Eviction and Migration in an Institutional Vacuum: The Case of a Palestinian Gathering in South Lebanon

Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps and the plight of their inhabitants are well-known. The twelve Palestinian camps in Lebanon are often described as either spatially segregated “states-within-the-state” or as socio-economic “islands of marginalization” (Czajka 2012). The majority of Palestinians in Lebanon, however, do not live in these (in)famous camps. Instead, they live in so-called “adjacent areas” (AAs), which are illegal extensions of the camps, or in “gatherings,” which I define as small, unofficial camps that are not located, as AAs are, in the immediate vicinity of the official camps. These gatherings are neither administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) nor recognized by the Lebanese state.