PARC-sponsored Conferences and Seminars

Palestine: What We Know

Friday, October 16, 2009
9:30 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Lindner Family Commons
1957 E Street, NW, Suite 602
Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Sponsored by GW's Institute for Middle East Studies and the Palestinian American Research Center

This conference, featuring a special talk by Rashid Khalidi, will be a multi-disciplinary survey of the state of scholarship on Palestine. It will discuss what we know, what we don’t know, and what obstacles we need to overcome in order to advance the field of Palestinian Studies.

"Jerusalem: The History of the Future"
A PARC-Supported IPS Conference
August 2009

The ambiguous meanings ascribed to Jerusalem throughout history are omnipresent and often seem to penetrate every stone of, and every discourse about, this contested city. Names like Al-Quds and Yerushaláyim, West Jerusalem and East Jerusalem, The Holy City and Al-Quds Al-Sharif all imply meanings ascribed to the very same social space. This living space in Jerusalem, as a center of human experience, has been subject to drastic transformations. To understand these transformations and their consequences for the social, cultural, political, and legal spheres, it is necessary to recapture history and to rethink the present, thereby conceptualizing what will be Jerusalem’s History of the Future.

The Institute for Palestine Studies (IPS) held a three-day conference entitled "Jerusalem: History of the Future" with funding from PARC, the Ford Foundation, Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the Jerusalem Capital of Arab Culture Project. The opening ceremony and a press conference were held in Jerusalem on July 31, 2009 followed by three days of presentations and discussions in the West Bank. On August 1-2, about 300 people attended the events in the Kamal Nasser Lecture Hall at Birzeit University. The third day of the conference took place in the Mahmoud Darwish Cultural Center in Nazareth.

The topics addressed throughout the conference were as diverse as the complex realities on the ground. Topics covered and discussed by an interested audience included shifting policies of the Arab States, the U.S. and the E.U.; Jerusalem in international law; the politics of demography in Jerusalem; the Judaization and colonization of Jerusalem; education, housing, health and the economy; the reshaping of space, history, and culture; women; and civil society in Jerusalem. Amongst the prominent speakers and panelists were Rashid Khalidi, Salim Tamari, Issam Nassar, Varsen Agabekhian, Said Khalidi, and many other Palestinian academics, scholars, and activists.

It became obvious over the course of the conference that Jerusalem is a microcosm of the general situation of life under Israeli occupation and a macrocosm within itself. It is the latter dimension, with its specific implications for Palestinian Jerusalemites, that needs to be addressed even more specifically. Having identified a wide and complex area of vulnerabilities, threats, and consequences, the presentations given at the conference provided an important basis for further research and action. The fact that the questions these presentations raised outnumbered those they answered further indicates the necessity of continuing discussions about Jerusalem and the meaning of its history of the future.

The importance of Jerusalem as a national, religious, and historic idea informs policy in a fundamental way and thereby inflicts damage on another sphere of the city—that of the lived human experience. It is this living aspect and its interplay with Jerusalem as a sense of identity that is significant for the lives of the Palestinian Jerusalemites. The meaning of Jerusalem’s "stones" needs to be integrated into the lives of its population and not the other way around.

The conference enjoyed the patronage of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and took place in the context of Jerusalem being named the Capital of Arab Culture for 2009. Proceedings of the conference will be published by June 2010. For further information about the conference, please contact our Palestine office at parcpal@palnet.com.

Graduate Student Conference on Palestinian Academic Research
Achievements and Challenges
January 2009

In early January, 2009 PARC joined eight other research centers and institutions to cosponsor and support the first annual Graduate Student Conference entitled "Palestinian Academic Research: Achievements and Challenges" that was organized by Birzeit University's Academic Support Unit. During the two-day event, conference participants discussed the achievements and challenges of Palestinian academic research under Israeli occupation and presented their ideas on how to increase the quantity and quality of Palestinian research and to provide a solid and appropriate conceptual framework. In his opening remarks to the conference, the Birzeit VP for Academic Affairs stressed the significance of holding a conference on this topic during the Israeli invasion of Gaza.

The conference was organized around four major themes. The first theme, "Academia of the Colonized," included an analysis of knowledge production across countries with colonial histories and an examination of the technical and logistical difficulties of conducting research in Palestine.

Papers presented around the second theme, "Research Questions and Priorities in the Case of Palestine," investigated the politics of knowledge production at the governmental and non-governmental levels. An overall conclusion of these discussions was that a general absence of 'new' questions and the dominance of 'obsolete' paradigms leads to research that heavily favors quantitative methodology at the expense of qualitative research. This, along with the politics of research questions, priorities, and funding agendas, has led some institutions to avoid addressing some of Palestine’s most pressing political and social issues.

A third theme, "Resources of Palestinian Research: Abilities and Possibilities," addressed the need to develop human resources with the potential to conduct cutting-edge research in Palestine and abroad.  Presenters attempted to identify these resources in terms of fields of specialty, recruitment, immigration, employment, and incentives, also taking into account the present conditions of both governmental and non-governmental institutions. The session also examined accessibility and obstacles in terms of scientific research in Palestine.

The fourth and final theme of the seminar tackled the plight of "Palestinian Institutions under Israeli Occupation." Aside from detailing the effects of Israeli policies on Palestinian academic institutions, papers presented on this topic also highlighted "success stories" of institutions that have overcome obstacles to produce exemplary research.

Participants drafted a concluding statement with recommendations for improving Palestinians' research capabilities. The statement stressed the importance of communication with human rights organizations and other entities concerned with academic and intellectual freedom at local, regional, and international levels. It also emphasized the need for direct communication between academic and research institutions in Palestine’s various geographical areas for the purpose of cooperating on the development of research priorities, policies, and agendas. Finally, participants recommended the formation of committees that would facilitate joint research projects, networking and the exchange of expertise, and increase the potential of academia to play a role in the theoretical unification of the country even in the absence of its geographic unity.

PARC Sponsors IJS Conference on
Family Papers and Public Archives
July 2008

For two days in July, 2008 more than 100 participants attended a conference entitled "Family Papers and Public Archives Conference: Sources for Research on the Social History of Palestine" that was organized by the Institute of Jerusalem Studies (IJS) and Birzeit University. The conference was partially sponsored and funded by PARC, the Palestine Investment Fund, and Heinrich Boell Stiftung. PARC board member Beshara Doumani was the keynote speaker and presented a methodological paper on Palestinian family archives. Many PARC fellows and members attended this important conference. Various sessions included: Personal Papers as a Source for Historical Research, Jerusalem Court Records, Archives of the 1948 War, Photography and Visual Culture, and the British Mandate Seen through Family Papers. See the complete agenda.

At the end of the conference Salma Khalidi announced that she is donating her family papers (two hundred years of documents, correspondence and photographs) to IJS. Several participants made similar initial commitments. For instance, Ahmad Murwat, from the Nazareth Archives center, donated a copy of the diaries of the head of the Russian Seminary Emil Kozma from the end of the 19th century.

One important feature of the conference was the announcement of the launch of an IJS archives website. The site will have scans of original diaries, sections of published material from IJS, historical photographs in lower resolution, and other archival material. This website is expected to be a significant source for researchers in Palestine studies.

The conference received good media coverage from Al Jazeera Mubashir (Al Jazeera’s live TV broadcasting), which broadcast the first day of the conference live to some 25 million viewers. Local media coverage included Maan and Palmedia. The conference proceedings will be published in a special issue of Jerusalem Quarterly. The IJS website address is http://www.jerusalemquarterly.org.