Picturing precarity: Diasporic belonging and camp life in Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi

ABSTRACT

Leila Abdelrazaq’s Baddawi (2015) tells the story of her father Ahmad’s childhood spent in Baddawi, a camp for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Given that the refugee status of Palestinians has now lasted over 70 years, Palestine occupies a unique position in refugee studies. Camps like Baddawi form a distinctive model of refugee diasporic space where a temporary, liminal space becomes a diasporic “home” for millions. Contrary to the Agambenian depiction of “bare life” in camps, Abdelrazaq’s graphic novel portrays Baddawi as a communal space where families live together, preserving cultural traditions and performing daily rituals of life. Despite its depictions of the precarity and violence, Abdelrazaq portrays Baddawi as a space of belonging and, ultimately, of solace and return. Considering questions of diasporic belonging and agency of refugees in precarious and liminal spaces like Baddawi, the article calls for a renewed understanding of diasporic identity and belonging in conflict settings.

KEYWORDS:

• refugee camps
• diaspora
• Palestine
• Leila Abdelrazaq
• Baddawi
• belonging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. This figure was provided by the UNHCR in 2018 (see https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2018/6/5b222c494/forced-displacement-record-685-million.html).

2. Some titles include The Arab of the Future (Sattouf 2015–2018) and Illegal (Colfer and Donkin 2018) as well as books by Kate Evans (2017) and Joe Sacco (1993).

3. This is a universal right for refugees upheld by international law and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention.

Additional information

Funding

The writing and publication of this article was supported by an Internal Research Grant from EdUHK, #R4047:RG6/19-20R.

Notes on contributors

Bidisha Banerjee

Bidisha Banerjee is associate professor in the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies and director of the Centre for Popular Culture in the Humanities at the Education University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include postcolonial and migration studies, graphic narratives, and South Asian diasporic fiction. Her work has appeared in journals including The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, the Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Visual Studies, and Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. Her current book project studies the narrated image in postcolonial literature, and how it functions as a photographic metaphor to enhance the themes of the literary text.