Palestinians Born in Exile:
Diaspora and the Search for a Homeland

Juliane Hammer
Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. 271 pages.

There is a striking lack of studies on the Palestinian diaspora. Undoubtedly
the pioneering work of Edward Said (“Reflections on Exile,” in Out There:
Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures, eds. Russell Ferguson [The
MIT Press: 1990]) on exile and Rashid Khalidi (Palestinian Identity: The
Construction of Modern National Consciousness [Columbia University
Press: 1997]) both touch on many of the related issues of collective mem-
ory, cultural identity, and the relationship between the “center” (the home-
land) and the diasporic communities and how these issues manifested
themselves in the Palestinian case. More recently, Abbas Shiblak (Reflec-
tions on Palestinian Diaspora in Europe [2000]), Sari Hanafi (Here and
There: Analyses of the Relationship between Diaspora and the Centre [2001:
in Arabic]), and Helena Schulz and Juliane Hammer (The Palestinian Dias-
pora: Formation of Identities and Politics of Homeland [Routledge: 2003])
explore different aspects of the Palestinian diaspora. 

Juliane Hammer’s new study examines young Palestinian returnees as
part of a larger social, historical, political, and cultural framework (p. 114).
She conducted her research in the mid-1990s, a crucial period between two
phases: one of peace and hope following the signing of the Declaration of
Principles in 1993, and another one that started in 1997 with the deterioration
and breakdown of the peace talks, and, consequently, with the eruption of the
second Intifada in 2000. For her survey, she chose a sample of two main cat-
egories of young returnees: those of the Palestinian Authority strata (a`idin)
and the children of Palestinian expatriates who live in the West but mainly in
the United States (Amerikans). The interviewees were mainly adolescent or
young men and women from and around Ramalla and Jerusalem. 

The return process has been described chronologically, as a series of
five steps or stages ranging from the decision to return to plans for the near
future. As the study argues, this return entails a process of the returnees’
rewriting aspects of their identities. Hammer does not see, however, that the
chronological approach is the only way of looking at the process of return.
She sees the transformation (what she calls the “rewriting of identities”) also
by dividing “identity” into different aspects, and then investigating how the
respondents remembered these aspects from their childhood and youth in the

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diaspora and which changes might have occurred during the process of
return (p. 166). 

To put it differently, Hammer sees that the return process took place
inside the returnees, taking the form of a “challenge” to the identity they had
formed in exile. This return process has been described in pre-liminal and
post-liminal stages. She sees the concept of liminality as enabling us to rec-
ognize the return as occurring in different stages, yet “it stresses the fluidity
of the process” (p. 117). Indeed, Palestinian identities have developed differ-
ently in various host countries. This led Hammer to build on a concept of
changing identities and to argue for recognizing the multiple nature of per-
sonal, political, and cultural identities within every individual (p. 220). The
study’s empirical material clearly demonstrates this, and the young respon-
dents substantiate this claim.

The author points out that the young returnees temporarily lost their
social identities and had “to negotiate their position in the newly founded
Palestinian society” (p. 222): “They were forced to recognize the realities of
Palestine, to compare them to their images, and to cope with the discrepan-
cies” (p. 222). They had to adjust their concept of identity while attempting,
at the same time, to change the realities of Palestinian society. The study
shows that the respondents exercised both options, “in many cases combin-
ing the two through a long and painful process of negotiation” (p. 222).
Some recognized the new realities and had to live with them, integrate, and
accept Palestine as their real “home.” Others had to cope with what Hammer
calls “eternal liminality,” defined as being torn among other factors: love of
their country, strong family ties, shrinking space, diminishing job opportu-
nities and their longing to be free, some stability, better education, and set-
tling down and starting a family. 

This state of being transnational with a floating idea of “home” and
nationality is better explained by Hammer in her concluding remarks, where
she states that it could be “as much a blessing as a burden” (p. 222). Where
it was perceived as a burden, the young returnees tended to have future plans
to settle down, build a career, and start a family “to ensure that they might
feel at home somewhere someday” (p. 222). Those who saw their transna-
tionalism as a blessing “stressed the choice and opportunities that were also
a characteristic of their youth” (p. 222).

Hammer recognizes that it will be difficult to look at the Palestinian
diaspora as merely a case of migrancy and globalization (p. 220). Unlike
other diasporic communities, the Palestinians are denied the option of return
to the homeland or even to the Palestinian Authority-controlled area. The

112 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 24:4



“center” is simply not there for the majority of them. Palestine is what they
know through their parents or grandparents and what they read or see on the
small screen. While the option of a real return or even a visit is denied, the
gap between what is “real” and “virtual” will increase. 

The two categories of young respondents are the fortunate few who,
more than the rest, would be able to narrow the gap. Hammer left them to
reflect on their search of “home” and experience of “return.” Through appar-
ently informal chats with her respondents, She has produced a solid aca-
demic work that offers insights into the very complicated and multi-layered
issues of how young Palestinians perceive home and going through the
agonizing process of adjustment and readjustment with the realties of com-
ing home and with the fluid nature and diverse identities of Palestinian
diasporic communities. 

Abbas Shiblak
Research Associate, Refugee Studies Centre (RSC)

University of Oxford, United Kingdom

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