Recent Events: LAU - Data and Society Class Tour
On May 3rd, 2023, students from the Lebanese American University (LAU) toured the archive and offices of the Palestine Land Studies Center. Dr. Rami Zurayk, Interim Director of PLSC, gave an introduction to the collection. Abed Al Kareem Yehya, the coordinator of the PLSC, and Librarian Ms. Ghada Dimashk explained the material, and walked the students through the map series, Dr. Abu Sitta's Atlas of Palestine, and other items.
Recent Events: Palestinian Cultural Club and SOAN Student Society Archive Tour
On April 7th, 2022, the Palestinian Cultural Club and the SOAN Student Society toured the archive and offices of the Palestine Land Studies Center. Dr. Sari Hanafi, professor of sociology and member of the PLSC's Steering Committee, gave an introduction to the collection. Michael Avanzato, the ex-coordinator of the PLSC, and graduate researcher Bana Madi explained the material, and walked the students through the map series, Dr. Abu Sitta's Atlas of Palestine, and other items.
Recent Events: The PLSC at the Middle East Librarians Association
Michael Avanzato, the ex-coordinator of the PLSC, presented at a roundtable with the Endangered Libraries and Archives Committee on behalf of the PLSC at the Middle East Librarians Association (MELA) in October. The roundtable was entitled "Collaborations and Partnerships for Endangered Archives and Libraries: Case Studies from the Past, Present, and Future," and included presentations on restoring burned Bosnian manuscripts, and the The Hill Museum and Manuscript Library's efforts to digitize and preserve archival material.
The PLSC's presentation, entitled "The Palestine Land Studies Center: Activating an Archive and Preserving History," focused on the PLSC's role in preserving Palestinian history, and gave a brief overview of our archives.
The entire panel was recorded and uploaded to YouTube, and the PLSC's presentation begins at 44:05.
Recent Release: Urban Recovery: Intersecting Displacement with Post War Reconstruction edited by Dr. Howayda Al-Harithy
Dr. Howayda Al-Harithy, founding director of the Palestine Land Studies Center, has edited and published Urban Recovery: Intersecting Displacement with Post War Reconstruction via Routledge.
This book calls for re-conceptualising urban recovery by exploring the intersection of reconstruction and displacement in volatile contexts in the Global South. It explores the spatial, social, artistic, and political conditions that promote urban recovery.
Reconstruction and displacement have often been studied independently as two different processes of physical recovery and human migration towards safety and shelter. It is hoped that by intersecting or even bridging reconstruction with displacement we can cross-fertilize and exploit both discourses to reach a greater understanding of the notion of urban recovery as a holistic and multi-layered process. This book brings multidisciplinary perspectives into conversation with each other to look beyond the conflict-related displacement and reconstruction and into the greater processes of crises and recovery. It uses empirical research to examine how trauma, crisis, and recovery overlap, coexist, collide and redefine each other. The core exploration of this edited collection is to understand how the oppositional framing of destruction versus reconstruction and place-making versus displacement can be disrupted; how displacement is spatialized; and how reconstruction is extended to the displaced people rebuilding their lives, environments, and memories in new locations. In the process, displacement is framed as agency, the displaced as social capital, post-conflict urban environments as archives, and reconstructions as socio-spatial practices.
With local and international insights from scholars across disciplines, this book will appeal to academics and students of urban studies, architecture, and social sciences, as well as those involved in the process of urban recovery.