[This article is part of the new Photography and Audiovisual Narratives Page launch. All accompanying launch posts can be found here.]
Once, I tried to have a conversation with my baba about intersectionality. It was a topic I was not too sure how to navigate with my 62-year-old father.
We were speaking on the veranda of the home he grew up in Qalandia camp. The sound of the ground being pummeled and shattered at the quarry nearby interrupted us, pausing our conversation.
After a short while, he continued by recalling a story of his own.
“Maen, when I was in middle school, we used to round up as many coins as we could—us, my group of friends at school. Every other Friday there was a box at the masjid in the camp where donations were sent to Algeria to support their liberation movement. I did not even know what Algeria was. I knew it was a place. A place that needed help, like us. For years we would do this without hesitation.
"Is this what you mean by intersectionality?”
“That’s exactly what I meant, baba.”
[Maen’s father dancing dabka during “Land Day” while a student at Birzeit University between 1978-1982.]
[Maen’s father chatting with his fellow university friends while a student at Birzeit University between 1978-1982.]