HEGEMONIC IDEALS OF MASCULINITY IN THE CAMP: FROM DAWĀWĪN TO SHUYŪKH

At first glance, paradigmatic styles of manhood in al-Wihdat parallel a local cliché that camp dwellers are inherently unruly.Footnote ¹⁹ These styles are best embodied by the figure of the dawānjī (pl. dawāwīn).Footnote ²⁰ The word dawānjī shares the same root as dīwān, and the plural form of dawānjī—dawāwīn—is also the plural form of dīwān, the latter of which means the collected poetic works of an individual or a tribe. In daily speech the term dawānjī has come to indicate someone who boasts and brags, and who passes time telling stories and idling in the company of friends rather than working. Dawāwīn organize their time around forms of sociability that, according to “mainstream” attitudes in the camp, are immoral, such as consuming alcohol and drugs. They are also said to exhibit a strong appetite for women, independence, male assertiveness, and transgressive behavior. In Jordanian dialect, the word dawānjī is generally used to denote any kind of thug or troublemaker, regardless of origin or place of residence. However, the word also evokes a hostile attitude toward state authorities that is widely associated with “camp refugees” (awlād al-mukhayyam, or mukhayyamjiyye).

Violence is frequently said to be a distinguishing feature of masculinity in the camp. In fact, violence is etched onto the faces of dawāwīn in the scars stretching diagonally across their cheeks, which are the result of cuts they inflict upon each other as reminders of some past event. The association between dawāwīn and violence is further reinforced by sensational nicknames.Footnote ²¹ For their unpredictable and explosive behavior, dawāwīn earn sobriquets such as kharṭūsh (from kharṭūsha, meaning “cartridge”) or bunduqiyye (rifle).

Dawāwīn often display other distinctive features as well. These include long hair, a purposefully long fingernail (on the little finger) in which they take pride, and shabby dress. Dawāwīn are typically seen in jeans and dirty t-shirts or in tattered tracksuits that they occasionally combine with garish garments such as studded shoes or belts with brash metal buckles. Tattoos are also common: many in the camp have three points tattooed on the back of their hands between the thumb and the forefinger, which supposedly symbolize the three-word sentence kuss ukht al-ḥukūma (translated loosely as “fuck the government”). At the time of my fieldwork, being a dawānjī was for some a source of pride. People who self-identified with the category proudly displayed its associated features.Footnote ²² Still, the term dawānjī carried clear negative connotations, and those who complied with this ideal type enjoyed little support inside or outside the camp.

Things were different in the past. “There was a time when the dawāwīn were muḥtaramīn [respectable]!” people often told me. Many of my friends in the camp saw the traits associated with the dawānjī as the most tangible consequence of the existential emptiness and socioeconomic marginalization experienced there, especially among young men.Footnote ²³ There was a time when Jihad—who in the 1960s spent time in an Israeli prison—proudly displayed a large tattoo depicting Palestine on his right forearm. By the time of my fieldwork, however, the situation had changed drastically. Jihad now felt awkward about the allegiance engraved on his body: “I am not young anymore and al-Wihdat is different now … before there were a lot of dawāwīn in al-Wihdat, and I was one of them … But now I do not want people to think I am a dawānjī.”Footnote ²⁴

In the years immediately before and after the showdown in 1970 between the Jordanian army and the PLO militias (i.e., the civil war, or Black September), dawāwīn fit the ideal of active resistance. Even today, in the narratives of refugees, the terms fidāʾiyyīn (guerrilla fighters) and dawāwīn often intersect. As long as the figure of the armed fighter embodied the ideal of resistance, the dawāwīn's quarrelsome spirit could be admired and respected. However, Black September precipitated a dramatic change of status for the fidāʾ iyyīn in Jordan, leading to their expulsion from the kingdom. The center of Palestinian resistance shifted first to Lebanon, and then to the Occupied Territories. With the Jordanian state's decimation of the fidāʾiyyīn on both the political and military levels, the myths encircling them began to fade.Footnote ²⁵ This—along with the significant growth of so-called “revivalist” religious discourses in JordanFootnote ²⁶—led to the rearticulation of camp ideals of masculinity in terms of a different set of values. Devoid of political significance, dawānjī masculinity became de facto marginal, immoral, even dangerous; shaykh masculinity, by contrast, became increasingly prominent and accepted.

The Arabic word “shaykh” (pl. shuyūkh) has a wide range of meanings, though in the camp it primarily refers to piety and Islamic knowledge. The term is applied to those adopting a pious lifestyle and with broad knowledge of Islamic doctrine, regardless of political affiliation (though at times it may be used to respectfully address an elderly man or a local leader). More pointedly, a shaykh is one who strives to live by the Prophet Muhammad's example. Although displaying a long beard, a modest hair style, and a dishdāsha (an ankle-length, long-sleeved garment, similar to a robe) is often sufficient to gain the appellative of shaykh, many feel that these features do not alone indicate that one is a “real” shaykh. Being a shaykh is regarded as a genuine, holistic, and all-encompassing endeavor that leads the believer to develop and sustain a God-fearing personality. Through rigor and complete devotion, the man of piety achieves a life devoid of all ambivalences and inconsistencies.

The way in which religious commitment (iltizām) finds expression in the lives of believers varies widely—from the mere fulfillment of major religious duties, such as prayer, almsgiving, and fasting, to attempts to realize a morally and spiritually elevated self. In principle, a pious Palestinian man in the camps would not only choose the mosque over the street; he would also avoid contact with the opposite sex, refrain from lying, and abstain from consuming intoxicating substances (alcohol, nicotine, hashish, etc.). Moreover, he would participate in social and political activities that promote Palestinian resistance, collect zakat (alms-giving) and distribute food to the poor, as well as listen to cassette tape sermons and study the Qurʾan. In other words, his iltizām would find expression in a spectrum of social, political, and bodily practices all centered upon submission to God. These dispositions converge in the figure of the shaykh, who according to many of my informants in the camp is the perfect exemplar of a human being (insān) and of manliness (rujūliyya) in the modern world.Footnote ²⁷

The shaykh model emerged not only in al-Wihdat but also across the region. The widespread fascination with this style of masculinity can be explained by the increasing power of Hamas in the Occupied Territories, the concomitant loss of PLO influence,Footnote ²⁸ and the rise of Islamism in the Middle East broadly.Footnote ²⁹ In Jordan, mounting levels of religiosity are both symptomatic of, and responsible for, the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood, a group that has factored significantly in the lives of male adolescents and young men in al-Wihdat. Since 1971 the Brotherhood and its political arm, the Islamic Action Front, have filled a vacuum in the camp left by the diminishing influence of the PLO's various factions. Advantaged by a special relationship with the regime at a time when all other groups and movements were repressed, the Brotherhood built an extended network of health and cultural centers, charitable societies, and youth clubs both inside and outside al-Wihdat.Footnote ³⁰ The capillary grassroots activism of the Brotherhood—along with its campaigns against corruption and normalization with Israel and for political inclusion and democratization—allowed it to disseminate its ideology and develop a following in order to become one of the main representative political bodies in the camp. Although it would be misleading to explain camp dwellers’ masculinity through their allegiance to a single group or movement, the Brotherhood has undoubtedly driven a growing fascination with ideals of Islamic manhood among refugees, and particularly refugee youth.Footnote ³¹ As a case in point, the Brotherhood has managed to exert influence over the youth clubs, which were once firmly in the hands of PLO factions.

Exhibiting transgressive behavior—once idealized as a sign of masculinity among dawāwīn—is no longer met with sympathy among Muslim Brothers and those who—like them—generally identify as shuyūkh.Footnote ³²

POTENCY, MASCULINITY, AND NATIONALISM

In a compelling article, Joseph Massad points out that the “national agent” in Palestinian nationalist discourse articulated by the PLO is a young, muscular, and self-assertive male.Footnote ³³ The hegemonic position of this kind of masculinity in the reproduction of Palestinian national identity is also evident in al-Wihdat. Although not everyone in the camp embodies the image of the hard-boiled fighter or the pious man, the youth aspire to act out these ideals of manhood. They perceive the Palestinian national predicament as being tightly connected to performances of idealized notions of manhood characterized by independence, fierceness, and potency. Indeed, it would be a mistake to see the two ideals of manhood—the dawānjī and the shaykh—as antithetical. Despite obvious differences between them, the shaykh has taken over the dawānjī's role as a fighter and borrowed many of his virile qualities.

In the camp, the shaykh embodies a style of masculinity that is appreciated not only for its pious qualities, such as religious devotion, spirituality, and studiousness, but also for its association with male assertiveness, independence, and potency.Footnote ³⁴ Camp dwellers perceive Islam as crucial to re-enacting hegemonic gender norms. A case in point relates to polygyny. I heard several times in the camp that there is nothing wrong with marrying two or more women so long as the man is capable of treating his wives equally. The latter, of course, demands that the man be hypervirile and sexually prolific. As Inhorn points out, “the Islamic mandate to reproduce an Islamic ‘multitude’ encourages pronatalism within polygynous marriage, with some men producing their own small tribes of children from multiple spouses.”Footnote ³⁵ Interestingly, very few of the men whom I met in the camp are polygamous. Whether certain attributes and practices associated with hypervirility are simply narrated or actually embodied by people in the camp is irrelevant here. What is important is that certain hegemonic attributes invoke considerable fascination among the youth. The powerful, virile patriarch who can satisfy his wives and has fathered many children represents an ideal of physical strength and endurance. While staring at a robust, bearded man one day, a friend—whose father was a shaykh—called my attention to the man's imposing figure: “Look, Luigi, you see the shaykh over there? You see his arms [mimicking the shape of the man's massive biceps]? Shuyūkh are strong, even stronger than dawāwīn.”Footnote ³⁶ With a self-satisfied tone he went on to point out how physical strength and bravery are as important qualities for these men of faith as their pious dispositions.

To many in the camp, Islam also plays a role in reproducing ideals of militarism and heroism. When dawāwīn lost their appeal within the refugee community, shuyūkh inherited the militaristic and heroic traits with which dawāwīn were associated. The Muslim man's duty to defend Islam when it is threatened from inside or outside allowed the shaykh to serve as a veritable bastion against imperialism. In al-Wihdat, the cultivation of a pious self enables these men to hold on to the ideological imperative of Palestinian nationalism. According to my interlocutors in the camp, Islam allows them to pursue meaning in the face of the broken promises of secular nationalism; it is also key to overcoming Arab national divisiveness by uniting Arab Muslims, eventually leading, it is hoped, to the eviction of the “evil” (shayṭānī) forces of Zionism and Western imperialism from Palestine. When reflecting on the possibility of political change, many camp dwellers invoke the example of past Muslim leaders such as Salah al-Din, whose triumphant liberation of the Holy Land from the crusaders centuries ago is seen as evidence of the power of his faith (īmān).Footnote ³⁷

This Islamic ideal of masculinity still exerts considerable fascination in al-Wihdat. Young men recall the time when their fathers fought Israelis in Jordan or in Lebanon; they are proud to have a family member who died while pursuing the goal of national liberation. One such young man is Abu ʿUmar, whose piety earned him the appellative of shaykh. When Abu ʿUmar was three years old, his father became a shahīd (martyr) when Israeli soldiers killed him in Lebanon. He was buried in a cemetery in Syria, where his son periodically visited him. At the time of my fieldwork, Abu ʿUmar was in his early thirties, and he was proud of his father for what he saw as his glorious death. On a few occasions, he also confessed his wish to fight for Palestine and Islam in the Occupied Territories: “I want to go to Palestine to fight. I don't know when; I only know that I will go, [and] not necessarily to kill—I can also help in other ways.”Footnote ³⁸

Abu ʿUmar's urge to follow in his father's footsteps was particularly evident during a two-day journey to Aqaba that we took together. On the last leg of the journey, the road ran parallel and with great proximity to the Israeli–Jordanian border. My companion glanced with feelings of both excitement and sorrow at the nearby city of Eilat in what is today Israel. Turning his gaze away from the hills and back to the Jordanian side of the border, Abu ʿUmar frowned and said: “I can't see these mountains and do nothing. My father died for them, and I don't do anything.”Footnote ³⁹

Physical prowess and militarism do not encompass the full extent of shaykh masculinity, at the core of which is the capacity to be a virile agent of change. This capacity contrasts with a rather passive ideal of femininity. According to this ideal, women should be the nurturers and makers of men,Footnote ⁴⁰ and their national role is to comply with a stringent code of modesty that includes, for example, the adoption of specific veiling practices and relegation to the familial sphere.Footnote ⁴¹ Palestinian nationalism is thus discussed in highly gendered terms. If young men see struggling against the Israeli occupiers and colonizers as a highly masculinizing deed, they perceive “resettlement” (tawṭīn) into the host country as a feminizing act because it demands acceptance of their political situation.

The full extent to which resettlement is considered indicative of an inferior masculinity was revealed to me in a conversation I had with Husayn, a young man whom I came to know during my stay in the camp. Husayn was in his early twenties when I first met him. He lived with his family in a small house in a low-income area of al-Wihdat. At the time, Husayn was studying in the university to become a high-school teacher. He was also volunteering at an educational program for orphans held in a camp youth center. During one of this program's sessions I had the chance to hear his opinion on the difference between refugees from the camp and refugees living in well-off areas of Amman. “They are all fags (manāyik) and whores (sharāmīt),” he said, referring to the descendants of the so-called “generation of 1948” (jīl al-nakba, or jīl al-thamāniya wa-arbaʿīn).Footnote ⁴² When I asked him what he meant by this, Husayn responded that,

Several aspects of Husayn's comments are particularly noteworthy. First, he seems to overlook the fact that al-Wihdat was actually set up to accommodate refugees from the first exodus—the generation of 1948. Second, his statement reveals the intersection of class and gender in the performance and representation of masculinity. Al-Wihdat is located in the heart of the densely populated working-class quarters of East Amman. Although socioeconomic and power disparities exist within the camp, a larger socioeco-nomic and power chasm separates camp dwellers from the rich Jordanian–Palestinian upper class living in the wealthy neighborhoods of West Amman. In his comment, Husayn links socioeconomic integration, moral disposition, and national identity in order to establish a gender difference between the refugees of 1948 and those of 1967. The former are more likely to have found decent jobs over the course of almost four generations in Jordan. For this reason, they moved out of the camps and ultimately adopted what he terms an “immoral” lifestyle. In Husayn's view, the comfortable and luxurious lifestyle of these refugees have caused them to forget their origins (aṣl) and political struggles, rendering them unfit to represent the Palestinian national cause. Moreover, since national honor is tightly intertwined with gender and religion, their sexuality and morality are also deviant.Footnote ⁴⁴ To Husayn, refugees outside the camps are “fags” and “whores.” It is marginalized and pious males from the camp (the generation of 1967) rather than rich Palestinians who best embody the Palestinian national predicament.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING DOCILE

The image of the heroic fighter does not fully exhaust the repertoire of actions and attributes associated with dominant ideals of masculinity in al-Wihdat. It is accompanied by another model predicated upon the capacity to act as a provider and nurturer. Despite camp dwellers’ harsh criticism of those who have “abandoned” the moral and manly space of the camp to live in well-off areas of Amman, virtually all youths in the camp hope to make enough money to leave one day. In fact, Husayn—the very person that drew such a sharp distinction between camp and noncamp refugees—studied at the university and worked hard as a clerk in a chic West Amman hotel in order to put himself in position to secure a good job and earn enough money to wed and leave al-Wihdat.Footnote ⁴⁵ Such an aspiration has to be understood as his negotiation between ideological conviction and practical need.

Young men's willingness to act as breadwinners is located in a moral code shared among Palestinian refugees in which family provider masculinity is a marker of respected adult status.Footnote ⁴⁶ In the Palestinian case, then, the family-provider model is clearly entangled with that of the “bourgeois-in-the-making.”Footnote ⁴⁷ According to Massad, this latter model “includes not only the masculine ability to launch armed struggle, but also to have a bourgeois economic status. The appeal is made in the context of the Palestinian diaspora, where most of the Palestinian bourgeoisie now lives.”Footnote ⁴⁸ The nationalist agent is one who pays for the education of “his” brother and sister, takes care of “his” parents, raises “his” children, and dreams in “his” heart of returning to Palestine.Footnote ⁴⁹

For the refugees in al-Wihdat, the rising cost of living has rendered docility and compliance the only available paths to full social adulthood. In addition, since Black September the government has discouraged overt expressions of toughness and hostility among refugees by implementing a number of measures aimed at tightening its control over the camp. In 1986, for example, Nadi al-Wihdat, which was originally set up and supervised by UNRWA and in the 1970s grew into a major sports club and hub of political activism, came under the control of the Ministry of Youth and Sport. A decade later, the government widened Sumayya Street, a small alley that crossed the camp from northwest to southeast, turning it into a large two-lane road on which tanks could pass.Footnote ⁵⁰ A few years later, on the occasion of the outbreak of the second intifada, the government also visibly enlarged the police station located on the outskirts of the camp. Facing these constraints, many refugees have felt the need to deemphasize certain characteristics that could be perceived as aggressive or independent.

Nader, the owner of a game room notorious in the camp for attracting dawāwīn, explained to me how increasing government control is leading to the gradual normalization of al-Wihdat (i.e., its economic, political, and social integration into the city of Amman): “Before, there was mafia! Here, right here, where we sit, there was a man that controlled the whole neighborhood (ḥāra). I knew at least five dawāwīn who were living here and were later hanged by the government. Now, the only mafia here is the government.”Footnote ⁵¹ Nader's narrative is corroborated by ʿAssaf, a man in his thirties who, when I first met him, managed a local NGO in the camp: “Yes, many [dawāwīn] were arrested.”Footnote ⁵² Like him, ʿAssaf sees the normalization of the camp as the result of the government's exertion of control. Another factor, in his view, has been camp dwellers’ need to find work in a context marked by ethnic discrimination and fierce competition over employment: “Now most of them [the dawāwīn] work. They don't have time to fight and make problems. If you want to live in Jordan, you need a job. This is not easy for anybody. For us [people from the camp] it is even more difficult because there is racism in Jordan; nobody will ever employ you if you behave like a dawānjī.”Footnote ⁵³

Negative stereotypes about camps and refugees further hinder camp dwellers from finding work. Many of my interlocutors admitted to having lied to their potential employers about their place of residence, claiming to live in the adjoining neighborhood of Ashrafiyya. This discrimination is particularly visible in the public sector, where “East Bankers” are usually privileged over “Palestinians.” One friend of mine in his late twenties summarized this situation well:

The most viable strategy for gaining employment is to build social connections rooted in the camp but extending beyond its borders. Refugees’ economic hardships largely relate to wāsṭa, or more precisely, the lack of it. While this term can be translated literally as “means” or “intermediary,” here it indicates specifically the family connections and relationships of patronage that are central to obtaining a job, credit, favors, and housing in Jordan. The term refers to both the process of intermediation and the person who, by virtue of his or her connections and reputation, provides services and connectivity.Footnote ⁵⁶

In Jordan, ethnic discrimination leaves Palestinian refugees with very few opportunities to set up the right connections. And yet building networks is extremely important. For young male students enrolled in the university, for example, it can make all the difference in determining whether they land a job in the future. My interlocutors saw their Transjordanian peers in the university not as inimical others but as friends and companions with whom they could have fun, work together, and share other aspects of life. In the context of the university, shabāb from the camp deploy traits of masculinity such as studiousness, docility, and diligence rather than hostility, aggressiveness, and independence, to succeed.Footnote ⁵⁷

Camp dwellers not only accept aspirations and behaviors that diverge and at times even contradict normative ideals of masculinity in the camp, they also embrace them. Yet these different codes of masculinity do not stand in opposition to each other; they are all part of how refugees manage their national predicament in the context of exile in Jordan.Footnote ⁵⁸ Camp dwellers see docility and compliance as essential to maintaining Palestinian nationalism as a viable project. Overt displays of independence and aggressiveness devoid of rational reflection can exacerbate their socioeconomic marginality. Rather than treating poverty as a source of authenticity, many camp dwellers claim that being maskīn (poor or miserable) leads people—especially young men—down a crooked path, the end point of which is clear to all: entire families lacking a fatherly example and stable financial support; children and adolescents lacking proper guidance and turning to the streets; shabāb idling on barber shop sofas or on footpaths, engaging in immoral activities such as cursing, smoking, watching pornography, and drinking alcohol.

Many of the people with whom I spoke in al-Wihdat perceived the camp's deteriorating infrastructure as part of an international conspiracy to liquidate the Palestinian struggle and sink refugees into despair and oblivion. As a friend told me while pointing to a group of children playing amidst garbage and debris piled up in the middle of a narrow alley:

Once refugees have sunk into despair and oblivion, social uneasiness and tension among them become a threat to the national cause. In this context, refugees yearn not for marginality but rather to reproduce their political identity in terms of practical responsibilities, such as securing income.Footnote ⁶⁰ The otherwise negative connotation of being acquiescent and compliant acquires a positive dimension in the camp, indicating ethico-political qualities such as that of ṣumūd (resilience or steadfastness).Footnote ⁶¹

MANAGING COEXISTING MASCULINITIES: TROUBLE, INCONSISTENCY, AND ANXIETY

Palestinians’ commitment to nation and family are not at odds with one another. Among the youth in al-Wihdat “breadwinner masculinity” constitutes an alternative, yet equally attractive, script of masculinity to that represented by dawāwīn and shuyūkh. Like other ideals of masculinity in the camp, breadwinner masculinity reinforces patriarchal structures and normative relations of gender domination by prioritizing the man's role as provider over the rather passive role of women in the family.

However, while the image of the glorious fighter sits comfortably within the hegemonic ideal of masculinity, that of the nurturing father does not, straddling as it does the border between the masculine and feminine domains. To be bourgeois-in-the-making in a context marked by overt discrimination against Palestinian refugees, camp dwellers have to display a form of docility that contradicts the principles upon which the Palestinian nationalist agent is built: male assertiveness and independence. Significantly, the very attributes that make up breadwinner masculinity—nurturing and steadfastness—are often ascribed to the feminine sphere in official Palestinian nationalist discourse as well as in camp dwellers’ narratives.Footnote ⁶² When the ideal of the patient and nurturing mother overlaps with the ideal of the stoic and providing father, the boundaries between normative ideals of masculinity and femininity are blurred: what traditionally makes a woman a woman becomes constitutive of manhood.Footnote ⁶³

Interestingly, these seemingly contradictory scripts of masculinity—the independent fighter and the docile breadwinner—coexist simultaneously in the lives of my informants. To today's camp dwellers, manliness necessitates an active process of thinking about the consequences of one's actions. Take, for example, the story that Anas, a young man in his mid-twenties whom I came to know for his studiousness and piety, shared with me from the time he and his friend worked as seasonal workers at a branch of Kentucky Fried Chicken in a wealthy area of Amman. One day several of their Trans-Jordanian colleagues at work allegedly disrespected them by ordering them around, in response to which Anas and his friend beat them up soundly. Anas told me with evident self-satisfaction that “shabāb from the camp are different from shabāb living in Jabal Amman, Shmisani, and Abdun! We are mukhayyamjiyye [camp refugees]; they are like girls [banāt]!”Footnote ⁶⁴

However, on another occasion, Anas chastised his friend for not being able to secure a long-term job, claiming he was lazy (kaslān) and too short-sighted to understand that being reliable and trustworthy is in most cases more profitable than displaying hyper-toughness and independent behavior. Because even ordinary jobs are hard to come by in Jordan, dedication and docility are essential virtues for successfully securing a decent economic position. While Anas was obviously proud of the exhibition of sheer masculine potency in the first episode he recounted, he disapproved of the unthinking display of roughness and independence:

The attempt to reconcile diverse ideals of masculinity is a deeply fragile project in which men frequently experience failures, frustrations, and setbacks.

Within this framework, it is important to shed light on the relationship between the youth in the camp and the authorities. From the viewpoint of the local authorities, and indeed in the popular imagination, shabāb in al-Wihdat embody opposition to the state. The local authorities’ interactions with shabāb often involve disciplining, monitoring, and repression, all of which shabāb find humiliating and injurious. Harassment at the hands of overzealous police officers, camp dwellers told me, is so common that refugees carefully avoid passing by the massive al-Wihdat police station (makhfar) without their identification papers. If stopped without proper documents, they can be detained in the station until a relative or friend comes to vouch for them.

Discrimination and stalled upward mobility, especially in the public sector, endanger camp dwellers’ transition to social adulthood, which is dependent upon the capacity to provide for the family and live independently. They also exacerbate the marginalization of camp dwellers’ masculinity, relegating it to a condition of liminality or negation. Negative stereotypes that accompany camp dwellers in their relationships with Jordanian society further aggravate this crisis of masculinity. My interlocutors frequently complained to me about their incapacity to forge a productive masculinity by getting married, having children, and being responsible for wife and kids. Getting married is a costly affair and the ability to afford it is undermined by discrimination in the public sector. This situation has exacerbated the feeling among camp dwellers that they are second-class citizens. As Abu Shadi, a young man who works as a taxi driver in Amman, put it:

If discrimination and negative stereotypes tarnish camp dwellers’ chances of living a life like that of other Jordanian citizens, they also restrain any enthusiasm for male potency, political independence, and toughness. This point is evident in Jordanian filmmaker Sandra Madi's documentary Qamar 14, which takes place in al-Baqʿa, a large Palestinian refugee camp on the outskirts of Amman. The film depicts the real life of Faraj Darwish, a young boxing champion whose promising career came to an abrupt end upon his refusal to fight an Israeli boxer. Born and raised in al-Baqʿa, Farag, similar to many other shabāb in the camps, was filled with frustration due to unemployment and unfulfilled aspirations. He passed his time chatting with friends, idling at home, and playing with homing pigeons. Unlike other shabāb in the camps, however, there was a time when Faraj was well known and popular in the country.

In 2004, at twenty-one years old, Faraj won the Arab boxing champion title in Algeria, a victory that earned him the chance to meet the King of Jordan in person. Despite his accomplishment, however, in 2006 the Jordanian Boxing Federation barred the newly decorated champion from competing officially again due to his refusal to fight an Israeli boxer at an international competition in Turkey. The discriminatory ban irremediably damaged Faraj's blooming career, leaving the boxer powerless and embittered, capable neither of reaching full socioeconomic integration within the kingdom nor of becoming a virile symbol of Palestinian nationalist struggle as a boxing champion from Baqʿa.