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 (2011-13)

Memories of Palestine: The Nakba and the Palestinian Refugees in Syria

The establishment of the state of Israel on Palestine in 1948 led to the destruction of Palestinian society and the uprooting of the majority of Palestinians who have been denied the right to return to their lands since. Remembered as the Nakba, or Catastrophe, by Palestinians, this monumental event was in the early years a central component of pan-Arab nationalist thought and the re-emergence of the Palestinian national liberation movement in exile. More recently, the Nakba has been relegated to a secondary place in the Palestinian Authority’s state-building project, and the right of return of the refugees expelled in 1948 and their descendents all but abandoned. This project explores the intellectual, political and popular memory trajectory of the Nakba over the past six-decades, examining its transformation, commemoration and imagination in the little known about Palestinian refugee community in Syria. Set against new activist commemorative practices and heterogeneous inter-generational memories, this project examines the meaning of 1948 today as told by community activists and first-, second- and third-generation Palestinian refugees in Syria.

Projects and Publications

Current Projects

The Palestinians in Syria: Counter-Memories and Histories in a Refugee Community (monograph in progress)

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

'Decolonising Research on Palestinians: Towards Critical Epistemologies and Research Practices' (in press with Qualitative Inquiry)

'A Year On: The Palestinians in Syria', Syrian Studies Association Bulletin 17 (1): 3-9 (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)

'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)

 

Book Reviews

 

F. Kassem's 'Palestinian Women: Narrative Histories and Gendered Memories', Journal of Palestine Studies 41(3): 125-126 (2012)

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)