Helena Lindholm Schulz
Please see powerpoint (soon to be) posted at: http://kursportal.student.gu.se/inst/S2GLS%7C_%7CNONE/RS2235/filuppladdning/browse2.php?dir=Kursmoment%2FLecture+notes+and+ppt
Here are my---not very complete--- notes:
Background
- The Palestinian population is disbursed throughout the world due to "normal" migration and al Nakba or the catastrophe in which Palestinians left historical Palestine in 1947/1948.
-The focus of today's lecture is how Palestinian identity is and has been shaped.
- Palestinian identity has primarily been shaped by displacement, exile, and fragmentation.
- "The Land" is incredibly important due to the forced absence of Palestinians from the land of Palestine.
Diaspora Concept
- A diaspora is a population which departed from the "home" country by force or other means and now resides in two or more countries.
Patterns of Migration
- The ultimate focal point of Palestinian identity is Al-Nakba, 1947/1948.
¤ This serves as the begining of many individual's stories of expulsion.
¤ Approximately 700,000 Palestinians fled at this time.
- 1967, Six-Day War
¤ Approximately 300,000 Palestinians fled and/or were prohibited from returning to Palestine.
- Migration did occur prior to and after 1947 and 1967.
¤ Christian Palestinians migrated to the Americas.
- The Palestinian condition is very much shaped by migration.
- It is difficult to count the numebr of Palestinians in a given country because they are often considered stateless or citizens of other Middle Eastern countries.
¤ Many Palestinian refugees living in Sweden come from Lebanon.
¤ Migration to Sweden occured after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
Al-Nakba
- This is a formative event for Palestinian identity.
- As a result of Al-Nakba, Palestinians became the "wanderers of the earth" and participants in an "endless journey".
Refugees
- The Palestinian refugee question is one of the oldest refugee questions of modern times.
- The United Nations (UN) established the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in 1950 to help Palestinian refugees.
¤ Palestinians are the only refugee group handled by an exclusive UN agency.
- In order to be counted as a refugee after 1948, Palestinians had to have lost both their homes and their means of livelihood.
¤ This is an inherited status.
- There are approximately 4.767 million registered Palestinian refugees throughout the world including those living in the West Bank and Gaza.
- Palestinian refugees are accorded different rights and status depending on their country of residence.
¤ In Lebanon, Palestinians are "foreigners" whereas, in Jordan, many Palestinians are citizens.
Rootlessness/ Homelessness
- Displacement causes an intense search for a lost place.
- Identity is formed out of place/ homelessness/ constant journey.
- Fragmentation/ rootlessness is constitutive of Palestinian identity.
¤ This is a paradox in comparison to other national(ist) narratives.)
Immobility/ Denial/ Confinement
- Palestinians are restricted from moving freely.
¤ There are checkpoints, fences, road blocks, etc.
¤ Many Palestinians are confined due to a lack of valid travel documents.
- Many Palestinians speak of life as a prison.
¤ Gaza: world's largest civilian prison
¤ The "barrier" wall resembles a prison wall.
Return
- Return is an important focal point in Palestinian politics.
- Land is romanticized and idealized.
- There is a strong need to reclaim history and/or claim the right to history.
- PLO: did/do not want Palestinians to integrate into Arab countries of residence.
Home
- Home has a special meaning which has been lost and is difficult to recreate in exile.
- Stories about "home" are fictious and nostalgic but also very important.
Time
- Many await a time in the near future when they may return.
- Refugees born in exile do not have memories of their own.
¤ They have/ had to rely on the stories of their family members.
¤ They do not experience a loss but a lack.
Struggle
- In the decades after al-Nakba, it was difficult for Palestinians to organize.
- The PLO was formed under an Egyptian initiative.
- The ultimate aim of Palestinian struggle: to return, to change from refugees to returnees.
- PLO: Palestinians should be active in shaping their own destinies. In other words, they should turn passive suffering into active struggling.
- There are two poles of Palestinian identity:
¤ Suffering
¤ Struggling, including armed struggle
- Romanticized notions of return have helped fuel struggle.
- PLO: feared integration would erode the Palestinian right to return to historic Palestine.
Transnationalism
- Generations of Palestinians have been born and have grown up in exile. These generations have no memories or personal images of Palestine.
- Five decades of exile have had an impact on Palestinian identity.
- Are Palestinians slowing forgetting or adding and adjusting?
- Transnationalism is something overlooked (until recently) by integration scholars in Western societies.
Palestinian Nationalism
- Palestinian nationalism was created out of exile and expulsion.
- Territory and land are important focal points.
- Palestinian nationalism is defined both by hyper-mobility and absolute confinement.
Maintaining Contact
- Many Palestinians who have the means and the documents, vacation in the West Bank.
¤ These Palestinians may send their children to Palestine to learn Arabic and to receive a cultural education.
- Of course, contact with family abroad has many costs including time, money, and effort.
- Today, complementary identities may be a better description of Palestinian identities--- rather than hybrid identities.
J. Clifford
- "This consitutive suffering coexists with the skills of survival...Diaspora consciousness lives loss and hope as a defining tension."
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