Political Protests in Palestine as a Site of Cultural Production

• In Event: 66.061 - Cultural Production and Participatory Politics: Practices, Intersections, and Pedagogies

Abstract

In historic Palestine, which is now divided into Israel 48’, the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinians are regularly confronted by oppression and violence enacted upon them by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) or Israeli settlers. Living in a settler colonial state under military occupation and apartheid Palestinians are constantly defending themselves to survive and exist as a people. Palestinians engage in resistance on a daily basis, and politically participate in various forms of protest against a potent colonial power that denies them any political autonomy and sovereignty as a people. Under the state of siege and war, youth politically participate in shifting social relations in their society by engaging in cultural production. Palestinian youth dance (Dabkeh), sing, rap, act, shoot films, tell stories and jokes, smoke shisha, cook, go shopping, wear make-up, pray, graffiti on walls, parkour, walk through the streets, attend protests, and partake in online chats with other Palestinians– what Paul Willis (1990) calls “symbolic creativity”. This presentation will discuss how Palestinian youth are engaged in the production of culture through direct action protests – a form of participatory politics. In particular, the presentation will focus on the protests of youth in Hebron and Bil’in (two areas in the West Bank). The paper will address how youth are engaged in processes of cultural production during protest, by focusing on their use of technologies such as cameras and video recorders that document Israeli violence. For these youth, engagement with art forms such as filmmaking and photography is not for the sake of making art, but rather as a form of participatory politics that seeks freedom, justice, equality and decolonization.

Author

• Chandni Desai, OISE/University of Toronto