There is a significant social phenomenon in Kuwait called the Bedoon, which comes from the Arabic phrase bedoon jinsiyya, literally meaning `without nationality,’ as coined by Human Rights Watch. Many scholars and intellectuals over the past two decades have attempted to understand this phenomenon from political, social, and humanitarian perspectives. However, the spatial aspects of their everyday tactical resistance and its reflection on their physical and built environment, have not yet been examined, making it the focus of this dissertation. This growing social group comprises thousands of `stateless’ people who lived fairly well for many decades in Kuwait without any legal documentation. However, in 1985-86, a series of legislation acts has been pursued toward this marginalized group, that stripped them of almost all their previous rights and benefits. Without any legal status or official identification, they became like ghosts hidden in the midst of a crowded city. Only their congested neighborhoods, two slum-like settlements called `Taima’a’ and `Suliabiya,’ are physical manifestations of their existence, areas that the government is planning to demolish and erase forever. Because of pressure placed on the government by humanitarians and activists, it has proposed moving the Bedoon to an alternative low-cost housing project outside Kuwait City, 15 km from their current location.
To assess these new `strategic’ urban directions, this dissertation first examines, spatially, the Bedoon’s everyday `tactics,’ following Henri Lefebvre’s and Michael de Certeau’s concepts, using a hermeneutical approach that transcends the physicality of their current places. The aim is understanding the essential resonances among form, social, culture, politics, and lived experience. By probing into the contexts, forms, and details of Bedoons’ dwellings, neighborhoods, and public spaces in Taima’a, through a deep observation of dwellers’ spatial interactions and social practices, this study discusses their spatial modes of resistance, where `place’ and `place-ness’ can be understood as valid tools toward social change. By using mainly qualitative methods, which include series of surveys and interviews with officials, academics, and the Bedoon themselves, collecting and analyzing data such as official documentations, books, and articles from magazines and newspapers, as well as spatial site analysis, this dissertation explores notions such as `statelessness,’ `nationality,’ `citizenship,’ and `perception’ and emphasizes their deep relationships with the ideas of `space’ and `spatiality.’