What it Means to be Palestinian: Reflections on Anti-colonial Identities in Times of Excessive Production and Destruction

Matar, Dina

Abstract

In this essay, I argue that during moments of extreme flux and danger, such as the ongoing Israeli war against Gaza, it becomes relevant to consider how Palestinian identity is constructed and performed by a variety of actors, by Palestinians and by their supporters, as the most compelling contemporary form of a transnational anti-colonial identity emerging within and in opposition to persisting colonial structures, oppression and subjugation. It is also in these moments, I propose, that it becomes necessary to resituate, reconfigure and re-center Palestine in the imagination, not as a pre-determined bounded entity, but as an entity that is always in conversation with its imagined spatiality and temporality and with national and transnational communal anti-colonial struggles.

Citation

Matar, D. (2024). What it Means to be Palestinian: Reflections on Anti-colonial Identities in Times of Excessive Production and Destruction. Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, 17(3), 246-253. https://doi.org/10.1163/18739865-01703001

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 22, 2024
• Publication Date: Oct 10, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 4, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 26, 2024
• Journal: Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication
• Print ISSN: 1873-9857
• Electronic ISSN: 1873-9865
• Publisher: Brill Academic Publishers
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 246-253
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/18739865-01703001
• Keywords: anti-colonial; oppression; Palestinian identity; spatiality; temporality; transnational
• Publisher URL: https://brill.com/view/journals/mjcc/17/3/article-p246_5.xml