Nationalizing the Sacred: Shrines and Shifting Identities in the Israeli-Occupied Territories

Abstract

This article approaches transformations of social identity in situations of nationalist conflict through an examination of Christian and Muslim Palestinian interpretations of, and practices at, two shrines on the Israeli-Occupied West Bank. The semantic multivocality of one holy place, studied in the early 1980s, is seen to reflect the diversity of interests of the various communities which revere it. The other shrine, studied during the Palestinian uprising, is seen to be more 'fixed' in its meaning, and this apparent univalence is analysed as an expression of a new form of social identity generated by struggle against the Israeli occupation. The article contrasts the new secular nationalist identity to alternative forms of community founded on sectarian affiliation, and demonstrates how, in situations of radical social conflict between a multi-sectarian community and a 'foreign' enemy, perceptions of the antagonism of the Other can generate new forms of imagined community within which communal differences are subsumed but not elided. As a consequence of the formation of a 'national' identity, local Christian and Muslim traditions come to be seen as expressing simultaneously sectarian affiliation and an overarching national unity.