Remapping History, Indigenous Resilience, and an Ongoing Nakba – A digitalized Case Study from Occupied Jerusalem

Abstract

Understanding settler colonialism within a Palestinian narrative and from an indigenous standpoint is guided by the vision that there is more than just one worldview. Applying indigenous standpoint theory in settler colonial contexts, is a method to free the researched individual from conditions of society, power dominations and the restrictions of the established social order and to convey indigenous voices in the face of repressive ideologies and measures of the settler colonial system. In 2023, the elimination of indigenous spaces is also translated to the digital sphere. However, spaces for self-awareness and collective memory challenge Israel’s settler colonial rule, and so does the digital space. Attempting to map an ongoing Nakba as narrated through individual efforts, by exploring the resilience of indigenous Palestinian sumud from the standpoint of the people enduring an ongoing Nakba in Occupied Jerusalem. In attempting to discover the truth about what is actually going on, on the ground, and to understand if the use of social media has become a means for Palestinians to digitalize an ongoing Nakba sumud and raise awareness about their own experienced ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem, this thesis will explore individual content creation through the Instagram account of the Gaith-Sub Laban family (@freenorashome), that was displaced from their home in the Old City of Jerusalem after a legal fight lasting for over 45 years. The understanding and mapping of the context was enhanced by semi-structured interviews and recordings of oral accounts conducted with Palestinians on the street, an NGO (7amleh) and residents of the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in Occupied Jerusalem. This thesis was written in an attempt to remap the way in which the context in Palestine is understood, to undo denial of the truth and to highlight a continuity, which reflects daily on the ground.