Organized Refugees and Fragmented Citizens: a Comparative Ethnography of Marginality, Solidarity, and Politics Across the Green Line

Organized Refugees and Fragmented Citizens: A Comparative Ethnography of Marginality, Solidarity, and Politics across the Green Line by Silvia Pasquetti A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Loïc J. Wacquant, Chair Professor Dylan J. Riley Professor Cihan Z. Tugal Professor Beshara Doumani Professor Samera Esmeir Fall 2011 Abstract Organized Refugees and Fragmented Citizens: A Comparative Ethnography of Marginality, Solidarity, and Politics across the Green Line by Silvia Pasquetti Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology University of California, Berkeley Professor Loïc J. Wacquant, Chair This study aims to specify the mechanisms by which sociolegal control affects group solidarity in two localities of urban marginality in Israel-Palestine: the Mahatta, a segregated Palestinian district in Lod, an Israeli “mixed” city, and the Jalazon refugee camp in the West Bank, only 20 miles from Lod. This research contrasts two distinct social morphologies: internal cohesion in the Jalazon camp and atomization in the Mahatta district. It also highlights the opposition between feelings of trust and pride in the camp and feelings of distrust and shame in the district. Both localities have internal lines of division. In the camp, there are divisions on the basis of place of origin, clan membership and political affiliation. In the urban district, there are divisions on the basis of ethnicity and oldtimer/newcomer status. Yet, Jalazon camp dwellers actively work to deactivate potentially paralyzing fractures, to develop and preserve internal solidarity, prevent or quench camp infighting, and purse collective actions while symbolically investing in the camp as a source of dignity and pride. By contrast, in the Mahatta district, residents experience social fragmentation, mutual distrust, and routine violence and blame one another for their failed attempts at collective organizing. I explain these different profiles of group solidarity, moral worldviews, violence, and politics as products of their distinct regimes of sociolegal control. By “sociolegal control,” I mean the control exercised by the institutions of the ruling power and enshrined in its legal norms and dominant discourses. I argue that the Jalazon camp dwellers navigate a regime of sociolegal control that has (unintended) collectivizing effects while the Mahatta residents negotiate their existence against a regime of sociolegal control that has (mostly intended) divisive effects. There is a triadic structure of authority at work in the refugee camp, which includes the Israeli army, the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) and the Palestinian Authority (PA); camp dwellers are pushed by all three to valorize their group solidarity as a fundamental resource to both nourish from within and defend collectively against external threats. In contrast to the processes in play between Jalazon refugees and the authorities that influence their solidarity in the camp, the Israeli state’s security apparatus is the only institutional actor at work in the Mahatta district, and I argue that it serves to create social fragmentation and mutual suspicion among the urban residents, thus pushing them towards strategies of individual exit. 1 This study has a threefold relevance for theorizing mechanisms of group solidarity among marginalized populations in their connection to the role of the state as a “group maker.” First, I propose that a given state can distribute different techniques of control towards different segments of a population cast or kept outside of the sphere of official or full membership. This focus on the state’s distribution of forms of sociolegal control towards subcategories within an “unwanted” population helps us understand the formation of internal cleavages among people that otherwise recognize nationhood as a principle of membership. Second, by focusing on place- specific forms of sociolegal control, this study problematizes two distinctions: that between democratic and illiberal forms of state and that between the post-industrial Global North and the Global South. Using localities of urban marginality—refugee camps, squatter settlements, and urban districts of relegation—as a terrain for the theorization of group formation draws attention to how modern states, including democratic ones, might use illiberal practices and discourses driven by ethnoracial or ethnonational motivations towards segments of their citizenry. A third related theoretical point emerging from this study is that legal categorization, especially the opposition between the categories of refugees and citizens, does not have a fixed content in terms of its effects on group solidarity and political identities. 2 Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………….................... 1 Structures and Experiences of Marginality across the Green Line I) History & Institutions in Motion Chapter 1…………………………………………………………………………………………19 Trajectories and Mechanisms of Marginality: Ruling over Palestinians 1948-Present Chapter 2…………………………………………………………………………………………50 The Mahatta District and the Jalazon Camp: History, Structure, & the View from the Street II) From the Ground Up Chapter 3…………………………………………………………………………………………75 Jalazon Solidarity: Social Cohesion, Internal Dispute Resolution, and Collective Politics Chapter 4………………………………………………………………………………………..110 Mahatta Dissolution: Fear, Violence, Stigma, and Atomized Politics Chapter 5………………………………………………………………………………………..144 Comparing Two Regimes of Sociolegal Control: Discourses, Practices, and Space Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………….. 160 Sociolegal Control and Group Solidarity: Lessons from Two Palestinian Enclaves References………………………………………………………………………………………166 Methodological Appendix……………………………………………………………………...185 Identity, Mobility, & Marginality: Conducting Comparative Ethnography across the Green Line i Acknowledgements This dissertation is the end of an adventure—graduate school—and the beginning of another adventure: turning it into a book. Many people and institutions have helped me so far and I am sure that they will continue to support my project. I would like to thank all the people living in Jalazon and Lod who have spent endless hours with me feeding me and helping me. They showed extraordinary generosity and courage. Special thanks to my Chair, Loïc Wacquant for his generous and rigorous feedback, his irony, his perspicacity, and his commitment to social justice. I also thank to Dylan Riley for his invaluable help and mentorship for all these years and for his promise that he will be there for me until I obtain a job (and then tenure!) I also want to thank Edgar Deu Sandoval for sharing his life with me, listening to my stories, supporting me in my (many) moments of self-doubt and boosting my self-confidence. Edgar and I have learned a lot about the injustices of the world together and we are committed to keep our minds and hearts open to those who struggle against dispossession and oppression. My dissertation group at Berkeley has accompanied me over the years in this adventure mixing academic support and precious friendship: thanks to Gretchen Purser, Katie Hasson, Dawn Dow, and Siri Colom. Special thanks also to Jesse Nissim for her exceptional insights in the craft of writing and her friendship. Last but not least I am forever grateful to my family for their confidence in me. Gianna, my mother, has greatly influenced me by helping all those around her. Her spontaneous empathy for those in need has been the most important gift she could ever give me. ii Introduction: Structures and Experiences of Marginality across the Green Line He is not clean (huwa mish ndīf), don’t speak with him Nasser (Mahatta district) I like the camp (mohaiam) because I like its people (ahl al-mohaiam) Yusef (Jalazon refugee camp) Residents of the Mahatta district in the Israeli town of Lod are all Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, and most of them are poor. They often say things like: “Here [in the Mahatta], you never know who is in front of you;” or “Here, you can’t speak politics;” clearly expressing feelings of distrust and fear of expressing political ideas in front of their neighbors. Across the Green Line, which serves as the “border” between Israel and the West Bank1, another population of poor Palestinians under Israeli rule—refugees living in the Jalazon camp, most of them originally from Lod2—do not experience the same mix of social dissolution, distrust, and fear. Instead, these stateless camp dwellers in the West Bank perceive themselves as members of a worthy social group, develop trustful relationships with their neighbors, and engage into collective forms of politics. What explains these differences in forms, levels, and mechanisms of social cohesion between these two poor Palestinian populations under Israeli rule? I will suggest that answering this question requires studying the distinct relationships that the refugees of Jalazon and the residents of the Mahatta district have with the institutional actors that manage the two locales, particularly the Israeli state. Therefore, this study has a dual focus on both the institutional practices and discourses at work in each site and the social and political lives of refugees and “minority citizens.” I examine and link the structures of sociolegal control and the dispossession and oppression experienced in the two

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