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Voices from the Camps: A People’s History of Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, 2006, by Nabil Marshood. Lanham: University Press of America, 2010. ix + 112. Epilogue to p. 116. Index to p. 122. About the Author to p. 123. $25.00 paper. Reviewed by Aseel Sawalha Nabil Marshood, professor of sociology at Hudson County Community College, New Jersey, has written an accessible work about a complex aspect of the Palestinian experience. Voices from the Camps: A People’s History of Palestinian Refugees in Jordan, 2006—as the title suggests—allows curious readers, with or without much knowledge of the lives of Palestinian refugees, to hear the voices of the residents of refugee camps in Jordan. The interviewees (women and men both old and young) narrate their stories of leaving their home villages in Palestine, their arrival to the camps, and the daily challenges they encounter. These poignant accounts allowed Marshood to accomplish his goal of bringing “refugee camp life and its people much closer, so one can face—and hopefully understand—their reality as well as their humanity” (p. xviii). is a concise portrayal of the lives of selected residents of six refugee camps in Jordan (Irbid, Hiteen, Jerash, Zarqa, Al-Hussein, and Baqa‘a). Based on four months of research in 2006, and forty-three interviews with mostly first- and second-generation current and former residents of these camps, Marshood’s book depicts the hopelessness, desperation, and misery of the conditions in the camps. While useful for highlighting the conditions inside the refugee camps, the book falls short on analyzing the refugees’ relationship to other Palestinians who live outside the camps. In the first chapter, “Identity and Culture,” Marshood provides a general review of sociological writings on identity, tagging on a brief discussion of the formation of Palestinian identity among the refugees in Jordan. His survey could have benefited from deeper engagement with recent anthropological and sociological writings about Palestinian identity in refugee camps and in diaspora, including writings about Palestinians in Jordan. Marshood outlines his research methodology in the second chapter and provides detailed descriptions of the challenges he encountered in “getting in” (p. 15). Prior to visiting the camps, he contacted the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Department of Palestinian Affairs, local universities, and social services agencies. Through these contacts, he was able to secure official permits to visit the camps and a guide to accompany him in his visits. Ironically, these same official contacts that facilitated the author’s entry to his sites might have hindered and even prevented the interviewees from delving into sensitive political issues. For example, while first-generation refugees elaborated on recollecting their lives in Palestine, expressing their wishes to return to their villages, they only cautiously criticized the government or their relations to the Jordanian state. The reader senses that the interviewees avoided discussing the often-strained relations between Jordanians and Palestinians, or the involvement of Palestinian refugees in political life, in front of official representatives—a constraint Marshood seems not to have fully recognized. The consecutive six chapters convey the almost verbatim voices of the refugees. In each chapter, Marshood recounts his dialogue with select residents—mostly in the presence of others—who answer his questions about their past (place of origin, personal narratives of the Nakba, their family’s experience of leaving their homeland) and their present (lack of jobs, adequate housing, and basic services). Along the way, Marshood narrates his shock as he encounters the unhygienic dirty narrow alleys, open sewage, unattended children, and lack of open green spaces. Upon entering Zarqa Camp, he recalls, “I was concerned of accidents with children running around the street . . . and questions ran into my mind. What does it feel like to live in such a crowded environment? How have the people managed to survive for more than sixty years in such conditions?” (p. 33). He then describes entering Irbid camp in the same vein: “Narrow streets; people moving aimlessly around; and children playing in the street. . . . The streets, better described as alleyways, were dusty and there were no trees at all. One cannot find any type of green plants” (p. 53). Although the description of the grim conditions in the camps serves to elicit sympathy of unfamiliar American readers, he lists the same roster of problems for each camp, repetition instead of thick description or analysis. The observations of a single visit end up sounding superficial and center on the author’s own discovery. Marshood’s project did not allow him to delve into daily life or instances of Palestinian agency and resistance, so the refugees, despite his sympathy for them, end up seeming like passive victims to a relentlessly horrific situation. In the last two chapters, Marshood reiterates the bleak conditions in the camps and shifts to advocacy, calling upon his “Western” readers and the “holders of power” in the world to truly work on “finding a peaceful and just solution” (p. 114) for the Palestinians. He concludes by saying, “For those who wonder where to begin, an official apology to the Palestinians is a good starting point” (p. 115). Voices from the Camps is a good read for a general Western audience and could be utilized for advocacy work for the Palestinians.