these powerful actors determine the refugees’ life; they make the rules and shape the camp in the end, whilst the refugees have little to say in the matter (Ramadan, 2013: 67). This results in research that highlights one narrative: the one in which refugees have no power or agency. Although this narrative is not wrong, it is incomplete. This narrative generalises the refugee experience, whilst this experience differs from camp to camp and even from refugee to refugee. Refugee camps, such as Shatila, are dynamic and diverse places and therefore a generalisable and top down analysis of the refugee camp does not capture its reality.
Shatila is a dynamic place, it is a fluid place – it is many things for many people at the same time: it is a home, a predicament, a space of new beginnings and the list goes on. Not only state actors determine its shape and the lives lived in that camp. The people living in Shatila have opportunities to shape the camp and their own lives (ibid.: 70). They are not only left at the mercy of the power of big actors such as states. They are able influence their own lives and they actively engage in power dynamics and try to alter these powers for their own benefit. The following section will deal with these strategies of navigating the camp and will simultaneously offer a different theoretic approach to the refugee camp.
Electricity Wires and an Arena
Every article and documentary I have read or watched concerning Shatila will at some point mention the electricity wires dangling from one house to the next. As if a giant spider has spun its web over the refugee camp, wires intersect each other and create a network of black thread connecting the entire camp. The pattern of the thread is intricate and chaotic. This image of ever running wires captures the way I want to approach Shatila; just like the wires above the streets of Shatila, all actors involved navigate through it. The camp is constituted by
16 many actors whom manoeuvre, like the wires, through the camp – connecting and intersecting each other in the process.
If we need a more concrete visualisation of how to approach Shatila refugee camp we can watch the trailer for the project #Shatilalive by the local nongovernmental organisation
Basmeh & Zeitooneh whom help empower refugees through teaching them valuable life skills
in their community centre.6 All people in this one minute and thirty second long clip have to finish the simple sentence ‘Shatila is..’ and the answers differ from person to person with answers varying from ‘sweet’, ‘tears’ ‘patience’ ‘beautiful, it is the best part of Lebanon’ ‘pain’ to ‘the filthiest place in Lebanon’ .7 Shatila clearly is many things, therefore analysing it through one specific lens which portrays it to be a state of exception in which life is determined by external actors, is not capturing the full picture (Ramadan, 2013, Turner, 2015, Sukarieh and Tannock, 2012, Fresia and Känel, 2015). Shatila is a dynamic and complex place shaped by many different actors, and maybe therefore we should consider looking at Shatila as if we were looking up at the sky in Shatila.
Michel Agier, an anthropologist gives a more nuanced review of the refugee camp. He acknowledges that refugee camps are indeed a place of exile in which refugees have no nationality or protection (Agier, 2011: 1-3, 24-25). However, Agier does not stop there and argues that refugee camps can be places of inventive strategies to stay alive and to create a society (ibid.: 125). Agier states that camps might be filled with what we consider refugees, i.e. apolitical beings, but that these refugees continue to be people and that they will develop social, cultural and political relationships and networks, regardless the circumstances (ibid.: 189). He argues that camps resemble ghettos: a though place in the world, nevertheless its inhabitants not completely powerless to change their lives. The initial bare space that the camp was overtime becomes populated by people with sets of believes and ideas. These people form a new ‘space’ which becomes a source of identity (ibid.: 183). This implies that a being a refugee in a refugee camp does not mean the end of one’s ability to construct one’s own social reality. The new and often harsh circumstance still allow for new opportunities to construct a new identity or a new narrative of the self.
Taking in consideration that refugee camps are dynamic places, where new identities and networks emerge, the theory developed by anthropologist Dorothea Hilhorst offers a different analysis for refugee camps. She argues that the refugee camp is a ‘metaphorical
6 http://www.basmeh-zeitooneh.org/about-us/history 7
17 arena where a multitude of actors encounters and interacts, including humanitarians and the disaster affected recipients of aid’ (Hilhorst 2018: 1). These actors all negotiate the outcomes of aid by different means; such as coercive violence, written and verbal statements or as Hilhorst states ‘schemes deployed in the shadows of the official process and the banalities of everyday gossiping’ (Hilhorst and Jansen, 2010: 1120). She argues that states, humanitarian organisations, international organisations, host societies and the refugees shape the everyday realities of the camp (ibid.). In these interactions, actors all develop a different understanding of the field and therefore different strategies and frame in dealing with the arena (Hilhorst, 2018: 2). These actors do not act in a predictable manner, seeing that their actions are driven by varying motives and decisions and ‘are taken in response to actors’ interpretation of the needs of the situation and in interaction with others’ (Hilhorst and Jansen, 2010: 1120). This approach is actor-oriented and assumes that the actors in the arena use their knowledge and capabilities to ‘interpret and respond to their environment’ (ibid.: 1120). Hilhorst’s theory finds its roots in Norman Long’s conception of power and agency (ibid.: 1120-1122). He argues that there is not one source of power, or one discourse as you may, that shapes the world. He argues that there are multiple sources of power that shape reality, or as he himself says ‘social life is never so unitary as to be built upon one single type of discourse, it follows that, however restricted their choice, actors always face some alternative ways of formulating their objectives deploying modes of action and giving reasons for their behaviour’ (Long, 1992: 25 in Hilhorst and Jansen 2010: 1122). Even the smallest changes and subtle interpretations and actions of actors whom are considered can be considered a form a power and way of alternating reality (Hilhorst and Jansen, 2010: 1122). In adhering to this perspective, the most mundane every day actions become exercises of power and agency – all are playing the arena and navigating through the structure. In doing so one starts focussing on the politics of every day and not only on the purely political acts (such as demonstrations and strikes).
The informal economic networks of the refugees in Shatila give a great insight in how these everyday practices are strategies in the struggle of achieving one’s material goals. The refugees in Shatila are lacking in many aspects of their life and therefore the refugees have taken it upon themselves to create their own safety nets across the camp to secure a better life for themselves. These networks are part of their strategy to ensure that their basic needs both physical and emotional are met (ibid.: 73). These networks are a replacement of the kinship and village ties that determined social relations in the early days of the camp (ibid.: 73). One
18 now creates these kin-like ties, which often constitutes of neighbours and friends (ibid.: 74). Furthermore, these networks also came into being because the refugees deemed the UNWRA incompetent in taking care of their needs, especially concerning providing adequate health care (ibid.: 98). It has been said that Palestinians all die at the age of sixty because that is the age that the UNWRA stops providing them with any financial support for healthcare (Feldman, 2017: 54). Besides the complete stop of support at sixty the initial care given by the UNWRA is more often than not insufficient, especially when a refugee has an urgent and costly medical problem – such as a heart attack (ibid.: 53).
In response to both trends the refugees have set up their own financial support groups, which have taken the form of informal saving collectives. In these collectives one must donate a sum of money every month to a shared bank account. Then, when one is in dire need of money to cover medical cost, one can withdraw money from that bank account. These collectives are often run by women due to gender norms having always charged them with domestic work which in turn let to giving these women a greater insight in savings and budgeting (Allen, 2013: 88). Moreover, Palestinian women are highly educated which again enables them to manage money wisely (ibid.). Even women who are not part of an informal saving collectives have proven themselves to be incredibly resourceful and have created a different sort of financial support network for themselves.
A prime example of these women who create these networks as a strategy to survive is Fatima, a single woman in her fifties. She came to Shatila in the 1980s and found herself without any support of her family or humanitarian organisation (ibid.: 79). She then engaged in an informal saving collective and with the money she gained from that she started her own shop. She left the collective and became a successful business owner and more importantly she started providing loans to her costumers (ibid.: 85). She became popular due to her pricing and her repayment plan for the loans – people could pay in small instalments and she would never hunt them down, like other moneylenders do, for not paying accordingly (ibid.: 86). She did all this to create a fast and loyal network of patronage on which she could rely if she needed it in case of a medical mishap (ibid.). This endeavour played out well for here seeing that she did suffer from a heart attack and fell into coma soon after. All her loyal customers jumped to their feet and kept her shop running and made sure all her medical expenses were covered, unfortunately due to old age Fatima did not live to see how her substitute family saved her shop and took care of her. She died in her sleep (ibid.: 87). Besides the tragic end of this story it does show how refugees strategically engage in social relationships to ensure their
19 own financial security by either joining a financial network or even setting up their own shop or finding lucrative work elsewhere. They are dealing with a lack in aid and manage to overcome this themselves by creating their own social network. These networks span over the entire surface of the camp and connect people whom under other circumstances would not have been in contact with each other.
Shatila the arena is partly shaped by the actions of humanitarian organisations and states. However, the Palestinians are actors whom engage with the world around them and shape themselves in the process. They navigate through this arena to get what they need; they pursue their goals. As Agier mentions the camp can be a space of new identity and new social relations. This can be seen in Shatila – people create new networks for social and financial stability. The new networks are then employed as a strategy to cope with and responded to the negligence of the material and financial state of the camp. The new networks show that the refugees interact and respond to the circumstances in the camp and take matters into their own hands. These networks allow them to worry less about their biological wellbeing and in the process integrates them into a social safety network in which the refugees feel truly supported and safe; these new networks and social connections are strategies to survive.
Rewriting History
That the Palestinians in Shatila have some agency becomes clear when we look at how they interpret and narrate the Palestinian history. Shatila has been the home for, sometimes four, generations of Palestinian refugees whom have made do with the circumstances and have built a resemblance of a life in the camp (Allen, 2013: 214). In all those years the Palestinians in Shatila have felt neglected by the world, the Lebanese state, the UNWRA and most strikingly the Palestinians in West-Bank and Gaza due to the Oslo Accords (ibid.: 102). This feeling of negligence has manifested itself in the way they relate to Palestinian national history.
Palestinian politicians and most Palestinians try to portray a people whom have this common political goal to attain it (De Cesari, 2010: 625). This goal being: the end of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the return of all Palestinians to their land and former family homes (ibid.: 626). To keep the right to return the Palestinians living in exile are not supposed to settle in a third country because that would weaken the Palestinian claim to the homeland (Gambien, 2012: 96-97). They fear that if they settle that their right to return will be jeopardised (ibid.: 98-99). This narrative requires off all Palestinians that they, under no
20 circumstance, settle in a new country and ‘give up’ the right to return (ibid.: 98). Furthermore, to ensure the right to return the Palestinians are required to have a homogenous narration of history – a national history to create a sense of nationhood across all communities of Palestinians (De Cesari, 2010: 626). The narrative of this scattered nation must start at the
Nakba, the Catastrophe, the creation of Israel in 1948. Everything in this history centres
around this event and the time prior to it. Stories of lush Palestinian olive tree gardens, the taste of figs from one’s grandparents garden, the ancient villages in which life was simple and beautiful all symbolise the time before 1948 (Allen, 2013: 48). Whatever happened after the
Nakba is inherently the same – Israel occupied more territory and the Palestinians suffer in
exile of their homelands (De Cesari, 2010: 629). This history is and has to be a homogenous story to show the world that the Palestinian people are a nation, so they can make a collective claim that they are a nation whose territory is occupied (Allen, 2013: 218). Palestinian political parties, such as the Popular Committee, Fatah and the UNWRA continuously try to recreate this narrative for that the world does not forget it (Gambien, 2012: 102).
Whilst this national history might be perpetrated into the world, the Palestinian residents of Shatila tell a history of their own. They do not feel part of this homogenous group of Palestinians and within Shatila notions of what it means to be Palestinians and more importantly what the role, duties and actions available to a Palestinian are differ from person to person and interestingly from generation to generation (Allen, 2013: 44-45). As mentioned before they feel excluded from this narrative, seeing that their living circumstances are incredibly dire in many aspects (ibid.: 46). Moreover, the specific history of the Palestinians in Lebanon has been ignored – whilst the Shatila and Sabra massacre is still fresh in the mind of those living in Shatila. To counter the hegemonic creation of history the residents in Shatila have started to construct their own history in which they decide what is the source of their predicament (ibid.: 62). The massacre is what many Shatila residents see as their Nakba, it is not the Nakba of 1948. Furthermore, the other main source of their suffering it is the fact that they received the blame for the civil war, that are excluded from Lebanese society and are structurally are discriminated against in the working environment (ibid.: 62). And that is the history many will tell you in Shatila, with those anchor points, which are specific to the Shatila context.
The Palestinians in Shatila do not concede with the general historical narrative: they have their own history. And they are ready to share that with the world and resist those whom ask about the popular historic narrative, because they have been excluded from that narrative.
21 In the Shatila arena the national history is ‘enforced’ by the Popular Committee and UNWRA, but the refugees redirect this focal point of this history by telling their own (ibid.: 61). By narrating their own local history, they put the emphasis on the root of their suffering; their exclusion from Lebanese society and the perpetual miserable state of the camp. By addressing these issues, they hope that their specific struggle and demands are recognised; they want to live a dignified life and want to work and take care of themselves and not just await their return home (ibid.: 64). By telling their history, they reject the notion that all Palestinian suffering is the same. By putting themselves at the centre of their history they call attention to their local suffering and reject the general narrative which mainly focusses on the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories (De Cesari, 2010: 629). They redirect this metaphorical thread of electricity wire running through the camp to shed light on their own political goal. Moreover, is shows that Shatila has become a source of identity for its residents– they are Palestinians living in Shatila and they have their own history and story. Their identity is rooted in Shatila since that is the place in which they grew up and know. This shows that Shatila, a ‘bare space’ has become not only a source of suffering but also a source of identity.
This sentiment is most prominent among the younger generations. Diana Allen describes this sentiment as ‘they don’t miss something they never had’ (2013: 61). The younger generation of Palestinians has no memory of the land that is lost and is mostly bored now by the stories of the Nakba and how Palestine was all those years ago (ibid.: 62). By only focussing on the past and on what Palestine was and not what Shatila is at this very moment the younger generation has trouble valuing their own community, which is the only community they actually know (ibid.). Nidal, a young man working for the UNWRA, in an interview with Allen, accurately voices the general sentiment of the younger generation Palestinians of wanting to create and actively creating one’s own narrative by saying:
‘I don’t think of it [Palestine] was just some beautiful place where people sat under the trees eating fruit; I think of it as a normal life that I was not part of [..]. My memories [of Palestine and life in exile] are different from my father’s, and my problems are different from his also. It is as if all we need to know is the slogan “Palestine is ours”- but really feel that you are from a place you need to know it. I’ve learned about Palestine, but I know and love Lebanon – there is a difference of experience.’ (Allen, 2013: 61).
Nidal expresses a general sentiment which is more common within the refugee camps throughout Lebanon in which they want to create their own lives, history and story. Feeling so
22 disconnected from Palestine younger people do not see the ‘need’ to remain unsettled, unemployed and unrecognised just for the sake of maybe being able to return one day. They younger generation wants a dignified life now in which they can become more than just construction workers or tea boys (ibid.: 61). As Nidal adds ‘although we are still living the results of the Nakba, my generation didn’t experience it, and I refuse to inherent it’ (ibid.: 61). The younger generation of Palestinian exiles wants to create their own story and own history. The more pressing matter for these Palestinians is that they want to see the current situation of
their home improved. The presented national hardships have become trivial to those to the
current situation in the camp itself.
The younger generation is actively redirecting history, which became very apparent to Diana Allen when she was organising an open-air movie night in Shatila. Allen at the time was working with a smaller NGO which recorded Nakba stories by the generation whom experienced it first-hand. The movie was not even playing for a few minutes before a group of younger men started to become restless, they wanted to see something else (ibid.: 59). After a few more minutes a few seized the opportunity and switched to a documentary on the Hezbollah TV-station Al-Manar which showed the consequences of the March of Return back in 2011 and the martyrs of the Sabra and Shatila massacre (ibid.: 60). Most importantly it dedicated significant attention to the martyrs from Shatila whom had been shot by the Israeli Defence Force (ibid.). This shows that the younger generation is putting emphasis on different historical and more current losses than older generations of Palestinians would.
Again, when powerful actors are trying to display the national history, the younger generation of Shatila residents resist it by taking over the narrative and high-jacking the movie night. They display their ability of shaping their own narrative and history by rejecting the narrative imposed by more powerful actors. This to show what events are important to them. They believe that the martyrs who died in the March of Return and in the massacre of Sabra and Shatila are a more important historical event then that off the Nakba of which some feel distant and removed. They navigate through the social field that Shatila is and alter the prescribed reality and change it to something that aligns with their reality of everyday life in Shatila. In the arena that is Shatila the Palestinian refugees have created their own strategies to draw attention to the dire conditions in the camp. By creating their own historical narrative to pursue their local political and material needs. They give more salience to the events that determine their life at this very moment and in doing so try to convey their own local political message: that they want a dignified life in exile, that they want to be able to settle in other
23 countries and that their poverty and exclusion needs and deserves more attention. In doing this the refugees in Shatila show their ability, their agency, to navigate through the structures of the camp and even alternate them to their own benefit. Their predicament and state of being is not only determined by outside forces, people do not only perish in the misery that befalls them. They actively try to better their life. This shows that even in the most oppressive situations actors always have the ability to take an alternative route in achieving their goal (Hilhorst and Jansen, 2010: 1122).
This also shows that when using Agamben and Foucault as an analytical tool these subtle forms of agency and power to influence one’s own circumstances is missed in the process. One misses the way in which people inventively deal with the influence of external actors. Therefore, using Agier’s theory and Hilhorst’s approach is useful in that they allow for a more holistic approach to a refugee camp. Allowing for both an analysis of what external actor’s strategies are within a camp, but also creating space within academic analyses for the refugees themselves and how they navigate and shape the humanitarian arena that is the refugee camp.
Politics and Electricity Wires Again
Besides covert politics, one can also find overt displays of politics. Ever since the perishing of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation the political landscape in Shatila has been scattered by many political factions. Bigger political parties such as Fatah, Hezbollah and Hamas have tried organising the Palestinians under one big umbrella movement but have failed to do so in Shatila. Since the departure of the PLO and in absence of state power, Shatila’s society saw many political factions and parties – ranging from (pan) Islamic groups to neighbourhood initiatives – try to dominate the political landscape and daily lives of Shatila (Hanafi and Long, 2010: 1-3). Political factions and parties play a major role within the camp because one often has to be part of a faction in order to receive adequate aid (Allen, 2013.: 95). Due to the many political actors, the political landscape in Shatila is complex and in many ways resembles the web-like structure of the electricity wires in Shatila. How this political spiderweb runs through Shatila is most distinguishable when looking at the processes surrounding the distribution of electricity (ibid.: 102). Obtaining electricity has always been a struggle for those living in Shatila. The Lebanese government is not keen on providing electricity to the Palestinians because it fears that if life is too good in the camp, the Palestinians will never leave (ibid.: 103). This makes electricity a valuable commodity in Shatila; everybody needs it, but obtaining it is difficult. Due to the scarcity of electricity the
24 possession of electric power translates to having political power (ibid.: 134). This makes the actual electricity wires of Shatila a site of contention.
The biggest official political party within Shatila is the Popular Committee (PC), an organisation created by the PLO in 1972. At first the PC’s main concern was the infrastructure of the refugee camps in Lebanon. During that time the PLO secured free access to electricity, but after 1982 both never fully returned to the camp (ibid.: 107). In the 1990s, a decade after the eviction of the PLO, the PC was employed to regulate politics within the camp (ibid.: 113). In that time the PC regained some of the electricity supply, but made refugees pay for it (ibid.: 118). On top of that, the PC became pro-Syrian; it now mostly fights for Syrian interest in Lebanon and relocates aid money to their Syrian political allies. This lead to the Palestinians dismissing its leadership in the camp (ibid.: 115).
Smaller political parties and factions were inspired by the PC’s money scheme and started distributing electricity to people who pledged their alliance to them. This caused that by the mid-2000s electricity was almost impossible to access without a membership to a political party or faction. These political parties and factions do not always have the best interest for the Palestinians, often leaving them to their own devises and running away with their money (ibid.: 119). In response to the absolute abandonment of many political factions or just out of a general disdain to associate with any political party, the residents of Shatila started to reject the factions. They do this by either flat-out refusing to pay them or creating their own electricity network.
The Palestinian refugees in Shatila have turned towards each other to secure a steady flow of power by organising themselves in power-collectives (ibid.: 109). They ensure their own power supply by either investing in a generator, stealing it from the adjacent neighbourhoods or buying it of ‘electricity thieves’. These thieves steal power wherever they can and are incredibly skilled at knowing where and how to obtain large amounts of electricity – mainly by tapping it from affluent neighbourhoods (ibid.: 121). Allen’s host Umm Mahmud obtains electricity supplied to her by these electricity thieves or saraqin
kahraba (ibid.: 121). One of these thieves in Abu Sudan and with his colleague thieves he is
considered one of the few people who actually is persuading the interests of the residents of Shatila (ibid.: 122). The electricity that obtained illegally is shared with neighbours and friends and this unofficial supply has created a ‘topography of intersection social networks’ (ibid.: 121); people have partnered up with others that they know and collectively started to organise their own power supply.
25 The unofficial power collectives of Palestinians in Shatila shows that they can exercise a direct manifestation of agency and power in the form of what Taylor Long and Sari Hanafi (2010: 19-20) describe as changing governmentality. This concept is defined by these scholars as ‘how we think about governing others and ourselves in a wide variety of contexts’ (Dean, 1992: 212 in Hanafi and Long, 2010: 19). In the Foucauldian sense this concept would only be used to analyse state power, however, within governmentality studies this concept has been broadened to realms outside of state power. Especially in the absence of an official state power, the case being for refugee camps, many small sovereigns emerge to ensure the day to day functioning in the camp (Hanafi and Long, 2010: 19). Thus, governmentality refers to the capability of the refugees to govern themselves, to exercise power over themselves as supposed to states.
Especially these local initiatives have enabled the refugees in Shatila to govern and regulate themselves. They do not have to adhere to a political party and carry out a party’s political message to gain access to power, in both senses of the word (ibid.). These changing governmentalities have allowed refugees to regulate life in the camps themselves, without pledging alliance to a bigger political faction. This way those political factions do not have the power to regulate and determine life in Shatila. The refugees themselves ceased some of that power. By doing so they do not have to concede to anyone’s political agenda and can strive after their own. They have some freedom to shape their own life. These local initiatives added to the ‘spiderweb of sovereigns in Shatila’ (Allen, 2013: 62).
The residents in Shatila actively try to combat the power of the organisations in the camp, even if it considers such seemingly mundane things as the provision of electricity to the houses of the refugees. The arena is not dominated by one specific party, but there are many actors playing the field. The electricity wires have become a site of contention in Shatila (ibid.: 127). This also shows that if we look at Shatila as an arena we see many actors partaking in a battle to perceive one goal: obtaining power, in both senses of the word. In the politically scattered landscape in which many potential sovereigns are trying to cease power, some residents reclaim their own political power by rejecting any sort of political affiliation all together. These refugees navigate the spiderweb of different sovereigns to sustain their autonomy whilst also securing access to basic needs such as electricity. In this arena the refugees are not the mere spectators, but they respond to other political parties, they engage with them and even start competing with bigger political parties. In trying to achieve their goal they strategically join forces to remain independent. This enables the refugees to exercise
26 power over their own lives. This shows that refugees can interact with and respond to bigger, more powerful actors and they are not left at the mercy of those political parties as the Agamben and Foucauldian theoretic paradigm would place them.
Conclusion
Shatila is one of the most researched refugee camps in the world, due to its location and the relative political stableness of its host country. Shatila is many things for its inhabitants, ranging from ‘the worst Place in Lebanon’ to ‘the best Place in Lebanon’. This diversity is however not often mirrored in academic journals. For years scholars have focussed on one specific analyses of the predicament of the Palestinian refugees. These analyses call for a focus on the source of deprivation, exclusion and general misconduct surrounding refugees in refugee camps and are firmly rooted in the theoretical paradigm of Agamben and Foucault within (humanitarian) refugee studies.
Agamben’s theory allows for an argument in which one can claim that refugees have been expelled from all political orders and therefore have lost their political life and are rendered to a mere biological being. Foucauldian inspired minimalist biopolitics enable a mode for critiquing humanitarian organisations in which scholars can critique said organisations for reducing the refugees to biological beings. Thus, this paradigm only focusses on how the camp is shaped by powerful actors outside the camp, such as states, humanitarian organisations and political parties. In doing so they fail to address how refugees respond to these influxes from the outside; neglecting the inventiveness, agency and resilience of the refugees. This theoretic approach does not capture the full dynamics in the refugee camp itself. And more importantly, the refugees in Shatila are fed up with these analyses because due to its focus on the dire conditions in the camp, the only thing researchers are interested in is the refugees’ blood and tears.
To give more salience to the ability of the refugees to respond to the structures in the camp I argue for a new theoretical framework. This framework combines both theories of anthropologist Michel Agier and Dorothea Hilhorst which enable a more dynamic analysis of the refugee camp. Agier emphasises that refugee camps, besides places of despair and exile,
27 can be places of inventive strategies to stay alive and to create a meaningful life. Agier states in refugee camps new social, cultural and political relationships and network will develop regardless the circumstances. In her turn, Hilhorst argues that the refugee camp should be approached as if it were an arena. A place in which multiple actors, both inside and outside the camp, try to pursue their goals and to gain control over the arena. This approach is founded in the theoretic notion that actors always find alternative ways to achieve their objectives. This analysis moves away from (quite literally) asking the refugees why they are hungry, poor or bleeding. On the contrary, this approach explores how the refugees deal with the dire circumstances but also allows for questions concerning other than the misery that befalls them. This all in an attempt to capture the life in Shatila more adequately. The
approach gives great insights in the dynamics and interconnectedness in and outside the camp and the interactions between actors, but the arena approach is not perfect and does not capture the whole picture either. It fails to address how and why people chose their strategies nor does it address why some actors have more choices than others. Therefore, further research on the positionality in the arena should be done to extend Hilhorst’s approach to understanding why certain actors take certain positions in are the arena that is the humanitarian refugee camp.
Nevertheless, Hilhorst approach does give great insight in the dynamics and forms of agency in Shatila. If we look at Shatila we can see that a plethora of different strategies have emerged, all of which are a response to the dire conditions in the camp. These strategies all developed in an act to secure the material, political and social needs of the Palestinian refugees in Shatila. The new social, political and financial networks that have developed over time, as Agier’s theory suggest, and all have come to serve as strategy in dealing with the conditions in the camp. Fatima set up her shop and loan system to ensure a livelihood, but also a support system if she needed one. Throughout the entire camp small saving collectives emerged, to ensure that everybody could access communal owned money at a time of need. The political arena of Shatila is also testament to the agency of the refugees. Besides transnational political organisations, local political factions have emerged which are often the result of neighbours’ social networks whom organise around an electricity supply. These local initiatives ensure that the Palestinians can preserve their autonomy and do not have to affiliate with a political party to access aid; their political goal of autonomy. The local narration of history being a strategy to emphasis the needs and desires of the Palestinians which are often lost in the general narrative of the national history.
28 All are strategies are implied to achieve different goals; it being social and economic security, a dignified life in exile, or the freedom to not affiliate with a party to access something vital as electricity. This shows that the Shatila residents can find alternative ways to achieve their goals, as Long would say, under the direst circumstance. These stories of agency, of the ability to react to or slightly alter events that happen around a person are the stories that one misses when only looking at a refugee camp through an Agamben and Foucauldian founded theoretic lens. Because the latter would only allow for an analysis of how their life is influenced by all actors besides themselves.
The Palestinian refugees have shown that even when there are external forces trying to influence and control the camp they still have the power to shape the structure within the camp to work for them, instead of against them. This approach allows for an analysis of the reaction to the circumstances in the camp. Instead of only looking at the influx of one particular set of actors, i.e. states et cetera, this approach gives a multidimensional view of the dynamics and interactions between all actors whom are in some shape or form involved in Shatila. By approaching the refugee camp in such a dynamic way, it wides our understanding of the shaping, politics, functioning and everyday reality of the camp. Most importantly, it gives attention to the way Shatila’s residents react, influence and interact with the those in and outside the camp. Shatila is a dynamic in complicated part of the world and those living there deserve a theoretic approach that acknowledges their inventive strategies and agency. They do not deserve a theoretic approach that only makes them cry ‘whilst other profit from their theirs’ (Allen, 2013: 63).
