A House is Not A Home: Permanent Impermanence of Habitat for Palestinian Expellees in Lebanon

Abstract

Palestinian diaspora studies have neglected the temporary house/home as a site of reproduction. The question raised in this paper is in what ways shelters in camps in Lebanon are ‘home’ after fifty-five years of exile? The consideration of linguistic-cultural differences between ‘home’ and ‘beit’ (or ‘dar’) is prioritised. Two aspects of the Palestinian camp ‘beit’ in Lebanon – its insecurity and its sociality – are reviewed, with a focus on ways in which long-term exiles use impermanent housing to shelter objects and practices that memorialise ‘home’ while incorporating change. In a final section, stories of return to ‘al-balad – ‘home’, ‘the village’ ‘the country’ – are examined as reconnections inflected by class and generation.