Teach-in Session - Palestine: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives on Current Events

Decolonize Anthropology Society, teach in session

The Decolonise Anthropology Society warmly welcomes you to an anthropological teach-in session about the current violent events in Palestine and their historical contexts. The teach-in will include talks by Dr Lori Allen and Dr Mezna Qato, which will be followed by a Q & A and a moderated discussion.

Mezna Qato is Margaret Anstee Fellow at Newnham College, and Affiliated Lecturer in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge. She is completing a book on the history of education for Palestinians. She co-convenes the Archives of the Disappeared Research Network. She is a founding committee member of the Librarians and Archivists with Palestine, a member of the board of the AM Qattan Foundation, Friends of Birzeit University, and MAKAN, and a contributing editor of the Jerusalem Quarterly. 
In her talk, she will reckon with histories and politics of word wars in Palestine. How, by whom, and why do some terms get brought into question, and how have Palestinians and their allies responded to these challenges? She will invite us to consider the purchase of key concepts in Palestinian solidarity, examine their explanatory and political capacities and limits, and the rapidly alternating discursive terrains of battle within which they operate.  

Lori Allen is an independent scholar and author of two books on Palestinian politics and society: A History of False Hope: Investigative Commissions in Palestine, and The Rise and Fall of Human Rights: Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2013, 2020). She has published essays in MERIP, Al-Jazeera, and elsewhere, and is a Professorial Research Associate at SOAS University of London.
In her talk, she will consider how intersecting idioms of international law and morality are circulating in western and international (primarily English-language) contexts during this current crisis in Palestine. She reflects on the ways that, through these languages, people pronounce, perform, and reassert individual and collective identities. Her remarks are an invitation to ponder how the invocation of international legal and moral frameworks may support but can also hinder the pursuit of justice and Palestinian liberation.

The event will take place on Tuesday, 28th of November, 17:00 - 18:30, at the Department of Social Anthropology, Edmund Leach Room.

Places for this event are limited. Bookings available on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/palestine-anthropological-and-historical-perspectives-on-current-events-tickets-759588538767 

We will have dinner with the speakers after the teach-in. There are limited seats available, so please email Samuel to smev2@cam.ac.uk if you would like to join us for dinner. 

We look forward to seeing you at the teach-in.