Occupied lives : maintaining integrity in a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank / Nina Gren.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 205-218) and index.

Introduction. Focus and purpose ; Being camp refugees under violent occupation ; Integrity and constrained agency ; Why a focus on everyday life? ; 'Normality' in a violent and prolonged refugee situation ; Social continuity : new homes and reestablished family lines ; A moral crisis on repeat ; Doing fieldwork in Dheisheh ; Overview of chapters -- Dheisheh as a social and political space. The order of things in Dheisheh ; The Bethlehem area ; The dynamica of lingering villages ; Earlier political affiliations and activism in Dheisheh ; Political disengagement at the time of fieldwork ; Concluding remarks -- Living with violence and insecurity. Experiencing ongoing crisis ; The presence of extraordinary deaths ; Extending the limits of normality ; Remaining patient and hopeful ; Negotiating trust ; Concluding remarks -- The making of new homes. To build a house is to make a life ; Imprisonment delaying life ; Children as normality, resistance, and recovery ; Reframing home to a political stage ; Getting by together ; Concluding remarks -- Reconstituting a moral order. A chain of catastrophic events ; The camp as a moral community ; Palextinian moral superiority and the immoral others ; Moral contamination ; A shaken political morality ; Concluding remarks -- Conclusion. Maintaing integrity in the face of violation ; Struggling against temporariness ; Having a life or being a true patriot? ; How may one remain a political subject? ; Existence and politics.

Intense media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict does not necessarily enhance one's knowledge or understanding of the Palestinians; on the contrary they are more often than not reduced to either victims or perpetrators. Similarly, while many academic studies devote considerable effort to analyzing the political situation in the occupied territories, there have been few sophisticated case studies of Palestinian refugees living under Israeli rule. An ethnographic study of Palestinian refugees in Dheidheh refugee camp, just south of Bethlehem, Occupied Lives looks closely at the attempts of the camp inhabitants to survive and bounce back from the profound effects of political violence and Israeli military occupation on their daily lives. Based on the author's extensive fieldwork conducted inside the camp, this study examines the daily efforts of camp inhabitants to secure survival and meaning during the period of the al-Aqsa Intifada. It argues that the political developments and experiences of extensive violence at the time, which left most refugees outside of direct activism, caused many camp inhabitants to disengage from traditional forms of politics. Instead, they became involved in alternative practices aimed at maintaining their sense of social worth and integrity, by focusing on processes to establish a 'normal' order, social continuity, and morality. This book will be invaluable to scholars and students of social anthropology, sociology, international relations, refugee studies, religious studies, and Middle East studies, as well as to anyone with an interest in the Israel-Palestinian issue -- Book jacket.