PALESTINE @ AAA Meeting (2023)

EVENTS

Name-reading

The names of Palestinians murdered by the Israeli military since 10/7 will be read beginning Thursday at 1pm and continuing from 8:00am-6:15pm each day, through Saturday. 

Location: One level down from the conference registration desk.

Grief Ritual  

Thursday,  4:15pm 

Location: One level down from the conference registration desk.

Die-In 

Friday, 12pm

Join us to participate in a collective die-in to mourn the victims in Gaza. 

Location: One level down from the conference registration desk.

Decolonization and the War on Gaza  (University of Toronto)

Friday, November 17, 4-6pm 

William Doo Auditorium, 45 Willcocks St.

(Registration required. To register, click here)

This roundtable invites anthropologists who are participating in the American Anthropological Association's annual meeting in Toronto this year to a public event at the University of Toronto to share their perspectives on "decolonization" in relation to the war on Gaza. Examining the war on Gaza through resistance movements, international law, and the media, they reconsider the meaning of decolonization in the discourses and events that have unfolded since the latest war started. This event provides an opportunity to critically examine how we employ decolonization as a term in academic spheres. Most importantly, it offers a platform to listen to Palestinian voices, perspectives, and realities from researchers of Palestine.

Speakers

Muhannad Ayyash, Mount Royal University, Calgary

Rana Baker, King’s College, London

Sarah Ihmoud, College of the Holy Cross

Munira Khayyat, NYU-Abu Dhabi

Amahl Bishara, Tufts University

Moderator

Sumayya Kassamali, University of Toronto

Sponsors: Hearing Palestine, Department of Anthropology, Diversity and Decolonization Committee of the Department of Anthropology, Department of Geography & Planning, Critical Studies of Equity and Solidarity

Roundtables on BDS, Anthropology, and the University (AAA/CASCA)

A Transitional Moment for the Discipline? Reflections on the 'Communities' Discussion on the Resolution to Boycott Israeli Academic Institutions

Thursday 4:15 PM - 6:00 PM TMCC - 801 A

Nelli Sargsyan (Emerson College), Tamar Shirinian (University of Tennessee), Raja Swamy (University of Tennessee), Amahl Bishara (Tufts University), Alejandro Paz (University of Toronto)

The Boycott of Israeli Institutions, Academic Freedom, and the Question of Palestine 

Friday 2:00 PM - 3:45 PM TMCC - 718 B 

Ilana Feldman (George Washington University), Nadia Abu El-Haj (Barnard College), Darryl Li (University of Chicago), Randa Wahbe (Harvard University), M. Muhannad Ayyash (Mount Royal University), Maya Wind (University of British Columbia) 

Late Breaking: Anthropology and the Assault on Academic Freedom, Affirmative Action, and DEI

Friday 4:15 PM - 6:00 PM TMCC - 803 B

Pauline Strong (University of Texas at Austin), Lee D Baker (Duke University), Daniel Segal (Pitzer College, Anthropology Department), Cheryl Rodriguez (University of South Florida), Maria Vesperi (New College of Florida)

Protest at the U.S. Consulate 

Saturday 1pm, 360 University Ave 

gather one level down from the conference registration desk at 12:30pm to walk together with AAA members to the protest.

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PALESTINE PANELS

Wednesday, November 15

Enduring Colonialism under Authoritarian Regimes

12:00 PM - 1:45 PM TMCC - 701 A

Suvi Rautio (University of Helsinki), Laura Menchaca Ruiz (Bard College), Jenanne Ferguson (MacEwan University), James McGrail (Leiden University), Marshall Kramer (University of Chicago), Ting Hui Lau (National University of Singapore), Dwaipayan Banerjee (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Participatory Empire? Contemporary governance and its forms of legitimacy

12:00 PM - 1:45 PM TMCC - 717 B

Francis Cody, Jessica Greenberg (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Xenia Cherkaev, Sarah Muir (CUNY, City College), Amahl Bishara (Tufts University), Alejandro Paz (University of Toronto), Kabir Tambar (Stanford University)

Participating in NGO and Development Encounters (Part 2) 

2:15 PM - 4:00 PM TMCC - 713 B 

Scott Ross (George Washington University), Sarah O'Sullivan (Capilano University), Gabriela Morales (Scripps College), Alyssa Paylor (University of Notre Dame), Austin Bryan (Northwest University), Cal Biruk (McMaster University) 

Activism Through Submission? On the Question of Foregrounding Piety in Political Work

2:15 PM - 4:00 PM TMCC - 716 B

Usmon Boron, Connie Gagliardi (University of Toronto), Hannah Mayne, Fatima Siwaju,Victoria Sheldon (University of Toronto), Meaghan Weatherdon (University of San Diego), Amira Mitermaier (University of Toronto), Seth Palmer.

Thursday, November 16

Activist Temporalities: Transitions, Traces, and Trajectories of Contentious Political Action

8:00 AM - 9:45 AM TMCC - 713 B

Elliot Prasse-Freeman (National University of Singapore), Teresa Velasquez, Sa'ed Atshan (Swarthmore College), Geoffrey Aung.

Hunger Strikes in Comparative Perspective

10:15 AM - 12:00 PM Virtual - Room 1

Özge Serin, Ashjan Ajour (Goldsmiths, University of London), Angelica Camacho (San Francisco State University), Berivan Sarikaya (Trent University), Ethan Madarieta (Syracuse University)

Archiving Bodies, Bodying Archives

2:00 PM - 3:45 PM TMCC - 603

Alanna Warner-Smith (Smithsonian Institution), Tony Chamoun (Syracuse University), Shannon Novak (Syracuse University), Julia Haines (Cornell University), Brian Boyd (Columbia University), Uzma Rizvi (Pratt Institute)

Archaeologies of Persistence at the Turn of the 20th Century

4:15 PM - 6:00 PM TMCC - 501 A

Elena Sesma (University of Kentucky), C Broughton Anderson, Evan Taylor (University of Kentucky)

Friday, November 17

Unsettling the Publics of the Public Good 

10:15 AM - 12:00 PM TMCC - 501 B 

Abdulla Majeed (University of Toronto), Marianna Reis (University of Toronto), Rohan Sengupta, Sebastian Jackson (Harvard University), Sonya Rao (American Bar Foundation), Robin LeBlanc (Washington & Lee University) 

Why Do We Joke About Elon Musk On Mars? Transitioning Anthropological Theory.... To The Cosmos (Part 2) 

10:15 AM - 12:00 PM TMCC - 205 C 

Victor Buchli, Peter Timko, Anne Johnson (Universidad Iberoamericana), Jake Silver (Duke University), David Valentine (University of Minnesota), Valerie Olson (University of California, Irvine) 

A bridge too far? Intergenerational distance and proximity in times of interlocking societal and life stage transitions 

2:00 PM - 3:45 PM TMCC - 205 A 

Carola Tize (University College London), Lidewyde Berckmoes (Leiden University), Simon Turner (Lund University), Marion Sumari-de Boer, Nienke Slagboom (Leiden University Medical Center), Carola Tize (University College London) 

Exploring Nationalist Racialized Affects: Materializations, Refusals and Solidarities 

2:00 PM - 3:45 PM TMCC - 718 A 

Andrea Dyrness (University of Colorado, Boulder), Reva Jaffe-Walter (Montclair State University), Thea Abu El-Haj (Barnard College), Sally Bonet (Colgate University), Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher (University of Pennsylvania), Lucy El-Sherif, Anne Rios-Rojas, Jamie Lew (Rutgers University), Inmaculada García Sánchez (University of California, Los Angeles) 

Restitution and its Vantage Points: Critically Examining the Transition from ‘Preserving the Past’ to ‘Preserving the Museum’ 

4:15 PM - 6:00 PM Virtual - Room 3 

Cicek Ilengiz, Regina Bendix (University of Göttingen), Banu Karaca, Maysam Taher (New York University), Chiara De Cesari (University of Amsterdam) 

Saturday, November 18

Finding Love in Violent States 

2:00 PM - 3:45 PM TMCC - 715 A 

LaShandra Sullivan (Northwestern University), Amahl Bishara (Tufts University), Sarah Luna (Tufts University), Sarah Ihmoud (College of the Holy Cross), Mariana Mora (Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), Sarah Pinto (Tufts University), Andrea Bolivar (University of Michigan), Brian A. Horton (Brandeis University)

Transitions, Transductions, and Alchemy at the Intersections of Anthropology and Theater 

4:15 PM - 6:00 PM TMCC - 716 B 

David Syring (University of Minnesota Duluth, Department of Studies in Justice, Culture, and Social Change), Jasmine Blanks Jones (Johns Hopkins University), Cassandra Hartblay (University of Toronto), Ash Marinaccio (CUNY, Graduate Center), Debra Spitulnik Vidali (Emory University)

Sunday, November 19

Ethnographies of Vertical and Volumetric Ecologies 2 

12:15 PM - 1:45 PM TMCC - 717 A 

Steven Schwartz, Caylee Hong (University of California, Berkeley), Daniela Soto Hernandez, Eduardo Romero Dianderas (University of Southern California), Victoria Nguyen (Amherst College,), Angela Catillo (University of California, Berkeley), Hadeel Badarni, Kathryn Goldfarb (University of Colorado), Amanda Kearney (University of Melbourne), Marcos Mendoza (University of Mississippi) 

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GUIDELINES FOR PANELS AND PRESENTERS  

We recognize the importance of immediate expressions of real solidarity with Palestinians facing a genocide as we attend this conference. We recognize the need for meaningful political education at this time; for creating spaces to grieve, rage, and organize against a genocide. Below, we offer a few possibilities for action at your panels.  

1. For panel organizers who are continuing with their panels as organized, we encourage you to begin your panel by:

a. Beginning or ending your panel by observing a moment of silence, for the lives and livelihoods lost to colonial violence.

b. Ask attendees to join the various actions that will take place during the conference. 

c. Call on attendees to link up with solidarity groups in their hometown.

d. Call on attendees to organize a Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) group and/or support their local SJP chapters.

e. Call for an academic boycott at their institution and an economic boycott of all Israeli products.

f. Advocate to support virtual participation for folks who have emergency reasons to not be able to attend in-person.

2. For those who want to go off script and convert their panel into a space for education on Palestine, do all the above plus: 

a. Share strategies about how you bring Palestine into your classrooms. Or, share ideas for teach-ins and examples of powerful teach-ins that are available online (for example, Jadaliyya’s Gaza in Context: A Collaborative Teach-in Series).

b. Placing what is happening in Gaza today in the larger context of a 75 year regime of settler colonialism and apartheid and then call for a ceasefire.

c. Use the space to:

• Discuss BDS and the power and importance of Academic and Cultural Boycott (including at AAA in the wake of the vote).

• Identify and call out double standards.

• Provide updates on what is happening in Palestine, and share best sources that amplify Palestinian voices. 

• Share texts–a poem, an interview, an especially on-point OR especially egregious media coverage– and discuss them.

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UNIVERSITY BASED CALLS TO ACTION

Template letter to University Administrations 

Call for faculty for Justice in Palestine (US)

ARC call to action (Canada)

Faculty4Palestine call to action (Canada)

Academics letter to Prime Minister Trudeau

Please share the calls from Palestinian student unions and Palestinian civil society to join local advocacy for Palestinian rights and campaign for BDS at our institutions. 

Add your voice to the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights and Jewish Voice for Peace, campaigns demanding a Ceasefire Now. 

In Canada, add your voice to the Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East and Independent Jewish Voices campaigns for ceasefire. 

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RESOURCES

Jadaliyya Gaza in Context Educational Series

Palestinian Feminist Collective Toolkit

MES/AMEA Joint Statement on the Ongoing War Against Gaza

Journal of Palestine Studies, Gaza Collection of Articles and Essays (16 October 2023)

UCLA Faculty Teach-in on Gaza October 2023 

Palestine Feminist Collective Teach-in

Palestine & Praxis: Scholars for Palestinian Freedom 

Resources for teaching Palestine/Current Events living document

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RESOLUTION ON PALESTINE AT AAA ANNUAL MEETING, 2023

Please bring the following resolution to the floor at your section meeting, and join us at the business meeting on Friday November 17, 6:15-7:30 pm at TMCC to call for the AAA to adopt it.

Resolution on Palestine 

Whereas the people of Gaza have been subjected to widespread and indiscriminate bombardment and assault since October 7, 2023;

Whereas Israeli government and military leaders have expressed genocidal intent in Gaza and have engaged in direct and public incitement to commit genocide; 

Whereas as of November 12, 2023, over 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, including over 5,000 children, and over 28,000 have been injured by Israeli attacks, while over 3,000 Palestinians remain missing under the rubble; 

Whereas the Israeli bombardment of Gaza has destroyed over 185 educational facilities, including dozens of UNRWA schools and the three major universities in Gaza: the Islamic University, Al Azhar University, and Al-Aqsa University; 

Whereas more than 80 Palestinian university faculty and staff and 2000 university students have been killed by the bombardment;

Whereas army and settler violence has also increased against Palestinians in the West Bank, resulting in over 170 deaths, including the deaths of 45 children, and displacement of entire communities;

Whereas academic freedom and personal safety is in dire risk for Palestinian and Jewish Israeli critics, students and faculty alike, in Israeli universities. 

Whereas in institutions of higher education across North America there is increasing repression of speech and advocacy on Palestine, and Palestinian, Muslim, Arab and allied students and faculty are under threat;

Whereas the AAA’s resolution for the boycott of complicit Israeli institutions passed by the overwhelming majority of voting members in July 2023;

Whereas the AAA has made a statement calling for an end to violence and acknowledging anthropological literature that has addressed structural and everyday violence imposed by the Israeli government;

We call upon AAA to:

1. Stand in solidarity with Palestinian university students, faculty and staff.

2. Issue a strong statement of condemnation of Israel’s ongoing illegal assault on and siege of Gaza and join the international call for an immediate ceasefire. 

3. Condemn the ongoing violence against and displacement of Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory and within Israel. 

4. Issue a letter to presidents of universities, research centers, and other academic institutions across North America calling on university administrations to provide explicit support and protection of Palestinian students, faculty, and staff and their allies against harassment, anti-Palestinian racism, Islamophobia, demonization and silencing in line with the principles of academic freedom. 

5. Issue a strong statement condemning the violation of the academic freedom of Palestinian and critical faculty, students and staff at Israeli universities, currently facing harassment and threats of violence, disciplinary hearings, and termination and expulsion for exercising their academic freedom.