Cultural heritage beyond the 'state': Palestinian heritage between nationalism and transnationalism

This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of Palestinian heritage making, based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the West Bank between September 2005 and December 2006. My work focuses on the aftermath of the Oslo Accords, a period that began in 1994 with the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, or a non-sovereign "quasi-state" in parts of the West Bank and Gaza. My research in the field of heritage highlights the activism and prominent role of a globalized civil society in a domain historically monopolized by the state (as well as colonial and neocolonial powers). I show how numerous local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), funded by the international donors' community, have set as their task the rescue and "revitalization" of a past that differs considerably, moreover, from the past which has achieved high visibility throughout the history of archaeology in the Middle East, one dominated by pre-Islamic monumental sites. This new Palestinian past is a close past, a past of still-inhabited Ottoman-period buildings and historic urban neighborhoods; it is vernacular, lived, small-scale, centered on the home rather than the palace. Rather than displayed in a glass case, this is a past to be creatively put to use for socio-economic development, and a site of cultural production in the present. It is also a site that challenges a traditional dichotomy between heritage and counter-memory common in much scholarly literature. Ultimately, heritage in Palestine represents a socio-political project of emancipation. Through a range of methods, including ethnographic, media and spatial analysis, I have argued that this form of heritage making functions as a technology of life, an act of national survival and cultural resistance. In this vein, I further argue that heritage NGOs' practices partake in a broader Palestinian culture of memory that is more about creative and therapeutic remembering than obsessive melancholia, providing a sense of continuity, stability, and ultimately dignity for people living on shaky ground and in a condition of perpetual temporariness.;Integrating insights and methods from the anthropology of development and globalization into the field of heritage studies, my research has shed light on a key terrain, material heritage, where the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is played out, as well as shed light on some of the most significant questions raised by current structural changes in modes and effects of heritage making. Significantly, in the face of its peculiarities, the Palestinian context allows for important generalizations. As an extreme case, it provides an opportunity to study global transformations of the heritage field following the roll-back of the state alongside the partial outsourcing of its functions to sub-, trans-, and supra-national entities, given the weakness of the Palestinian "state." This situation has been interpreted, anthropologically, as a form either of "globalization from below" or of "government from afar." Emphasizing both structural constraints, i.e., Palestinian dependence on international donors, and actors' agency in networks, I show that this "heritage by NGOs" represents a complex mixture of both.;The Palestinian case emphasizes how transnational governmentality produces an ambiguous heritage. When it operates within a space that has a history of grassroots mobilization and that has a strong texture of local organizations, it can empower them through the dramatic expansion of their network of alliances. Through hybridization, it can generate highly fertile, innovative forms of heritage that participate in the making of globally circulating knowledges. Moreover, the withdrawal of the state from heritage management, in this situation, can open up the possibility for deep democracy in heritage, which translates into the emergence of alternative pasts. At the same time, transnational governmentality also generates a heritage that is dependent on international aid, as well as extremely unstable, fragmented and fragile. Not only does it tend to create a wedge between globally interconnected NGOs and local communities, but it also produces a fragmented terrain where pockets of excellence coexist with a sea of misery.