This paper explores women’s cultural and business initiatives in occupied Palestinian Territories and Jordan to revitalize traditional Palestinian embroidery and cultural dress. It investigates women’s activism in repositioning cultural clothing from a domestic activity and craft into globally marketed artistry within national and transnational spheres/discourses. It explores how women, from entrepreneurs to designers, have given momentum to the traditional garb and embroidery as national symbols and simultaneously as part of their transnational identities, by redesigning and diversifying its use. Drawing on oral interviews and visual data collected in Jordan and Palestinian Territories from women with business networks in USA and Canada as well, the paper delves into the cultural, financial, and historical dimensions of cultural clothing industry in operating as an anti-colonial and non-violent form of resistance since 1948. The paper first provides a historical background exploring the changing meanings of traditional Palestinian embroidery and style as well as the impacts of historical developments and foreign forces on Palestinian cultural clothing. From the impacts of Ottoman rule and British Mandate to the critical role of Nakba in 1948 and the circumstances in refugee camps, it shows connections between clothing and mechanisms of colonialism, Orientalism, and occupation. Second, the paper focuses on women’s efforts in the last twenty years to explore their use, revitalization, and repurposing of cultural clothing, its meanings embedded in politics, culture, and historically specific circumstances, and its transformative power for women’s status. Finally, the paper discusses resistance against genocidal violence, cultural appropriation, and erasure with a focus on the mass destruction in Gaza in the recent months. Women’s initiatives demonstrate that resistance against violence may take creative, artistic, and cultural forms. Women’s new designs of Kufiyah, historically produced for men, as diverse pieces of clothing and accessories have not only contributed to the creative methods of preserving culture and reclaiming identity but also to international solidarity for the Palestinian cause. Women address a global audience through social media to commercialize their productions and to circulate their political messages. The displays of embroidery and Kufiyah in public spaces by Palestinians and non-Palestinians as symbols of solidarity is giving them an international momentum, incorporated into their local and national meanings. Ultimately, the paper provides insights into the various facets of the multilayered functioning and meanings of cultural clothing and its revitalization, and thus contributes to our understanding of diverse forms of non-violent resistance adapted by indigenous communities.

In his article "Heritage corridors: transnational flows and the built environment of migration" Denis Byrne proposed a notion of heritage corridors to challenge the nation and state-focused approaches to heritage and conceptualise “transnational connectivity between migrant heritage sites” (2016). In my study I propose to further reconsider this concept in the context of the heritage policies launched by the Kurds in the four Middle Eastern countries they live: Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. I suggest that in the recent decades, following the increased role of Internet and transnational mobility, the Kurds started to build various heritage bridges between the Kurdish societies and cultures in different parts of their homeland - Kurdistan. Although the Kurdish national discourse usually presents Kurdish language and culture as a unified whole divided by the oppressive states, in reality the Kurdish heritage varies between countries and regions. It differs linguistically (different Kurdish dialects and alphabets) and in terms of diverse historical and political experiences and shared – mostly tragic - memories. In my study I investigate various Kurdish practices to build cross-border links which I propose to call heritage bridges because such process entails bridging the knowledge about the different Kurdish regions and their heritages through the modern channels of contact, information and cooperation. The process takes place on the margins of the state policies and challenges their assimilation of Kurdish people. It engages literary and artistic imaginations which play off the existing state borders and regimes’ brutality. It includes the practices of translation and transliteration of modern Kurdish literature between Kurdish regions, dialects and alphabets. It involves media which offer programs about other parts of Kurdistan and their cultures. Başûr (South/Iraqi Kurdistan) is the centre of these activities thanks to the recognised political status, many broadcasting opportunities but also because of its central location and thus the possibility to bring together the Kurds from Rojhelat (East or Iranian Kurdistan), Bakur (North Kurdistan/Turkey) and Rojava (West Kurdistan/Syria). In recent years, Rojava also became an important meeting spot for Kurdish people promoting Kurdish heritage through the prism of its ideology: radical democracy and democratic confederalism. However, the cross-border links are often mediated also by the Kurdish diaspora which in the the twentieth century became an important melting spot for Kurds from different countries. Reference: Byrne, Denis. 2016. Heritage corridors: transnational flows and the built environment of migration, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 42(14), 2360-2378.

My paper investigates the current political contestations over cultural heritage and historical memory in Dersim, a mountainous enclave situated between the southern tip of Armenian highlands and upper Mesopotamian steppes. More specifically, it explores the tensions between the cultural policies implemented by the Turkish state and the responses of the minoritized Alevi Kurdish natives of the city. Dersim is a city populated by Kurdish Alevis, a double minoritized group who constitute both a religious and ethnic minority and who were subjected to genocidal violence in 1937-38 during the formation of modern Turkey. The renaming of Dersim as “Tunceli” (Steel-hand) at this juncture has since meant to seal the history and identity of Dersim in the genealogy of sovereign violence. Yet, over the past century, Kurdish Alevi survivors in Dersim have also continually resisted any sovereign resolution of the “Dersim thorn,” to quote the state discourse, by engaging in counterhegemonic struggles of power, identity, and memory. Within this historical backdrop, my paper specifically addresses how Kurdish Alevi natives of Dersim have negotiated their ethno-religious identities and belonging as they joined revolutionary struggles against the Turkish Republican socio-political order or articulated struggles for the recognition of their histories, memories, and contemporary presence in Dersim. Placing the Turkish government's recent representation of Dersim as the “city of peace” within the aforementioned genealogy of violence, I ask how Alevi Kurdish inhabitants of the city articulate alternative historical memories and spatial representations. I examine different sites of memory, such as visual displays and museum enactments, and trace the emergence of conflictual historiographies in Dersim. I contend that the Turkish government's current efforts to portray Dersim as a peaceful city are part of an overarching neoliberal agenda to position Dersim as a tourist destination serving the wider Turkish population. The state's initiative involves erasing the diverse identity and cultural heritage of the local population in order to incorporate Dersim into Turkish nationhood. My research highlights the racialized dimension inherent in political decisions that determine which communities are granted the opportunity to safeguard their history and cultural heritage. Through an analysis of counter-hegemonic memory-making practices, such as visual displays of the violent past in the public sphere and the construction of monuments of the local resistance leaders by locals, this paper interrogates the politics of memory and materiality and affective registers of conflictual historiographies.

This paper explores the resilience of Palestinian solidarity within the Cuban Arab diaspora, contextualized within the panel theme of "Reclaiming Identity and Indigeneity: Forms of Resistance in Post-Genocidal Contexts." Founded in 1979 by individuals of Palestinian descent, the Cuban Arab Union (UAC) stands as a pivotal institution for Cuba's Arab community. Through a multi-disciplinary approach encompassing interviews with UAC founders, analysis of the Union's website and magazine "The Arab" (El Árabe) from the 1990s during Cuba’s “special period,” and interpretation of posters featuring Palestine by the Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (OSPAAL), this study illuminates how solidarity functions as a conduit for memory and resistance in overseas migration and diaspora contexts. By examining Cuba's steadfast rejection of the 1947 partition of Palestine on anti-colonial grounds, this paper underscores solidarity as a strategic tool for preserving cultural identity and advocating for territorial integrity, especially during periods of duress. Through this lens, it unravels the complex interplay of identity, solidarity, and belonging within the Cuban Arab community, shedding light on its enduring commitment to the Palestinian cause amidst evolving socio-political landscapes threatening both the host and origin countries. This inquiry contributes to broader discussions on reclaiming identity and indigeneity in post-genocidal contexts, highlighting the transformative power of solidarity as a form of resistance and remembrance across oceans and generations.

This paper discusses the embodied cultural memory practices of the post-genocide Circassian community in Türkiye. Circassians, the indigenous people of the North Caucasus, faced a large-scale massacre in 1864 when they lost 101 years of war against the tsarist Russia. The majority of the survivors was expelled to the Ottoman lands, later on, to find themselves in nation-states such as Türkiye, Jordan, and Syria. Upon the collapse of the Soviet Union, which facilitated not only access to historical archives but also contacts between homeland and diaspora, Circassians have increasingly engaged in memory practices through multi-sensual and bodily representations of their historical plight. This paper focuses on the cultural memory of Circassians in Türkiye and offers an analysis of the Circassian folk dances which operate to reproduce the lost homeland --problematizing the notions of time and space-- and speak to the contemporary conditions perpetuating the sense of being ‘uprooted’. Drawing on Rafael F. Narvaez’s concept of ‘embodied memory’ that emphasizes the role of bodies in addressing the impacts of colonial regimes and mass violence, the paper delves into Circassian dance performances that ‘resist’ the lingering impacts of historical atrocities and ‘re-enact’ their cultural existence. This paper particularly focuses on dance as a form of corporeal representation of cultural memory since Circassian dance is replete with ritualistic, social and historical meanings referring to, among others, wars, ancient beliefs, and gender roles. In addition, dance and music have constituted the primary ‘alternative space’ for Circassians in Türkiye where folklore is welcomed as richness among the diverse cultures of the country whereas pronouncement of rights, difference and ethnicity are blocked with the underlying assumption of treason and rebellion. Therefore, folk dances including their choreographed versions offer a window into the embodiment of historical remembrance in post-conflict societies as well as into minorities’ cultural memories reclaiming their ethnic identities in the face of rising nationalism that problematizes the actual diversity of cultural map prevailing across the nation. In unfolding the construction and transmission of collective memory through folk dance, the paper utilizes historical inquiry, textual and visual data about performances, and dance-based methodologies. Ultimately, the paper provides insights into the daily and staged forms of embodiment as a form of memory; the role of embodied memory practices in dealing with historical traumas; and the afterlives and aftereffects of genocidal violence and forced displacement across generations.