Description: Based on extensive ethnographic research, a detailed account of political life in one of the most contested Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East
Brief description: Erling Lorentzen Sogge is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oslo, Norway where he was also awarded his PhD in Middle East Studies.
Review Quotes:
"This is a well-conceived, ethnographically rich, and remarkably detailed account of a Palestinian refugee camp's dynamic and ever-shifting political history with a focus on the emergence of Islamists politics. Sogge's book is a welcome contribution to the growing corpus of studies of refugee camps and political movements. This finely grained study provides a solid example of the contexts in which Islamist movements take root. The author astutely captures the enmeshment of the camp, and Palestinian refugees, in local and regional political issues. Most significantly, this study adds to the literature illuminating that refugees may be without rights, but they are hardly without the agency to shape their worlds." --Julie Peteet, Professor of Anthropology, University of Louisville, USA
"The tangled politics of the Palestinian national movement in Lebanon are nowhere more complex than in 'Ayn al-Hilwe refugee camp. Erling Sogge does a masterful job of untangling these, moving beyond stereotypes to paint a rich and nuanced portrait of the forces at play, the actors involved, and the local society in which they are embedded. His book illuminates important dimensions of Palestinian and Lebanese politics alike, and also makes an important contribution to our understanding of refugee politics more broadly. I strongly recommend it." --Rex Brynen, Professor of Political Science, McGill University, USA