A History of Palestinian Uprisings through Prison Resistance since 1967
[Thesis]
Anthonisen, Grailing
Parsons, Laila
McGill University (Canada)
2019
149 p.
M.A.
McGill University (Canada)
2019
This thesis explores how Palestinian prisoners in Israel and across the Middle East organized and mobilized during periods of nationalist revolt since the 1970s. It examines the way prisoners formed internal governing structures and committees that provided order, discipline, and services, like education. With the help of these structures, prisoners raised morale and maintained the unity necessary for collective action. Prisoners participated in collective actions ranging from noncompliance, hunger strikes and refusing to stand for counts to more militant stances, like rioting, and arson. Prisoners themselves created important art works and also came to be symbols of sumud, or steadfastness in the broader culture of Palestinian resistance. The thesis considers the way resistance was a collective and individualized endeavour for Palestinian prisoners and how often the line between the two blurred. And through narrating prisoners' organization and mobilization, the thesis shows exactly how prisons became nationalist spaces and how these nationalist spaces changed over time