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A Popular Digital Archive of Resistance: Facebook Posts of Protests and Arrest Raids
Abstract
This paper examines two kinds of Facebook posts about a wave of Palestinian popular protests in Aida Refugee Camp, the West Bank: posts about the protests themselves and posts about subsequent arrest raids. These two bodies of posts exhibit different logics of mediation that point to the conditions of their production, but they both elicit recognition from networks of local and international “friends” and highlight the refugee camp itself as a space. Together they create a popular digital archive for the residents of Aida and those connected with Aida, especially since the protests were not covered extensively in local, national, or international news media. In the winter of 2012 and 2013, residents of Aida staged a wave of popular protests, first in response to Israel’s attacks on Gaza in November, and then more directly against the Israeli separation wall that surrounds the camp on two sides. The protests climaxed with the burning and drilling of a hole in the separation wall. Unlike protests of the Arab Spring, they did not catalyze major political change, nor did they attract global – or even national Palestinian – attention. Posts about the protests focused on the heroics of protesters, the buffoonery or brutality of soldiers, and the suffering of community members. Photographs – most often shot with camera phones – asserted the photographer’s presence on the scene. Murals painted on community walls were important backdrops. Sharing and liking photographs were practices through which people asserted connection to and expressed solidarity with each other. Soon, Israeli soldiers began nighttime raids to arrest those involved. They were difficult to photograph. One key set of images of arrests came from Palestinian surveillance cameras positioned near the Israeli army base on the periphery of the camp. After an arrest, friends would post – or often re-post – images of political prisoners with notes addressing the prisoner directly. Many of these images also came from locations in the camp and showed the subject doing activities unrelated to protest. These posts were about distance, as with the surveillance camera footage, and about absence and loss. Still, like the photographs of protest, the camp itself featured centrally, and they were a mode of expressing connection both with the political prisoner and with other community members. Since these events have ended, these images have constituted an important popular digital archive. Key photographs have been re-worked, and many photographs are re-posted on particular days of remembrance or activity.
Discipline
Anthropology
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries