Peace Gone Rogue: The Politics of Resistance among UNWRA’s Workers

Abstract

This thesis explores the politics of resistance among the humanitarian and development workers involved in UNWRA’s (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) peace operations across the Levant. Such research highlights a phenomenon labelled ‘peace gone rogue,’ a constructive resistance experienced among these workers, catalysed by ontological insecurity expressed in an everyday, bottom-up environment beneath the commands of an institutional mandate undergoing organisational necropolitics. This work documents and analyses the causes and modes of resistance of peace gone rogue, alongside the implications regarding UNWRA workers' crossings of the mandate's thresholds.