An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba

Nahla Abdo, Nur Masalha
Paperback, 324 pages
9781786993502

During the Nakba, when over 750,000 people were uprooted and forced to flee their homes in the early days of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Even today, the bitterness and trauma of the Nakba remains raw, and it has become the pivotal event both in the shaping of Palestinian identity and in galvanising the resistance to occupation.

Unearthing an unparalleled body of rich oral testimony, An Oral History of the Palestinian Nakba tells the story of this epochal event through the voices of the Palestinians who lived it, uncovering remarkable new insights both into Palestinian experiences of the Nakba and into the wider dynamics of the ongoing conflict. Drawing together Palestinian accounts from 1948 with those of the present day, the book confronts the idea of the Nakba as an event consigned to the past, instead revealing it to be an ongoing process aimed at the erasure of Palestinian memory and history. In the process, each unique and wide-ranging contribution leads the way for new directions in Palestinian scholarship.

Content
Part I: Theorizing the Nakba and Oral History
Part II: Between Epistemology and Ontology: Nakba Embodiment
Part III: Archiving the Nakba through Palestinian Refugee Women's Voices
Part IV: The Nakba and 48 Palestinians
Part V: Documenting Nakba Narratives from the Gaza Strip and the Shatat