Lived Resistance against the War on Palestinian Children: Book Talk and Panel Discussions, October 8-11, 2024
The book tour will include speaking events hosted in Turku, Tampere, and Helsinki. The book’s editor Prof. Heidi Morrison will offer her motivations for the book and an overview of key themes, while contributing author Prof. Nitin Sawhney will discuss his psychosocial research and documentary film, Flying Paper, produced with children in Gaza.
Other invited panelists will offer critical perspectives on vulnerability and resilience among children in war, as well as the historical and political situation in Palestine, and its impacts on the lives of young people in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem).
Through the panel discussions with audiences we will consider how the scholarship and research in this book remains relevant today, despite the horrific effects of the ongoing genocide, settler violence and state oppression experienced by Palestinian children and their families. How are these children resisting or coping with the effects of endless wars and Occupation in their lives, and what does the future hold for coming generations? Copies of the book will be available for purchase.
October 8: Hosted by Kirsi Peltonen, Associate Professor and Clinical Psychologist, University of Turku
Venue: Calonia 1, Caloniankuja 3, Turku University Campus (16:00-18:00)
Panelists: Heidi Morrison, Nitin Sawhney and Kirsi Peltonen
October 9: Hosted by Professor Pirjo Markkola, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University
Venue: City Campus Kalevantie 4, Main building, Café Toivo (17:00 - 18:30)
Panelists: Heidi Morrison, Nitin Sawhney, Kirsi Pauliina Kallio and Antti Malinen
October 10: Hosted by Andrea Botero, School of Arts, Design and Architecture, Aalto University
Venue: Ekonominaukio 1 Hall (V001), Business School, Aalto University (17:00-18:30)
Panelists: Heidi Morrison, Nitin Sawhney, Joanna Saad-Sulonen and Andrea Botero
October 11: Hosted by Syksy Räsänen, University of Helsinki
Venue: Think Corner stage (Tiedekulma, Yliopistonkatu 4) with livestreaming (16:00-18:00)
Panelists: Heidi Morrison, Nitin Sawhney, Randa Al-Dawoudi and Syksy Räsänen
About the Book:
Despite the increasing volume of scholarship that shows children as political actors, prior to this book, a cohesive framework was lacking that would more fully examine and express children’s relationship with political power. Rather than simply hitching children’s resistance to standard theories of resistance, Heidi Morrison seeks to meet children on their own terms.
Through the case study of Palestinian children, contributors theorize children’s resistance as an embodied experience called lived resistance. A critical aspect of the study of lived resistance is not just documenting what children do but specifically how scholars approach the topic of children’s resistance. With Lived Resistance against the War on Palestinian Children, the author's account for the vessel (i.e., the body in flesh and mind) through which such resistance generates and operates.
The diverse group of chapter authors examine Palestinian children’s art and media, imprisonment, parenting experiences, bereavement, neoliberalism, refugee camps, and protest movements as aspects of their collective and individual political power. Through these outlets, the book shows consistencies and contends that these children’s relationship to political power operates from an inclusive model of citizenship and is social justice oriented, symbolically oriented, and contingently based.
The book includes a chapter, “Invisible Lives, Visible Determination: Creative Agency as Resilience among Palestinian Children under Siege in Gaza”, contributed by Nitin Sawhney.
Publisher’s website: https://ugapress.org/book/9780820366814/lived-resistance-against-the-war-on-palestinian-children/
Bios of speakers for the event at Aalto University:
Heidi Morrison
Associate Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, USA. She specializes in the modern Middle East, the global history of childhood, and oral history. Morrison is the author of Childhood and Colonial Modernity in Egypt (Palgrave 2015), the editor of Lived Resistance against the War on Palestinian Children (UGA 2024), the editor of The Global History of Childhood Reader (Routledge 2012), and co-general editor of A Cultural History of Youth six-volume set (Bloomsbury, 2023). Her forthcoming book is Inner Wounds: Oral History, Trauma, and Palestinian Children of the Second Intifada (Oxford University Press).
Nitin Sawhney
Professor of Practice who leads the CRAI-CIS (CRitical AI and Crisis Interrogatives) research group in the Department of Computer Science at Aalto University. Working at the intersection of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), responsible AI, and participatory research, he examines the critical role of technology, civic agency, and social justice in society and crisis contexts. He is leading transdisciplinary research projects examining crisis narratives and sensemaking, ethical AI practices in the public sector, and the design of trustworthy digital public services for migrants. He has previously conducted participatory media programs and psycho-social research with marginalized youth, and co-directed two feature-length documentary films in Gaza and Guatemala.
Andrea Botero
Designer and researcher exploring technologies, services and media formats for collectives and communities. Through her research work she investigates how collectives come to understand the design spaces available to them and how designers could support more diverse infrastructuring processes around them. Andrea works as Professor at the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at Aalto University (FI) and is also Adjunct Professor at the Universidad de Los Andes (COL). She does multigenerational and diversity activism thorugh the board of Ninho ry a Finnish NGO working for a more diverse children’s culture in Finland.
Joanna Saad-Sulonen
Senior Scientist at Aalto University and Associate Professor at LUT University in Finland. Joanna has a background in architecture and digital design. Her research work focuses on understanding the way civic participation intersects with participation in the design of digital technology and services, and expanding the understanding of participatory design to include grassroots design and commoning practices. Joanna grew up in Beirut and is Finnish-Lebanese with Palestinian ancestry.
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