Refugee camps, by definition, are temporary spaces that receive and house displaced people who have been forced to cross national boundaries and cannot safely return home. This distinct urban type, by definition, is meant to be dismissed, erased and forgotten, yet there are some Palestinian refugee camps that are almost 70 years old. In addition, within these fragile moments of transition, communities in these camps create viable social, economic, and political (albeit sometimes informal) structural systems in order to cope both psychologically and financially. Their existence and vitality begins to question the formation of an undeniable urban form, one with its own history and culture. By doing so, we rethink the idea of refugee camps as purely political spaces and understand the implications of a group in exile living in spaces that are meant to have no history and …show more content…
Today, roughly 15,000 residents now live within the 0.33 sq km site - an estimated population density of 45,454 per sq km. At almost 70 years old, this camp has become a seemingly permanent city. By analyzing the bureaucratic structure that exists in World Heritage, (and various other international organizations) as well as the inner workings of local governmental organizations that build and manage the camps, we begin to put forward a series of questions such as who gets to right to nominate? By presenting the nomination are we conforming to western conceptions of preservation? Or would such an example require reevaluation of outdated (or at least those who don’t acknowledge “uncomfortable” history) doctrines? How do we characterize the historicity of the camps and move beyond defining refugees as those without an identity to those that contain value which extends beyond