Archiving Praxis: For Palestine and Beyond

Abstract

This article is an effort to register the archival surge among Palestinians in Palestine and beyond. It is focused not on the collection of archives but on the mulitmedia practice of archiving as political practice. It is not the work in and on archives that redefines the terms of engagement but the practice of archiving itself. The challenge is directed at what constitutes custodial control, access, rubrics of order, and a pedagogy of use. Academics, artists, and activists are challenging the aesthetics of dissent and the work of aesthetics in redefining what constitutes the political in oppressive colonial regimes today. Countermovements of documentation are efforts to displace rather than only disprove colonial truth. The conceits of what counts as archival labor—and who can do it—are poised to implode.