[Discussion] Facing Home: Palestinian Belonging

[sule tarakcioglu]

Mauro Van Aken. Facing Home: Palestinian Belonging in a Valley of Doubt.
Maastricht: Shaker Publishing, 2003. 310 pp. Illustrations,
bibliography, index. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 9-0432-0221-6; no price listed
(paper), ISBN 0-1234-9876-5.
*Reviewed by:* Hala Kh. Nassar, Department of Near Eastern Languages &
Civilizations, Yale University.
*Published by:* H-Gender-MidEast <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/%7Egend-mid/>
(August, 2004)
Belonging, Place, and the Transformation of Modernity

 From June 7 to 8 of this year delegates from sixty-seven countries and
thirty-four international organizations gathered at the Geneva
International Center for the largest conference on Palestinian refugees
in fifty-six years. According to the UNRWA press release, three hundred
delegates discussed "the future humanitarian assistance to millions of
refugees scattered across the Middle East. Sweden, the United States,
and Jordan were involved in the months of preparation for the conference
by "leading working groups on future plans, as have inter-Governmental
and international organizations such as the European Commission and
UNICEF." Mauro Van Aken's book Facing Home: Palestinian Belonging in a
Valley of Doubt could not have been timelier than this, given Jordan was
one of the main organizers. This case study concerns the Jordan Valley
or, as it is commonly known, al-Ghour, in the East Bank of the River
Jordan. There, displaced Palestinians from the wars of 1948 and 1967
have "settled" in the valley with the help of UNRWA. The author lived
and conducted his research in Edbab "Black village," a highly
heterogeneous village. In Edbab live the Jabrat tribe, the Turkmani
tribe from the Haifa region, the Mashalkha tribe (allegedly native), the
Gharaghir, and the 'kabshe. Al-Ghour also has "foreign workers" from
Egypt and Pakistan.

Much has been written on the Palestinian refugees, and the Geneva
conference adds to the recent plethora of organizing conferences,
workshops, policy making, research and analysis of the unresolved status
of the refugees. The first U.N. Resolution 194 concerning the
Palestinian refugees' Right of Return was issued in 1948. Since then
displaced Palestinians in the Jordan Valley, in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon,
or in the occupied territories are still waiting for the resolution to
take effect. This book's main argument is that international
organizations trying to help Palestinian refugees in al-Ghour do not
take into account the subject of their help nor their needs. In chapter
1, the author systematically and thematically presents an overview of
various studies on refugees. He also looks at international aid agencies
which, along with Jordan Valley Authority, resettle refugees as farmers
in al-Ghour as a crucial part of dealing with their status and as an
object of economic development and agribusiness in the valley. Van Aken,
drawing on various fields such as anthropology, sociology, and political
science or postcolonial studies, presents his narrative. The author
argues that the displaced Palestinians in the valley can see the Israeli
settlements' bright lights in the West Bank: they want to return, thus,
while waiting they resist settlement in the valley by refusing to be
reduced to farmers and by creating temporary homes based on their
Palestinian identity and culture.

In chapter 2, Van Aken looks at who lives at al-Ghour and what their
conflicting identities and loyalties are. Al-Ghour, also referred to as
Project Area, is a model site of modern agribusiness. High unemployment
among the youths of the valley, however, is attributed to Aid Agencies
whose main aim has been to make a farming community out of the valley
but has not catered to other needs of the refugees. Therefore, 70
percent of al-Ghour's youth looks for work outside the valley and
outside the country. Chapter 2 is very illuminating for anyone
interested in International aid and World Bank policies. Regardless of
identity, (whether a Palestinian, a refugee, or a Jordanian) everybody
wants access to the available resources, irrigation system, water
resources, division of land, marketing, use of chemicals and pesticides,
and uses all means to get access. Ethnical and class tension exist in
al-Ghour. In spite of Jordan's national discourse nahnu kulluna wahed
(we are all one), nationality plays a huge role: whether Jordanian,
Palestinian (different class and color) or foreign worker, not to speak
of women who, of course, work in the greenhouse: bait al-plastic (p. 69).

Navigating and exploiting identities in order to have access to either
social or governmental resources is the topic of chapter 3. The author
argues that there is continuous tension in al-Ghour between "flexible
and heterogeneous identity levels, and the reproduction of a community
of Palestinian vis-=E0-vis other social groups" (p. 81). The 1948 refugee=
s
who first came to the valley were farmers and thus ended up being
identified with their displacement. They were the pioneers who
introduced agriculture and the first greenhouses thus helping other
refugees to legitimize their present identities and negotiate
contrasting memories. However, the heterogeneous community of the valley
reflects different places, different levels of identity and hence
different loyalties, although ethnicity and political expression are
silent in the valley according to the section "Being Fellah or Bedu" (p.
88ff). In looking at other places of al-Ghour, one sees how social
networks, kinship and solidarity strengthen Palestinian identity in
relation to the other, albeit Jordanian or worker from Egypt or Pakistan.

In "Visiting as A Spatial Performance," the title of chapter 4, Van Aken
carefully explains the difference between a clan, a tribe, and the
nuclear family. He emphasizes that visiting is not only a social
practice, but also the forum where business is conducted, negotiated,
and maneuvered. Through the presence of diwan (solidarity, identity,
customs and performing), Palestinian identity is reinforced daily. This
chapter shows that the international planners of al-Ghour failed to
understand the cultural reality and the object of development. The Diwan
and the family's readiness to have daily visits is also used as a medium
for social climbing among poor Palestinian refugees who have lost both
land and kinship. Chapter 4 provides a thorough first reading for anyone
interested in knowing how social ties, kinship, and family solidarity
function, not only in Palestinian society, but also in other Arab
societies. What is interesting about visiting is how its meaning and
audience has changed over time. Previously it was a forum where older
people talked and the young listened. With the disappearance of the
traditional tribal diwan, and the rise of the nuclear family, young
people of the valley have no outside forum. According to the author,
this might explain the rise of alcoholism, violence and social
disruption among al-Ghour's youths. The chapter ends with a small
section on women. The invisibility of women from the family's diwan is
strongly associated with keeping the woman's honor and respectability, a
common behavior in Middle Eastern societies.

The theme of visiting and hospitality is elaborated on chapter 5. Family
ties and kinship play a major role in shaping emotional bonds,
ceremonial feelings, and practices in Palestinian culture. They also
define the inhabitants of the Jordan Valley as a "family farm" society
by the outside observer, i.e. the economist, who fails to grasp the
dynamics and cultural dimensions of the social network and the patterns
in the lives of the displaced. Cultural performances--whether dancing
the debkeh in weddings or listening to music--are all signs employed by
the displaced Palestinians in their attempt to articulate their identity
and unresolved status.

In chapter 6, we are introduced to the wedding preparation of the groom.
In painstaking details and interviews, the author takes us step-by-step
through this cultural ritual. The wedding is looked upon as a collective
custom where neighborhood, family kinship and ties, and the whole
village come together. To the author, the wedding party (hafla) has
become a "local tool, among others, in understanding belonging, place
and the transformation of modernity in the valley" (p. 167). In dance
and music the refugees refer to other places and spaces: the lost home.
To them, the wedding gives a cultural meaning to the daily life of
displacement in the valley. For example, Van Aken discusses the
Palestinian traditional dance dabkeh and how inhabitants of the valley
have culturally appropriated it, so that what was "out of place" in the
valley, now becomes a "place in the valley": a national contestation and
affirmation to claim lost identities and territories. Chapter 6 also
explains who dances at wedding parties, who leads the dabkeh, how
vengeance and violence enter the parties and how they are gendered. In
other words, in wedding parties, women are separated from men, which is
looked upon as halal. If wedding parties are mixed, it become haram and
therefore a marker of lower social status and morals.

"Beyond Agriculture: Representation and Power" is the title of chapter
7. Here Van Aken investigates the "Project Area" of the Jordan Valley,
which is probably the most planned, photographed, and guarded area in
the world due to its proximity to Israel. He also looks at the various
historical discourses viewing the Jordan Valley, as a holy site by the
colonizers to seize land, and a landscape where the others inhabit the
land. In this type of discourse, displaced Palestinians suddenly are
reduced and transformed to "landless farmers." In other words, in this
arid landscape where water is extremely scarce, the "local farmer,"
whose main problem is the lack of water and agricultural development, is
assimilated into the farm work and thus becomes the object of the Jordan
Valley agricultural project and an agent of a possible solution. Hence
the farm work and the farming family (an American model) define the
place and the identity of its inhabitants. For example, none of the mud
brick houses of the 1948 refugees survived. Instead project houses or
private cement ones were built. Yet exploiting the farmer as an icon was
what the international agencies like USAID, JVA, UNRWA, FAO, and GTZ,
among others, aimed to do when settling the displaced. Since
Palestinians resisted this imposition, they were accused of being in
need of development. The international organizations looked at the
displaced as the others that created a tension and thus created
tensions. The imposition of technological development on the valley's
inhabitants, Van Aken argues, is being resisted by the refugees. Through
family ties and social circles they renew contacts, and some manage to
return to Palestine or go elsewhere. The chapter also looks at how
women, despite social stigma, are entering the agribusiness due to cash
earning.

The last chapter of the book looks at social relations and networking
among the various inhabitants of the valley in relation to people
outside of the valley. It investigates how, for instance, Egyptian
workers are sometime included or excluded from social frameworks. It
also looks at patterns of co-operation among the inhabitants of the
valley in trying to manipulate the Jordan Valley Authorities, i.e., when
it comes to open the water valve, avoiding bureaucracy.

Van Aken follows a simplified version of Halloun's (1996) form of Arabic
transliteration, yet there are repeated errors. Following Modern
Standard Arabic transliteration and correcting the errors would make the
narrative smoother. A final comment on the cover of the book: I was
elated to see a black Palestinian holding a picture frame with a collage
of photographs. Veiled women's faces stand out among the other
photographs. With this cover, one might imagine a chapter dedicated to
Palestinian women refugees, but in spite of the very small sections on
women in the book, the author does not treat their issues in detail
except their role in the agribusiness. However, the book is a
significant study and offers good bibliography. It is a good source for
anyone who is interested in studying agricultural development,
performance, and articulation of national identities under the auspices
of UNRWA.