Palestinian Geographical Imaginations: political alternatives and decolonial futures beyond the nation-state

这项奖学金将使我能够通过扩大非殖民地认识论和土著批评的学术知识，以民族国家在定居者殖民政权（建立在内勒等，2018; Velednitsky等人，2020;拉德克利夫和拉德胡贝尔，2020）。从伯利恒和拉马拉（约旦河西岸）独立的非国家资助的倡议的详细经验帐户，我的博士论文阐明了艺术和文化实践，不安国家为中心的和地缘政治的国家地位的话语。从学术框架巴勒斯坦文化政治作为两个相互竞争的民族主义之间的斗争的一部分，我的研究调查了巴勒斯坦文化举措在约旦河西岸的变革潜力。论文通过三个案例研究，即数字档案的巴勒斯坦比尔宰特博物馆，集体散步在拉马拉周围的农村地区，和伯利恒的巴勒斯坦自然历史博物馆。每一个实验与主权的替代范式的前提下，拒绝控制，抽象和同质化的逻辑定居民族国家。每一个都表达了一套不同的政治身份，这些身份对民族主义政治感到失望，并决心在气候变化面前挑战人类与环境的剥削关系。从概念上讲，本研究项目通过另类地理想象的透镜探索文化实践。在后殖民，土著和非殖民地地理越来越多的作品的基础上，我的概念使用的“想象力”揭示了非殖民地的认识论。具体而言，想象力和政治选择之间的关系，探讨在政治地理学的辩论。虽然大多数政治地理学的研究都强调了想象力在维持和证明帝国的作用，但很少有研究关注它在培养政治选择方面的作用。在研究期间，我的目标是表明，文化倡议是预喻政治的中心城市，在那里想象着新的可能性和进步的未来。我通过两个具体而相互关联的镜头探索它们的潜力和实现。第一部分着眼于人与环境之间的关系，将其视为巴勒斯坦和定居者殖民主义下不同土著民族非殖民化做法的一个日益重要的方面。第二种观点将收集和档案实践视为想象未来可能性的关键资源，这与关注档案与国家过去和国家实践的无形制度权力的关系的学术工作形成鲜明对比。第一，它们开辟了新的概念途径，以超越民族和领土对自决的理解。其次，它们远非仅仅是投机性的活动，而是标志着可行的变革和政治可能性。第三，我将利用这个奖学金在学术界和非学术界传播我的研究成果，特别注意它们对学术界（包括大学生）和文化领域的利益相关者的影响。

This Fellowship will enable me to make a novel and significant contribution to political geography by expanding academic knowledge of decolonial epistemologies and indigenous critiques to the nation- state within settler colonial regimes (building on Naylor et al., 2018; Velednitsky et al., 2020; Radcliffe & Radhuber, 2020). Drawing from a detailed empirical account of independent non-state-funded initiatives in Bethlehem and Ramallah (West Bank), my doctoral thesis illuminates artistic and cultural practices that unsettle state-centric and geopolitical discourses of nationhood. Diverging from scholarship that frames Palestinian cultural politics as part of a struggle between two competing nationalisms, my research investigated the transformative potential of Palestinian cultural initiatives in the West Bank. The thesis develops through three case studies, namely the Digital Archive of the Palestinian Museum of Birzeit, collective walks in rural areas around Ramallah, and the Palestine Museum of Natural History of Bethlehem. Each experiments with alternative paradigms of sovereignty predicated upon the rejection of controlling, abstracting and homogenising logics of settler nation states. Each articulates a diverse set of political identities, which are disillusioned with nationalist politics and determined to challenge exploitative human relations with the environment in the face of climate change.Conceptually, this research project explored cultural practices through the lens of alternative geographical imaginations. Building on a growing body of works in postcolonial, indigenous and decolonial geographies, my conceptual use of 'imagination' sheds light on decolonial epistemologies. Specifically, the relationship between imagination and political alternatives is explored within debates in political geography. While most interventions in political geography have stressed the role of imagination in sustaining and justifying Empire, fewer studies have focused on its role in cultivating political alternatives. During the fellowship I aim to show that cultural initiatives are central cites of prefigurative politics where new possibilities and progressive futures are imagined. I explore their potential and actualisation through two specific and interconnected lenses. The first looks at the relationship between humans and the environment as an increasingly aspect to decolonial practices in Palestine and across different indigenous nations under settler colonialism. The second looks at collecting and archival practices as key resources to imagine possible futures, in in contrast with scholarly work that has focused on the archive in relation to national pasts and disembodied institutional power of state practices.These arguments hold significant relevance in at least three directions. First, they open new conceptual avenues to transcend ethnic and territorial understandings of self-determination. Second, far from being merely speculative exercises, they flag viable changes and political possibilities. Third, I will use this fellowship to communicate the findings of my research both within academic circles and amongst non- academic audiences, paying particular attention to their consequences for academics, (including university students) and stakeholders in the cultural field.