An 'Invented People': Palestinian Refugee Women and Meanings of Home
Holt, M.C. 2015. An 'Invented People': Palestinian Refugee Women and Meanings of Home. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies. 14 (2), pp. 452-460.
| Title | An 'Invented People': Palestinian Refugee Women and Meanings of Home |
|---|---|
| Authors | Holt, M.C. |
| Abstract | Home is 'memories and history. Home is a sense of self. Home is having a place in the world’ (Susskind, 1998). But home is also loss and pain and insecurity. The sense of home and homeland remains very strong for Palestinians in Lebanon and, out of this sense of rootedness, has emerged a resistance movement determined to make real the ‘Palestine of our imagination’. Inspired by memories of their homeland, successive generations have enacted forms of resistance, from militant activism to resilience and survival. As refugee camps have been invaded, homes destroyed and lives fragmented, Palestinian women have responded with stoicism and the abundant fruits of memory and imagination. Drawing on fieldwork research carried out in Lebanon in 2006, 2007 and 2011, the article explores refugee women’s memories, coping mechanisms and dreams; it argues that, while imagination is a necessary source of comfort, there needs to be real progress, at local and international levels, on the vexed question of how to solve the Palestinian refugee question. |
| Keywords | Palestinian refugees, home, Lebanon, women |
| Journal | ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies |
| Journal citation | 14 (2), pp. 452-460 |
| ISSN | 1492-9732 |
| Year | 2015 |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia, Okanagan |
| Publisher's version | |
| Web address (URL) | https://www.acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1173 |
| Publication dates | |
| Published | 17 Aug 2015 |
| License | CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 |