The Impact of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis on the Development of Amman, 1947 -1958 (original) (raw)
Related papers
Historical and urban development of Amman with an Urbanization
TAREQ MAHMOUD ALAMAJALI, 2020
The study aimed to explain the importance and legacy of the city of Amman and the changes in the city and housing in Amman by analyzing the events that took place in the city of Amman at all times, and to study the changes that took place in the city of Amman. Amman 's birthright, through the study of historical norms of ethnic origin and common origin and the place of migration, and the new reasons for the birth and development of new horizontal and vertical versions and expansion. The study concludes that the late seventies and early eighties could be considered a change in the history of the city of Amman, where the economic and social changes that took place at the time led to a new and stagnant new movement. Expanding a city according to economic or social differences, regardless of race or ethnic origin, or country of origin, determined the development of horizontal and steep ropes and expansion before the 1970 s. the old ones play a role in the neighborhood. Studies have also shown that no specific or real idea can explain the broad horizontal and vertical development of expansion and expansion in Amman . The study suggested that researchers be guided to study population trends in travel and widening and stagnation in Amman , and what are the reasons for their participation in these trips, in addition to researching the role of housing-related projects and independent housing projects in horizontal and vertical installation. Success and expansion in new parts of Amman and other cities of Jordan Key Words: Historical Bases, Economic and Social Factors, Horizontal and vertical sprawl and expansion, Amman.
Amman: Reading the City through Displacement
ZARCH, 2024
Amman is a city shaped by multiple displacements. In 1952 and 1955, two refugee camps, called Al-Hussein and Al-Wihdat, respectively, were established for displaced Palestinians near the city centre. Shortly after, the city began to experience rapid growth due to continuous waves of displacements. A few years later, the camps blended with the emergent urban fabric of the city. This paper elucidates this urban transformation and how it led to the polarization of the city into two sides: the impoverished east dictated by informal arrangements and the rich west with formal support structures. After 2011, Jordan received Syrian refugees, many of whom settled in Amman. This paper discusses the following question: how did Amman grow vis-à-vis displacement? And considering the relatively recent arrival of Syrians to the city (in comparison with other refugees), how did they encounter the city and navigate its socioeconomic disparities? Building on fieldwork conducted in Amman in 2022-23, the author shows how Syrians were split between the two parts of the city, and how those with fewer resources ended up living in the east with its Palestinian camps, while those who have more resources struggle to survive in west Amman.
Circassian Refugees and the Making of Amman, 1878–1914
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 2017
In the final decades of Ottoman rule, several waves of refugees from the Russian Empire's North Caucasus region immigrated to Transjordan, where they founded Amman and other agricultural villages. This article examines the economy of Amman in its formative years as a Circassian refugee settlement. By exploring connections between North Caucasian refugees, Syrian and Palestinian merchants, and Transjordanian urban and nomadic communities, this study posits refugees as drivers of economic expansion in the late Ottoman period. I argue that the settlement of North Caucasian refugees and their active participation in the real estate market in and around Amman contributed to the entrenchment of the post-1858 property regime in Ottoman Transjordan. Through a study of an upper-class Circassian household and its legal battles, this article also illustrates the rise of refugee elites who benefited from the commodification of land and the construction of state-sponsored infrastructure in the late Ottoman Levant. Winner, 2018 Best Article Prize, Syrian Studies Association Winner, 2018 Khayrallah Prize in Middle Eastern Migration Studies, Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Habitat International, 2009
Amman the primate capital city of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan currently has a population in excess of 2 million, but in 1924 it consisted of little more than a collection of dwellings and some 2000-3000 inhabitants. The present paper sets out to document and explain the phenomenal expansion of ''evergrowing Amman''. The physical geography of the urban region and the early growth of the city are considered at the outset and this leads directly to consideration of the highly polarised social structuring that characterises contemporary Amman. In doing this, original data derived from the recent Greater Amman Municipality's Geographical Information System are presented. In this respect, the essential modernity of the city is exemplified. The employment and industrial bases of the city and a range of pressing contemporary issues are then considered, including transport and congestion, the provision of urban water under conditions of water stress and privatisation, and urban and regional development planning for the city. The paper concludes by emphasizing the growing regional and international geopolitical salience of the city of Amman at the start of the 21st century.
The American Historical Review, 2007
Reviews 339 them by political boundaries and geographical isolation" (p. 6). The author explains this state of affairs by pointing to the Ottoman Empire's millet system, which offered protected status to non-Muslims and accommodated cultural differences. She then points to the policies of Arab states, which have generally given religious and ethnic minorities a certain amount of autonomy. Syria figures prominently as an example. The book alludes to Syria's pan-Arab and secular brand of nationalism, which has allowed space for ethnic and religious minorities to maintain separate communities with their own languages, cultural traditions, and schools. The author is careful, however, to note exceptions to this trend in the region, such as Palestinians in Lebanon and undocumented Kurds (bidūn) in Syria. It would have been interesting to read her views on the extent to which these exceptions complicate the "integration without assimilation model'' and on what they indicate about the current geopolitics of the Middle East. For readers framing their interest in forced migration around specific countries within the Middle East, the historical and ethnographic data will, at times, seem unevenly distributed. The area today comprising Turkey, Israel/Palestine, and especially Syria are given significant historical coverage, but there is less detailed information on Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, and particularly Iraq. In terms of the personal narratives, the author largely includes those of individuals who ended up in Syria and to a lesser extent Egypt and Jordan. At the same time, one of the book's accomplishments is that it avoids taking for granted current national boundaries. The narrative stretches back to the Ottoman era, framing forced displacement through watershed historical moments that have had an impact on mobility and boundary making in the Middle East in the last 150 years. Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East represents a valuable contribution to the study of forced displacement in the Middle East. The book will appeal to scholars in the social sciences and especially those in disciplines such as history, anthropology, geography, and political science whose research focuses on minorities or forcibly displaced groups in the Middle East. It also constitutes a useful textbook for introductory courses on these topics.
Social Disparities and Public Policies in Amman
Villes, pratiques urbaines et construction nationale en Jordanie Cities, Urban Practices and Nation Building in Jordan, 2011
En s'appuyant sur une série de cartes réalisées à partir du recensement 2004 à l'échelle de 4800 îlots pour la ville d'Amman, cet article rend compte des disparités sociales particulièrement grandes au sein de la capitale entre « est » et « ouest ». Les cartes de densité de population, de type de bâti, de structure des ménages, d'âge et d'activités ont été réalisées en collaboration avec le service d'information géographique de la municipalité du Grand Amman en 2008. Parmi ces diverses cartes, celle de la structure des ménages et du pourcentage d'enfants de moins de quinze ans montre clairement la division des quartiers entre est pauvre et surpeuplé et ouest plus aisé et moins dense. Ainsi l'ouest d'Amman s'étend-il de Jabal Amman à Khalda entre les Wadi Hadadeh au nord et Deir Ghbar au sud. L'est d'Amman comprend le centre historique et plus de la moitié de la ville vers le Nord et le Sud, et une quinzaine de quartiers informels très denses développés autour des camps palestiniens de Jabal Hussein et Wahdat. L'article analyse les politiques publiques de réhabilitation des zones informelles et de logement social conduites depuis les années 1980. De 1980 à 1997, la Jordanie a fait école dans le domaine de la réhabilitation des quartiers pauvres des villes orientales en étant le premier pays arabe à appliquer l'idéologie développementaliste nouvellement promue par la Banque Mondiale en Amérique latine et en Asie, qui consistait à faire participer les populations des zones informelles à toutes les étapes de rénovation de leur habitat et à leur permettre d'accéder à la propriété via des prêts sur le long terme garantis par l'État. Mais à partir du processus de paix israélo-palestinien (accords d'Oslo de septembre 1993 et de Wadi Araba en janvier 1994), le gouvernement jordanien via la Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUDC) modifia ses modes d'intervention dans les camps et les zones informelles du pays, pour se concentrer sur la seule provision de services, avec une priorité sécuritaire évidente. Depuis 2005, toute une politique de logement social a été lancée, accélérée à partir de 2008 avec la campagne royale d'un "logement
We live in physical places. Unless there are particular meanings embodied in these places, we cannot feel that we belong to them. The meanings we give to the physical forms do not exist, in reality, in the forms themselves. But they exist in our minds and are generated from our past experience and significant events related to these forms. In this sense, culture, history and architecture are interrelated concepts and we cannot understand any one of them in isolation from the other. This paper is concerned with all these concepts. However, we need to discuss some of them in a preliminary way here so as to introduce the issue of identity in the Arab cities, its roots and its consequences. It presents the issue of identity as a phenomenon associated with the drastic transformation of social and physical traditions in Arab cities. We are looking for continuity and change of political and social identity and its impact on the urban form of these cities. Concepts such as traditions, modernization, and westernization will be addressed with special consideration of their role in enhancing the search for identity in the Arab cities. Searching for social and urban identity in contemporary Arab cities can be seen from the debate that took place in the beginning of the twentieth century when Arab intellectuals questioned the local situation and tried to adopt western culture. This debate goes back to the beginning of the nineteenth century when Mohammed Ali (the governor of Egypt) took over after French withdrawal from Egypt. What we are trying to say here is that the crises of identity in the contemporary Arab cities need to be understood through the political and cultural situations that influenced the formation of modern Arab cities and architecture. In general the study addresses four paradigms that Arab urbanization has passed through. These paradigms are closely linked to the political events that took place in the region. This is because, as Stewart (2001) said: “in the Arabic-Islamic cities there is an interconnection between spiritual and political”1. In this sense, it is difficult to understand what happened in the Arab towns without understanding the connection between religion and politics. In this study a number of examples are from the Arab cities presented, but there is a special reference to Saudi urban experience, especially when we come to the modernization of the Arab town in the second half of the twentieth century.