{"title":"Centering Place in Tawfiq Canaan’s Literary Cartography","authors":"Amanda Batarseh","doi":"10.1080/0377919X.2023.2246671","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract In the early-twentieth century, Palestinian physician and ethnographer Tawfiq Canaan published roughly forty-five studies on the cultural and narrative traditions of the largest section of Palestinian society, the fellaheen (peasantry). In this article, the author examines how Canaan’s expansive collection of stories related to holy sites across Palestine in Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (1927) produces a provocative literary cartography—a narrative that operates much like a map. In so doing, she contends that Canaan both contests orientalist constructions of the Holy Land as frozen in biblical time and, critically, unsettles the very spatiotemporal logic governing dominant colonial narrations of place. This epistemic shift, the author concludes, is the result of Canaan’s recentering of Indigenous Palestinian place-based knowledge as both the subject and method of his study. This approach offers instructive lessons applicable within and beyond the disciplinary, regional, and temporal boundaries that have so far circumscribed the study and reception of Canaan’s work.","PeriodicalId":46375,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Palestine Studies","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.2000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Palestine Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0377919X.2023.2246671","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"AREA STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract In the early-twentieth century, Palestinian physician and ethnographer Tawfiq Canaan published roughly forty-five studies on the cultural and narrative traditions of the largest section of Palestinian society, the fellaheen (peasantry). In this article, the author examines how Canaan’s expansive collection of stories related to holy sites across Palestine in Mohammedan Saints and Sanctuaries in Palestine (1927) produces a provocative literary cartography—a narrative that operates much like a map. In so doing, she contends that Canaan both contests orientalist constructions of the Holy Land as frozen in biblical time and, critically, unsettles the very spatiotemporal logic governing dominant colonial narrations of place. This epistemic shift, the author concludes, is the result of Canaan’s recentering of Indigenous Palestinian place-based knowledge as both the subject and method of his study. This approach offers instructive lessons applicable within and beyond the disciplinary, regional, and temporal boundaries that have so far circumscribed the study and reception of Canaan’s work.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Palestine Studies, the only North American journal devoted exclusively to Palestinian affairs and the Arab-Israeli conflict, brings you timely and comprehensive information on the region"s political, religious, and cultural concerns. Inside you"ll find: •Feature articles •Interviews •Book reviews •Quarterly updates on conflict and diplomacy •A settlement monitor •Detailed chronologies •Documents and source material •Bibliography of periodical literature