SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The pertinent question today is what kind of "politics of return" could grant Palestinians the right to self-determination and simultaneously counter the exclusionary politics towards Palestinian refugees of both Arab nation-states and of the Palestinian nationalist project? Palestinian refugees, and their camp/homes as social - historical sites giving new meanings to contemporary refugeehood - lie at the heart of a potential new political counter culture. At the core of this antagonistic politics should be the recognition that the refugee issue today is no longer solely about return, but also about rights writ-large, which involve a radical rethinking of citizenship and individual and collective self-determination in the region. The Palestinian refugee question, seen in this light, becomes a prism through which we can understand and critique long-term processes of national, sectarian and confessional boundary making in the Middle East. It therefore raises the question of how to radically reconfigure post-colonial national projects in Arab countries which have so far failed to meet aspirations for rights, democracy and pluralism for refugees and non refugees alike.