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Dancing Against Settler Colonialism; The Palestinian Dabke in the Diaspora

Featuring talks by Dr. Janelle Joseph and Zeana Hamdonah

 

Date: April 29, 2024

Time: 4:30 - 6:30 p.m.

Location: INTS 1109 & Zoom

Admission: FREE

Advance registration required: 

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Dr. Janell Joseph

Dr. Janelle Joseph is an award-winning Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education at the University of Toronto. She is Founder and Director of the Indigeneity, Diaspora, Equity, and Anti-racism in Sport (IDEAS) Research Lab and author/co-editor of three books related to race, sport, education, and Black communities in Canada. Dr Joseph’s current research focuses on health, movement cultures, and de-colonization.

 

Zeana Hamdonah

Zeana (pronounced Zayna) Hamdonah is a Palestinian-Canadian Muslim PhD candidate at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education. As a member of the Indigeneity, Diaspora, Equity, and Anti-racism in Sport (IDEAS) Research Lab, Zeana's research interests focus on global health, (de)colonization, anti-oppression, anti-war, and post-colonial theory and practice.

 

 

DISCUSSION CONTENT

Contending with the structural erasure and appropriation of their land, culture, history, and traditions imposed by the settler state, Palestinians have adopted/adapted traditional cultural elements to further their nationalist aspirations and assert their rights as Palestine’s Indigenous people. In the diaspora, Palestinians practice and perform the dabke folkdance, as a tool of anti-colonial memory maintenance and knowledge transfer. In this context, the dabke has been (re)shaped to keep up with the invasive nature of settler colonialism, by evolving to protect indigeneity, resist imagined settler geographies, and represent an embodied landmark of Palestinian existence and history. This presentation examine the digital platforms of a diasporic dabke dance academy in Ontario, Canada, highlighting the innovations of using social media to broadcast the teachings and performance of dabke while promoting Palestinian cultural continuity against settler colonialism. The authors employ the theoretical framework of sumud, a specifically Palestinian mode of steadfast anti-colonial being/becoming to explain that the performance of dance, and the subsequent broadcasting via digital social media platforms is an innovative approach to counter settler colonialism. Cultural and community leaders such as dancers, teachers, and choreographers celebrate Palestinian resilience, resistance, and restoration, while mobilizing global solidarities through social media and dance.

 

 

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