Palestinian Women Embroiderers: Embodying Palestinian Indigenous Sovereignty

• In Event: 20410 - Unsettling Race and Gender Through Indigenous Sociologies

Abstract

In this paper, I work to understand the articulation and embodiment of sovereignty by way of social reproduction for those living under settler colonialism and military occupation in Palestine. The current scholarship on social reproduction focuses on women’s roles regarding childbearing and caring for children and/or the community. However, a different means by which social reproduction influences life and politics is through cultural continuity/preservation in the face of dispossession and erasure. that women’s work with Palestinian embroidery is a gendered politics of life and an articulation and embodiment of Indigenous Palestinian sovereignty. The women who embroider the pieces that carry Palestine all over the world would not be considered politically active since they are unseen, their work is done in silence and at home, but their work is the backbone of Palestinian culture and heritage. Embroidery serves as material expression of Palestinian experience, history, and identity.

Author

• Rasmieyh R Abdelnabi, Institute for Palestine Studies