multifaceted forms of marginalisation. This is due to the peculiar
sectarian character of Lebanese politics. It registers the highest
percentage of Christians among all Middle Eastern countries and a
power-sharing formula between different sects characterises political
life. The presence of a mostly Muslim refugee community
constituting about ten percent of the total population in Lebanon,
therefore, has always been perceived as a threat to the country's
delicate political order and stability (Haddad, 2000: 30).
The Lebanese government's concerns over its population are
manifested institutionally through the issue of laws, decrees and
orders that prevent the Palestinians from enjoying the most basic
rights such as the right to work and access to educational and
health services; and spatially through the establishment of refugee
camps. As laws, decrees and orders dictate the conceptual separation
of the Palestinian refugee from the Lebanese citizen, refugee
camps complete such distinction geographically preventing the
Palestinians' integration.
As philosopher Giorgio Agamben (1998) would put it, the production
of refugees' ‘bare life’ e a life stripped of any right and value
e and its spatialisation through the establishment of camps is not
new to our times. Drawing a controversial parallel between the