*IV. Typology*

The *Nakba* is an unbound and ongoing event of displacement. As its physical expression and material evidence, Dheisheh Refugee Camp represents the suffering of millions of Palestinians.

<sup>2</sup> http://whc.unesco.org/archive/2008/whc08-32com-9e.pdf

Palestinian refugee camps remain a fundamental issue undermining peace between states, cultures, and religions in the region. The camp itself is the materialization of a crime and is in itself a question that calls for justice, land restitution and a change of power relations. In a moment in history in which sixty million refugees around the world are actively navigating identities defined by their exclusion from statehood, Dheisheh offers a historical perspective onto the contemporary condition of refugeehood and the culture of exile.

The perpetuation of legal exceptionality in Dheisheh has created a unique urban condition. The camp is not ephemeral, but it is not a city either. Refugees forced to live in this suspended condition have developed distinctive systems of civic management outside of state and municipal institutions. The camp exists in a limbo where fundamental juridical categories such as public and private do not and cannot exist. Despite the fact that refugees build their own homes and have lived in them for generations, they cannot technically own their house or the land it sits on. This has led to the development of an exceptional form of life in common: *al masha*. 3

The camp's inhabitants follow an underlying system of informal processes and interpersonal negotiations to make decisions concerning both individual and collective problems. These self-regulated means of conflict management and resolution did not emerge by choice, but rather in the absence of official mechanisms and as a reaction to decades of military and police violence. Constant internal debate—over building new houses, extending properties, encroaching onto pathways and alleys, closing streets for celebrations, etc.—has played a great role in shaping the camp.

The camp is subdivided by the inhabitants into different neighborhoods that maintain the name of their places of origin: Zakaria, Ras Abu Amara, Al Walajeh, Beit Jibrin, and Beit I'tab. Within the camp, there is great value placed on social capital. Norms that have helped deal with adversity over time, such as collective participation and the maintenance of social relations between families, are strongly respected. Networks of mutual support have emerged, such as the "economic safety net" set up by families originating from the village of Zakaria, who regularly pay a certain amount of money into a communal fund that can be accessed for accessing higher education.

<sup>3</sup> As a term, *al masha* comes from the form of life that emerged during the Ottoman empire under the conditions in which people did not own the land but had the right to use it, to cultivate it together.

Photo: Luca Capuano with Carlo Favero.

### *VI. Associations*

Dheisheh is not only representative of the strength of millions who resisted annihilation and erasure from history through their immutable belief in the right of return, but it is also where we can understand the right of return as essentially the claim for the freedom of movement and the freedom to decide where to live. Refugees are forced to identify either with their village of origin or their site of exile. Yet how can one ask a young refugee born in a camp in Lebanon whether she is more Palestinian or Lebanese? The belief in the right of return opens a different political space that allows refugees to be multinational: Palestinian *and* Lebanese; Palestinian *and* Jordanian; Palestinian *and* Syrian, Palestinian *and* ... The aspiration for return is a civic form of cohabitation that is not based on ethnic, cultural, or religious division, but instead involves all states where exiled Palestinians live.

Palestinian refugee camps are the only space through which we can start to imagine and practice a political community beyond the idea of the nation-state. Refugee camps are by definition exceptional spaces, carved out from state sovereignty. Since their creation in 1949 and 1967, Palestinian refugee camps have been directly excluded by the creation of national boundaries. As the Outstanding Universal Value of a World Heritage property depends on its ability to "transcend national boundaries," Dheisheh transcends these boundaries through its lived reality of statelessness, refugeehood, and exile.

#### **3.1.c. Statement of Integrity**

The integrity of Dheisheh is marked by a consistent and purposeful act of collective refusal. From the very beginning, several actors have exercised their power to preserve the camp as it is. The camp therefore became a battlefield, where every transformation—from something as simple as opening a window to changing a roof—has served as a political statement about the right of return. Its integrity has been preserved not by freezing the development of the camp but rather by its transformation and continual opposition to normalization and resistance to settling (*tawtin*). Dheisheh's social fabric furthermore draws strength from its refusal to integrate into the urban life of Bethlehem. The camp is thus an architecture of exile; its reality is double. Dheisheh's existence is the material connection to other places: the place of origins.

#### **3.1.d. Statement of Authenticity**

The camp has an undisputable origin in the *Nakba* of 1948 and the forty-six villages families were relocated from. The original urban structure of the camp was a military-like grid adapted to the topography. Without municipal involvement and state governance, residents were largely left to determine the evolution of their urban environment according to the values they themselves willed. Over time, the grid has been modified, contested, and absorbed by the lives of its inhabitants. In adapting to urban conditions, unique systems of civic management were developed to preserve elements of the rural cultures residents brought with them.

In opposition to the city, Dheisheh has developed a unique spatial and social structure. It is an entirely distinct property system where refugees own the right to live in a house, but not the land itself. The high density of the camp gives it a similar feeling to a historic town center, with small alleys and tightly woven social relationships. The architecture of Dheisheh can be characterized as "low profile", in that any bold formal gesture is interpreted as a statement against the right of return. Dheisheh's basic materiality is constituted by cement blocks. The low cost and versatility of the material allowed refugees to replace UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency) shelters with more durable structures. The simplicity of the blocks enables the camp to maintain its form and design as both permanent and temporary. Always on the verge of being destroyed, Dheisheh's half-constructed, half-ruined form serves to oppose settlement and protect the right of return.

Photo: Luca Capuano with Carlo Favero.
