Doctoral Dissertation Research: Managing Crisis: When Humanitarianism Becomes Government, the Politics of Humanitarian Relief in Balata Refugee Camp

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According to United Nations projections, over half of the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza Strip relies on international humanitarian assistance, and dependency on outside aid continues to rise. This project provides an innovative examination of the conception, organization, and institutionalization of humanitarian measures in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It analyzes the role of international humanitarian aid in managing Palestinian displacement and the socio-political effects of prolonged humanitarian relief on the Palestinian refugee population. In particular, it traces humanitarian policy through a transnational network of coordinated sites from United Nations Headquarters in New York City, to United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) Headquarters in Amman, and finally to UNRWA's largest field site in the West Bank -- Balata Refugee Camp. This research draws from a political geographic framework and employs a mix of archival research, ethnographic methods, and data analysis. This mixed-method approach allows for in-depth study of UNRWA's humanitarian activities as they are intended by international aid institutions and experienced by aid-recipients. A joint-theoretical approach will be utilized to understand the interplay between discursive and material processes in shaping identity formation, as well as the daily lives and experiences of Palestinian refugees. Specifically, this project is guided by the following research objectives: (1) to determine how UNRWA's humanitarian policies and projects translate across various geographical scales and cultural contexts into institutional structures and modes of governance in Balata Refugee Camp, and (2) to determine how categorical distinctions instituted by UNRWA ("refugee" and "non-refugee") intersect with articulations of Palestinian political identity, and assess how Palestinian refugees are negotiating these identities in their everyday lives. This research provides an integrated view of the relationship between humanitarian institutions, aid recipients, and the wider social context within which humanitarian activity is taking place. Such a study has the potential to highlight critical disjunctures between humanitarian policies as they are intended and conceived by donor institutions and their manifestation on the ground in conflict-zones. More broadly, this research has the potential to transform the ways in which humanitarian measures are conceptualized and practiced in war-torn societies, especially when this assistance becomes woven into the institutional structures and social fabric of the field site. From this type of assessment, improved humanitarian models, policies and practices can be devised to more effectively align humanitarian activities with the needs of aid recipients, as well as decrease chances that humanitarian measures contribute to or prolong military conflict. Such research has the potential to advance humanitarian theory and practice and influence international humanitarian policy, both as it relates to the Israel-Palestinian conflict specifically, as well as to war-torn societies more broadly.