At a time of mass displacement across the Middle East, Palestinian refugees of the 1948 war-and their descendants-remain at the center of the world’s longest-running, unresolved refugee situation. The longevity of the issue is widely linked to the failure of the official “peace process” that began in the 1990s. While this diplomatic process has shaped political, media, and even academic discourses, it has also marginalized many realities and perspectives on the ground, particularly those related to everyday life and to intimate spaces like the home and village.
In this talk, drawing from fieldwork in Jerusalem, Swanson (Ph.D. in Geography, UNC Chapel Hill and J.D., Drake U) tells the story of the last village and the efforts by refugees and their descendants to save its ruins from an Israeli development project. Underscoring the centrality of concerns over the intimate everyday for refugees, this research speaks more broadly to efforts toward peace, justice, and security for refugees in the Middle East and beyond.