Journal of Contemporary Politics

Abstract

As a result of the 1948-Arab – Israeli war, known as Nakba more than 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homeland. After that these people took asylum in neighbouring Arab countries like Jordan, Lebanon, Syrian and Egypt. Lebanon is home to the second-largest number of Palestinian refugees in the region. Among the host countries Palestinians in Lebanon is experiencing the most severe forms vulnerabilities and exclusion. Palestinians are not granted citizenship, legal protections, or access to important civic and socioeconomic rights. This article examines the lived reality of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon by using Giorgio Agamben's theory of the state of exception, which holds that conventional legal safeguards are suspended by sovereign power, leaving people to live a bare life. It argued that the refugee camps are spaces in which people are sustained biologically but excluded politically. Furthermore, the Palestinian refugee camps are governed by informal groups and humanitarian agencies like UNRWA because the Lebanese government does not provide protection for them. This is an example of a biopolitical system that governs based on need rather than rights. This article also found that the Palestinians struggle to preserve their identity in light of the loss of their homeland and the challenges of being refugees, despite leading a "bare life" in Lebanon. This indicates that the camps serve as possible locations for political agency and resilience in addition to being places of exclusion.