Embodying Homeland: Palestinian Grief and the Perseverance of Beauty in a Time of Genocide

Abstract

In this essay, the authors theorize that Israel’s genocide of Palestinians teaches us that a central focus of colonialism is not simply to annex Native land and accumulate resources, but to also transmit anguish and grief into the bodies of the colonized and onto the landscape. Through an ongoing dialogue interwoven throughout the essay, the authors share their reflections on grief as holding liberatory potential in the face of the colonial weaponization of loss, conveying how they have come to understand Palestinian grief as a critical enactment of decolonial love in what they call the “perseverance of beauty.” Awartani, a survivor of a near-fatal attack against his body and life, speaks with coauthor Atallah about these layers of loss, rage, and anguish built into the settler-colonial project and the power of revolutionary grief as liberatory praxis.