UNRWA and the Historical Evolution of Palestinian Refugee Camps in Jordan: Policy Mobilities and the Role of Refugees in Home-Making on the Scale of the Camp

Abstract

This article examines UNRWA policy's on-the-ground translation and its connection to the evolution of three Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan, with a focus on refugees' role in shaping these policies and their physical manifestation. Thus, this manuscript connects both literatures’ policy mobilities and refugee camps to explore how policy mobility can provide an instructive lens to analyse the divergent forms of refugee camp evolution. This study argues that the same policy can produce different outcomes that are, in some ways, similar. Building on assemblage theory (Deleuze & Guattari 1987) through ethnographic fieldwork, this article focuses the study of the different actors involved in the refugee camps’ construction processes and layouts since their establishment and how they have evolved distinctively over time.