Palestinians; From Village Peasants to Camp Refugees: Analogies and Disparities in the Social Use of Space

Abstract

This study compares the social use of space in the Palestinian village around the beginning of the 20th century to that in the Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan around them beginning of the 21st century. It examines the transformation from small-scale egalitarian social practices in the village of Deir Ghassanah to external discourses controlled by large-scale institutional powers in al-Baq a Refugee Camp. It analyzes the ways through which refugees have been able to reinvent their village life after being forcefully relocated in spaces that may not respond to their ritual practices and integrative social system but created by external institutions. Transformations in leadership structure, ownership patterns, and religiosity in both cases will be traced to establish a dialectical framework between the symbolic interpretation and social use of the two spaces.