CRISI DEI RIFUGIATI IN LIBANO. GOVERNANCE, NARRATIVE IDENTITARIE E DISUGUAGLIANZE SOCIALI DEI RIFUGIATI PALESTINESI IN LIBANO.

This work starts with a threefold question: how is the Palestinian refugees issue regulated by international organisations and host States? How come that Lebanon, which has been a flagship in the past to multi-ethnics, asylum and hosting, has got to 90 per cent of the refugees currently living there in extreme poverty? Are these two phenomena correlated? Even if the Lebanese do not constitute a united population due to the sectarian and political divisions amongst them, Palestinian presence has been going some way in solving the problems of split Lebanese people. In lending them national identity, if not unity or homogeneity, this narrative certainly give them some degrees of coherence, as Palestinian tawteen alleged threat affects all Lebanese sects altogether. One of the State main conflicting policy points has been with no doubt the management of the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, which in times further and further cracked the State sovereignty legitimation. To address this, the racial and bio-political State is a useful theoretical paradigm to understand and explain exclusion of Palestinians in Lebanon, thanks to its correlated many studies such as the concept of bare life, the notion of State of exception, as well as with the no tawteen rhetoric discourse. The analysis of tawteen and its various interpretations by Lebanese and Palestinians actors runs throughout all thesis, as well as the protection gap concerning Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, with the Palestinians in Lebanon identity narrative being always at the core of the discourse. This research has been given to the contextualization of Palestinian presence in Lebanon historically and at present identifying two gaps in the literature of Palestinian: one is related to the issue of tawteen or the naturalisation or permanent settlement of Palestinians in Lebanon, and the other as the interrelated issue of the racialization of Palestinians by the Lebanese State institutions. This work also looks into the uniquely othering position of Palestinians in a divided Lebanon with many facets, with emphasis on analysing both racializing and social actors narratives that feed into and reinforce the racialization of refugees in Lebanon. Through these often self-conflicting rhetoric discourses and measures the Lebanese State tried to protect the foundations of the country and its co-existence, but these factors ultimately concurred to the mismanagement on provisions on refugees and ultimately also led Lebanon to internal deep-rooted crises.