Figure 3 - uploaded by Rona Sela
Content may be subject to copyright.
"IDF and Defense Establishment Archive, Films Seized from the 'PLO Archive' in Beirut. No Way Out -Palestine War of Independence and Six Day War. Photographs of pictures of terrorists, and scenes from tent camps, Qalandia 1957, (92) B75-92,1,2".
Source publication
The essay discusses one characteristic of colonial archives–how the ruling state plunders/loots the colonized’ archives and treasures and controls them in its colonial archives - erasing them from the public sphere by repressive means, censors and restricts their exposure and use, alters their original identity, regulates their contents and subjuga...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... the copyright holder is listed as "IDF Spokesman Unit" and not the institute the material was taken from (see, e.g. Figure 3). Hence, not only is the origin of the films erased but they also have new owners and a "new" copyright holder (see also Figure 4, taken from a dead Arab at the Haganah History Archive). ...
Context 2
... example, they are catalogued according to Zionist terminology and the IDF Archive's customary system of coding, categorization and classification, with no relation to their Palestinian characteristics/cataloging. The films are classified in the IDF Archive on two separate lists -"Seized by IDF Spokesman Unit" and "Seized and Edited by IDF Spokesman Unit" (Figure 3) -that evidently do not match or consider the material's original classification. According to a longstanding Zionist tradition, a Palestinian is classified as an enemy and a terrorist. ...
Similar publications
The paper investigates changes to Copenhagen's landscape of commemoration concerning its former colony, the Danish West Indies (DWI), prompted by the 2017 centennial anniversary of the Islands' sale to the US. It argues that Denmark, like other European nations, navigates a postcolonial identity crisis and that the landscape of commemoration plays...
Citations
... Más allá de la ola de cine documental existente en los años setenta, la desaparición del archivo más grande se produjo en 1982, cuando la OLP fue expulsada de Beirut y este fue almacenado (en el Hospital de la Medialuna Roja), de donde "desapareció" en circunstancias no aclaradas tal y como se desprende del análisis del saqueo y las características coloniales de los archivos militares que guardan y controlan los materiales incautados(Sela, 2017). 5 Insistimos en la idea de que no se trata pues de confundir dos lenguajes netamente distintos, sino de trabajar cine y novela gráfica desde su narratividad y sus posibilidades didácticas.- 100 -narrativo o del enunciado, todo debido a las propias limitaciones de espacio del trabajo. ...
Acercamiento didáctico al cine y la novela gráfica sobre Palestina
... Our first type is borrowed directly from Connerton's schema of forgetting: repressive erasure. This is the version that has been most widely discussed and explored by scholarship in the fields of memory and heritage studies (ie Schindel and Colombo 2014;Sela 2018). It is also potentially that which is most familiar to broader audiences, given the footage of ISIS's destruction of ancient heritage sites in Palmyra circulating in 2015, or the media coverage of the defacing of the Buddhas of Bayamin at the hands of the Taliban in 2001. ...
While the history and practices of collecting have received considerable attention over the past few decades, the notion of erasure – of the deleting, removal or destruction of material, whether deliberate or otherwise – has remained largely in the shadows. We challenge this neglect by placing erasure centre stage and treating it as a productive phenomenon in its own right. Indeed, we suggest that it forms a significant precondition for the very possibility of memory and collections. This article draws upon a recent turn to consider questions of forgetting, ignorance and ending to lay out the grounds for analysing the various roles played by erasure in making and unmaking our world. Inspired by Paul Connerton's discussion of different types of forgetting, we present five distinct forms of erasure that we regard as principally important: (i) repressive erasure, (ii) protective erasure, (iii) operative erasure, (iv) amending erasure and (v) calamitous and neglectful erasure. In each case, we discuss the characteristic logic of the erasure at hand and provide examples of the historical and media-specific forms in which it has been enacted. Our aim in doing so is to provide future researchers with some of the analytical tools and perspectives necessary to engage in further erasure studies . For if we are interested in making sense of the shifting and complex world we inhabit, then the interdisciplinary study of the compelling yet elusive phenomenon of erasure is an excellent place to start.
... Information Representation in Displaced Archives 336 appropriation by physical possession) and intellectually reappropriated in the sense of "misrepresenting the content of the archive" (Frings-Hessami 2019a, 273f.). Another example concerns archives removed in the context of armed conflict by occupying forces to adversaries who tend to represent them as "enemy records" (Sela 2018b;Grimsted 2010b;Montgomery 2011;2015a;Brower 1963). Beyond this, re-appropriation in the context of armed conflict is most notable with the use of surrogates (micrography/digital imaging) or datification technologies (Auer 2017;Pennell 2019;Montgomery 2001), not only to support military intelligence analysis on the enemy (or to limit access) but also as a fungible mechanism for the (physical) repatriation of archives. ...
... Euphemistic representations. Archives seized during or after armed conflict relied on euphemistic classification systems, designed to obscure not only the provenance of the archives but also their content (Montgomery 2001;Sela 2018b). For example, Iraqi Ba'ath party archives resorted to euphemistic descriptors to attenuate acts related to the genocide of the Kurdish community in the context of Operation Anfal (1986)(1987)(1988)(1989). ...
... "Contra gentes" representations. This anarchivist strategy of information representation occurs when removal agents rely on or develop archival representation systems based on discrimination according to ethnicity and/or religious creed (Bailkin 2015;Mnjama and Lowry 2017;Sela 2018b;Montgomery 2001;Stoler 2002) or, furthermore, of non-representation of certain communities as a form of exclusion (Caswell 2012;Namhila 2004;. These are mechanisms for limiting information retrieval to the targeted communities. ...
This paper aims to perform a qualitative synthesis of literature concerning the representation of information in displaced archives. Methodologically, this communication is configured in a metasynthesis oriented to theory building, constituting a non-reactive, documentary-based and exploratory type of study, focused on articles and books chapters published in English between 1954 and 2019. The collection of texts is supported by the SPICE strategy, applied to the search in databases (WoS and EBSCO). We adopted content analysis according to the assumptions of Charmaz and Finfgeld-Connett. Of the 443 records, 155 texts that responded to the research purposes were included. Three themes emerged from the content analysis around the aforementioned theme with a view to theory building: “anarchivism as (non-) representation”, “archive of the archive”, and “archival canon”. Finally, displaced archives constitute an emerging theme in several domains, so it is important to explore the complex nature of this phenomenon from the point of view of representation and knowledge organization.
... Digitization and the advent of the digital archival and library turn have led to old questions about heritage, power, and the production and construction of historical knowledge being asked anew (see, for instance: Ketelaar, 2008). Over the past decade or so, a burgeoning literature has developed that discusses topics such as the coloniality of the archive and its influence on historical knowledge production (Stoler, 2010;Gordon, 2014), displaced archives in various contexts and locales (Lowry, 2017;Sela, 2018;Anziska, 2019), and ethical approaches to indigenous knowledge creation and production (CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, 2019; Guiliano and Heitman, 2019;Garaba, 2021). This literature has also provided a much-needed corrective to universalist ideas about what constitutes heritage or the archive (Garaba, 2015). ...
Much has been made in recent years of the transformative potential of digital resources and historical data for historical research. Historians seem to be flooded with retro-digitized and born-digital materials and tend to take these for granted, grateful for the opportunities they afford. In a research environment that increasingly privileges what is available online, the questions of why, where, and how we can access what we can access, and how it affects historical research have become ever more urgent. This article proposes a framework through which to contextualize the politics of (digital) heritage preservation, and a model to analyse its most important political dimensions, drawing upon literature from the digital humanities and history as well as archival, library, and information science. The first part will outline the global dimensions of the politics of digital cultural heritage, focusing on developments between and within the Global North and South, framed within the broader context of the politics of heritage and its preservation. The second part surveys the history and current state of digitization and offers a structured analysis of the process of digitization and its political dimensions. Choices and decisions about selection for digitization, how to catalogue, classify, and what metadata to add are all political in nature and have political consequences, and the same is true for access. The article concludes with several recommendations and a plea to acknowledge the importance of digital cataloguing in enabling access to the global human record.
... -Representações 'contra gentes'. Esta estratégia anarquívica de representação da informação ocorre quando os agentes da remoção se apoiam ou desenvolvem sistemas de representação arquivísticos baseados na discriminação segundo a etnicidade e/ou o credo religioso (Bailkin, 2015;Chilcott, 2019;Mnjama & Lowry, 2017;Montgomery, 2001;Sela, 2018b;Stoler, 2002) ou, ainda, de não representação de determinadas comunidades como forma de exclusão (Caswell, 2012a;Namhila, 2004Namhila, , 2015. Sela exemplifica como "a longstanding Zionist tradition, a Palestinian is classified as an enemy and a terrorist", ao ponto de "Palestinian settlements are referred to by Hebrew names to erase their Palestinian identity" (2018b, p. 211). ...
VERONEZ JÚNIOR, Wilson Roberto; MARTÍNEZ-ÁVILA, Daniel; TROITIÑO RODRÍGUEZ, Sonia Maria. Arquivologia e Organização do Conhecimento: uma análise nos anais da Isko Brasil, Isko Internacional e Isko Ibérico. In: Silva, Carlos Guardado da, Revez, Jorge & Corujo, Luís (Eds.). (2021). Organização do Conhecimento no Horizonte 2030: Desenvolvimento Sustentável e Saúde: Atas do V Congresso ISKO Espanha-Portugal, Universidade de Lisboa. Faculdade de Letras, 25 e 26 de novembro de 2021. Lisboa: Centro de Estudos Clássicos, Colibri. (CA – Ciência Aberta ; 1) ISBN 978-989-566-137-4 CDU 025.4(063)
... -Representações 'contra gentes'. Esta estratégia anarquívica de representação da informação ocorre quando os agentes da remoção se apoiam ou desenvolvem sistemas de representação arquivísticos baseados na discriminação segundo a etnicidade e/ou o credo religioso (Bailkin, 2015;Chilcott, 2019;Mnjama & Lowry, 2017;Montgomery, 2001;Sela, 2018b;Stoler, 2002) ou, ainda, de não representação de determinadas comunidades como forma de exclusão (Caswell, 2012a;Namhila, 2004Namhila, , 2015. Sela exemplifica como "a longstanding Zionist tradition, a Palestinian is classified as an enemy and a terrorist", ao ponto de "Palestinian settlements are referred to by Hebrew names to erase their Palestinian identity" (2018b, p. 211). ...
VERONEZ JÚNIOR, Wilson Roberto; ALMEIDA, Carlos Candido de; MARTÍNEZ-ÁVILA, Daniel; TROITIÑO RODRÍGUEZ, Sonia Maria. Epistemologia Social e Organização do Conhecimento: contribuições as abordagens culturais. In: Silva, Carlos Guardado da, Revez, Jorge & Corujo, Luís (Eds.). (2021). Organização do Conhecimento no Horizonte 2030: Desenvolvimento Sustentável e Saúde: Atas do V Congresso ISKO Espanha-Portugal, Universidade de Lisboa.
... -Representações 'contra gentes'. Esta estratégia anarquívica de representação da informação ocorre quando os agentes da remoção se apoiam ou desenvolvem sistemas de representação arquivísticos baseados na discriminação segundo a etnicidade e/ou o credo religioso (Bailkin, 2015;Chilcott, 2019;Mnjama & Lowry, 2017;Montgomery, 2001;Sela, 2018b;Stoler, 2002) ou, ainda, de não representação de determinadas comunidades como forma de exclusão (Caswell, 2012a;Namhila, 2004Namhila, , 2015. Sela exemplifica como "a longstanding Zionist tradition, a Palestinian is classified as an enemy and a terrorist", ao ponto de "Palestinian settlements are referred to by Hebrew names to erase their Palestinian identity" (2018b, p. 211). ...
... Over the years, there have been various studies calling to challenge colonial archives and their interpretation and to build postcolonial/decolonial models (Stoler 2002;McEwan 2003;Feldman 2008, Steele 2010Caswell 2011;Weld 2014;Sela 2009a, b;Elkins 2015;Karabinos 2015;Sela 2015Sela , 2018aSeikaly 2018;Hegasy 2019). 1 This anti-colonialist discourse requires, "an alternative set of questions, techniques and strategies in order to construct it" (Bhabha 1990, 75), while locating the spurious tainted evidences of colonialism and rereading them in a radical way (Guha 1998). These processes call for an oppositional force to the repressive official actions and efforts to govern, modify or conceal the past, control the narration of history and rebuild memory. ...
... Ethnic cleansing was put into effect through systematic expulsions of hundreds of Palestinian villages, as well as Jewish terrorist attacks against the civilian population (Morris 1988;Pappé 1992Pappé , 2006. The new Israeli state closed its borders to the Palestinians and expropriated their houses in towns and villages (ibid), as well as cultural and historical assets and archives (Amit 2014;Sela 2009a, b;Masalha 2012;Sela 2017Sela , 2018a. It used these premises to house the many Jewish immigrants and needed housing, and others were destroyed in order to prevent the return of Palestinians (Golan 1992;Shai 2002). ...
... Israeli archives are ruled according to a repressive and colonial system and are subjugated to restrictive laws and regulations (Cohen 2004;Robinson 2003;Feldman 2008;Sela 2009a;Ben Artzi 2011;Sela 2017Sela , 2018aSela , b, 2019. Israel's colonial archives not only remain in control of Israeli historiography but also control Palestinian cultural treasures and writing of the past, showing how patterns of action, administrative procedures, norms and worldviews imprison knowledge. ...
The article drives from the Israeli colonial archives and seeks to crack their structure, foundations and imagination. It wishes to establish a counter postcolonial/decolonial archive, based on colonial sources, while taking into consideration the specific condition of the Israeli colonialism and settler colo-nialism, and mainly the repressive administration of the colonial archives. While colonial bodies and archives erase the indigenous history and past, the counter archive aims to return them to their original population and to the pubic-sphere, calling for democratization processes. It will be established on the ruins of the Israeli colonial archive, will tell the story of the Palestinian villages that their population was uprooted and exiled (before and after exile), the story of the Palestinian population who remained in Palestine under military regime, strangers in the house; the erasure and attempt to control Palestinian historiography and culture to support official Israeli narrative. The decolonial archive will also gather indigenous materials in colonial archives, point out the physical and interpretative forces exerted on them, cleanse them of their biased interpretation and focus on structuring a reading that differs from the original colonial designation. It will restore them to indigenous history, enabling the construction of an alternative multi-layered database, different from the one-sided characteristic of colonial archives. The proposal then is to turn the Israeli colonial archive-corrupt, oppressive and destructive, into a more autonomous site-not only the materials themselves but also the way they are contextualized, read and interpreted.
... Over the years, there have been various studies calling to challenge colonial archives and their interpretation and to build postcolonial/decolonial models (Stoler 2002;McEwan 2003;Feldman 2008, Steele 2010Caswell 2011;Weld 2014;Sela 2009a, b;Elkins 2015;Karabinos 2015;Sela 2015Sela , 2018aSeikaly 2018;Hegasy 2019). 1 This anti-colonialist discourse requires, "an alternative set of questions, techniques and strategies in order to construct it" (Bhabha 1990, 75), while locating the spurious tainted evidences of colonialism and rereading them in a radical way (Guha 1998). These processes call for an oppositional force to the repressive official actions and efforts to govern, modify or conceal the past, control the narration of history and rebuild memory. ...
... Ethnic cleansing was put into effect through systematic expulsions of hundreds of Palestinian villages, as well as Jewish terrorist attacks against the civilian population (Morris 1988;Pappé 1992Pappé , 2006. The new Israeli state closed its borders to the Palestinians and expropriated their houses in towns and villages (ibid), as well as cultural and historical assets and archives (Amit 2014;Sela 2009a, b;Masalha 2012;Sela 2017Sela , 2018a. It used these premises to house the many Jewish immigrants and needed housing, and others were destroyed in order to prevent the return of Palestinians (Golan 1992;Shai 2002). ...
... Israeli archives are ruled according to a repressive and colonial system and are subjugated to restrictive laws and regulations (Cohen 2004;Robinson 2003;Feldman 2008;Sela 2009a;Ben Artzi 2011;Sela 2017Sela , 2018aSela , b, 2019. Israel's colonial archives not only remain in control of Israeli historiography but also control Palestinian cultural treasures and writing of the past, showing how patterns of action, administrative procedures, norms and worldviews imprison knowledge. ...
The article drives from the Israeli colonial archives and seeks to crack their structure, foundations and imagination. It wishes to establish a counter postcolonial/decolonial archive, based on colonial sources, while taking into consideration the specific condition of the Israeli colonialism and settler colonialism, and mainly the repressive administration of the colonial archives. While colonial bodies and archives erase the indigenous history and past, the counter archive aims to return them to their original population and to the pubic-sphere, calling for democratization processes. It will be established on the ruins of the Israeli colonial archive, will tell the story of the Palestinian villages that their population was uprooted and exiled (before and after exile), the story of the Palestinian population who remained in Palestine under military regime, strangers in the house; the erasure and attempt to control Palestinian historiography and culture to support official Israeli narrative. The decolonial archive will also gather indigenous materials in colonial archives, point out the physical and interpretative forces exerted on them, cleanse them of their biased interpretation and focus on structuring a reading that differs from the original colonial designation. It will restore them to indigenous history, enabling the construction of an alternative multi- layered database, different from the one-sided characteristic of colonial archives. The proposal then is to turn the Israeli colonial archive–corrupt, oppressive and destructive, into a more autonomous site–not only the materials themselves but also the way they are contextualized, read and interpreted.
... This analysis of destruction and curation during and following the Iraq War illustrates that resource conflict is not a self-contained entity, but rather a holistic regime of removal, dispossession and exploitation where resource extraction co-occurs with particular forms of cultural extraction. The framework of passive and active destruction presented here has utility beyond the Iraqi context; similar patterns of military action and inaction have led to the degradation and displacement of heritage from surrounding regions, including Afghanistan, Syria and Palestine (Almohamad, 2021;Sela, 2018;Stein, 2015). Conflict curation, too, is a concept that helps to explain the ties between cultural dispossession and museums and the art market, a connection common in colonial as well as post-and neocolonial artefact collection (Amineddoleh, 2013;Hicks, 2020). ...
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) occupied the city of Manbij and its countryside from 23 January 2014 until 12 August 2016. During this period, the region suffered greatly as ISIS monopolized control and brutally imposed its ideology. Fierce battles were fought for the control of oil wells, bakeries, mills, dams, and power stations, all of which were sources of revenue. Antiquities were soon recognized as another potential income source. This article demonstrates the ways in which ISIS began to administer and facilitate the looting of antiquities through the Diwan Al-Rikaz. Within this diwan , ISIS established the Qasmu Al-Athar, which was specifically responsible for looting antiquities. Based on interviews conducted in 2015 and primary documents, this article studies the specific ways in which ISIS facilitated the quarrying and looting of antiquities in Manbij and the rich archaeological sites of its countryside. Further, by examining the damage at a previously undocumented archaeological site, Meshrefet Anz, the looting of antiquities under the direct supervision of the Diwan Al-Rikaz is studied. Using documentary evidence including ISIS’s internal documentation as well as photographs collected by the author between 2014 and 2016, the article demonstrates the methods used by ISIS, reveals its financial motivations, and bears witness to the damage done at specific Syrian heritage sites.
