The Palestinian Refugee Question: A Constitutive Constructivist Interpretation

Year 2009, Volume: 8 Issue: 4, 45 - 61, 16.10.2009

Nassef M. Adiong

Abstract

The paper aims to present a constitutive constructivist interpretation of the Palestinian refugee
question by examining the speeches and other public documents. The proponent questions the
perennial inadequacy of mainstream theories particularly realism, thus its purpose is to present an
alternative theoretical framework, and with the help of a method to deeply understand the problem.
The constitutive version of constructivism differs from the conventional strand because it gives
importance to the potency of the use of language. This will be undertaken through the verbs-incontext-
system (VICS) method of content analysis. Consequently, the findings are not as good as we
would hope for because based on the calculative verbs that were gathered using VICS, it gave us a
negative and even pejorative interpretation whether all of the agreements and public statements were
done in the spirit of pacta sunt servanda. However, there are glitches in the evaluated statements
stating some plethoric and unbinding declarations. Most, if not all, were unilaterally declared based on
their perspectives and insinuate some argumentative issues particularly on the right of the refugees to
return to their homeland or acquire their lost properties.

Keywords

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