A Symphony of Absence: Borders and Liminality in Elia Suleiman's Chronicle of a Disappearance

This article discusses Elia Suleiman's Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996) on the background of the Al Aqsa Intifada. The film was chosen not only because of its innovative aesthetics but also due to its prophetic, as well as, disturbing political analysis of the Zionist enterprise embedded within its unique cinematic style

The Arab Spring in view from Israel

The Arab Spring is one of the most complex and surprising political developments of the new century, especially after a decade of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab western propaganda. While is too early to properly evaluate the process and its various national apparitions, it is important to see it in a historical context. This article places the Arab Spring fijirmly within the history of pan Arabism, and the threat it posed to the west and Israel in its earlier, Nasserist phase. The work of Amin, Marfleet and others, is used to frame the current developments, and present the limited view offfered from an Israeli perspective, where any democratisation of the Arab world is seen as a threat. This is so despite the obvious influence the Arab Spring had on protest in Israel in Summer 1011, a protest which has now seemingly spent itself; it is fascinating to note that the only protest movement in the Middle East not involving violent clashes with the regime it criticised, is also the one which has not achieved any of its aims

Photographic Practices : Towards a Different Image

The twenty essays in this anthology trace the development of photographic production and distribution in Britain since the 1960s. The authors describe the use of photography in the educational and political sectors, the commercial market place, art galleries and museums, and journals. Issues of imagery, class, race, gender, sexuality and age are discussed in relation to state funding, community activism, youth culture and technology. Includes directory of photographic resources divided into geographical areas. 159 bibl. ref

Nakba : Palestina, 1948, y los reclamos de la memoria

Una mujer. Palestina. Un cuerpo sufriente ante el horror. Una mujer tapando su boca. Una mujer en un campo de refugiados bombardeado. Una mujer en un lugar: en el campo Baq´a, Jordania. Una mujer y una fecha. Un color, sepia. Una palabra: NAKBA. Una ausencia: la tierra. Un trabajo colectivo: la memoria palestina. Mentado cuando Ahmad H Saadi y Lilia Abu-Lughod se encontraron en el funeral de Ibrahim, su padre, en Jaffa, quien en el fin de su vida ejerció el derecho de retorno. "El retornó, dijo el poeta Mahmoud Darwish en el funeral, para plantar en ella el árbol del conocimiento y el él era ese árbol. El nació en Jaffa y a Jaffa retornó, para permanecer allí por la eternidad, cerca del árbol del paraíso". No todos los libros merecen el mismo lugar en la historia de la humanidad. En particular, Nakba. Palestina, 1948 y los reclamos de la memoria posee el valor testimonial de una fecha, igualmente traumática para Palestina y para la humanidad: el 15 de mayo de 1948. Ahmad H Saadi y Lilia Abu-Lughod nos recuerdan que la Nakba es el punto al que retornan los palestinos a cierta edad, que la Nakba no está finalizada todavía. Ella es la piedra de toque de la esperanza de cada palestina y palestino que ansía retornar a su hogar

Liberating methodologies and Nakba studies: Palestinian history and memory from below as sites of lifelong learning

Historians too often construct frameworks and methodologies which obfuscate social, economic and political oppression. This article explores new historical methodologies that can represent oppressed and marginalised groups in Palestine. In particular the article focuses on the role of indigenous history and memory in critical learning and shaping individual and collective identity in Palestine. It further argues that Palestinian memories ‘from below’ since the Nakba have played a major positive role in the recovery from the traumatic catastrophe and the reconstruction of Palestinian identity. The article critiques the manipulation of collective memory by social, political and economic elites and top-down nationalist approaches. It argues that reconfigured popular memories can be liberating and empowering for embattled Palestinians. The article also calls for the establishment of an interdisciplinary subfield of Nakba Studies that would bring together historians, social memory and cultural theorists, postcolonial scholars and scholars of trauma studies with the aim of documenting and studying the embattled social memory of Palestine as a site of lifelong learning and empowerment