Occupied Lives

Nina Gren holds a PhD in social anthropology and is employed as a researcher at the Centre of Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University and as an external lecturer at the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on Palestinian refugees and diaspora, social memory, gender, home, and politics.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsA Note on Transliteration Maps Chronology of Events Ch. 1. Introduction -Focus and Purpose-Being Camp Refugees under Violent Occupation-Integrity and Constrained Agency-Why a Focus on Everyday Life?-‘Normality’ in a Violent and Prolonged Refugee Situation-Social Continuity: New Homes and Re-established Family Lines-A Moral Crisis on Repeat-Doing Fieldwork in Dheisheh-Overview of ChaptersCh. 2. Dheisheh as a Social and Political Place -Introduction-The Order of Things in Dheisheh-Earlier Political Affiliations and Activism in Dheisheh-Political Disengagement at the Time of Fieldwork-Concluding RemarksCh. 3. Living with Violence and Insecurity -Introduction-Experiencing On-going Crisis-The Presence of Extraordinary Deaths-Extending the Limits of Normality-Remaining Patient and Hopeful -Negotiating Trust-Concluding RemarksCh. 4. The Making of New Homes -Introduction-To Build a House is to Make a Life-Imprisonment Delaying Life-Children as Normality, Resistance and Recovery-Reframing Home to a Political Stage-Getting by Together-Concluding RemarksCh. 5. Reconstituting a Moral Order -Introduction-A Chain of Catastrophic Events-The Camp as a Moral Community-Palestinian Moral Superiority and the Immoral Others-Moral Contamination-A Shaken Political Morality-Concluding RemarksCh. 6. Concluding Discussion -Maintaining Integrity in the Face of Violation-Struggling Against Temporariness-Having a Life or Being a True Patriot?-How May One Remain a Political Subject?-Existence and PoliticsReferencesIndex

"For all that has been written about them, Palestinians still remain unknown and misunderstood particularly in the West. Similarly, despite their profound loss and suffering over the last, nearly seven decades, it is still necessary to defend the humanity of Palestinians to those who do not know them. Nina Gren provides a thoughtful and well-researched corrective to this shameful reality with her study of daily life among refugee families in the Dheisheh refugee camp, providing the reader with a window into a world few have ever seen let alone experienced. As such, her work constitutes an important and welcome contribution to the literature."--Sara Roy, Harvard University; "Although the text is based on an academic study, it's written for a larger audience. Gren does integrate a variety of social theoretical concepts into her arguments, but her style remains engaging, her writing concise, and her analysis and argument coherent. Ultimately the text aims to do what many texts don't-steer discussion from a solely state-centered politics to the mechanics of the everyday under a politics of occupation and repression, to show how "high politics" invades ordinary life." Nahrain Al-Mousawi, Middle East Monitor.