Description
Book SynopsisBased on extensive interviews with members of the "intifada generation," those who were between 10 and 18 years old when the intifada began in 1987, this book provides a detailed look at the intifada memories of ordinary Palestinians.
Trade ReviewA powerfully honest work and a tremendous contribution to the literature on memory and violence in the Middle East. Superbly narrated, Occupied by Memory is compassionate but not sentimental, theoretically astute, and empathetically written. -- Ussama Makdisi,author of The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ott
In Occupied by Memory, John Collins asks the 'intifada generation' to remember aloud the first intifada, what it might have meant, and what it has come to mean for them now. At once provocative and sensitive, John Collins's narrative probes deeply into the history of the last decade of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, human rights, and social justice. -- Barbara Harlow,author of After Lives: Legacies of Revolutionary Writing
Theoretically sharp and well written, Occupied by Memory propels the scholarship on Palestinians and perpetual states of violence in new and promising directions. -- Julie Peteet,author of Gender in Crisis: Women and the Palestinian Resistance Movement
One of the best illustrations of contemporary scholars’ fascination with the concept of memory as a concept closer to experience, a more human, subjective, and politically subversive notion than History. * Critique of Anthropology *
In this fascinating ethnographic account, John Collins shows how Palestinians remember, re-shape, and reinvent in their popular imagination the first Inti-fada, or uprising, of 1987-1993. * Middle East Journal *
Table of ContentsNote on Transliteration Acknowledgments Prologue: Approaching a Permanent State of Emergency 1 Production Notes 2 "Gaza Is Ruled by a Child": The Intifada and the Rhetoric of Generation 3 Between Romance and Tragedy: A Balata Family Confronts the Present 4 The Secret Locations of Memory: Political Lessons at Home and in Prison 5 The Testing Grounds of Memory: Social Inversion at School and in the Streets 6 "In the Beginning ... but Afterward ...": Moral Chronologies and Reassessments of the Intifada 7 Postscript: A Permanent State of Emergency (continued) Appendix: The Intifada: A Brief Overview Notes Glossary of Arabic Terms Bibliography Index About the Author
