Palestine in the Air: A Cultural History of Palestinian Aviation since 1920

(Hardback)

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As the first cultural history of Palestinian aviation, Palestine in the Air reveals civil aviations role in the question of Palestine over the past century. International civil aviation has been a powerful tool for the systemic disenfranchisement of Palestinian statehood, connectivity and mobility. Yet, at the same time, Palestinians have creatively appropriated aviation technologies in diverse modes of resistance. They have exploited flights symbolic values of escape and liberation in their struggle against occupation. Using an interdisciplinary approach that draws on media studies, cultural studies, critical theory, diplomacy and history, Palestine in the Air examines civil aviations political, social and cultural impact upon the Palestinian quest for sovereignty. The book makes use of an unprecedented range of aviation-related sources spanning histories, images, interviews with Palestinians, research, print and television archives, art, film, literature, poetry and even stand-up comedy. Aviation is presented here as an unconventional weapon of resistance that has gained media exposure and has had the ability to disrupt dominant narratives about Palestine. This includes, most radically, aeroplane hijackings, but also subaltern resistance movements that make use of balloons and kites, or filmmakers and researchers that use commercial drones to reclaim knowledge and agency of their environment.

Author Bio

Chin-chin Yap is a writer and filmmaker on art, law and human rights. She has co-edited the book Human Flow: Stories from the Global Refugee Crisis (2020) and has been published in Columbia Journal of Law & the Arts, Digital War, and Art Asia Pacific. She has produced three documentary films and is a student pilot.