“Oral histories always beg the question of what lives and cultural forms are isolated, erased and made insignificant by bringing this narrative to the fore,” Livia Wick writes in the introduction to her book, Sumud: Birth, Oral History and Persistence in Palestine (Syracuse University Press, 2023). Wick’s research unfolds against a historical backdrop of how Palestinian oral history embarked upon different trajectories from the Nakba onwards, notably the shift in 1967 to Palestinian nationalism and the contributions made through gender and class, notably the involvement of Palestinian women in Palestinian narratives. Wick notes, “Oral history in the contemporary Occupied Territories is a gendered and classed genre of witnessing in Palestine, often co-produced by young, refugee and rural, working class women.” … Continue reading Sumud: Birth, Oral History and Persistence in Palestine