In the middle of the novel coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Mina H (a pseudonym), a young doctor living in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, sent out a plea on Facebook and WhatsApp to her extended family and village network around the globe for food and medicine. Just as the rest of the world was experiencing shortages of basic goods like flour, toilet paper, and protective gear, Palestinian refugees were facing dire shortages of food and other essential items. Within a few days of her plea, thousands of dollars had poured into the camp to help buy basic goods like food and medicine.

Refugees around the entire world are confronting suffering unlike anything most of us have seen in our lifetime: 68.5 million refugees have lost their homes, their livelihoods, and access to basic goods and services. Yet Dr. Mina's pleas did not go unheeded. The response illustrates the strategy Palestinians have developed for helping the community weather scarcity and catastrophe.

In her memoir *Circle of Quiet*, Madeleine L'Engle asserts that communities maintain their wholeness and thrive when the gap between our virtuous selves and our daily actions is a narrow one. Building on this idea, Bryan Stevenson asserts in *Just Mercy* that when there is scarcity, violence, and injustice, "There is no wholeness outside of our reciprocal humanity." (2014, 290). Reciprocity helps us reduce that gap. It gets people to give greatly of themselves even in terrible conditions. Readers of this book can learn a lot from Palestinian refugees about how to survive catastrophe and solve collective problems while remaining united. We can extend Palestinian refugee strategies to our own suffering communities, closing the gap between our virtuous selves and our daily actions by engaging in reciprocal activism.

#### LESSONS LEARNED FROM PALESTINIAN REFUGEES

This book has looked in depth at how Palestinian refugees use digital spaces to inspire transnational reciprocal exchanges. Here I consider how communities, refugee and otherwise, might replicate these patterns of reciprocity to weather the inevitable storms of uncertainty and scarcity.

The catastrophic conditions that Palestinians face today are not unique. We live in deeply troubled times. There are ever-increasing numbers of refugees, migrants, "informals," and "stateless" people fleeing violent conflict, climate disasters, and catastrophes like the novel coronavirus pandemic in all corners of the globe (De Soto 1989). At the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos, the climate justice activist Greta Thunberg pleaded with the global community to push for climate change measures, telling the audience, "I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is" (Thunberg 2019). Indeed, in recent years millions of people have literally fled their burning houses because of conflict and climate change.

While we wait as political elites and established institutions dither, this book seeks to answer the simple question, How do communities solve collective problems in suboptimal conditions? In other words, when our houses are burning and no state or organization is stepping up to offer protection and services, how does a community help itself? My research shows that reciprocal exchanges are an adaptive and resilient community response to the needs of the impoverished, the marginalized, and the stateless. We can extend the reach of such exchanges into communities with dysfunctional states and unresponsive institutions.

Experimental research on engendering reciprocity—defined as a cooperative interaction marked by the exchange of favors and privileges—suggests that communities can overcome selfish impulses even in times of great scarcity. Key conditions for reciprocity include the enforcement of norms, or shared understandings of expected behavior, via repeated interactions in familiar group settings (Axelrod 1984; Boyd et al. 2003; Fehr and Gächter 2002; West, Griffin, and Gardener 2006). However, this scholarship has not previously been extended to real-world refugee communities and digital spaces of interaction. Examining the digital behavior of Palestinians living in camps in Lebanon and the diaspora has provided new data on the role of reciprocity and ICTs in refugee community building. The representation of precrisis kinship networks in digital spaces has created high-context interactions where norms of honor and loyalty are easily enforced using shame as a form of social control. In effect, Palestinians are using "old" ways of connection and obligation and making them new again in digital spaces.

Palestinians have endured generations of intractable conflict and shifting and ambiguous political economic rule. Kinship networks have been central to the survival of the Palestinian community under these conditions. The community used *ahl* and *hamula* networks to resolve dilemmas during the Ottoman and British mandate periods of rule. These networks offered a framework of relationships and trust with easily enforceable norms, enabling the community to raise funds and cooperate to solve collective problems. Even after the social upheaval caused by the Nakba in 1948, the community strategically used malleable notions of honor, shame, and loyalty to obtain needed goods and services.

Inside the refugee camps, Palestinian families and villages clustered in familiar groupings. Even as community members were forcibly pushed or voluntarily migrated from the camps in search of economic opportunity, the same kinship networks structured individuals' identity and obligations. Before the internet, communities used analog tools, such as village history books, to develop a "geography of the displaced" through which the camp community could craft and rebuild their family and village connections. Village elders and the authors of these books served as communal gatekeepers who established clear understandings of the behavior and obligations associated with kinship networks. The village history books forged transnational and intergenerational connections, but over time, as the crisis continued, their limitations became evident: the cost of producing them, a tendency toward static understandings of the community, and dwindling readership and participation.

ICTs have provided a dynamic new platform for Palestinians to reimagine their transnational network and the nature of reciprocity in a digital era. Most Palestinian families and villages have their own Facebook pages, WhatsApp groups, and private online chat rooms. By projecting their precrisis kinship networks into digital spaces, refugee communities have formed high-context places where users know one another's lineage, family legacy, and, most important, norms of appropriate behavior.

Palestinians living in the diaspora are encouraged to send economic remittances back to their family and village still stuck in the refugee camps. One motivator is the use of *'ayb*, or shame. The managers of Facebook group pages have become digital gatekeepers who enforce community obligations by shaming those who fail to send remittances. In many ways, digital gatekeepers replicate the role of the real-world village elders who have traditionally enforced community behavioral norms. Shame is an exceptionally powerful tool, and while it may motivate altruistic behavior, it can also be used to harm marginalized groups like women and queer communities. Though elite institutions and dominant social narratives uphold rigid patriarchal interpretations of appropriate Palestinian behavior, some family units are pushing against these stiff understandings and embracing more expansive notions of Palestinian identity and social norms.

ICTs serve as a platform for more than just the exchange of economic remittances. The sociological scholarship on migrant, diaspora, and refugee communities reveals that diaspora community members engage in the exchange of social remittances as well—ideas, behaviors, and values that flow between and among transnational communities and "home" (Levitt 1998, 2001). In these digital space, younger generations of Palestinians in the camps and the diaspora can interact without interference from traditional real-world gatekeepers. They share new ideas of how they might interact with the world around them and toward each other. Transnational political experiences in democratic spaces provide hope for a reimagined Palestinian political future. But the empowerment of new digital gatekeepers can also challenge the enforcement of communal norms and undermine the established network of reciprocal exchanges.

Certainly, digital spaces will not serve as a magic bullet capable of solving all the community's ills. Life is far from perfect in Nahr al-Bared. Given the ubiquitous lawlessness and endemic scarcity in the camp, we might expect its community to devolve into "nasty, brutish" behavior. Yet the refugee community is able to solve collective problems, such as accessing water, food, medicine, and other goods and services, with no regular police force or official judicial structure. Trust and reciprocity are abundant among refugees and their transnational network. Despite the political, economic, and legal forces that threaten to atomize the community, refugees strategically use digital spaces to inspire reciprocal exchanges and solve problems.

As our houses continue to burn, we can extend the lessons learned from Palestinian kinship networks in digital spaces to more general forms of reciprocal activism in digital spaces .

#### BLUEPRINT FOR RECIPROCAL ACTIVISM

Certainly it will not be easy to shift global conditions that deny refugees basic rights and dignities. During my last interview of 2019, a young Palestinian American woman worried, "You see all this awesome person-to-person exchange of help and services in our [Palestinian] village community, but I wonder, can this be scaled up? Can we get people from outside the village to care too?" An acquaintance at a (prepandemic) dinner party commented, "The problem with refugees is just so big, there is nothing someone like me can really do to help. We need a humanitarian organization and world leaders to solve the problems." There are times when the sheer volume of refugees and the catastrophic conditions in which they live may seem overwhelming. Yet this book offers a window into the resilience of marginalized communities in a broken world.

In response to those wondering about the possibility of scaling up individual exchanges, I submit that this book shows the radically transformative power of individual decisions. The trickle of remittances across the globe from a multitude of ordinary people has generated support essential for the refugee community's survival.  The virtuous circle of people helping other people continues to expand outward in countless small ways.

The examples in this book show that each of us has the power to transform injustices, especially in places where conflict may be latent. In latent conflict, the suffering and needs of others and potential pathways for remedying them are hidden, usually because there is a low level of awareness of needs and a lack of parity between those suffering and those with control over or access to valuable resources (Curle and Dugan 1982).

We tend to imagine that the peacemakers must be the heads of state, elite political parties, or international agencies. However, at a recent meeting among practitioners and academics at conference titled "Building Sustainable Peace" at the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute, presenters reminded us that peace building is not the realm of the elite: it is historically rooted in the actions of everyday people. In particular, Lisa Schirch, director of the Toda Peace Institute, reminded the audience that peace building "is fundamentally a micro-level endeavor" (Schirch 2019). Taking a cue from this insight, my blueprint for justice radically decenters the transformative power for peaceful change away from huge organizational structures and large operating budgets. Certainly, there is a place for UN organizations and large humanitarian institutions, and by offering my strategies I am not condoning the abrogation of state and institutional responsibility for relieving the suffering of refugees and other groups. But all too often we forget that we are connected to one another with or without the conduit of a state or organizational structure. We, that is, *you and I*, can rediscover our common humanity through reciprocal exchanges.

The stories of Palestinian refugees show that each of us has the power to become a reciprocal activist. We have the power to solve problems like access to personal protective equipment (PPE) to those on the front lines during the coronavirus pandemic. Appallingly, there has been a lack of access to PPE not only for frontline medical workers but also among the grocery clerks and gig workers who have been keeping our communities fed during the prolonged waves of the pandemic. Low-paid workers have long suffered from access to basic services and protections. Most of them have established digital networks where they share stories of their suffering and needs. For example, clerks at most Trader Joe's grocery stores have their own Facebook groups and find ways to support one another.

A central insight of theory on mutual-aid societies—organizations that provide benefits or other help to members who are affected by things such as death, sickness, or unemployment, among other crises—is that when individuals in groups, "can support, help, and influence each other in a reciprocal manner, the inherent potential exists to provide group members with a sense of greater personal, interpersonal, and environmental control over their lives to negotiate high risk situations" (Glitterman and Schulman 2005, preface). Mutual-aid societies encourage individuals to engage with others to protect themselves and develop a plan for action to solve problems in challenging circumstances. My blueprint for reciprocal activism focuses on how to enter these spaces for mutual aid and transform circumstances using digital technology. The plan begins with each of us gaining the permission of a marginalized community's digital platform moderator and then entering their digital spaces with the explicit intention to listen and learn from them what they need to make a real difference in their daily lives *right now*.

Adam Curle and Maire Dugan offer a model of how to transform unpeaceful relations into peaceful ones. Unpeaceful relations are those in which either or both parties are damaged, possibly through physical violence but also through economic or psychological harm. Their model of "conflict transformation" applies not only to situations of open conflict, such as war or sectarian violence, but also to latent conflicts.

Many refugee situations fall into the category of latent conflict. Those with privileges and access to resources often see media reports of large numbers of refugees fleeing violent conflict, but less is reported about the long-term warehousing of refugees, the protection gaps they face, and the conditions of their daily lives. Though global attention may focus on the Syrian refugee and undocumented border crossing (UBC) crises today, refugee crises persist in places like Darfur, Sudan, Liberia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kosovo, and Rwanda, some of them dating back to conflicts in the previous century. (Jacobsen 2005, 1).

Unpeaceful conditions are marked by structural violence, in which an individual's potential is curtailed as a result of socioeconomic forces (Galtung 1969). For example, the inability of refugees to access basic services and protections creates an unpeaceful space. Peaceful spaces, by contrast, are collaborative spaces where individuals, with the help of others, realize their own potential and where there is a high level of awareness and parity between the suffering and those who might help (Curle and Dugan 1982). *Awareness* refers not only to whether all parties involved know of the suffering but also to the degree to which all parties are aware of its sources and the possibilities for addressing the situation. *Parity* considers the balance of power between those that are suffering and those who might help.

Lack of awareness is evident in the scant media coverage of what happens to migrants and refugees after their initial exodus. Even refugees who for a time are front-page news find themselves with very little follow-up care from the communities that sensationalized their stories. When the body of Alan Kurdi, a Syrian refugee toddler, washed ashore on a Turkish beach on September 2, 2015, the world wept. He was buried in Kobani, Turkey, next to his mother and brother, who also drowned. The story of how his father, his village, and his neighborhood endured the tragedy is nowhere to be found.

Accordingly, Curle and Dugan suggest that the first step in transforming a latent conflict is to increase awareness, "to begin the processes of informing people about the issues at stake and empowering people to become agents of change" (1982, 21). Given the lack of coverage in popular media outlets, refugee digital networks offer a means of increasing public awareness and closing the parity gap. Awareness can increase when activists gain the permission of the gatekeepers to enter these digital spaces with the explicit intention of listening to and learning from those who are actually suffering.

In *Pathologies of Power* (2003), Paul Farmer sets out three steps by which activists can increase awareness and begin to shift the balance of power: *observe, judge*, and *act*. Though he focuses on the issue of human rights in the medical arena, his approach is also applicable to combating other forms of deep structural inequalities. Activists seeking to aid refugees and other marginalized communities can observe the suffering and needs of refugees by reading refugee posts in social media or watching their videos; they can judge what skills or resources they can offer that help meet those needs; and they can act on this new information by sending money through a digital app or offering their services. These actions may be small: sending US \$10, proofreading a résumé for a refugee applying for a job, or offering English-language lessons on a digital video platform. In turn, the recipient of the gift may then repay the gift by helping another in the community to "pay it forward." These everyday actions can help create a wholly interconnected community capable of surviving catastrophe.

In *I've Got the Light of Freedom* (1995), Charles Payne documents the extreme oppression, violence, and poverty that Black Americans faced in Mississippi in the years preceding the civil rights movement. Structural violence was so normalized that state officials, sheriffs, and local white residents regularly colluded to carry out public ritualized lynchings and mutilations of Black people. The stories of the civil rights activists Ella Baker and Septima Clark are examples of community organizing and activism that increases awareness and parity between those with access to resources and power and those who are suffering (Payne 1995). These extraordinary women partnered with Black communities in the Mississippi Delta to empower local people to teach others what they needed to know and forge pathways to accessing it. Long-term development of capacities within a community and the creation of collaborative alliances among ordinary people are important in transforming unpeaceful conditions. This strategy proved effective in the deep South because it shielded people from the state crackdowns that large-scale demonstrations elicited and empowered people to solve their own problems.

Histories of the civil rights era often focus on the extraordinary leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and dramatic, large-scale protests. However, community organizing, as practiced by Ella Baker and Septima Clark, demonstrated that ordinary people are capable of extraordinary acts to improve the conditions in which they live, despite facing everyday violence and oppression (Payne 1995). Instead of relying on hierarchical power structures and traditional elite leadership, community organizers focus on people-to people interactions in which people who are suffering share their stories with one another and with outsider activists; then they collaborate in order to meet those needs, with an emphasis on specific local needs, sensitivity to the structure of the local community, and an appreciation of its culture. Payne terms this a "developmental style" of community organization that increases the agency and capacity of those affected by the problems, regardless of whether tactical objectives are met.

This strategy for activism shows that ordinary "people have the right and capacity to have some say-so in their own lives" (Payne 1995, 68). Participatory political and educational activities, akin to the digital spaces where refugees create groups and share their stories, help the communities define their own problems. Baker and Clark developed "schools" where community members shared their stories, in writing and aloud. Sharing these stories led them to the collective realization that they had a story to tell that was a contribution to society and that provided lessons on how to solve their own problems. Baker emphasized that "strong people do not need strong leaders, they simply need each other" and that one must "start where the people are" to find solutions to the problem (Payne 1995, 77, 68). Ordinary people today can go to the digital spaces of communities in need and listen to their stories, their problems, and their solutions—and then act.

One might suppose that my blueprint for people-to-people online activism is made with academic naivete, because most of us are not part of the fabric of precrisis kinship networks that make Palestinian digital spaces so effective, and digital spaces are rife with misinformation. However, biological kinship is not essential for access to and participation in kinlike networks (see Stack 1974; Scott 2009; Hajj 2014, 2016). Though core parts of Palestinian refugee identity are based on historical events, anyone can become part of this network, "like family," by participating in networks of reciprocity and engaging in the transnational digital exchanges. Through reciprocal exchange, the social bond is (re-)formed and cemented (Stack 1974).

Moreover, participation in exchanges can be on a small scale, as simple as sending \$10 to a community in need through Western Union1 , using a digital platform to amplify the community's voice, or sharing expertise or skills with a member of that community. Certainly, engaging in exchanges of money or other resources with online-only acquaintances poses a degree of risk. However, there is a certain racial and socioeconomic bias in suspecting that a member of a refugee community is lying when asking for money or services, yet willingly handing over credit-card and other personal information when purchasing from an online megastore.2 Both transactions involve risk. However, the positive externalities associated with giving \$10 to a refugee (whether or not they use it to fund their education or a medical procedure) surely outweigh those of buying fast-fashion jeans online.

#### CONCLUSION

Palestinian refugees' digital networks provide critical insights into how reciprocity works in difficult conditions. The blueprint for reciprocal activism that I prescribe begins with the understanding that the suffering of others touches us. We are in that suffering and a part of it, whether or not we choose to engage with it. If those communities do not thrive, then ultimately none of us can thrive. The appropriate measure of peaceful conditions around the globe is the well-being of those most "broken" among us and our own health, and this is inescapably *one* measure. We exist in an inescapable, interconnected web of relations and obligations. My hope is that this book inspires others to step into these digital networks to affect realworld change for the good.

To reiterate, the lessons from Palestinians refugees provide simple but powerful steps for reciprocal activism. Here is a list of steps we can take right now to improve the conditions for refugees, and other marginalized communities, following the principles of Curle and Dugan (1982) and Farmer (2003).

The moment we send money or offer a service to another person, we enmesh ourselves in the social networks of refugees and adopt some of the expectations of loyalty and honor, and the deep feelings of shame associated with denying help to another person.

These individual acts do not absolve elites or institutions of responsibility; they simply mean that you and I are stepping up right now. Institutions and leaders can be held responsible even while we take personal responsibility to help other people: the two are not mutually exclusive.

We can complement and build on the power of existing community refugee networks, listen to their needs and requests, and buoy them with our own resources to close the protection gap. Kinship networks can expand to include others who agree to follow and expand on communal norms of honor, collective reliance, and loyalty and thus become "like family." According to Thomas Henry Huxley (1853), a community has a nucleus of specific ideas of how to behave but no outer boundary: rather, it has an expansive notion of who can be incorporated into that community if they agree to the core sentiment that the community deserves to exist and meet its basic needs. By engaging in these very small reciprocal exchanges, we begin to recognize our collective humanity and to heal the brokenness of the world today.

#### Research Appendix

#### INTERVIEWEES, LEBANON

#### *2004*

I-1L: Business owner, tile and concrete block factory, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 4

I-2L: Head officer, financial assistance to businesses, UNRWA, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 5

I-3L: Camp leader, UNRWA, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 5

I-4L: Lawyer, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 8

I-5L: Area officer, Beqaa northern Lebanon region, UNRWA, Tripoli, July 8

I-6L: Business owner, ice cream cones, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 10

I-7L: Business owner, chocolate factory, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 10

I-8L: Business owner, ice cream production and retail, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 10

I-9L: Business owner, ice cream production and retail, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 11

I-10L: Business owner, aluminum, Nahr al-Bared camp, July 11

I-11L: Business owner, iron, Beddawi camp, July 12

I-12L: Business owner, chocolate factory, Beddawi camp, July 12

I-13L: Business owner, tile factory, Beddawi camp, July 12

I-14L: Business owner, tile and cinderblock production, Beddawi camp, July 12

I-15L: Business owner, carpentry and furniture retail, Beddawi camp, July 12

I-16L: Business owner, ice cream production, Beddawi camp, July 12

I-17L: Business owner, chocolate factory, Beddawi camp, July 12

I-18L: Business owner, carpentry and furniture retail, Nahr al-Bared, July 13

I-19L: Business owner, steel production, Nahr al-Bared, July 13

I-20L: Field leader, National Association for Vocational Training school, Beirut, July 15

I-21L: Chief public information officer, UNRWA, Beirut, July 15

I-22L: Business owner, carpentry, al-Buss camp, July 17

1–23L: Leader/head, Popular Camp Committee, al-Buss camp, July 17

I-24L: Head, Najda Vocational Center, al-Buss camp, July 17

I-25L: Camp leader, UNRWA, al-Buss camp, July 17

I-26L: Popular Camp Committee leader, Rashidieh camp, July 18

I-27L: Business owner, iron, al-Buss camp, July 19

I-28L: Business owner, iron, Rashidieh camp, July 19

I-29L: Area officer, Tyre region, UNRWA, Tyre, July 19

I-30L: Leader, Najda microcredit office, Rashidieh camp, July 19

I-31L: Business owner, ice cream production, Rashidieh camp, July 19

I-32L: Business owner, ice cream production, al-Buss camp, July 20

*2007*

I- 33L: Popular Camp Committee, meeting with entire committee, Nahr al-Bared camp, February 26

I-34L: Committee member, water and electricity expert, Nahr al-Bared camp, February 26

I-35L: Business owner, Carpentry, Nahr al-Bared camp, February 26

I-36L: Business owner, steel, Nahr al-Bared camp, February 26

I-37L: Business owner, aluminum, Nahr al-Bared camp, February 26

I-38L: Business Owner, cinderblock and tile, Beddawi camp, February 27

I-39L: Business owner, cement and cinderblock, Beddawi camp, February 27

I-40L: Business owner, carpentry, Beddawi camp, February 27

I-41L: Business owner, carpentry, Beddawi camp, February 27

I-42L: Business owner, aluminum, Beddawi camp, February 28

I-43L: Business owner, aluminum, Beddawi camp, February 28

I-44L: Business owner, glass, Beddawi camp, February 28

I-45L: Business owner, tile, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 2

I-46L: Business owner, iron, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 2

I-47L: Meeting with a family of eight, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 3

I-48L: Fatah party member and party accountant, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 4

I-49L: Business owner, Aluminum, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 7

I-50L: Business owner, Plaster and wall decor, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 7

I-51L: Business owner, tile and cinderblock, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 7

I-52L: Business owner, tile, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 7

I-53L: Camp electrician, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 12

I-54L: Lawyer, Nahr al-Bared camp, March 12

I-55L: Popular Camp Committee, meeting with entire committee, Beddawi camp, March 17

#### *2012*

I-56L: Retired Fatah official, Nahr al-Bared camp, May 16

I-57L:Nahr al-Bared resident and UNRWA data collector, May 16

I-58L: Interview with five of twenty-three members of camp committee, Beddawi camp, May 16

I-59L: UNRWA information officer, Beddawi camp, May 16

I-60L: Business owner, iron and steel, Beddawi camp, May 17

I-61L: Business owner, carpentry, Beddawi camp, May 17

I-62L: Business owner, steel, Beddawi camp, May 17

I-63L: Construction worker in Nahr al-Bared rebuild, Beddawi camp, May 17 I-64L: Business owner, carpentry and painting, Beddawi camp, May 17 I-65L: Business owner, carpentry, Beddawi camp, May 17 I-66L: Business owner, gas installation and electrician, Beddawi camp, May 17 I-67L: Business owner, tile and marble, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-68L: Family relocated from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-69L: Former business owner from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-70L: Family relocated from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-71L: Medical doctor who worked in Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-72L: Sheikh, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-73L: Family relocated from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May, 18 I-74L: Family relocated from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-75L: Relocated woman from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-76L: Relocated woman from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May 18 I-77L: Relocated woman from Nahr al-Bared, Beddawi camp, May, 18 I-78L: Nahr al-bared family, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 19 I-79L: Nahr al-Bared sheikh, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 19 I-80L: Nahr al-Bared Camp Committee, sixteen of thirty-four members present, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 19 I-81L: Business owner, carpentry, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 19 I-82L: Business owner, electricity, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 19 I-83L: Business owner, bathroom construction and tiles, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 19 I-84L: Business owner, iron and steel, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 20 I-85L: Business owner, iron, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 20 I-86L: Business owner, recycled construction materials, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 20 I-87L: Business owner, construction materials (sand, tiles, cement, steel), new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 20 I-88L: Business owner, bottled water production, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 20 I-89L: UNRWA reconstruction engineer, new Nahr al-Bared camp, May 21 I-90L:New Nahr al-Bared camp reconstruction officer, UNRWA northern Lebanon field office, May 23 I-91L: Nahr al-Bared historian, Tripoli, Lebanon, May 24 I-92L: UNRWA chief information officer, UNRWA Lebanon field office, Beirut, May 29 I-93L: :^\$Nahr al-Bared reconstruction engineer liaison to Lebanese government, Beirut, Lebanon, May 29 I-94L: Palestinian embassy representative, chief diplomat to the Nahr al-Bared reconstruction project in the Palestinian-Lebanese Dialogue Committee, May 31 I-95L: Head of Beddawi camp, July 6 I-96L: Former Nahr al-Bared resident, Beddawi camp May 31

*2017*

I-97L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Dar al-Qadi, July

I-98L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Dar al-Qadi, July

I-99L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Samoie, July

I-100L: Nahr al-Bared resident from El-Khalsa, July

I-101L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Saa'sa, Safad, July

I-102L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Safad, July

I-103L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Damon, July

I-104L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Samoie, July

I-105L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Samoie, July

I-106L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Samoie and Ghabsieh, July

I-107L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Samoie, July

I-108L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Akbara and Safad, July

I-109L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Damon, July

I- 110L: Nahr al-Bared resident from Safouri and Saa'sa, July

I-111L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, August

I-112L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, August

I-113L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, August

I-114L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, August1–115L: Nahr al-Bared Sheik interview 1, Samoie, July

I-116L: Nahr al-Bared Sheik interview 2, Samoie, August

I-117L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, August

#### *2018*

1–118L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, Safad, July

I- 119L: Diaspora resident from Khan al-Younis, July

I-120L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, July

#### *2019*

I-121L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, November I-122L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, December I-123L; Diaspora resident from Samoie, December I-124L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, December I-125L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, December I-126L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, December I-127L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, December I-128L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, December

#### *2020*

I-129L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, January I-130L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, January I-131L: Diaspora resident from Samoie, January

#### DIASPORA SURVEYS

In addition to in-depth interviews in Palestinian refugee camps, I collected written and oral surveys of members of the transnational diaspora from the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp. The diaspora lived in North America, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East–North Africa (MENA) region. Surveys were recorded using digital platforms like FaceTime, Skype, or Google Surveys. By using the existing (metaphorical) Rolodex of diaspora networks shared with me by people I interviewed in the camps, I was able to gain access to diaspora communities around the world. I had four research assistants: Dr. Dina al-Haj, Omar el-Hajj, Mohamed Aboujeamu, and Raghad al-Hajj. In total, my research team and I collected eighty-two surveys between 2016 and 2019. Respondents ranged in age from 18 to their late 70s. Roughly two-thirds of respondents self-identified as men and the rest as women. In 2016–17, I conducted a pilot survey with twenty-five members of the diaspora in Europe, North America, and Australia. Eighteen more digital surveys trickled in from my first batch of surveys in 2018. Later in 2019, the last batch of surveys was collected from members of the diaspora in the United States and the Arab Gulf region. Geographic locations below are self-reported.

```
2016–2017
```
S-1: Virginia S-2: Houston, Texas S-3: Houston, Texas S-4: Houston, Texas S-5: Houston, Texas S-6: Fairfax, Virginia S-7: Houston, Texas S-8: Houston, Texas S-9: Houston, Texas S-10: Houston, Texas S-11: Houston, Texas S-12: Australia S-13: Australia S-14: Sweden S-15: Sweden S-16: Germany S-17: Germany S-18: Virginia S-19: Houston, Texas S-20: Houston, Texas S-21: Vienna, Virginia S-22: Houston, Texas S-23: Canada S-24: Canada S-25: Canada

*2018*

S-26: Boston, Massachusetts S-27: Chicago, Illinois S-28: Denver, Colorado S-29: Atlanta, Georgia S-30: Atlanta, Georgia S-31: Arab Gulf S-32: Arab Gulf S-33: Croatia

S-34: Croatia S-35: Croatia S-36: Sweden S-37: Arab Gulf S-38: Libya S-39: Libya S-40: California S-41: California S-42: Houston, Texas S-43: Virginia S-44: Austin, Texas

#### *2019*

S-45: Charlottesville, Virginia S-46: Charlottesville, Virginia S-47: New York City S-48: Fairfax, Virginia S-49: Virginia S-50: Virginia S-51: Virginia S-52: Ohio S-53: America S-54: Virginia S-55: Chicago, Illinois S-56: Cleveland, Ohio S-57: Charlottesville, Virginia: S-58: Washington, DC.

 Thank you so much for your time. Your responses are important to me, and I appreciate them.

Notes

#### PREFACE

1. Interviews are anonymously coded with a number and a letter denoting the place of the interview. For example, I-8L denotes the eighth interview collected in Lebanon. A complete list of interview respondents and surveys appears in the research appendix.

#### CHAPTER 1. CO OPERATION AND COMMUNIT Y BUILDING IN CATASTROPHE

1. Some scholars refer to the relationship between Palestinians and Israelis as settler colonialism. I avoid this term because I want a wide audience to engage with this book. As a peace and justice studies professor, my aim is to generate dialogue and peace building. In debating the best terminology to use, I sought the counsel of my Baba, Dr. Hatim Hajj, who fled Palestine in 1948 and lived in a refugee camp until he earned a scholarship to the American University of Beirut in 1960. He reminded me of the story of the Muslim ruler Muawiya, who famously said, "I do not apply my sword where my lash suffices, not my lash where my tongue suffices. And even if there be one hair binding me to my fellow men, I do not let it break. When they pull, I loosen my grip, and if they loosen their grip, I pull." At times, I feel there is barely a hair connecting Palestinians and Israelis, and I do not want to pull when the other side is pulling. I yield to the notion that I may speak the truth about Palestinian suffering and resilient joy without severing the hair. I refuse to let go of the tiniest thread binding the different communities. Here I refer to Israeli *occupation* of Palestinian territories and cite scholars like Wolfe (2006) and Masalha (2003), but I do not directly engage in the settler-colonial debate to avoid endangering the conversation I want to have about Palestinian refugees with Israelis, policymakers, social justice activists, and students.

2. Surveys are anonymously coded, with the letter *S* denoting written and oral responses recorded using digital platforms like FaceTime, Skype, and Google surveys and numbers indicating the sequence of the survey responses. Information about the survey questions appears in the appendix.

3. Interestingly, studies of Palestinian villages from which large numbers of migrants moved to the West prior to 1967 have shown that families living on remittances were perceived by other villagers as adopting Western values and rejecting traditional lifestyles (Lutfiyya 1966: Escribano and elJoubeh 1981).

4. Of course, the majority of these conversations are not really private because the data is stored by the companies that own the platforms and may be monitored by state officials.

5. The multidisciplinary research on cooperation, altruism, and reciprocity is extensive. Scholars in philosophy, religion, economics, political science, psychology, and evolutionary biology have approached the topic from a multitude of perspectives. It seems that the disciplines adopt different terms to mean, essentially, the same thing. It is not my intention to engage in an academic turf war over terms; rather, I focus on identifying a clear definition of the phenomenon for the purposes of this book.

#### CHAPTER 2. MAPPING PALESTINIAN *AHL* AND *HAMULA* NET WORKS IN ANALOG AND DIGITAL SPACES

1. In the book, Grant says the death occurred in a Muslim family, but, given the names of the bereaved (Peter and Naomi), he may have been describing the mourning of a Palestinian Christian family.

2. See Shlaim 1995 for a concise outline of the different perspectives on the events of 1948.

3. This migratory journey was immortalized in Ghassan Kanfani's epic novel *Men in the Sun* (1963).

4. Abu Ra'ed's family gave me explicit permission to share these images for research and publication purposes. Though the content is actually public according to privacy laws, I did not feel it was ethical or appropriate to share images without the explicit permission of the individual's family. This decision has meant using fewer visual examples in the book, because only a handful of people agreed to sharing images. These images are, however, representative of those found on village and family Facebook pages.

5. The absence of posts from locations between two thousand and four thousand miles from Nahr al-Bared arises because these regions consist primarily of ocean.

#### CHAPTER 3. RECIPRO CIT Y, ENFORCEMENT, AND ECONOMIC REMITTANCES

1. Sady Doyle (2011) chronicles the dangers of being a feminist blogger, citing her own experiences and those of colleagues. "It's been an open secret," she writes, "that having a visibly female online identity . . . is a personal security risk." In 2016, the *Guardian* analyzed over seventy million comments on its site and found that eight of the ten writers who received the most abuse were women; the other two were Black men (Gardiner et al. 2016).

#### CHAPTER 5. RECIPROCAL ACTIVISM IN DIGITAL SPACES

1. Admittedly, Western Union is not universally loved, though it is an essential component of refugee life. See Bennet and Etter (2017).

2. The fraud study released by Javelin Strategy & Research (2018) stated that the number of identity fraud victims increased by 8 percent (rising to 16.7 million US consumers) since 2017, a record high since the company began tracking identity fraud in 2003. The study found that despite industry efforts to prevent identity fraud, fraudsters netted 1.3 million more victims in 2017, with the amount stolen rising to \$16.8 billion.

#### References

Durkheim, Émile. 1912. *The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life*. London: Allen & Unwin.

Man' in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small-Scale Societies." *Behavioral and Brain Sciences* 28: 795–855.

Kraybill, Donald. 1998. *Puzzles of Amish Life*. New York: Simon & Schuster.

*Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy*. http://dx.doi .org/10.2139/ssrn.2588300.

Palestine Remembered. n.d. Village information pages. www.palestineremembered.com.

Payne, Charles. 1995. *I've Got the Light of Freedom*. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rinnawi, Khali. 2012. " 'Instant Nationalism' and the 'Cyber Mufti': The Arab Diaspora in Europe and the Transnational Media." *Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies* 38 (9): 1451–67.

Sayigh, Rosemary. 1979. *Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries*. London: Zed Books.

#### Index

AAAN (Arab American Action Network), 74 Abu el-Haj, Thea, 2, 20, 37 Abu Kishk village, 36–37 Abu Ra'ed (Samoie villager), 38–41, 40fig., 104n4(ch2) Abudayyeh, Hatem, 74 ACC (Arab Community Center), 74 access of goods and services: difficulties facing, 49; mobile networks and internet, 9; by refugees, 2–3, 9 activism: about, 24–25; technology pessimists on, 8–9 adaptive values, 15–19 '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values), 21; broadcasting of, 4; defined, xv; obligations and, 54; replication of, 33, 38, 48 Africa, 48, 98 *After the Last Sky* (Mohr and Said), 5 *ahl* (family) networks, xiv; about, 23, 26–27; adaptive values of, 15–19; as anchors, 26; burial practices and, 28–31; diaspora communities and, 37; diaspora scouts leaving, 7; digital spaces and, 49, 51; ICTs and, 16–17; identity and, 15–19 *ahl* and *hamula* networks: about, 26–27;

connecting in digital spaces, 38–46; Nakba (Palestinian Catastrophe), 31–32; pre-Nakba burial practices, 28–31; refugee camp chaos, 32–35; strategies for building community

cohesion and meeting needs before 1948, 27–28; village history books, 35–37

aid agencies: funerary rite expenses and, 50–52; ICTs use by, 10–11; lack of funding from, 24; mapping technologies and, 10; meager support from, 26; protection gap and, 4; remittances and, 2; technology and, 10; use of ICTs, 3

American University of Beirut-UNRWA survey report, 49

Amir-Ebrahimi, Masserat, 58

Amish communities: about, 23; comparisons to, 48, 58, 60–61; digital technology and, 49, 56–57; organizational units of communal life, 57

Amman, Jakob, 56

Arab American Action Network (AAAN), 74

*Arab Routes* (Gualtieri), 7 Arab states: communal activities in, 74; community scouts in, 34–35; Israel on responsibility of, 1; nationalist agendas of, 26; power of shame in digital spaces in, 58; protection gap and, 32; refugee relief by, 31; revolutions of 2010/2011, 9. *See also* Lebanon Arabs: in Germany, 11; in United States, 7, 73–74 *Art of Not Being Governed* (Scott), 17 Ashtan, Sa'ed, 67 atomization, 5, 6, 88 awareness, 90 '*ayb* (shame). *See* shame ('*ayb*)

Baker, Ella, 91, 92 Balch, Emily Greene, 4 banks: bank accounts, 12, 48; loans, 35 Banks, Ruby, 56 Baqa'a refugee camp, 55 barriers of time and distance, 3, 4 Basque diaspora, 11 behavior. *See* norms of behavior Benkler, Yochi, 101 Bethlehem, 20 Biden, Joseph, 1 Black Americans, 23, 48, 52–56, 91 Boston, 71–72 Bowker, Robert, 15, 33 Bowman, Carl, 58 Brand, Laurie, 77 British mandate, xiv, 15, 26, 27, 28, 55, 80, 86 broadcasting: '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values), 4, 17, 19; of Palestinian burials, 24, 38; of replicable narratives and images, 49; traditional social networks online, 54 *brokenness*: defined, xiv; overcoming of, xv, 8, 94 Brown, Brené, 64 "Building Sustainable Peace" conference, 89 burials: broadcasting of, 24, 38; burial practices, 28–31, 50; expenses, 50–52. *See also* Abu Ra'ed (Samoie villager) Cainkar, Louise, 14, 64 chat rooms, 4, 70, 87 Chicago, 79; interviewees from, 99, 100; Palestinians in, 14, 20, 64, 73–74, 79 Christians: burial practices, 29; Christian families, xiv; post-Nakba, 28; urban refugees, 33 *Circle of Quiet* (L'Engle), 85 citizens: empowerment of, 8; refugees in

contrast to, 9

civil rights: denial of, 6; movement in United States, 91 Clapp Mission, 31 Clark, Septima, 91, 92 climate change issues, 86 codes of behavior, 17, 55 collaboration, 11, 93 community building: community need in Palestinian refugee camps, 49–50; digital spaces and, xv, 3, 27, 38–46; ICTs and, 4, 8–9; Lebanese government working against, 6; mapping technologies and, 10; networked information economy and, 9; pre-1948 strategies, 27–28, 68; reciprocity's role in, 4; regeneration of communities, 9; remittance flows and, 8; strategies for, 27–28; using ICTs for, 9 community scouts: after Nakba, 2; dying off of older generations of, 2; remittances of, 34–35 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (1951 Convention), 32 Critical Refugee Studies Collective, 93 Curle, Adam, 90, 93 customs. *See* '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values) cyberbullying, 58

*Digital Lifeline* (Maitland), 10

digital spaces: connecting in, 38–46, 68; cyberbullying, 58; empowerment and, 18–19; fundraising through, 47; gatekeepers and, 81–84, 87–88; lack of anonymity in, 59; patterning of, 49; real-world tensions with, 81–83; reciprocal activism in, 85–94; reciprocity and, 18; state officials control of,

9; of subnational connection, 4–5. *See also* Samoie village Facebook group digital technologies: Amish communities and, 49; brokenness and, 8 dispossession: codification of, 5, 31; digital spaces and, 59; of Palestinian society, 5–6 divorce, 18, 65–66 Dominican Republic, 70, 71–72, 78 double diaspora, 4 Doyle, Sady, 104n1(ch3) driverless cars, 8 Dugan, Maire, 90, 93

economic issues: banks, 12, 35, 48; denial of economic rights, 6; economic growth, 2; economic isolation, 6; economic remittances, xv, 47–49, 50–52; financial remittances, 24, 47–48; going abroad for economic opportunities, 5, 7; ICTs and, 50–52; networked information economy, 9, 101. *See also* remittances

education: broadcasting about students, 24; female education, 65; fundraising for, 24, 47; remittances and, 2; UNRWA scholarships, 47

Egypt, xiv, 28–29, 80

elders: authority of, 50; role of, 18, 19; shaming ('*ayb*) used by, 49, 65–66; Sheikh Jihad, 50–51

Elster, Jon, 43

employment (Lebanon), 7

empowerment: of digital gatekeepers, 24; digital networks and, 18–19; media and, 8; of new generations, 18–19; technology pessimists on, 8–9

enforcement: of norms, 13, 64–67, 86; power of shame in digital spaces, 58–63; reciprocity and, 56; of rights, 1, 18, 47–49

enforcers: about, 24; community elders as, 18; ICT platform managers as, 18–19; reciprocity and, 14

exchange of goods: in Flats community, 48, 52, 53, 56. *See also* gift exchange *Exit West* (Hamid), 3

Facebook: about, 9, 10, 11; Abu el-Haj on, 37; communal behavior, 55; Palestinian *hamula*  page, 23; reciprocal activism and, 87, 89, 93; from Samoie village, 23, 38–41, 59–63, 65, 75, 77–80, 104n4(ch2); scraping data from, 22; survey question on, 101; tagging, 82–83. *See also* Samoie village Facebook group FaceTime, 104n2 fake news consumption, 9

familiarity: norms of behavior and, 13; of social groupings, 4, 24, 28, 38, 86–87; using patterns of, 4, 14, 15–16, 33–34 family (*ahl*) networks. *See ahl* (family) networks Fara village, 41

*fard kifayya* (prescribed religious duty), 29

Farmer, Paul, 91, 93

Farsoun, Samih, 27–28

Fatah, 19, 20, 73, 75, 77, 79, 83

Fatah al-Islam (extremist group), 6

favors, exchange of, 3

*fawdah* (refugee camp chaos), 16, 32–35

Fehr, Ernst, 14, 56

filial connections, 20

Filipinos, 11

financial remittances, 24, 47–48

Fischbacher, U., 56

food access, xiii, 2

foreigners in Lebanon, 6–7

funding: for basic web connectivity in camps, 10; for collective good, 56–57

fundraising: for funeral expenses, 50–52; for remittance fees, 24

funeral rites: fundraising for, 50–52; Lebanese funerals, 45; paying for, 53; at refugee camps, 45

Gächter, S., 56

Galilee region, 41

gatekeepers: community elders as, 18; of digital spaces, 87–88; ICT platform managers as, 18–19, 24; undercutting of, 19, 21, 69, 81–84

Gaza, 2, 20, 49, 77

generational issues: histories as resource for future, 36; Palestinian diaspora and, 70, 73–74, 79; political parties, 76–77; reciprocity and, 60; remittances, 54; shared values as, 38; stakeholders, 18–19; support for next generation, 24. *See also* village history books Geneva Convention, xiii, 1 Germany: Arabs in, 11; diaspora members in, 39, 41, 99

ghettoization, in colonial empires and host countries, 16

gift exchange: about, 12; as adaptive strategy, 23; patterns of, 48, 52–56; reciprocity in, 60–61

globalization: diaspora and, 2, 7; global apathy, xv; global community responsibility, xiii; global conflicts, 2; global statistics on refugees, xiv; smartphones and, 3; transnational belonging and, 2

Google: Google Maps API, 4; Google Surveys, 98, 104n2; Google Voice, 10 Granlund, Marie, 79 Grant, Elihu, 30–31, 104n1(ch2) Gualtieri, Sarah, 7, 14 Habermas, Jürgen, 8 Haifa (Palestine), xii, xiv, 28 Hairiri, Rafic, 6 Hajj, Hatim, xiv, 103n1(ch1) al-Hajj, Jamal, 77–78, 79 Halal Memes for Jannah Minded Teens (Facebook group), 80 Hamas, 19, 20, 21, 66, 74–75, 79, 83 Hamid, Mohsin, 3, 9, 69 Hammad, Suheir, 2 *hamula* (village) networks: about, xiv, 23; as anchors, 26; burial practices and, 28–31; diaspora communities and, 37; diaspora scouts leaving, 7; digital spaces and, 49, 51; ICTs and, 16–17; identity and, 15–19; power of, 4. *See also* Samoie village Facebook group *hawala* (informal money-lending system), 48 health issues, broadcasting of, 24 *hegira* (perilous journey), 1 homophobia, 66 honor: about norms of, 23, 27, 46; as '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values), xv, 4; negotiated claims and, 17 hope, 2, 33, 34, 67, 88, 93 host states: denial of burial to refugees and migrants, xiii; diaspora members in, 2; funerary rite expenses and, 50–52; legal obligations of, 1; legal statues of, 5; meager support from, 1, 26; protection gap and, 4; remittances and, 2; remittances sent from, 2. *See also* Arab states housing: challenges facing refugees, xiii; remittances and, 2; shipping container homes (*baraksat*), 53 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 94 *I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings* (Angelou), 54 ICTs (information communication

technologies): about, 3–5, 8; access and usage of, 9, 22, 23; *ahl* and *hamula* patterns and, 16–17, 38, 49; aid agencies use of, 10–11; community building and, 8–9; death observances and, 38; diaspora economic remittances and, 50–52; digital behavior and data on, 86; effectiveness of, 24; empowerment by, 19, 21, 69; evolution of village and family identity and, 69; gatekeeper tension, 18, 81–83; importance of, 38; interaction with, 58–59; limitations of usage, 10; old strategies and, 54; optimists on, 3; patterning of, 23, 24, 27; pessimists on, 3; as platform for Palestinians, 87; proliferation of, 38; refugees and, 9–10; resources exchanged via, 83; role of, 3, 4; social remittances and, 69; tangible benefits, 3; undercutting by, 19, 21, 69; usage patterns, 39; use by Nahr al-Bared camp refugees, 14. *See also* Samoie village Facebook group; technology; *specific ICT platforms*

identity: of givers, 52; ICTs and transnational, 11; imagined community concept, 15; national identity, 4–5, 68, 74, 79, 80; primary identities, 15; Said on, 6; subnational identity, 4, 73–81; transnational Palestinian identity, 4, 24, 32. *See also ahl* (family) networks; *hamula*  (village) networks

Indian subnational identity, 68

indigenous community: denial of, 5; dissolution of, 5; Scott on, 17

influence circles (*circulos de influencia*), 71, 78 information: costs and sharing of, 8; popular sources of, 10

information communication technologies (ICTs). *See* ICTs (information communication technologies) inheritance, 18

Internet: decentralization of, 8; direct engagement over, 25; Internet data collection, 4; Internet data scraping, 4

interviewees, Lebanon, 4, 95–98, 103n1(preface)

Islam: burial practices, 28, 29, 50; Fatah al-Islam (extremist group), 6; Hamas, 19, 20, 21, 66, 74–75, 79, 83; PLO-Fatah, 19, 20, 73, 75, 77, 79, 83; political parties, 19, 74, 77; religious terms, 62; Sunni Islam, 15, 33; survey question on, 101; tithing (*zakat*), 63, 74; *umma* (community of faith), 74. *See also* Muslims

Israel: creation of state of, 5, 31; denial of right of return, 5; independence, 31; Israeli lobbying, 5; Israeli occupation, xiii-xiv, 5; Israeli otherness, 19; Israel/Palestinian conflict, 1; legal strategies, 5, 31; Operation Hiram, 33; policy strategies, 5; power and domination

by, 5; queer communities and, 66–67; on responsibility for refugees, 1 *I've Got the Light of Freedom* (Payne), 91

Jahoola village, 16, 34 Jamil, Abu, 20–21 *jana'iz* (burial rites), 50 Jerusalem, 2, 20, 30, 70 Jewish Palestinians, 28 Jordan: burial practices, 28–29; communal activities in, 74; marginalized Palestinian refugees in, 19, 77; passports in, 6; property rights in refugee camps in, 17; social media networks and, 10; Za'atari refugee camp in, 9, 80; Zarqa refugee camp in, 54 *Just Mercy* (Stevenson), xv, 85 Kafr Thulth village, 36 Kanfani, Ghassan, 104n3(ch2) Katz, E., 8 Khalidi, Walid, 77 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 91 kinship networks: ICTs replicating, 10, 54; obligations and, 48; organization of, 15–19; in pre-Nakba era, 26; reciprocity engagement in, 3 Kraybill, Donald, 58, 61 Kroc Institute, 89 Kurdi, Alan (Syrian refugee toddler), 90 LaBelle, Brandon, 9 Lamba-Nieves, Deepak, 71 Lancaster County (Pennsylvania), 48, 56–57 laws (Lebanon): 1964 law, 6; 1995 law, 6; 2000 law, 6–7 Lazarsfeld, P., 8 Lebanon: burial practices, 28–29; communal activities in, 74; conflicts with Fatah al-Islam, 6; foreigners' rights and responsibilities to live and work in, 6–7; interviewee from, 1–2; Lebanese civil war (1975–1990), 5; Lebanese government, 6; marginalized Palestinian refugees in, 19, 77; medical care access in, 47; Palestinian refugee camps in, 5–8, 33; passports in, 6; property ownership, 6–7, 17; refusal of integration (*tawtin*) of Palestinians, 1, 6. *See also* Palestinian refugee camps (Lebanon) Lees, G. Robinson, 29–30

legal issues: legal codes, 5; legal gray areas, xiv; legal obligations, 1; legal statues, 5

L'Engle, Madeleine, 85 Lévi-Strauss, Claude, 52 Levitt, Peggy, 19, 34, 69, 70–73, 78, 83 Libya, 34, 35, 100 lobbying, 5 loyalty: about norms of, 23, 27, 46; as '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values), xv, 4; communal norm of, 48; diminishing bonds of, 2 LGBTQA+ community, 66 Lustick, Ian, 76 Lybarger, Loren, 14, 20–21, 73–74, 79 Maitland, Carleen, 9, 10 Māori, 12 mapping technologies, 10, 23, 37 marginalization: ICTs and, 10; official development assistance and, 2; of Palestinian refugees, 5, 19; reimagining identities and, 5; shaming and, 24 markets, 2, 3 marriage, 18, 28, 37, 61, 64–65 Masalha, Nur, 5, 103, 103n1(ch1) Mauss, Marcel, 12, 60 media: empowerment of citizens and, 8; information costs and, 8; public sphere strengthening and, 8 medical care access: online community and, 51–52; remittances and, 2; UNRWA and, 47 *Meidung* (shunning), 48, 56–57, 60, 61 *Men in the Sun* (Kanfani), 104n3(ch2) Miraflores (Dominican Republic), 70, 71–72, 83 mobile internet access, 9 Mohr, Jean, 5 Moss, Dana M., 11 Muslims: burial practices, 28–30, 39, 47; *fellahin* (farmer) classes in camps, 33; *jana'iz* (burial rites), 50–52; *umma* (community of faith), 74. *See also* Abu Ra'ed (Samoie villager); Islam

Nadan, Amos, 27–28, 60

Nahr al-Bared refugee camp: access of goods and services, 49; building of, 6; destroying of, 6; destruction of, 50; elders of, 68; fundraising for, 24; funerary rite expenses and, 50–52; Israeli Operation Hiram and, 33; kinship networks and, 26; Palestinians from Safad region in, 32; rebuilding of, 50; reciprocity and, 14, 59; village groupings at, 15–16, 41. *See also* Abu Ra'ed (Samoie villager)

Nakba (Palestinian Catastrophe): experiencing, 23; generations remembering, xv, 79;

Palestinians after, 26, 41; refugee crisis after, 31–32 national identity, 4–5, 68, 74, 79, 80 national liberation, 74 nationalism, 19–20, 78–79

nationalist parties, 50–52

norms of behavior: Amish *Ordnung*, 57, 58; defined, 13; ICTs and, 17; as key motivator, 4; patrilineal kinship and, 27; replication of, 13, 17, 24; strategic melding with new technologies, 4; using precrisis, 15–19; in village history books, 37. *See also* '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values); honor; loyalty; shame ('*ayb*); steadfastness

Nouraie-Simone, Fereshteh, 58

Oates, Sarah, 9

obedience, 48

77, 79; violence in, xiv

Oirzabal, Pedro J., 11

*Ordnung* (Amish norms), 57, 58

Oslo Accords, 19, 77

Ottoman Empire, 15, 26, 27, 30, 55, 86

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), 6, 19, 66, 74–75, 77

Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)-Fatah, 19, 20, 73, 75, 77, 79, 83

Palestinian Catastrophe (Nakba). *See* Nakba (Palestinian Catastrophe)

Palestinian nationalism, 19–20, 74–75, 78–79 Palestinian refugee camps: establishment of, 31; information needs and access of, 9; PPGIS

and, 10; public goods for, 4 Palestinian refugee camps (Lebanon): about, 5–8; community needs of, 49–50

Palestinian refugee identity: power of, 4; UNRWA and, 32

Palestinians: in Chicago, 14, 20, 64, 73–74, 79; as mythical, 5; property ownership restrictions in Lebanon, 6–7; rights and responsibilities to live and work in Lebanon of, 6–7; in United States, 20, 59, 61

parity, 90

Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD), 71, 73

passports: in Jordan, 6; in Lebanon, 6 *Pathologies of Power* (Farmer), 91–92 patrilineal kinship, 18, 24, 27–28; fundraising and, 50, 51; structures of, 55. *See also ahl* (family) networks; *hamula* (village) networks Payne, Charles, 91–92 *Peasantry in Palestine* (Grant), 30–31 peasants, 16, 21, 27, 29–30 PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), 6, 19, 66, 74–75, 77 PLO-Fatah, 19, 20, 73, 75, 77, 79, 83 political parties, 19, 24, 77; consolidation of power and loyalty by, 20; in Dominican Republic, 71–72; Palestinian national liberation and, 74–75; protection gap and, 4; queer communities and, 66–67; shifting power, 26. *See also* Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO); PLO-Fatah Post Colonial Memes for Oriental Minded Teens (Facebook group), 79–80 poverty: patterns of reciprocity and, 52–56; understanding, 48 power, technology and, 18 PPGIS (public participation geographic information system), 10 precrisis: networks, 4, 11, 15–19; norms, 15–19 pre-Nakba burial practices, 28–31 property ownership: enforcement of rights, 18; impositions against, 6–7; negotiations of, 17; patterns of, 18 protection gap: creation of, 1, 32; filling of, 4, 19, 25; loyalty bonds and, 2; widening of, 1, 2 proximate causes of reciprocity, 12–13

public participation geographic information system (PPGIS), 10

public sphere: constraint of, 9; media and strengthening of, 8; widening of, 8

queer communities, 66–67

*Queer Palestine and the Empire of Critique* (Ashtan), 67

Ramo, Joshua Cooper, 18

Ranaipiri, Tamati, 12

Rashidieh camp, 59

reciprocal activism: about, 24–25, 85, 92–94; blueprint for, 88–92; lessons learned, 85–88

reciprocity: about, 23–24, 47–49, 68; Amish, 57; in Amish communities, 56–57; community need and, 49–50; defined, xv, 3, 11–12; in digital spaces, 56; enforcers and, 14; generating, 11–15; gift exchange patterns

and, 52–56; ICTs and, 4, 18–19, 24; as key to rebuilding refugee community, xv; of kin-based groups, 3; motivations for, 3, 4; norms of behavior and, 17–18; patterns of, 52–56; proximate causes of, 12–14; receiving, 12; reciprocal humanity (Stevenson on), xv; reciprocators, 14, 18, 38, 56, 60, 62, 82; role of in refugee community building, 4; shame and, 24; technology and, 18–19; transnational reciprocity, 73–81; understanding of, 48; universal causes of, 12

Red Cross, xiv

religious organizations: burial practices and, 28–31, 50; norms of behavior, 57, 58; Palestinian national liberation and, 74; religious terms, 62; remittances and, 2; Sunni Islam, 15

remittance decay: defined, 2; overcoming of, 7–8; technology pessimists on, 45

remittance flows: dwindling of, 7; of norms and values motivates, 4; refugee community building and, 8; from transnational diaspora, 3, 24, 49

```
remittances: community building and, 19–21; of
   community scouts, 34–35; effects of, 2; ICTs
   and, 24; as investment capital, 35; transfer
   of, 52
```
repayment, 12, 24

research methodology: about, 21–23; diaspora surveys, 21, 22, 24, 98–101; interviewees, 22, 23, 95–98, 103n1(preface)

resettlement, 9, 10

right of return: 1951 Convention and, 32; denial of, xiv, 1, 5; Resolution 194(III) of 1948 and, 1 Roy, Sarah, 15

Russia, 9

Saa'sa village, 16, 34, 41 Sabra massacre, 5 Safad region, 32, 34, 41. *See also specific villages* Safouri village, 16, 22, 34, 41 Sahyoun, Anthony, xiv-xv, 28–29, 33 Said, Edward, 5 Salah el-Haj, Mayssareh (AKA Abu Ra'ed). *See* Abu Ra'ed (Samoie villager) Salama village, 36 *salat al jana'iz* (funeral prayer), 29 Salt Hospital, xiv Salvadorans, 11 Samoie (Palestine), xiv, 32–33, 34; Sheik Jihad, 50–51

Samoie village Facebook group, 59–63, 65, 75, 77–80, 104n4(ch2); about, 23, 38; on Abu Ra'ed funeral rites, 38–41; *'adat wa taqlid*  and, 38; *ahl* and *hamula* engagement with, 38–39; creation of, 43; fundraising by, 24, 47, 51; funerary rite expenses and, 50; group member locations, 43–45; ICT usage patterns and, 39; interacting on, 59, 60; postings of, 43–45; research focus on, 23; Sheik Jihad's

death, 51

Saudi Arabia, 60

Sayigh, Yezid, 15, 16

Schirch, Lisa, 89

Schotten, Heike, 66

Scott, James C., 17

scouts. *See* community scouts

Selenium WebDriver, 4, 22

selflessness, 48

separateness, 56–57

*The Seventh Sense* (Ramo), 18

*shaanta* (suitcase) method, 47–48

shame ('*ayb*): about norms of, 17, 23, 24, 27, 46; as '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values), xv, 4; comparison to Amish *Meidung* (shunning), 48, 56–57, 58, 61; dark side of, 24; power of shame in digital spaces, 58–63, 87; queer communities and, 66; shirkers and, 48, 61; as tool, 48, 49

Shatila massacre, 5

Shaykh Hasan site, 36

Sheikh Jihad, 50–51, 68

shirkers: about, 24; shame ('*ayb*) and, 48, 61

Shteiwi, Musa, 58

shunning: about, 23, 24; in Amish communities, 48, 56–57

Simanowski, Roberto, 8

Singh, Prerna, 21, 68

Skype, 22, 37, 98, 101, 104n2

slacktivists, 9, 45

smartphones: in camps, 69; Hamid on importance of, 3; information consumption

and, 8; survey question on, 101; uses of, 25

smombies (smartphone zombies), 8, 9, 45

social media networks: parallel universe of, 8; reasons for use of, 9–10. *See also* mapping technologies; *specific platforms*

social media platforms, most used, 10

social norms, disrupt of, 5

social organization: *ahl* patterns of, 16–17, 33–34; *hamula* patterns of, 16–17, 33–34; ICTs and, 4, 16–17, 24. *See also ahl* (family) networks; *hamula* (village) networks

social remittances: defined, 19; flow of, 24; Levitt on, 69; remittance decay and, xv, 7–8; transnational Palestinian identity and, 83–84; understanding, 71–73 solidarity, in digital spaces, 45–46 *Sonic Agency* (LaBelle), 9 stability, in refugee camps, 53–54 Stack, Carol, 23, 48–49, 52–53, 56 state building: marginalization of Palestinian refugees and, 19–21, 26; refugee camps and, 77 state officials, fake news production by, 9 steadfastness: about norms of, 17, 23, 46; as '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values), xv, 4 Stevenson, Bryan, xv, 85 subnational identity: connection through, 4; digital spaces and, 5; in India, 21, 68; reciprocity strategies and, 19–21; transnational reciprocity and, 73–81 suitcase (*shaanta*) method, 47–48 Sunni Islam, 15, 33 surveys, diaspora members, 4, 101 Sweden, 78 Syria: marginalized Palestinian refugees in, 19, 77; property rights in refugee camps in, 17; UNRWA demands for, 49; wire transfers to, 48 Syrians: in California, 7, 14; global focus on refugees from, 90; social media networks and, 10, 11; Syrian diaspora, 11; in Za'atari refugee camp (Jordan), 9 tagging, 82, 83 Takkenberg, 32 *tawtin* (integration): Lebanon's refusal of, 1; PLO's opposition to, 6 technology: globalization and, 7; power and domination by, 18; rebuilding refugee communities and, 4; as a tool, 4; Wi-Fi hubs, 10. *See also* ICTs (information communication technologies) technology optimists, 9 technology pessimists, 8–9, 45 Thelen, Kathleen, 43 Thunberg, Greta, 86 Tibet, 20 tithing (*zakat*), 63, 74 Toda Peace Institute, 89 top-down programs, 11 traditions. *See* '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values)

transnational diaspora: fundraising campaigns, 47; networks, xv, 4; refugees connection with, 4; sparking remittance flows from, 3; subnational political identity and, 73–81; transnational Palestinian identity, 4, 83–84; transnational social fields, 7 *Transnational Villagers* (Levitt), 71 Trump, Donald, 1 Twitter, 9 Uighurs, 11 *umma* (community of faith), 74 UN Clapp Mission, 31 UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 1948, 1 UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 32 UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). *See* UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency) UN Resolution 194(III) of 1948, 1 UN Resolution 302, 31–32 UN Resolution 319, 32 UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees), 32 United Nations (UN), 10, 31 United States: Boston, 71–72; judicial system, xv; Miraflorenos in, 70, 71–72; Palestinians in, 20, 59, 61. *See also* Chicago universal causes of reciprocity, 12 UNRWA (UN Relief and Works Agency), xiv; creation of, 31–32; documentation by, 34; dwindling of aid for, 1; provisions of, 16; rebuilding of Nahr al-Bared, 6; on refugee status, 32; services of, 32; unreliability of, 35; US withdrawal of funding, 1 *Unsettled Belonging* (Abu el-Haj), 2 urban refugees, 9, 33 values, 4, 56–57. *See also* '*adat wa taqlid* (norms and values); village history books Viber, 9, 10, 38 village (*hamula*) networks. *See hamula*  (village) networks village history books, 23, 27, 35–37, 38, 45, 87

*Village Life in Palestine* (Lees), 29–30 villages, recreation of in camps, 33–34 Volk, Lucia, 45

warehousing, of Palestinian refugees, 5 welfare services, 2 West Bank, 2, 20, 76, 77 Western Union, 48, 63, 92, 104n1(ch3), 105n1 WhatsApp: chat groups with, 15; fundraising and, 47, 51; Jordan and Syria, 10; private conversations on, 9; reciprocal activism and, 85, 87; sharing news on, 38, 39; for survey, 22; survey question on, 101; uses of, 61, 66

wire transfers, 48, 60, 63, 92, 105n1 Wolfe, Patrick, 5, 103, 103n1(ch1) World Economic Forum, 86

Xu, Ying, 9, 10

YouTube, 10

Za'atari refugee camp (Jordan), 9, 10 Zacharia, Christina, 27–28 *zakat* (tithing), 63, 74 Zarqa refugee camp (Jordan), 54 Zomia indigenous groups, 17

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MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES | CRITICAL REFUGEE STUDIES | TECH STUDIES

**Networked Refugees**

Palestinian Reciprocity and Remittances in the Digital Age

**Nadya Hajj**

Almost 68.5 million refugees in the world today live in a protection gap, the chasm between protections stipulated in the Geneva Convention and the abrogation of those responsibilities by aid agencies. With dwindling humanitarian aid, how do refugee communities solve collective dilemmas?

In *Networked Refugees*, Nadya Hajj fi nds that Palestinian refugees utilize information communication technology platforms to motivate reciprocity—a cooperative action marked by the mutual exchange of favors and services and informally seek aid and connection with their transnational diaspora community. Based on surveys conducted with Palestinians throughout the diaspora, interviews with those inside the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in Lebanon, and data pulled from online community spaces, these fi ndings push back against the cynical idea that online organizing is fruitless, emphasizing instead the productivity of these digital networks.

"With nuance, sensitivity, and fascinating connections across diverse social settings, Nadya Hajj offers a blueprint for how transnational networks can motivate reciprocity to solve communal problems." WENDY PEARLMAN, author of *Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement*

"In this remarkable book, Hajj deploys her considerable theoretical and empirical gifts. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding refugee experience." TAREK MASOUD, coauthor of *The Arab Spring: Pathways of Repression and Reform*

"Through stunning ethnographic and survey research, Hajj provides enormous insights into the way Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and the diaspora not only resist the destruction of their community but have found new ways of rebuilding it, challenging us to think differently about Palestinian refugees and their reimagined futures." SARA ROY, Harvard University

NADYA HAJJ is Whitehead Associate Professor of Critical Thought and Associate Professor of Peace and Justice Studies at Wellesley College.

CRITICAL REFUGEE STUDIES, 2 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS WWW.UCPRESS.EDU

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

Author photo: Richard Howard Photography Cover design: Glynnis Koike Cover illustration: Sara Qaed

**Networked Refugees**

**Hajj**

Palestinian Reciprocity and Remittances in the Digital Age


Plasma Generated by Laser Ablation

*Practical Applications of Laser Ablation*

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Saint-Peteraburg(2003)

No. 7, 4-6 (2003)

arabjc.2020.06.024

JMR.2002.0409

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S0169-4332(97)00651-X

DOI: 10.1063/1.1480106

DOI:10.1063/1.1446217

S1359-6462(01)00735-7

s003390050982

Pressure dependence of the

10.1116/1.1420494

**118**

**Chapter 7**

**Abstract**

of the ablation plasmas.

**1. Introduction**

**121**

Dynamics of Transient Plasmas

*Stefan Andrei Irimiciuc, Norina Forna, Andrei Agop, Maricel Agop, Stefan Toma and Doriana Forna Agop*

**Keywords:** shape memory alloy, laser ablation, transient plasma,

optical emission spectroscopy, fractal model

Memory Shape Alloys

Generated by ns Laser Ablation of

Understanding the underline fundamental mechanism behind experimental and industrial technologies embodies one of the foundations of the advances and tailoring new materials. With the pulsed laser deposition being one of the key techniques for obtaining complex biocompatible materials with controllable stoichiometry, there is need for experimental and theoretical advancements towards understanding the dynamics of multi component plasmas. Here we investigate the laser ablation process on Cu-Mn-Al and Fe-Mn-Si by means of space-and time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy and fast camera imaging. In a fractal paradigm the space–time homographic transformations were correlated with the global dynamics

The dynamics of the ejected particles as a results of high power laser and solid matter is not a trivial problem, as it was showcased in several papers [1, 2]. The problem of complex materials, as it is the case of metallic alloys, it consists in differences in the physical properties of the composing elements. Phenomena like heterogenous melting and vaporization [3] are commonly reported for ns laser ablation, with dire consequences for applications like pulse laser deposition. Target material heterogeneity should be reflected in the dynamics of the ejected particles, which is often difficult to observe in industrial applications like laser welding, cutting, surface cleaning, but is otherwise excellent showcased in applications like LIBS or plasma spectroscopy. The amalgam of plasma entities found in a transient plasma generated by laser ablation contains ions, atoms, molecules, electron and photons. The most often used technique extensively reported by the other groups [4] or even by our group are non-invasive ones that can differentiate between the contribution of each individual component of the plasma in particular conditions even reflect the complex local and global phenomena reported in recent years. These techniques are mainly concerning the optical emission spectroscopy. Understanding laser based technologies and the interaction between high energy laser beam and metallic alloys are now relevant for a wide range of applications with fast