[News] Palestinian Oral History as a Tool to Defend Against Displacement
Anti-Imperialist News
news at freedomarchives.org
Thu Sep 15 16:11:06 EDT 2016
https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/palestinian-oral-history-tool-defend-displacement/
Palestinian Oral History as a Tool to Defend Against Displacement
by Thayer Hastings <https://al-shabaka.org/en/author/thayer-hastings/>
on September 15, 2016
Oral history has a long precedent in Arab and Palestinian culture that
stems from a broader oral tradition. ^1
<https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/palestinian-oral-history-tool-defend-displacement/#note-5682-1> In
the years immediately following the Nakba of 1948 the Arab tradition of
the /hakawati/(storyteller) was used, according to Nur Masalha
<https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/4187518.pdf?repositoryId=175>, to shore
up a defense against erasure of culture and memory among Palestinians.
Since then, oral history has served as a prominent counter narrative in
the context of active settler colonialism throughout Palestine and
colonialism’s afterlives in the Arab world. It is a primary method
through which Palestinians engage collective events of trauma or
mobilization.
For Palestinians in the homeland as well as in exile, oral history
production centers around a common experience of displacement. Around 67
percent of Palestinians are displaced: The most recent estimates
<http://badil.org/en/publication/press-releases/60-2015/4506-pr-en-101115-35.html>put
the global Palestinian refugee and internally displaced population at
nearly 8 million. By locating the oral history process in the idea of a
space such as a village ethnically cleansed during the Nakba, displaced
communities forge a physical center even after depopulation.
Rosemary Sayigh, through her work in Lebanon’s refugee camps in the
1980s, was among the first to systematically document Palestinian oral
history. In 1983, Birzeit University
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2201473X.2014.955945?journalCode=rset20>developed
one of the first programs in the Arab world to teach oral history. The
Islamic University of Gaza
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/gaza-researchers-determined-record-nakba-generation-time-runs-out/12872>founded
its Oral History Center in 1998 to collect oral histories from the Nakba
and the 1967 Naksa. ^2
<https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/palestinian-oral-history-tool-defend-displacement/#note-5682-2>
While a more formal production of Palestinian oral history production
thus began decades ago, it is currently experiencing a surge. Historian
Beshara Doumani dubbed
<http://www.palestine-studies.org/jq/fulltext/165402>this wider
phenomenon of preservation a “Palestinian archive fever.” In April 2016
the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded a $260,000 grant to
the Palestinian Oral History Archive
<http://www.aub.edu.lb/IFI/PROGRAMS/POHA/Pages/index.aspx>housed at the
American University of Beirut, where a team is digitizing and coding
1,000 hours of interviews with refugees from 135 Palestinian villages
who fled during the Nakba.
Other recent productions include journal articles
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/2201473X.2014.955945>as well
as themes for magazine
<http://www.badil.org/en/publication/periodicals/al-majdal/itemlist/category/38-issue32.html>and
journal
<http://mada-research.org/en/2014/04/22/reflections-palestinian-oral-history-jadal-issue-20-april-2014/>issues,
conferences
<http://english.dohainstitute.org/content/ca049653-99a1-4471-92d3-2adb868fa608>and
community workshops
<http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/iais/research/projects/details/index.php?id=328>,
audio
<http://the-archipelago.net/2015/02/15/hana-sleiman-constructing-a-palestinian-oral-history-archive/>
interviews <http://www.statushour.com/hana-slieman.html>,and the Nakba
Museum <http://nakbamuseumdc.org/siteportal/NM3/index.html>project in
Washington, DC. The new Palestinian Museum
<http://www.palmuseum.org/language/arabic>located on the campus of
Birzeit University, inaugurated in May 2016, may also come to serve as a
prime oral history institution. In addition, Sayigh continues her
engagement through such projects as history books
<http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/18421/what-history-books-for-children-in-palestinian-cam>for
Palestinian children in refugee camps that use oral history – told by
the children themselves – as content.
Since its origins, Palestinian oral history production has been
concerned with recording the testimonies of the aging Nakba generation,
but also with creating a platform for displaced communities and their
ownership over knowledge. In the context of Palestinian statelessness,
Zionist Israeli state archives extend settler colonialism into the
spaces of knowledge preservation and production where Palestinian
narratives are erased or exploited.
Three decades after concerted Palestinian oral history efforts began,
oral history projects now traverse four or more generations of displaced
Palestinians. Because of its emphasis on social history and marginalized
perspectives, oral history work has the potential to create a space for
diverse multi-generational experiences. This can be leveraged as a
counter-archive to ongoing settler colonial erasure.
Palestinian Oral History as Activism
The field of oral history production has already seen enormous
contributions <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/241268>from Palestinians
worldwide, giving its practitioners opportunities for advancing a
community approach designed to combat ongoing displacements
<http://www.badil.org/en/>in Palestine. However, while Palestinian oral
history production is vast, few initiatives have been explicit about
oral history’s relationship to activism, save for one: Palestine
Remembered.
/"Oral history can amplify community
struggles defending against displacements by documenting
protests, legal battles, and cultural expression."/
Palestine Remembered
<http://www.palestineremembered.com/OralHistory/Interviews-Listing/Story1151.html>,a
digital project founded by Salah Mansour, demonstrates a recent
multimedia approach to the use of Palestinian oral history for activism.
The al-Nakba’s Oral History Project, launched as a subsection of
Palestine Remembered in 2003, now contains more than 600 interviews with
Nakba survivors or descendants of survivors. The interviews are drawn
explicitly into the realm of activism and advocacy through a section
titled “The Conflict 101
<http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story725.html>.”
The section situates dispossession as central to the narrative, and the
oral history portal is contingent on the direct participation of
displaced communities. Interviews are coupled with maps
<http://www.palestineremembered.com/Maps/index.html>and photographs that
advance a counter narrative to Zionism, with the interviews providing
content to bolster a counter-cartography. The platform as a whole
curates oral history, cartography, photography, and other content around
a narrative of resistance.
While recording stories of Palestinian elders who witnessed the Nakba is
more urgent than ever, oral history also has the potential to amplify
community struggles to defend against current displacements by
documenting protests, legal battles, and cultural expression. This
provides a space for a counter narrative that is particularly useful to
Palestinian communities living under Israeli rule, whether in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory or in Israel, or for Palestinians
marginalized by other governments. ^3
<https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/palestinian-oral-history-tool-defend-displacement/#note-5682-3>
A networked and activist oral history practice can prioritize community
building and autonomy from structures of Israeli state domination while
strengthening Palestinian ties across fragmented Palestine and the
diaspora. This is particularly crucial at this juncture, as the Israel
State Archive
<http://nakbafiles.org/2016/05/26/archives-week-on-the-nakba-files/>has
announced changes that will result in restricted access to documents,
including those regarding confiscated Palestinian property that could
shed light on Israeli land seizures.
The growth of worldwide Palestinian oral history production initiatives
comprises the basis for a network in which campaigns could be amplified.
Palestine Remembered and the Beirut-based Palestinian Oral History
Archive are two of the main recent actors establishing this groundwork
through documentation and digitization. Together and with others they
can share common methods and resources and mobilize oral history in
creative and powerful ways. One potential avenue for such networked
activism is to support specific communities that are defending
themselves against displacement.
Legal Roadblocks and Local Avenues for Success
Two communities in urgent need of oral history as an activist practice
are the neighboring villages of Attir and Umm al-Hiran
<http://www.adalah.org/en/tag/index/645>in the northern Naqab. These
villages immediately south of the Green Line of the West Bank are home
to around 1,000 residents and are under immediate threat of expulsion,
much like the nearby South Hebron Hills villages including Susiya
<http://mondoweiss.net/2016/08/considers-demolition-opinion/>. A recent
Israeli High Court ruling has slated Attir and Umm al-Hiran for
demolition and replacement with a Jewish-only town and a Jewish National
Fund forest.
Residents and allies are organizing a defense, but appealing such cases
within the Israeli court system is fraught with obstacles. Israeli
courts are known to deny oral testimonies as proof of Palestinian land
claims.
/"Oral history opens spaces of possibility by mobilizing
multigenerational stories of rootedness."/
For example, in 2015, the Israeli High Court rejected the oral
testimonies to residence and ownership of the Al Uqbi family of the
unrecognized Al Araqib village in the Naqab. The court does not include
in its definition of ownership the Palestinian Bedouin legal culture of
oral contracts, a system that long preceded the Israeli state. The court
ruling
<http://972mag.com/israel-supreme-court-bedouin-have-no-indigenous-rights/107171/>was
significant in that it legitimized state expropriation of indigenous
land, a law-based method that furthers settler colonialism and is also
seen <http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719071683/>in
Australia, North America, and South Africa.
While the Israeli government and courts reject claims by Palestinian
citizens of Israel and non-citizens alike, the value of oral history
work is in producing narratives unconstrained by the contortions needed
to survive the ethnic-based exclusionary logic of the Israeli legal
system. Essentially, the practice generates an alternative history that
stands in contrast to lawmaking and other modes of officialdom.
By extending backward, narratives autonomous from the state’s discourse
show how precarious and temporary Israeli laws or previous regimes of
rule (British and Ottoman) can be while reinforcing community identity.
Working outside of and in opposition to the legal discourse highlights
the law’s limitations and affirms indigeneity in the face of settler
colonial law. It therefore also extends forward, creating alternative
narratives and opens the space for planning how to implement
<http://zochrot.org/en/press/52857>the right of return. This can be seen
in designs of digital villages <http://zochrot.org/en/video/56386>based
on the memories of pre-Nakba generations. Oral history opens spaces of
possibility by mobilizing multi-generational stories of rootedness. ^4
<https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/palestinian-oral-history-tool-defend-displacement/#note-5682-4>
In a context in which the legal system is designed to reject Palestinian
existence, to be successful advocacy work must foster an approach that
can function independently of state institutions. ^5
<https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/palestinian-oral-history-tool-defend-displacement/#note-5682-5>
Advocacy and activism can be designed to bolster the vibrancy of
communities by addressing localized needs.
An activist use of oral history production frames community building as
a form of self defense by filling needs for localized knowledge and
literature. Whether in the Naqab or across Palestine, other essential
projects include documenting
<http://www.merip.org/mero/interventions/guide-perplexed>village
histories, establishing networks <http://www.pal-youth.org/>for public
action and protest, and strengthening informal organizations to promote
civil society <http://www.grassrootsalquds.net/>.
Attir and Umm al-Hiran are particularly important sites for activism
because, despite notable exceptions,
<https://bdsmovement.net/news/stop-prawer-plan-call-action-november-30th>Palestinian
communities of the Naqab do not receive equivalent attention, support,
or resources as do those of the West Bank or the Galilee. The result is
that Palestinians and those concerned with the plight of Palestinians
are largely unaware of and misunderstand the conditions for the
community in the Naqab who face severe attempts at displacement. For
this reason and others, Attir and Umm al-Hiran are prime candidates for
activist intervention in the form of oral history, including, for
example, the production of a variety of advocacy materials for a
community at risk of its second displacement since 1948.
Orienting Oral History Towards Justice
While the act of recording personal experiences – particularly those
that challenge dominant narratives and structures – is activist in
nature, oral history is well-suited for more organized and systematic
activism, advocacy, and community mobilization. Especially in the face
of ongoing displacements and a denied right of return, a collective body
of Palestinian oral history production can be leveraged by activists to
advocate for land and other claims and to defend communities against
displacement.
/"Oral history production necessarily anchors activist and advocacy
efforts in communities' own narratives."/
There is a pressing need for reorienting an understanding of advocacy
and activism toward community building on the local and collective
levels. Rights appeals to international actors – the dominant mode of
Palestinian advocacy today – can and should derive from a prioritization
of local audiences and needs. Oral history production necessarily
anchors activist and advocacy efforts in communities’ own narratives.
In addition to prioritizing local audiences and needs and leveraging a
widespread oral history network, oral history activists could also draw
from and contribute to comparative initiatives:
* The US-based Groundswell
<http://www.oralhistoryforsocialchange.org/>network includes a
number of oral history organizations and practitioners that focus
explicitly on leveraging oral history for “movement building and
transformative social change,” in which personal stories are used to
refute marginalization. Groundswell can provide lessons on
mobilizing oral history for organizing and advocacy through a network.
* The San Francisco-based Anti-Eviction Mapping Project
<http://www.antievictionmappingproject.net/narratives.html>and its
online oral history and data analysis directly challenge landlord
abuse and urban displacement. Though the contexts of displacement in
San Francisco and the Palestinian case differ vastly, translating
across them offers a model that leverages oral history as an
organizing tool in addition to its established role as a repository
for memory. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project conducts oral history
work through “deep descriptions” that provide complete stories
rather than sound bytes. By avoiding one-dimensional depictions of
people, such oral history also seeks to challenge normative framings
of advocacy work.
Digitization makes a comparative and better networked Palestinian oral
history possible. Along with dozens of well-established oral history
initiatives, such as Birzeit University’s online catalog of historical
resources including oral history interviews
<http://www.awraq.birzeit.edu/?q=search/node/%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%AE%20%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%81%D9%88%D9%8A>,
there are many small-scale family or community-based oral history
practices that often go no further than the homes of those who recorded
them. The groundwork for leveraging a widespread oral history network is
primed for a step forward. Both established Palestinian oral history
work and upcoming work, such as that of the Palestinian Oral History
Archive in Lebanon, can be oriented toward justice and social change.
Thayer Hastings
<https://al-shabaka.org/en/author/thayer-hastings/>
Al-Shabaka Policy Member Thayer Hastings is a master's candidate at the
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies of Georgetown University in
Washington, DC, where he is primarily studying critical citizenship,
displacement and settler colonialism. After completing a B.A. from the
University of Washington in Seattle, he returned to Palestine, where he
carried out research and advocacy in law and human rights. Thayer worked
with local Palestinian and international non-governmental organizations,
including BADIL Resource Center and the American Friends Service
Committee. His research and writing continue to be informed by a
commitment to community-led initiatives and decolonizing methodologies.
:)
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