Being Young in the Diaspora: Fragmentation of the Palestinian Youth Mobilisation from the Middle East to Europe

Abstract

While the current research mainly deals with the Palestinian youth in the Middle East, reports from various organisations, whose most accounts are descriptive, hardly provide a sustained and critical evaluation of their nature and impact. With an urgent need to understand better youth engagement in exile under adverse conditions in a conflict-ridden society such as the Palestinian one, this paper aims to analyse the Palestinian youth initiatives from the Middle-East (Lebanon, Syria and Palestine) to Europe (Sweden). Focusing on the Palestinian youth in the diaspora, this paper provides an analysis of the impact of migratory trajectories and activist backgrounds in regards to the evolution of the mobilisation’s practices. Notwithstanding the stunning achievements of the Palestinian youth movement, this article investigates the fragmentation and even collapse of many of these types of engagement due to political and socio-cultural ruptures, throughout data collected in Sweden, and employing the youth engagement theoretical framework.