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Int. Migration & Integration (2012) 13:441458 DOI 10.1007/s12134-011-0198-0
Published online: 3 August 2011# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract This paper is a synthetic piece drawn from my writings from the past 14 years on Palestinian refugees problems. These writings were based on surveys among the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and in the diaspora, in-depth interviews, and participant observation, as well as secondary data. The aim is to discuss the interplay between three key factors which impact the construction of Palestinian-ness and will impact the process of return: geographical borders, social boundaries, and nation-state policies in the region. The interplay between them will be used to depict (1) the problematic relationship between the diaspora and the OPT in the current/eventual return movement of Palestinian refugees and the absence of the diaspora as a social space; (2) the flexibility of transnational strategies adopted by the Palestinians, whether citizens, refugees, current returnees, or transmigrants; and(3) the inflexibility of the policies of the nation-states in the region.
Keywords Nation-state . Refugees . Flexible citizenship . Palestinian populations . Palestinian refugees movements
Introduction
The return of refugees to their country of origin is not only a subject of the right of return but of the rites of return. This return, seen as a natural and thus problem-free process, is one of the major misleading myths surrounding the process of repatriation in the imaginaries of many refugees and Palestinian politicians. This can be apprehended only by placing it in the broader context of movement across or around borders by Palestinians. For instance, networks and relationships with other people as social capital are as important as a nostalgic sense of place in understanding voluntary migration, forced migration, and return migration.
S. Hanafi (*)
American University of Beirut (AUB), Beirut, Lebanon e-mail: [email protected]
Flexible Citizenship and the Inflexible Nation-State: New Framework for Appraising the Palestinian Refugees Movements
Sari Hanafi
442 S. Hanafi
By drawing on insights from various disciplinary approaches to borders, boundaries, and social networks, one can analyze the manifold implications of some socioeconomic and cultural factors for an eventual Palestinian return migration and/or their movements inside/outside the region. Boundaries are symbolic, cultural, and social, constituting a cognitive or mental geography which influences the transnational ties between different...