Archives as Sites of Resistance: Toward a Counter-History in Palestine

This session invites papers that critically examine how archives—whether colonial, state, activist, or communal—function not only as instruments of domination but also as potential sites of resistance in Palestine. We seek contributions that explore how visual archival practices and materials have been (and can be) mobilised to reclaim suppressed histories, indigenous geographies, and forms of quotidian resistance.

Settler colonial powers rely on the elimination of the Native peoples and the denial of their historical ties to the land. Since its foundation, Israel has been systematically confiscating and destroying Palestinian archives, the most recent one occurring nowadays in Gaza, with its near total destruction of institutional archives.

Archives produced under colonial or settler colonial state power—whether maps, photographs, or administrative records—often serve projects of domination, yet they can also preserve suppressed fragments of indigenous knowledge. At the same time, activist and community-based archives challenge hegemonic narratives by centring subaltern histories that defy state violence, and hence practice ongoing resistance. From re-readings of colonial documents to visual acts of solidarity, these archives offer tools for reimagining space, memory, and collective struggle.

Focusing on the visual rhetoric produced in the archive, we ask, how does it challenge dominant historical narratives and perform resistance? How do aesthetic choices made during the archive’s production, preservation or circulation shape the archive’s political function?

Proposals from scholars, artists, activists, and curators engaged at the crossroads of visual culture, sound, architecture, cartography, archival studies, and decolonial practice are highly encouraged.