Nakba oral history day

17 February 2008

www.nakba60.org.uk in association with SOAS Palestine Society and LSE SU Palestine Society

Present

ORAL HISTORY DAY

Saturday 1 MARCH 2008

(free admission)

Please book in advance at: rsvp@nakba60.org.uk

The Eye of the Spoken Word: Oral History and The 1948 Nakba

The Oral History Day event brings together scholars, filmmakers and oral history specialists to reflect on the narratives of the 1948 Nakba. Presenting the people's voices, the speakers will further discuss the importance of oral history as an instrument for preserving the Palestinian collective memory and relaying the events that surrounded the 1948 Nakba and beyond. We will hear and see stories of both the survivors and the perpetrators throughout the day.

Registration: 11:00

Room G2

SOAS - School of Oriental and African Studies - Thornhaugh Street, Russell
Square, London WC1H 0XG

Session One: Oral History and Palestine

11:30 - 13:15

Opening Remarks and Chair

Speaker: Lori Allen

Anthropologist and Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, Department of
Middle Eastern Studies.

Narratives of Dispossession, Then and Now: For a Palestinian Memory Archive

Speaker: Lena Jayyusi

Associate Professor, College of Communication and Media Sciences, Zayed
University, Dubai.

Towards a Common Archive: The Nakba in the Words of its Perpetrators

Speaker: Eyal Sivan

Filmmaker and Reader (Associate Professor) in Media at the School of Social
Sciences at the University of East London.

Lunch Break 13:15 - 14:15

Session Two: Palestinian narratives from Jordan and Lebanon

14:15 - 15:15

Content and Context in Oral Narratives: Refugees in Jordan

Speaker: Randa Farah

Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario.

Stories of Palestinians in Lebanon

Speaker: Laleh Khalili

Lecturer in Middle East politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Break 15:15 - 15:30

Session Three: Screening and Panel Discussion

15:30 - 17:00

Screening excerpts from The Nakba Archive: audiovisual testimonies from
Lebanon

The Nakba Archive, a grassroots oral history collective in Lebanon, has recorded over 450 eyewitness testimonies that reconstruct the social, cultural, and political life in Palestine prior to 1948 and the events that led to the expulsion.

Project directors: Diana Allan and Mahmoud Zeidan

Reflections on Oral History Day

Panel Discussion with the day's speakers

* The Oral History Day is organised by Nakba60 in association with SOAS Palestine Society.

Biographies and additional information

Dr Lori Allen is an anthropologist and Lecturer at the University of Cambridge, Department of Middle Eastern Studies. She has spent several years conducting research in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and writes about Palestinian politics and culture. She is currently writing a book about the history of rights and the politics of suffering in Palestinian politics. In addition to a number of articles published in Middle East Report, she is the author of movie and art reviews, as well as "The Polyvalent Politics of Martyr Commemorations in the Palestinian Intifada," published in History and Memory.

Dr Lena Jayyusi established the Oral History Programme at Shaml: The Palestinian Diaspora and Refugee Centre, and since 1995 she has been a Senior Research Fellow with Muwatin: The Palestinian Institute for the Study
of Democracy. Her research, teaching and publications focus on language use, visual studies, media and cultural studies, citizenship and national identity in the Palestinian context, and on memory and oral history. She is author of Categorization and the Moral Order (Routledge & Kegan Paul - due out in French in 2008]; she has also published The Folk Epic of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan, (selections, translation and retelling of a 14th Century Arabic folk-tale), and is currently completing work on an edited collection called Aborted Modernity: Arab Jerusalem and Colonial Transformation 1917-2006. She has taught at several institutions including Cedar Crest College in Pennsylvania, USA where she was Chair of the Department of Communication Studies (1990-94). She is currently Associate Professor at the College of Communication and Media Sciences, Zayed University, Dubai.

Dr Eyal Sivan is a filmmaker and a Reader (Associate Professor) in Media at the School of Social Sciences at the University of East London (UEL). A Producer, an essayist and an editor, he has directed over ten full-length political documentaries of which he received a number of prestigious awards. His films include: Aqabat Jaber-Passing Through (1987), Izkor-Salves of Memory (1990), The Specialist (1999), Route 181, Fragments of a Journey in Palestine-Israel (2003) I Love You All (2004) and Citizens K (2007).

Dr Randa Farah has been an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Western Ontario since 2001. She was also Associate Researcher and visiting fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. She conducted extensive research in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and in Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria. Her publications include: (1) "Oral History in the Palestinian and Sahrawi Contexts: A Comparative Approach." 2007, al-Majdal. 32: 25-30; (2) "Palestinian Refugees: Dethroning the Nation at the Crowning of the 'Statelet'?" Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies - 2006 - Vol. 8, pp. 229-252; (3) "Out of the Shadows. Palestinian Refugee Women." In Women and the Politics of Place. Wendy Harcourt and Arturo Escobar (eds.). Bloomfield: Kumarian Press, 2005 - pp. 206-220; and (4) "Palestinian refugee camps: reinscribing and contesting memory and space." In Isolation Places and Practices of Exclusion. Carolyn Strange and Alison Bashford (eds.). London, Routledge, 2003 - pp. 191-207.

Dr Laleh Khalili is a Lecturer in Middle East politics at the Department of Politics and International Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, UK. Her book, Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge University Press, 2007) is based on research in the refugee camps of Lebanon. She is currently working on a critical genealogy of US detentions and incarcerations in the War on Terror. Some of her other publications include Places of Memory and Mourning: Palestinian Commemoration in the Refugee Camps of Lebanon. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East - Duke University Press - Volume 25, Number 1, 2005, pp. 30-45.

The Nakba Archive:

Since 2002, the Nakba Archive has recorded 500 interviews on digital video with first-generation Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon about their recollections of 1948. This project was conceived as a collaborative grassroots endeavour, in which refugees were encouraged to take part in the process of representing this critical period of history on their own terms. Over three years, a collective of local and international scholars and researchers from the camps created a unique collection of video testimonies, interviewing refugees from over 135 villages in pre-1948 Palestine. Although the archive focused primarily on camp communities, interviews were also conducted with unregistered refugees living in unofficial 'gatherings' and with the middle class and elite. The Nakba Archive consists of around 1000 hours of filmed testimony, and contains a roughly equal number of interviews with men and women. This work was funded by the Welfare Association, the Ford Foundation and through private donations.

Project Directors of The Nakba Archive:

Dr Diana Allan has a doctorate in anthropology and film from Harvard University and is the founder and co-director of the Nakba Archive and Lens on Lebanon, a grassroots media initiative established during the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war. Video documentaries include: Chatila, Beirut (2002) and Still Life (2007). For more information about these projects visit:
www.nakba-archive.org ;
www.lensonlebanon.org .

Mr Mahmoud Zeidan is the co-director of the Nakba Archive and Lens on Lebanon and has a graduate degree in human rights and democratization from the University of Malta. He is an active member of the Palestinian right of return movement in Lebanon.

Duplicate sets of The Nakba Archive and documentary:

Duplicate sets of the Nakba Archive will be available for purchase in the fall of 2008. The collection consists of 1100 DVDs and comes with a database and basic search engine. Prices vary for institutional and private purchases. Two short documentaries about the archive are also available. Proceeds from these sales will be used to support groups working with the Nakba Archive in Syria. For more information please visit www.Nakba-Archive.org or contact Diana Allan: dkallan@gmail.com