12 - Food-Making in the Sisterhoods of Bourj Albarajenah Refugee Camp: Towards Radical Food Geographies of Displacement

Summary

Palestinian refugees were forcefully displaced from their native cities and villages in British- mandated Palestine to neighbouring areas in 1948, seeking protection from violence that accompanied the establishment of the state of Israel (Morris, 2004; Pappé, 2007; Masalha, 2012). It is estimated that around 100,000 of the 700,000 displaced Palestinians sought refuge in Lebanon, just across the borders from many northern villages of Palestine (Khalidi and Khalidi, 2006; Minority Rights Group International, 2008). Palestinians displaced from the villages of Ghabsiyeh, Kabri, Kwikat, Sheikh Daoud, and Tarshiha eventually settled together in a refugee camp in the Lebanese capital (Beirut) which became known as Bourj Albarajenah. My mother's family was displaced from Kabri to Lebanon in 1948, so I was born and raised as a stateless Palestinian refugee in Bourj Albarajenah.

In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees cannot be naturalized, despite living there for generations. This deprives us from equal access to services provided by the local public system, most notably health and education (Abdulrahim and Khawaja, 2011; Hanafi et al, 2012). We are also excluded from owning property and entering the job market, which often maintains us locked within the refugee camp premises. This exclusion causes 93 per cent of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon to live below the poverty line and over 62 per cent to suffer from food insecurity (UNRWA, 2022). In summary, Palestinian refugees are subject to a double- layered land injustice: exclusion from their native lands in Palestine and exclusion in the host community. In this chapter, I explore how collective cooking within camp sisterhoods (Figure 12.1) is a means of resistance in the face of this double injustice restricting Palestinian refugees from land, both in homeland and in exile (see also Nadar and Casolo, Chapter 14, for a discussion about histories of Palestinian land dispossession). Using ethnographic and auto- ethnographic recordings of growing up in Bourj Albarajenah, I analyse how food- making within my mother's sisterhood has enabled us to attain food self- sufficiency and food sovereignty for decades.

bell hooks (1986) defines a sisterhood as a sustainable form of commitment, solidarity, and support among women, built upon a community of interests, shared beliefs, and goals around which to unite. hooks argues that sisters do not bond over victimization but rather over shared strengths and resources with the aim of reaching co- created political goals.