Demonstrating the desired future: performative dimensions of internally displaced Palestinians’ return activities

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the activities of internally displaced Palestinians as performative resistance against the settler-colonial dispossession. Since 1948, when close to 800,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the process of establishing the state of Israel, return has been a key political objective of the displaced. By concentrating on the recent activities organized by internally displaced Palestinians, I scrutinize the power of performative practices in challenging present conditions of continuing displacement. Based on interviews, participatory observation, and published source material, I show how the return activities concentrating on the lost villages do not only commemorate the past but also utilize it in performative claim-making in achieving the desired future. I make the argument that the performative dimensions of claiming work to undermine the settler-colonial reality by issuing a call for a right to belong and for a more just future.

Indigeneity, Resistance, and Imagination

“…25 Tiina Järvi refers to this as the "performative implementation of the right to return", which converts "return" from an abstract principle to a lived reality. 26 By organising summer camps and religious festivals, they aim to not only reclaim their space, but also teach their future generations about the village and its past. 27 In doing so, they transfer their claim of belongingness from the "inanimate presence of remains" to the active presence of corporeal bodies 28 .…”