Jaziret Fadel

The plight of refugees fleeing from Palestine in 1948 raises several key questions regarding their historical fragmentation as a nation and their future. From a social anthropological point of view, the existing literature seems to tackle the Palestinian case from different perspectives influenced by the mass exodus of Palestinians from their homeland. Such perceptions took for granted the recognition of the state of “refugeeness” of the exiled Palestinians around the globe, while, in reality, it is a mutual interaction between people, place, and time. In the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli War at the beginning of the year 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes in Palestine to the nearby Arab countries, among them was Egypt. Some thousands settled in different areas all over Egypt. Based on a preliminary research on the literature, the author can argue that this is the first ethnographic study of the social life of the village of Jaziret Fadel and its Palestinian inhabitants in Egypt. The chapter is about tackling the historical trajectories, genealogies, memories, and present of the inhabitants of this village who seemed to be torn between two nostalgic pasts. The author's emphasis within this chapter is about how the narratives of the past memories could reveal a lot about the present time of the human societies and their future.

Facing the Three Ds

In this chapter, the author provides a unique set of insights concerning the policy of urban dynamics that is part of a complex process. The focus is on how disasters and development are understood and experienced through the lens of decolonial thinking based on a discussion of the displaced issue in a complex global socio-economic context of the city. Because the third world is associated with development needs to be reformulated in terms of dialogues from different enunciation loci, it becomes pertinent to consider the decolonial epistemic perspective in a space that constantly faces disasters that jeopardize its development in the framework of the effects on the environmental landscape and local development initiatives of Hurricane Dorian. Based on an informative discussion of an institutional level analysis, the author concludes with important insights about the case of Haitians in the Bahamas to demonstrate some interesting implications for (mis)management through NGOs.

Displacement and the Creation of In/Visible Boundaries

This concluding chapter discusses the reinforcement of the affective capacity building among dispersed transnational communities within the three cases presented earlier in this book. The first case explores how migrant organisations of Haitian origin engagement in Parisian banlieues is beneficial to their homeland's development. The second case is from the village of Jaziret Fadel that has the biggest gathering of Palestinian who fled to Egypt since the outbreak of 1948 war. It emphasizes the exploration of their new technique of 'killing memory' to gain acceptance, belonging and create a new sense of home within a new spatial context. The third case focuses on how the Northern Uganda war between the LRA and the Ugandan Army (1987-2007) has formulated the Acholi's experience with war, violence, and flight, which has led to different local constructions of place, political belonging, and material and emotional connections. Accordingly, will such communities be able to survive for a future on their own? Will memory to trace their genealogy fuel a sense of belonging after displacement? For what sort of citizenship within their new place?

Forgive but Not Forget

Pierre Nora once said, “We speak so much of memory because there is so little of it left.” Does it mean that we need to document memory so not to lose the truth? What is the ‘T'ruth? And from which perspective? Based on the Lebanese case, could films be one of the mechanisms used to achieve transitional justice? The author of this chapter depends on both Pierre Nora's perception of sites and place of memory along with Maurice Halbwachs' theory on collective memory in order to understand whether documenting the traumatic events is considered as an applicable mechanism to achieve justice within countries that struggle to accomplish national reconciliation? The methodological approach relies on visual critical discourse analysis combining Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutic approach and Norman Fairclough's perception of dialectic of discourse.

Changing Climate and Reparatory Justice

In this chapter, the author draws on transnational literature on displacement by challenging its overemphasis on identities. In contrast, it argues for a deeper engagement of new mobility patterns and other routes that have emerged in localities often situated apart that have not been fully analysed together thus far. Further, an analysis of consequence of neoliberal policies through the use of civil society organisations (CSOs) versus a more effective use of the politics of decentralization contributes to increasing the understanding of both the mechanisms that reproduce (mis)management of resources and the constant marginalisation of constructive endogenous forces to address reparatory justice under the threat of climate change. From Abricots (Haiti) to Beirut (Lebanon), putting in dialogue regions that barely interact in the literature is intended to motivate future studies on the emerging connections between memory, long-distance civic engagement, South-South cooperation, and claims for restorative climate justice.

Pushing the Limits of Mediterranean Configurations

The outbreak of conflicts in parts of the Middle East and North Africa since 2011 has turned cities into contentious spaces and primary sites hosting large numbers of refugees and undocumented migrants. Yet, the lack of economic perspectives and human rights' violations are push factors for emigration in a number of countries beyond the Mediterranean facing a gap in comprehensively addressing migratory challenges from a broad-based perspective. How can urbanization be addressed concerning the discourse about conflict-induced displacement without first identifying the noncitizen? Considering forced displacement induced by war/environmental disaster, this chapter situates its discussion of global displacement, war, and non-citizenship by exploring the interplay between place, power, and politics. It argues for deconstructing non-citizenship and reinstating displacement in the city by analysing the decision-making processes and experiences of non-citizens in the cities of Jeddah, Doha, and Beirut, while expanding the issue of statelessness to post-earthquake Haïti.

Crossing Invisible Boundaries and Re-Gaining Home

The current chapter deals with two different cases of post-war displacement, divided by thousands of miles and located in two different social, cultural, and political contexts. The two authors of this chapter believe that sometimes what the construction of knowledge within any discipline needs is to use more comparative empirical research for seeking more insights and understanding of the social world. Thus, collectively, the authors through this chapter compare two far away cases of displacement but too similar within their lived experience in reality in order to contest some of the mainstream notions within the anthropological library. The main focus is to study the concepts of home and belonging between two post-war displaced cases in Africa, the post-war Acholi of Northern Uganda and the Palestinian refugees of Jaziret Fadel village at Al-Sharqyiah Governorate in Egypt. They have found that when people come across the borders, the act of physical crossing is not as difficult as penetrating the invisible ones. People can acquire visas, escape the authorities at checkpoints, or easily camouflage to be able to go through border points. However, when it comes to crossing the intangible borders, to be able to penetrate the social fabric of the newly settled in community across the border is a laborious exercise.

Displacement Beyond Borders

This chapter focuses on how the Northern Uganda war between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the Ugandan Army (1987-2008) reformulated Acholi people's local construction of place, political belonging, material, and emotional connections. In other words, how historical processes with war, flight, and displacement reshaped meaning of being Acholi in Northern Uganda. The two-decade period of war in Northern Uganda (1986-2008) led to the displacement of Acholi people both internally and externally. Almost the whole population of Acholiland were affected by the LRA insurgency that dismantled societal structures that had for long anchored Acholi culture. During this turbulent period, Acholi people lived in camps and in the neighboring countries, especially Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR), and Kenya, among others. This gives this conflict a cross-border dimension.

Acholi Without Roots

This chapter interrogates historical processes with war and displacement resulting from armed rebellion between the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and the government of Uganda between 1987-2007 that created contesting notions of being Acholi. The chapter shows how Acholi war trajectories experienced through taking refuge amongst other societies, conscription into warfare of mainly child abductees, and encampment divided the current Acholi into new imaginaries and solidarities. Lasting for over two decades, the LRA war led to the emergence of different cultures based on the different life pathways that Acholi took during violence and displacement: the culture of camps or IDPs (donation, food aid, governmental/humanitarian organizations' assistance) and the culture of war (forceful abduction of children and recruitment into rebel forces and militias).