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" Schooling the Stateless. A History of the UNRWA Education Program for Palestine Refugees "
Kelcey, Jo
Burde, Dana S.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Language of Document
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English
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| Record Number
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1106682
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| Doc. No
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TLpq2408824858
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| Main Entry
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Burde, Dana S.
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Kelcey, Jo
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| Title & Author
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Schooling the Stateless. A History of the UNRWA Education Program for Palestine Refugees\ Kelcey, JoBurde, Dana S.
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| College
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New York University
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| Date
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2020
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| student score
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2020
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Page No
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297
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| Abstract
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This dissertation examines the history of education provided to Palestinian refugees by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). At the heart of this inquiry is a dilemma that overshadows efforts to provide mass education to refugee children and youth. That is, since education is conventionally understood to facilitate the relationship between the state and its citizens, and since refugees find themselves outside of their nation-states, what is the purpose of mass education for refugees? I use archival research and interviews to trace how UNRWA has conceptualized and operationalized access to education, curricula choices, and the protective role of education for Palestinians since 1950. I find that UNRWA’s policies reflect ongoing struggles over the futures that are imagined by and for refugees. However these struggles take place in the context of humanitarianism with its norms of temporary and apolitical intervention. As a result, UNRWA’s education policies are pulled toward different political imaginaries but never clearly articulate a vision for the refugees’ future. I argue that although the inclusion of education in the context of humanitarian action has facilitated opportunities for refugee self-support it has also curtailed and suppressed the refugees’ collective rights. In other words the inclusion of education within humanitarian response has not always helped the refugees, it has also harmed them. To address this, I argue that it is necessary to think beyond the current frameworks that guide refugee education – the humanitarian, human rights, and development approaches – and to reorient education toward the goals of justice. By showing how education can be used to mollify, control and suppress refugees’ political aspirations and rights, my findings complicate the claims of aid agencies that education is necessarily beneficial for refugees. Instead I underscore the importance of focusing on the politically transformative potential of education for groups of people who do not neatly fit within the conventionally assumed relationship that exists between a state and its citizens.
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| Subject
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Education history
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Education policy
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Near Eastern studies
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