biography
an interdisciplinary quarterly
37.2 • Spring 2014
Dedication
Editors’ Introduction
Cynthia G. Franklin, Morgan Cooper, and Ibrahim G. Aoudé
Life in Occupied Palestine: Three Cafés and a Special Issue
Against the backdrop of Israel’s invasions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the summer of 2014, the coeditors introduce this special issue: its formation, and the importance and power of the contributors’ writings about life in Palestine under conditions of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism.
Articles
section one: borders, journeys, home
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian and Sarah Ihmoud
Exiled at Home: Writing Return and the Palestinian Home
Drawing on our personal histories navigating the violence of Israeli settler colonialism and militarization, we theorize the Palestinian home space as not only a physical, but also a psychological and epistemological space of yearning, of belonging, and of radical thinking and becoming. In light of the colonial state’s continued attempts to further fragment and dislocate indigenous Palestinians
from their homeland, we posit an analytics of returning to our home/land as a space of reconstructing Palestinian socialities and identities, of re-rooting through a radical praxis of love that can give birth to new forms of resistance.
Alex Winder
After the Nakba in Nuba: A Palestinian Villager’s Diary, 1949
This article uses diary entries recorded by a Palestinian villager from outside Hebron to explore individual Palestinian subjectivities and experiences in the immediate aftermath of the 1948 war; tropes of village life and displacement in Palestinian national narratives; and the difficulties and possibilities presented by diaries in approaching Palestinian history and life writing.
Magid Shihade
Not Just a Picnic: Settler Colonialism, Mobility, and Identity
among Palestinians in Israel
Through the lens of picnics, this article narrates the social and political history of a village in Galilee and its residents since 1948, which serves as a picture for the larger Palestinian experience and the consequences of the rupture created by the Zionist colonization of Palestine.
Lina Hesham AlSharif
Locked Out
Cut off from home and family, the author pays witness to the way the occupation affects the ability of Palestinians to return and to see their loved ones.

Honaida Ghanim
Once Upon a Border: The Daily Life of Resistance—the Case
of the Palestinian Village of al-Marja, 1949–1967
This article explores how the Palestinian residents of al-Marja, a village adjacent to the Green Line, experienced the first appearance of the “borders” in their lives in 1949, and the traces left by the partition of their spatial sphere amongst enemy forces, separating them from the organic world to which they were accustomed. Based on stories from the villagers, the article focuses on the arrangements, techniques, and tools that residents developed to “recapture” their ordinary life.

section two: invasions, incarcerations, and insurgent imagination
Ruanne Abou Rahme, with Morgan Cooper
Incidental Insurgents: An Interview with Ruanne Abou Rahme 507
Abou Rahme talks about her work with Basel Abbas on Incidental Insurgents. Structured like an audio visual novel, the project focuses on the figure of the bandit, investigating archival and oral histories while insisting on the recovery and import of incidental insurgents in the history of revolutions and particularly in the history of Palestinian resistance against oppression.
Raja Shehadeh, with Cynthia G. Franklin
Towards a New Language of Liberation: An Interview 516
Raja Shehadeh discusses the poetics of writing and the role the writer can play as witness and seeker of justice.
Refaat R. Alareer
Gaza Writes Back: Narrating Palestine 524
In Palestine, stories are sacred. In trying times, we turn to story-telling for solace. Mothers and grandmothers are the major source of stories in the families. And just when you are old enough, you realise that you have been shaped by these stories and that they go far beyond entertainment. As a Palestinian, I have been brought up on stories, and I learned early in my life that it’s both selfish and treacherous to keep a story to myself. If I allowed a story to stop, I would be betraying my legacy, my mother, my grandmother, and my homeland. This essay describes the creation of a collection of stories by young Palestinian authors that whet the much-needed talent for life.
Lina Hesham AlSharif
Write What You Know 538
“Write what you know . . .
I know that I am a Palestinian . . . .”
Sonia Nimr
Dreaming of Never Land 540
This essay focuses on the author’s journey to and three years incarceration in Maskoubiya prison, situating the experience in the broader context of Palestinian life under Israeli Occupation.
Sa‘ed Omar
“Food is not our issue”: Reflections on Hunger Striking 556
The author discusses his reasons for going on hunger strike while in prison, attempts by Israel and the Palestinian Authority to break his spirit, and his refusal renounce his vision for a free Palestine.
section three: reciprocal solidarities and other revolutionary relations
Yassmine Saleh Hamayel and Islah Jad
From the West Bank: Letters and Acts of Resistance 563
Highlighting excerpts from letters written by Islah Jad at the height of the 2002 Israeli invasion of the West Bank cities, in this essay her daughter, Yassmine Saleh Hamayel, reflects on the letters as a daughter, as a high school student at the time of the invasion, and as a participant in the 2011–2013 youth activism against the occupation in Palestine.

Rima Najjar
Life in Abu Dis Continues Quietly 606
“Life in Abu Dis Continues Quietly” explores how Rima Najjar makes strategic use of different forms of life writing on Facebook to communicate the human costs of the Israeli occupation and to foster resistance to the dehumanizing representations (or erasures) of Palestinians upon which the Israeli government’s continued human rights abuses depend.

Yousef M. Aljamal
Traveling as a Palestinian 664
This article documents the difficulties a Palestinian from Gaza faces when travelling. It sheds lights on the main obstacles and challenges Palestinians face when obtaining visas and at borders and airports. What is taken for granted by many people in the world is not considered as such by Palestinians who have been living under Israeli occupation and siege for decades.
Sa‘ed Atshan and Darnell L. Moore
Reciprocal Solidarity: Where the Black and Palestinian
Queer Struggles Meet 680
In this article, two queer men, one Black American and the other Palestinian, theorize “reciprocal solidarity” as a model of solidarity that thrives on love, friendship, storytelling, reciprocity, shared experiences, struggles, and queer kinship.

section four: forging a just future
Omar Barghouti and Falastine Dwikat, with the editors
The “I” in BDS: Individual Creativity and Responsibility
in the Context of Collective Praxis: An Interview 709
Omar Barghouti and Falastine Dwikat reflect on the personal experiences and contributions of activists, artists, and academics in the Palestinian-led BDS movement, a vibrant example of a movement that embraces the dialectic between the individual and the collective, balancing individual responsibility and creativity with collective decision-making and action.