Review by Choice Review
Concepts such as "exile," "refugee," "migration," or "diaspora," especially when used in connection with Palestinians, entail images of uprooting and loss of homeland. Indeed, much of the literature on Palestinian refugees deals with expulsion, dispossession, eviction, population transfer, and demolition of houses in the Occupied Territories. Although return to homeland, and especially the right of return, is at the center of Palestinian politics, there is a dearth of research on rerooting. Hammer, a postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Christian-Muslim Understanding, provides a wealth of information from her ethnographic research on the not widely known return of about 100,000 displaced Palestinians after the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, which led to the creation of the "pseudo-state institutions" known as the Palestinian Authority. Weaving interview data into evidence and analysis from a rich literature, she traces a wide range of experiences of young adult returnees born outside of Palestine. Their rerooting in Palestine was by no means easy, and led to conflicting definitions of Palestinian identity. The book's epilogue notes that more Palestinians, including some of the returnees, experienced uprooting in the wake of the second Palestinian uprising in 2000, Intifada. This book fills a major gap in the study of Palestinian destinies. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries. S. Mojab Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
