Oral history, colonialist dispossession, and the state: the Palestinian case

Abstract

Oral history as a practice that both enriches and subverts official history has not yet taken root in the Arab region. Among the exceptions are the Palestinians, a stateless people who have used oral and visual documents to record experiences of colonialist dispossession and violence that challenge dominant Zionist and Western versions of history. This paper offers an overview of Palestinian oral history production from the Nakba of 1948 until the present day, with attention to conditions that have encouraged it as well as those that have constrained it. I argue that the particular form taken by Zionist colonialism, including a myth of prior habitation, exceptional military mobilization, and power of appeal to Western guilt, have succeeded in ‘silencing’ official Palestinian claims to justice and restoration. National movement leaders have neglected the role of popular history in protracted struggle against a powerful occupier, thus leaving to ordinary people, researchers, solidarity workers, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) the task of recording Palestinian experience. Periodic Israeli attacks have rendered the systematic collection of such records precarious, leaving them to be gathered in hundreds of local or domestic sites. I argue that protracted crisis and neglect of popular experience by the national leadership have been the primary factors propelling a prolific recording of popular memories, while the existence of local intelligentsias has been an essential contributing factor. Extending analysis to Occupied Palestine today, the recording of popular experience is jeopardized by Israeli policing, settler violence, and the Palestinian Authority's lack of political or cultural autonomy.