Anaheed Al-Hardan

Vita

Anaheed Al-Hardan is a sociologist with research interests in collective memory and remembrance; decolonial, feminist and indigenous epistemologies and research practices; modern Arab intellectual and political history, and imperialism and anti-imperialist social movements. She was previously a researcher on the Global Networks Project at the Institute for International Integration Studies at Trinity College, University of Dublin (2006-07) and a recipient of a Doctoral Fellowship from the Palestinian American Research Centre (2007-08). She has taught in the Department of Sociology at Trinity College, University of Dublin (2006-10), where she completed her doctoral dissertation (2011). Entitled “Remembering the Catastrophe: Uprooted Histories and the Grandchildren of the Nakba”, her dissertation explored practices of memory and remembrance of the Nakba in the Palestinian refugee community in Syria.

ICI-Project

Memories of Palestine: The Nakba and the Palestinian Refugees in Syria
The establishment of the state of Israel on Palestine during the Palestine War (1948-49) is referred to as the Nakba, or Catastrophe, in Arabic. The outcome of the war viz the establishment of a new nation-state was discursively constructed as a fitting epilogue to the European Jewish Holocaust. This outcome also led to the erasure of Palestine as a geo-political entity and to the destruction of Palestinian society through the expulsion of more than two-thirds of Palestinians from the newly established state. The establishment of the state of Israel/Nakba can be theorised as a multistable ontology for, inter alia, Palestinian refugees and their descendants who continue to be unable to exercise their right of return to homes in what is today the state of Israel. This research project expands upon my doctoral research on memories of the Nakba in the Palestinian refugee community in Syria. It will result in a monograph that addresses how the Nakba, as a past/ongoing event, is actively remembered by those who survived the war and those who were born in exile, within the context of the evolution of its meaning in nationalist discourses and the emergence of Nakba commemorative practices

Projects and Publications

Current Projects

Memories of Palestine: The Nakba and the Palestinian Refugees in Syria (monograph in progress)

'Researching Palestinian Refugees: Towards Critical Epistemologies and Research Practices’ (journal article in progress)

Journal Articles, Book Chapters and Essays

'Reflections on the Finkelstein Controversy: BDS and the Palestine Solidarity Movement', Ceasefire Magazine: http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/analysis-palestine-bds/ (2012)

'The Right of Return Movement in Syria: Building a Culture of Return, Mobilising Memory for the Return', Journal of Palestine Studies 41(2): 62-79 (2012)

'Iraq’s Palestinian Refugees Back at Square One', Electronic Intifada: http://electronicintifada.net/content/iraqs-palestinian-refugees-back-square-one/8115 (2009)

'Remembering the Catastrophe: Uprooted Histories and the Grandchildren of the Nakba', in A. Sparkes (ed) Auto/Biography Year Book 2007 (Clio Publishing: Southampton, 2008)

'Understanding the Present Through the Past: Between British and Israeli Discourses on Palestine', in R. Lentin (ed) Thinking Palestine (Zed Books: London, 2008)

with K. Al-Janfawi (trans) Beyond the Immediate Objective Referent of Palestinian Literature: A Complimentary Approach, Kana‘an Oct (127): 35-40 (2006) (Arabic)

Book Reviews

E. Ben-Ze'ev's 'Remembering Palestine in 1948: Beyond National Narratives', Holy Land Studies 11(1): 102-103 (2012)

G. Achcar's 'The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives', British Journal for Middle Eastern Studies 38(2): 284-286 (2011)

G. Pitterberg's 'The Returns of Zionism: Myths, Politics and Scholarship in Israel', Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 10(1): 158-159 (2010)

J. Lassner and I. Troen's 'Jews and Muslims in the Arab World: Haunted by Pasts Real and Imagined', Cultural Sociology 3(1): 190-192 (2009).

J. Cook's 'Blood and Religion: The Unmasking of the Jewish and Democratic State', Irish Journal of Sociology 16 (1): 153-5. (2007)

A. Jamal’s 'The Palestinian National Movement; Politics of Contention; 1967-2005', Mediterranean Politics 11(3): 467-8. (2006)