Accountability and Artistic Practices in Palestine

Abstract

The significance of cultural production in the pursuit of justice and accountability is widely acknowledged. The arts can ‘presence’ forgotten or erased experiences of harm, foreground competing truth claims and enable ongoing resistance against oppression. This holds true in the Palestinian context as well, where the absence of political will to address Israel’s impunity, along with the lack of formal avenues for justice, underscores the importance of grassroots resistance and informal initiatives, such as artistic practices, in the struggle for justice and accountability for Palestinians. This panel examines how literary writing about the Palestinian context can complement our understanding about accountability and can provide a complementary layer to legal and criminal accountability, including historical and political accountability. Drawing on scholarship on the nexus between artistic practices and justice, the panelists argue that cultural production can stretch the understanding of accountability, taking into account the potential of artistic practices in truth-seeking, memorialization and documentation. Based on close readings of literary works, the contributions to this panel examine the nexus between cultural production and accountability. Firstly, they analyze artistic responses to experiences of harm and look into the function of concrete artistic practices in the Palestinian context. Secondly, the contributions discuss how these works articulate accountability in relation to structures of thought and power that concern not only those directly involved in human rights violations, but also other actors who acquiesce in and aid the perpetration indirectly. Finally, they explore what justice and accountability can mean, if experiences of harm are addressed in a more expansive way, to include a broader range of perspectives and actors.