What histories can be written when a camp is bulldozed or emptied, and communities and families torn apart, records of socialites built through and by generations all but erased?

Held across three sessions in December 2021, this online workshop brought together scholars from around the world to ingather emerging work on late nineteenth and twentieth-century social histories of Palestinian migrations.

In particular, the workshop explored three key questions:

1.) How can camp histories, including studies of particular sectors, for example health, education, agriculture, labour, transform our understanding of Palestinian social histories?

2.) How can we bring in new historical agents, such as children, the disabled, and sector labourers, and new frames, including animal and environmental studies, to more fully historicise experiences of migration, exile, displacement and expulsion for Palestinians?

3.) What methodological, archival, and conceptual tools are necessary for the retrieval of histories of migrations of disappeared communities and their encampments?

As a result of the workshop, plans for multiple publications are now underway. Stay tuned for more as these publications progress.

The workshop was co-organised by Mezna Qato (University of Cambridge) and Kjersti Berg (Chr. Michelsen Institute, CMI) and funded by NHCS seed funding. The workshop was sponsored by CMI and the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies at University of Cambridge.

View more information and the original call for papers here.