Fathers in and Against Pain: Father’s Interruptions of Settler-Colonial Technologies of Loss

Abstract

Bereaved fathers dealing with political loss provide an under-examined experience of living with unbearable pain. Drawing on an anti-colonial feminist framework, this article analyzes the written and visualized pain of bereaved Palestinian fathers posted on Facebook. This study approaches cyberspace as a meaningful site for theorizing the suffering of a people living under state violence. I focus on three portraits shared by fathers, which include texts, photos, e-comments, and e-interpretations. By considering the narratives and reactions evoked by these portraits, this study reveals complex transformations of individual and collective pain, loss, and grief. The study further suggests that visualizing fathers’ pain on social media provides a space for fathers to navigate trauma. They achieve this by traversing traumatic confusion into a state of survival and agency while challenging structures of dehumanization, dispossession, and death.