"From Standing Rock to Palestine we are United": diaspora politics, decolonization and the intersectionality of struggles. Issue 7 (28th May 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Salih, Ruba; Zambelli, Elena; Welchman, Lynn
• Is Part Of: Ethnic and racial studies. Volume 44:Issue 7(2021)
• Page Start: 1135
• Page End: 1153
• Publication Date: 2021-05-28
• Subjects: Diaspora -- Palestinian youth -- decolonization -- space of appearance -- anti-colonialism -- intersectionality; Race -- Periodicals; Race relations -- Periodicals; Ethnic groups -- Periodicals; 305.805
• DOI: 10.1080/01419870.2020.1779948
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0141-9870

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This article analyses a form of diasporic activism that breaks the seeming duality between diasporic imaginaries and colonial realities, diasporas and refugees. By focusing on the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) it analyses a diasporic standpoint which is not confined to identity politics, nor to the Palestinian nationalist struggle of territorial liberation, but conceives of Palestine as one of the most visible, present-day materialisations of Western colonial modernity. The condition of this diasporic political subjectivity lies in what we call here an "intersectional 'space of appearance'": an affective multi-sited political space that exposes and makes visible the continuum of systems of subjugation and expropriation across liberal democracies and settler-colonial regimes, and the whiteness of mainstream activist spaces. This space encompasses key sites of Black, Indigenous, Arab and Muslim mobilization: from Ferguson to Standing Rock, from the Mexico-US border to Palestine and Palestinian camps, from Tunis to Paris.