Heritagisation, political action and social justice : Palestine’s Dheisheh refugee camp as a world heritage site

Abstract

This dissertation strives to present a perception of heritage as a process, and to propose refugee heritage as a counter-narrative for authorised heritage. Its theoretical framework is based on dialectical arguments raised around each emerging question. The dissertation investigates the progression of the concept of heritage and examines the formulation of its definition. It theorises and critiques heritage from a decolonial viewpoint invigorated by post-colonial theories and in the context of Palestine. This dissertation questions: who has the right to pronounce what constitutes ‘heritage’? In other words, what is heritage and who authorises it? These questions along with the aforementioned issues can be addressed pragmatically through reviewing the development of the concept of heritage and exploring it within the Palestinian context in an attempt to break the Eurocentric hegemony over it. This is done by raising the question: Do Palestinian refugee camps have a history? If so, do they hold a heritage value as well? Why, how and by whom can such heritage be recognised or even acknowledged? Lastly, what does it mean for a contingency product to be considered as heritage? The overall aim of this dissertation is to contribute to the understanding of heritage by offering a Palestinian experience to the field, through exploring the possibility of treating heritage as a process rather than a static inheritance. It does so by proposing the verb to heritagise in order to offer a more heightened sensibility towards the process itself and its deeper cultural-political implications, not least for the Palestinians. The research focuses on a single case study that is, Dheisheh refugee camp, which is a Palestinian refugee camp in peripheries of Bethlehem in Palestine. It was established as a temporary resolution after the expulsion of Palestinians by the Zionist movement followed by the establishment of the colonial state of Israel in 1948. The main reason for the selection of this case study is to focus on the ongoing debate of the heritage value of the over seventy-years-old Palestinian refugee camps, which ignited Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency’s (DAAR) critical art proposal of nominating Dheisheh refugee camp as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This dissertation has articulated that Palestinian refugee camps have history and hold a heritage value as they are an integral part of the Palestinian culture. It has also articulated that Dheisheh holds outstanding universal values, which justify its inscription as a World Heritage Site.