Holly Mason Badra, Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (New Texts Out Now)

Holly Mason Badra, Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (New Texts Out Now)

Holly Mason Badra, Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (New Texts Out Now)

By : Holly Mason Badra

Holly Mason Badra, Sleeping in the Courtyard: Contemporary Kurdish Writers in Diaspora (University of Arkansas Press, 2025). 

Jadaliyya (J): What made you edit this book?

Holly Mason Badra (HMB): I see this collection as the antithesis of erasure. Sleeping in the Courtyard compiles creative work by contemporary Kurdish women and nonbinary writers living in Kurdistan and in diaspora. 

The project began in 2019 when Western media brought attention to Kurdish oppression through coverage of the Turkish military attacks on Kurds in Rojava. The mainstream coverage of this event led to North American and English-reading writers asking me where they could find Kurdish poetry and literature translated into English. I took on the task of spotlighting and sharing what was readily available online, but at that time, there was not yet a vast overflow of Kurdish literary work translated into English and also highly accessible online, especially compared to translations of other languages from the Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) region, like Arabic, Turkish, or Farsi. Moreover, most of the Kurdish translations available and the few anthologies in existence at that point predominately offered space to male writers. So, I became interested in reading and highlighting more work from Kurdish women writers. Then, putting these works together in a single collection allowed the pieces to speak to each other in significant ways that further illuminate Kurdish lives and experiences beyond stereotype. Moreover, bringing us all together under one metaphorical roof, around the table, starts to connect our work and construct meaningful threads, which develops deeper understandings and strengthens solidarities across the diaspora.

So, I began researching, connecting, and recruiting writers to this project. Since I started this project, there have been some other great collections published showcasing the work and voices of Kurdish women writers and translators in English (like Houzan Mahmoud’s Kurdish Women’s Stories; Farangis Ghaderi, Clémence Scalbert Yücel, and Yaser Hassan Ali’s Women’s Voices from Kurdistan: A Selection of Kurdish Poetry; and The Purple Color of Kurdish Politics: Women Politicians Write from Prison, edited by Gültan Kışanak). We have seen some great movement in this area of representation, and I am so excited for Sleeping in the Courtyard to join the party.

What I gained from this book project has been powerful—and that is deep friendships more like sisterhood. We are now all connected and able to support each other’s work and lives. That is a beautiful thing to me and a great product of this collection.

The book spans a wide range of geographies, fragmentations, fractures, and displacements.

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

HMB: I really wanted to bring together a group of outstanding and diverse writers within the same space. I also really wanted to showcase an array of styles and topics. 

Through fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and graphic novel, this collection showcases a wide range of Kurdish voices and experiences. Some themes that emerge and flow throughout the collection: discovery, familial complexities, cultural suppression and exploration, gender-based violence and oppression, displacement, memory, resistance, and resilience. Beyond those threads, there are also: strong female friendships, community, motherhood, parenthood, isolation, loss, empowerment, sexuality, desire, love, bodily autonomy, immigration, exile, questions of “home,” technology, music, art, legacy, lineage, ancestral meditations, complex and hyphenated identities, anger, fear, pursuit of education, familial struggles, familial bonds, sibling care, mental health, politics and political engagement, social critiques, feminist ideologies, travel, rootedness, fragmentation, epiphany, state violence, military occupation, genocide, lies, truths, artifacts, inheritance, food and feast, autumn foliage, summer heat, winter’s breath, spring’s perfume, dreams, magic, barriers, boundaries, war, liberation, rituals, intergenerational trauma, and intergenerational joy. 

The book spans a wide range of geographies, fragmentations, fractures, and displacements. Many of the women in this book are writers in exile. They are exiled simply for being women and being writers (the two coexisting at once posing a threat). The fact that the intersectional identity as a Kurdish woman daring to write, in some instances, means risking one’s safety also proves that there must inherently be power in writing, if these women are seen as a threat just for doing it. Sleeping in the Courtyard is really dedicated to all writers in exile. 

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

HMB: Sleeping in the Courtyard is in harmony with a lot of my recent nonfiction work that aims to highlight Kurdish women writers and translators. It is also in tune with decades of work focused on spotlighting women writers and artists. As for alignment with my poetry and nonfiction, this collection continues to explore some of the themes that come up in my creative publications around identity, diaspora, hyphenation, sexuality, gender, familial intricacies, amongst others. 

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

HMB: I want everyone to read this book! I am hoping that Kurds in the diaspora will read the book. I am hoping Kurds in Kurdistan will read the book. I am hoping we have an audience within the SWANA community at large. I hope intersectional and transnational feminists will read the book. I hope that people who have heard of the Kurds and those who have not will read the book. May this book be widely read across the literary landscape, in houses, on the metro, under trees, in coffee shops, at celebrations, in classrooms.

For impact, my desire is that Kurds and especially Kurdish women will come into the foreground and no longer be viewed through a monolithic lens. That people will recognize the rich lives, stories, and tapestries of Kurdish experience. That there will be an understanding, appreciation, and celebration of Kurdish culture, lives, and art. 

Before the book was officially picked up by the University of Arkansas Press, it went through a review process from press partners. One of the responses from a reviewer (anonymous to me, even still) is, in part, exactly the type of response I had hoped this book would elicit. He says, “Thank you very much for putting this anthology together. As a Kurdish man who was born and raised in Turkey, I feel privileged to read this before it is published. It made me cry, laugh, remember the genocide, remember my childhood, remember the fear of speaking in Kurdish, my inner child (the innocent light brown kiddo whose only aim was to play but what about genocide). Most importantly it made me remember the joy, beauty and wholeness of being Kurdish. Thank you very much for creating a space like this.”  I have printed this out and put it up in my office. 

This is exactly what I hope for… that the book will speak to Kurds in meaningful ways; that the book will speak to experiences specific to and also beyond gender; and that the book will offer moments and reflections for non-Kurdish audiences as well. To that first point, the British Kurdish public figure Payzee Mahmod, whose landmark work on honor killings and child marriage laws is well known, said about the book, “Sleeping in the Courtyard moved me in ways I didn’t expect. As a Kurdish woman, so much of what’s in these pages felt like home. Each piece carries the weight of memory, exile, and identity, but also the beauty of our language, our stories, our resilience. This collection doesn’t just speak to the Kurdish experience—it honours it.” Again, this type of response makes me feel joy that the book is singing in the way I wished it to sing. 

On the wish that it speak both to and beyond the Kurdish soul, Lana Salah Barkawi, Executive and Artist Director of Mizna, wrote that the collection “is a site for urgent collectivity, a welcoming home to Kurdish stories and Kurdish readers, and in its specificities, a window into the condition of being human.” Similarly, Etaf Rum writes about the book’s ability to transcend: “As a Palestinian American writer, I have long searched for reflections of my own fragmented lineage—this anthology gave me that and more.” These are also the types of responses that I desire as a transnational feminist, that the pieces in this collection will be viewed both within their own specific, distinct contexts and also offer spaces of connection for all. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

HMB: I am working on a nonfiction essay collection that includes and is growing out of an essay I published in The Rumpus’ “We Are More” series for writers of SWANA heritage. That essay is titled “Sustenance,” and it weaves together and unpacks a number of identity-related complexities in my life. The essay collection also includes an essay in progress about Kurdish humor and creativity as resistance mechanisms (both implicitly and explicitly), as well as essays on drag shows, the fertility process, gender, and sexuality.

In the way of another exciting project I have become a part of, I want to mention a new Kurdish-owned and operated publishing press, Henar Press, of which I am on the board. Henar is a US-based press dedicated to publishing and promoting Kurdish literature and translation (in English). I am glad to be involved in the incredible work that Arian Sorani is doing to center contemporary Kurdish writers, including offering a public access, comprehensive Kurdish Literary Database that is an absolute game-changer.

 

Excerpt from the book (from the Introduction, pages xv to xvii)

Being Kurdish American, in my experience, means that I was born in the US to a Kurdish mother and a white-Southern-Nashville father. My mother was born in Kirkuk (Southern Kurdistan) and grew up in Baghdad. Her family escapedSaddam Hussein’s regime in 1975 (yes, he was persecuting the Kurds and “running the show” even before he was officially in a presidential position of power). They fled, packing one suitcase for ten, going on horseback through the mountains, and coming to the United States as war refugees. What this means is that my experience as a Kurdish American was one of distance and displacement from Kurdistan. But it was also growing up around my Kurdish family; hearing them speak a mixture of Arabic, Sorani, and Kurmanji; hearing stories about their lives before they immigrated to the US; and hearing them laugh in the kitchen together as they prepared a feast of Kurdish foods. Even though there was a displacement from the land, there was an immersion in Kurdish culture. At a young age, I could recite the details of my family’s journey to get here: hiding in caves, the bomb that didn’t detonate, the steep and thin mountain paths. And, in awe, I have learned about their experiences as refugees building a new “home” in America. Through connecting with other Kurdish writers and reading their work, I have been able to see my family’s stories reflected and crystalized. More than that, as a daughter of diaspora, I have started to see my own world and experiences reflected as a queer, Kurdish American woman spanning various colliding spaces. That reflection has been incredibly—and unexpectedly—nourishing. I didn’t know how much I needed to talk with others who have similar intersecting identities. It’s been life-altering to be reflected in these ways, to be so understood. Connecting with other Kurdish writers and artists in this process has been uplifting and heart-healing—and I know I am not alone in those sentiments.

As children, my mom and her siblings not only learned both Arabic and Kurdish but also learned (sometimes the hard way) where they could or couldn’t speak each language. Regrettably, I do not speak Kurdish fluently. This is also the case for many Kurds though, due to language oppression, suppression, and criminalization—intentional linguicide. This shows up in Kurdish and Kurdish diaspora writing. I say all this to point to the importance of collections like this not only as a way to showcase Kurdish stories but also to give space to Kurdish writing in translation. For diasporic Kurds who read in the English language, like myself, it’s been electric to be able to read Kurdish stories, essays, and poetry thanks to the art of translation. I am grateful to the translators who are doing this difficult work. These translations offer a window . . . or more like a door to walk through, an entryway.

Most translations in this anthology are from Kurdish—and mostly from the Sorani dialect. There are many Kurdish dialects—to name a few: Kurmanji, Sorani, Gorani, Zazaki, Badini. However, it is important to note that linguicide has often made it impossible, if not criminal, for Kurds to learn Kurdish. To be clear, we still see this today. In January 2022, for example, Zahra Mohammadi was sentenced to five to ten years in prison for teaching the Kurdish language and literature to her students in Eastern Kurdistan (the Kurdish region of Iran). So, it is important to recognize that not all Kurds speak Kurdish and that this is deeply rooted in systemic oppression tactics to divide and conquer. When you cut off a group’s ability to communicate in their mother tongue, you take away their capacity for connectivity. You take away their ability to share and preserve culture, to thrive. Or at least you attempt to. However, the Kurds remain resilient. Even in the face of these intentions to fracture, Kurds have remained some of the most tight-knit, friendly, warm, and welcoming people. We want to feed you. We want to hold your babies. We want to make sure you have what you need to be comfortable. A Kurd will give you the shirt off their back if you say you like it. 

Given the fractured linguistic context described above, the other translations in the book are from Kurdish writers who do not write in Kurdish but rather are writing in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, or even Swedish. This was important to me to be as inclusive as possible in the collection and to recognize this complex web of physical and lingual displacement. Much of the writing in the book was originally written in English, but for the work that was translated into English, in reaching toward a decolonial praxis, it was important to me and the translators to find a publisher that would include the original Kurdish dialects to honor the Kurdish language, to recognize this history of linguicide, and to push against oppressive attempts to strip away Kurdish language.

My goal in this work was to be as expansive as possible in my approach and as transnational as possible in representation. We have in the book writers from and living in various parts of the world: Australia, the UK, Norway, Kurdistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Jordan, France, Sweden, Greece, Germany, Austria, the US, and beyond. It was important to me that the writers included in the anthology also represent varied intersectional identities. The book had to be an open space for writers who also identify as queer and nonbinary; who are situated within various religious groups and belief systems; and/or who see themselves within the disability community.

At the university where I work, I am the faculty advisor for the Kurdish Student Organization. A few years ago, I asked the KSO’s president, Ala, what she wanted the group to accomplish. She said, among other things, that she wanted people to know that “we aren’t just sitting around eating dolma all the time.” We all laughed. What Ala was getting at is what I hope this anthology will also achieve. A breaking of monolithic ideologies about Kurds . . . or, an opening. To enhance understanding around the varied lives and experiences of Kurds globally. This collection resists confinement. This collection resists the appropriation of Kurdish cultural production. This collection resists the idea that Kurds are victims to be rescued by Western saviorism. It was important to me that the writing in this book moves beyond stereotypes. Yes, much of the writing, no doubt, conveys struggle—this is the reality, and especially related to the intersectionality of being a Kurdish woman. With these themes represented, I also wanted to offer a range of poems, stories, and essays that go beyond what some audiences may think of when they think of the Kurds. The writing in this book showcases a variety of representations, voices, points of view, identities, intersectional experiences, geographical contexts, as well as a range of styles and genres.

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.