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The Paradox of Palestinian Exile: UNRWA, Structural Limbo, and the Manufactured Crisis of the Right to Return
This thesis argues that the temporariness of Palestinian exile has been turned into a manufactured limbo that is sustained by international law, humanitarian governance and host- country regimes. It uses General Assembly Resolution 194 and the broader human rights regime to show how the right to ret...
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| Format: | Thesis |
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AUC Knowledge Fountain
2026
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| Summary: | This thesis argues that the temporariness of Palestinian exile has been turned into a manufactured limbo that is sustained by international law, humanitarian governance and host- country regimes. It uses General Assembly Resolution 194 and the broader human rights regime to show how the right to return is constantly reaffirmed but structurally postponed, resulting in a gap between legal promise and political reality. Drawing on Edward Said’s notion of exile as an unhealable rift, Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Didier Fassin’s thinking on humanitarian reason, the thesis constructs a multi-scalar framework that conceptualizes limbo as existential experience, embodied practice and bureaucratic governance. Empirically, it looks at how UNRWA has transformed from a temporary relief and works agency to a permanent humanitarian infrastructure, linking access to education, health and assistance to refugee registration. It then examines the trade-off between individual rights and collective claims for return as differently implemented in Lebanon, Jordan and pre-2011 Syria. Palestinian refugees in these countries are caught between work, legal status, and mobility on the one hand, and maintenance of refugee identity and the right of return on the other. The thesis concludes that this manufactured limbo serves multiple political interests at the expense of Palestinian dignity, agency and justice. |
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