For Palestine’s diaspora and exiled communities, the internet has become an important medium for the formation of Palestinian national and transnational identity. Miriyam Aouragh looks at the internet as both a space and an instrument for linking Palestinian diasporas in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon. Sophie Richter-Devroe finds through the author’s detailed ethnographic work, Aouragh paints a complex and nuanced picture of the interplay between online activities and Palestinian identity constructions, nationalisms and political activism. Palestine Online: the Internet and the Construction of Identity. Miryiam Aouragh. I.B. Tauris. March 2011

Richter-Devroe, Sophie

English

LSE Research Online

blogs.lse.ac.uk http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2012/08/16/book-review-palestine-online/‘Can I chat with Palestine?’ How a statelessnation connects online  Aug  16  2012 For Palestine’s diaspora and exiled communities, the internet has become animportant medium for the formation of Palestinian national and transnational identity.Miriyam Aouragh looks at the internet as both a space and an instrument for linkingPalestinian diasporas in Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon. Sophie Richter-Devroe finds through the author’s detailed ethnographic work, Aouragh paints acomplex and nuanced picture of the interplay between online activities andPalestinian identity constructions, nationalisms and political activism.Palest ine Online: the Internet  and the Construct ion ofIdentity. Miryiam Aouragh. I.B. Tauris. March 2011. Miriyam Aouragh takes up a t imely topic in her book PalestineOnline: Transnationalism, the Internet and the Construction ofIdentity. She invest igates whether and how internet usage impactsupon nat ional ident ity construct ions and polit ical act ivism. How is‘Palest inianness’ expressed, presented and formed online? Has theinternet strengthened or undermined the Palest inian nat ionalstruggle?Over the last  decade there has been a surge in internet studies andresearch on new social media, also in relat ion to the Arab world.This interest  has grown part icularly since the recent Arab uprisings. Dubbing the uprisings as web2.0, Facebook or Twit ter revolut ions, accounts have claimed that the Arab masses took to thestreets, because they were informed, mobilised and coordinated through Facebook, Twit ter andYouTube. It  is as a result  of  these new informat ion communicat ion technologies (ICTs), suchaccounts f ind, that  elite nat ionalisms were quest ioned, authoritarian regimes brought to fall, andsocial and polit ical change init iated. Such opt imist ic statements should be viewed with caut ion:surely the internet has potent ial to act  as a t ransgressive space overcoming censorship andadvancing alternat ive polit ical imaginaries, but the link between online act ivit ies, polit ical act ivismand change is not as straight-forward as we are sometimes led to believe.Aouragh invest igates exact ly these quest ions in a very specif ic context : that  of  a stateless nat ion,Palest ine. She shows that the link between online and of f line dynamics is indeed very complex, notlending itself  to easy predict ions about polit ical t ransformat ions or the changing role of  the nat ion-state. Postmodern celebratory accounts that f ind that ICTs, by overcoming t ime/spacerestrict ions, have the potent ial to undermine the symbolic and actual power of  the nat ion-state(and its control over territory) do not apply to Palest ine, Aouragh argues. Her in-depth analysis ofinternet usage among members of  the scattered Palest inian nat ion shows that the importance of ,and desire for, a Palest inian nat ion-state is not diminishing: “t ransnat ional online communicat ionshere did not erode the meaning of  a Palest inian state, but reconf irmed it .” (p. 126). “Palest ineOnline”, according to Aouragh’s central argument, does not quest ion or reduce Palest iniannat ionalism, but rather strengthens a specif ic “ant i-colonial nat ionalism online” (p. 111).Aouragh’s study relies on an impressive amount of  ethnographic f ield data f rom Jordan (collectedin 2003), Lebanon (2003-2004) and the West Bank (2001-2002). The author visited dif ferentinternet cafes, spoke to internet café owners, ICT specialists and planners, observed onlinebehaviour of  ordinary internet users, online act ivists, men and women, young and old, f romdif ferent backgrounds (class, religion, urban-rural-camp, etc.).Using gender, generat ion and class as primary lenses of  analyses, Aouragh shows that access tothe internet, as well as the ways in which it  is used by, and in which it  inf luences, its users is by nomeans homogeneous across the Palest inian community. Access to the internet is limited by class,but also by gender: girls f rom Nahr El-Bared camp in Lebanon, for example, said that they preferredto go to internet cafés outside the camp to escape the watchful eyes of  conservat ive members oftheir close-knit  community who consider internet cafés immoral places, unsuitable for girls.Generat ion also is a major factor determining internet usage. While the internet has become partof  everyday life for most young Palest inians (who master elaborate IT skills, have their own chatlanguage, etc.), many elderly Palest inians st ill have dif f icult ies to imagine the scope of  possibilit iesoffered by the internet. This incomprehension of  how the internet works and what it  is, of  course,amuses the young, like Shaker who commented: “It  is funny to hear elderly people sometimes ask:‘Did anyone call us on the Ant irnet today?” (Beirut , 2003, quoted on p. 181).The ways in which Palest inians understand, access and use the internet thus varies great ly: somepromote and mobilise for act ivism online, others use it  for advert ising, yet  others for playinggames, or for online romances. Yet, the most signif icant meaning of  the internet for thePalest inian community seems to be its ability to (re-)connect people. One internet café owner inBeirut  told Aouragh: “The f irst  thing many would ask when they came was ‘Can I chat withPalest ine?’” (2003, quoted on p. 188). The internet, both as a tool and as a space, thus plays animportant role in strengthening connect ions between members of  the f ragmented Palest iniancommunity, despite their physical separat ions and the restrict ions placed on them by nat ionalborders. “Chat, email and websites”, according to Aouragh (p. 147), “provided accessibleinstruments and to some extent overcame the fragmented nature of  the Palest inian diaspora.”At the same t ime, it  did, however, also reveal – to the surprise of  some users – dif ferences withinthe Palest inian community and its nat ional discourse. Through the internet Palest inian refugeesf ind out what life in Palest ine – under siege, occupat ion and a ethno-nat ionalist  regime – really islike; and what Palest inians living ‘inside’ really think. This can sometimes be of f -putt ing: refugees inLebanon stressed how disappointed they were when they realised online that not all Palest inianswere interested in the situat ions of  refugees and their rights. The of ten romant icised and idealisedimage of  Palest ine and a unif ied Palest inian community thus, while surely being strengthened,might also become quest ioned or further f issured through and on the internet.Aouragh presents a thoroughly rich ethnography of  Palest inian internet usages, percept ions andmeanings. Yet, her writ ing at  t imes is dense, part icularly in its theoret ical references. The bookwould have benef ited f rom a more robust theoret ical f ramework, bringing together the varioustheoret ical advances (ranging from theories on space & place, (t rans-nat ionalism/s, ident ityformat ions, ICTs and new media, postnat ionalism, set t ler-colonialism, public sphere, etc.) into amore coherent whole. Added to these at  t imes repet it ive and jargon-f illed theoret ical sect ions thebook has some editorial lapses (incomplete referencing, repet it ion of  interview quotat ion).Despite these shortcomings, Aouragh’s Palest ine Online without doubt const itutes a muchneeded and important contribut ion to the literature. Aouragh makes a very crucial point , adding toboth theoret ical and empirical knowledge in the f ield: that  postmodern celebratory accounts ontransnat ionalism and the decline of  the nat ion-state do not hold for cases like Palest ine: Here, inthe context  of  a stateless nat ion, “mobility and territorial f ragmentat ion modify into long-distancenat ionalism rather than causing its decline” (p. 232). Through her detailed ethnographic work,Aouragh paints a complex and nuanced picture of  the interplay between online act ivit ies andPalest inian ident ity construct ions, nat ionalisms and polit ical act ivism – one that clearly def ies easycategorisat ion of  the internet as a ‘revolut ionary’ or necessarily ‘t ransgressive’ space.———————————————————————————–Sophie Richter-Devroe is a Lecturer in Gender and Middle East Studies at  the University ofExeter. Sophie’s PhD research at  the Inst itute of  Arab and Islamic Studies, at  Exeter, examinedPalest inian women’s dif ferent types of  formal and informal polit ical act ivism in ‘peacemaking’ and‘resistance’ af ter the Oslo Accords. She is current ly conduct ing research on Palest inian refugees’dif ferent polit ical cultures on the right  of  return in the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon with Dr.Ruba Salih (SOAS), funded by the Council for Brit ish Research in the Levant. Read more reviews bySophie.Related posts:1. From cyberjihad to Habermas: understanding Muslim ident ity and resistance online (10.2)2. Tales f rom Facebook: culture online in Trinidad (6.7)3. China: the pessopt imist  nat ion (6.1)This entry was posted in Africa and the Middle East, IB Tauris, Philosophy and Religion, Sociologyand Anthropology, Sophie Richter-Devroe and tagged ICTs, ident ity, internet, media, online, onlinecommunit ies, Palest ine, t rasnat ionalism. Bookmark the permalink. Edit

Book review: ‘Can I chat with Palestine?’ How a statelessnation connects online

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

LSE Research Online