Abstract

Palestinian children and young people living both within and outside of refugee camps in the Middle East are the focus of this book. For more than half a century these children and their caregivers have lived a temporary existence in the dramatic and politically volatile landscape that is the Middle East. These children have been captive to various sorts of stereotyping, both academic and popular. They have been objectified, much as their parents and grandparents, as passive victims without the benefit of international protection. And they have become the beneficiaries of numerous humanitarian aid packages which presume the primacy of the Western model of child development as well as the psycho-social approach to intervention. Giving voice to individual children, in the context of their households and their community, this book aims to move beyond the stereotypes and Western-based models to explore the impact that forced migration and prolonged conflict have had, and continue to have, on the lives of these refugee children.

Gillian Lewando Hundt is Professor of Social Sciences in Health and Director of the Health Institute, University of Warwick. Her work addresses global issues of power, discrimination and inequity in different local contexts through a focus on health and illness. Currently she is conducting research in England and South Africa and has spent many years living and working in the Middle East where she conducted research on health issues of Palestinians.

“…a methodical and fact-filled book. An indispensable contribution to the historical record of Palestinian refugees...[this volume] presents a multi-disciplinary, ethnographically rich approach…[It is] a highly convincing and often heart-breaking chronology of suffering. Specific but highly representative, selective but fundamentally factual, each chapter of the book unfolds the endless saga of Palestinian plight.”  ·  Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“This is a useful resource for anyone working in Palestinian refugee camps. It is good to have such a positive study, one that clears away misconceptions of Palestinian youth as being either passive victims or political activists…Their ways of coping are valuable to us all, and without their voices we are poorer. I feel privileged to have had the chance to review this book.”  · Children and Society

“The book captures in poignant detail the experiences of the third and fourth generation of Palestinian exiles and provides a provocative look into Palestinian social dynamics across the divide of space and generation.”  · Journal of Palestine Studies

Dawn Chatty is University Reader in Anthropology and Forced Migration and Deputy Director of the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. She is a social anthropologist with long experience in the Middle East as a university teacher, development practitioner, and advocate for indigenous rights. She has taught at the Universities of California at Santa Barbara, at the American University of Beirut, at the University of Damascus, and at Sultan Qaboos University. She has worked with various international agencies including UNDP, UNICEF, FAO, IFAD, and USAID. She is also co-editor (with Marcus Colchester) of Conservation and Mobile Peoples: Displacement, Forced Settlement and Sustainable Development (Berghahn Books, 2002).