Post-Development in Permanently Temporary Urban Spaces: Networks of Care in Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugee Camps

Refugee camps are predominantly labelled as spaces of exception, dispossession and waiting, yet critical studies have been calling to deviate from colonial discourses that showcase refugees as unchanged dependent aid recipients. Recent literature has been referring to refugee camps as urban spaces, however there has been very little theoretical reflections on how a refugee camp operates as an urban space when it does not have access to the state sources of livelihood (space, infrastructure, labor market or public services) which would normally characterize an urban zone. This dissertation revisits protracted refugee camps and suggests them as constellations of social entanglements through Massey’s definition of place. This alternative representation of refugee camps as includes also representing them as networks of care, through the literature of Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and assemblages as analytical tools which allow us to understand the agency of refugees in ordering heterogeneous entities inside and outside the camp to work together towards achieving community goals. These approaches involve deep examination of relationalities and world-making in the refugee community, and therefore this thesis pays specific attention to cosmologies and political ontologies of the refugee camp. It incorporates postdevelopment literature, which promotes localized, pluralistic grassroots movements, to examine alternative methods and networks for constructing wellbeing in the camp, beyond the western definition of wellbeing. Therefore, the dissertation attempts to understand how livelihoods of a growing refugee population are formed in a limited space of 0.2 km2. I am to understand how relationalities\networks\assemblages guide refugees in producing and shaping the camp space and claiming space in the city. I specifically observe permanently temporary Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, looking at the assemblages between various elements which are unique to the camp (memory, invisibility, statelessness, congested space, land, food among others) as an ontology by which refugees understand their place in this world and negotiate everyday spaces for homemaking, food security, fair education, access to health and culture. This research uses qualitative methods, mainly auto-ethnographies (considering my positionality as a camp dweller), ethnographies, in-depth interviews and spatial analysis. I find that we negotiate the limited camp space by expanding vertically, while we negotiate home by embodying ancestral memories of Palestine into the narrow hallways. We develop alternative means of education, access to food and healthcare, through community-based dynamics such as sisterhoods and crowdfunding. Grassroots cooperation allow us to construct commons, decolonize knowledge of Palestine, redistribute resources and even rescue other refugees of the city during the pandemic. The study concludes that the assemblages and solidarities in protracted refugee spaces allows refugees to transform the camp from a confined space to a place, expand beyond confinement and claim space in the city. Despite the legal and socio-economic limitation of the camp space, the camp expands geographically: it expands physically (vertical expansion of buildings), socially (communication with the outside world through production of audio-visual material), and culturally (development of place-based learning and alternative decolonial curriculum). Ultimately the camp expands as it extends relationships with the lost home (Palestine) through traditional food and it hosts migrants abandoned by the city. conclude that refugee camps are not fixed confined spaces with controlled mobilities governed by western-aided development that has progressively reduced its engagement. Mobilities and alternative modes of (post)development exist in waiting zones, and are led by the refugees themselves.