Naseej / نسيج

Co-edited by myself and Noura Salahaldeen, Naseej: Life-Weavings of Palestine / نسيج: اسفار من فلسطين is a book about diverse forms of life, communities, histories and trajectories, pasts, presents, and continuities in Palestine. It is a book that compiles essays, short stories, poetry, interviews, and visual art to tell an aspect of the Palestinian story that has not been told. Scholars, artists, writers, activists, and others have closely scrutinized the 1948 Nakba’s devastating consequences, yet one important consequence has escaped many eyes: the severing of Palestine and Palestinians from vast and ancient regional histories, and from diversity in local forms of life. Yet, Palestine has always been a precious patchwork of languages, ethnicities, cultures, religions, and practices, weaved into the fabric of an Arab/Islamic civilization that was itself a culmination of centuries of interchange, interrelation, and experimentation.

Naseej aims to comprehend what comprised this Palestinian “local,” and the ways in which it found expression in Arabic—a cross-civilizational language that became a depository of the land’s multi-layered histories. What kind of threads remain of this tapestry after some 150 years of modernity and colonialism ?

Naseej will be published in both Arabic and English versions. It will first be published in Arabic by Al-Mutawassit in the fall of 2024, and in English by Pluto Press in spring of 2025.

Naseej is the first book project of Insaniyyat—the Society of Palestinian Anthropologists.