Reading Palestinian agency in mandate history: the narrative of the Buraq Revolt as anti-relational

Abstract

ABSTRACTPosited as ‘post-national’ and articulated as ‘relational,’ recent historiography of the mandate period has had a long-term effect on how we read (and have been warned not to read) nationalism and resistance in Palestine. Beyond a critical survey of a select part of this recent historical literature, this essay shows how the question of nationalism has been framed in only one way and towards one end. Using this critical reading of the historical literature, this essay further attempts to open up space for a means of understanding Indigenous nationalism (and indigenous resistance) outside of the confined space of this particular treatment of nation-state nationalism. I suggest we move towards exploring an indigenous epistemological understanding of ‘history as story telling’ outside of these Zionist ontological constraints.