Malek Rasamny — documentary filmmaker, co-founder of "The Native and the Refugee" and one of the original afikra presenters — on his critical work juxtaposing the societies, struggles and lived experience of settler colonialism by looking at Native Reservations and Palestinian refugee camps through a spatial lens.
Taking his film "Spaces of Exception" as a starting point, we talk about reservations and refugee camps as uniquely dual spaces that are all at once akin to prisons, yet a territory where it is possible to practice native sovereignty. He points to the very power of Indigineity in calling nationhood into question, the potent transnational solidarity that exists between Native Americans and Palestinians, and why it is possible to be a settler coloniser without a sponsor state.
Malek Rasamny is a documentary filmmaker, researcher and writer. He was also one of the first afikra presenters when we first launched. He is the co-founder — along with Matt Peterson — of "The Native and the Refugee" which is a multi-media research project that compares and contrasts the societies and struggles of both Native American reservations and Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East. Much of their work and research culminated in their feature film "Spaces of Exception" which was shot between 2014 and 2017 in Arizona, New York, South Dakota, Lebanon and the West Bank.
THIS SERIES IS PART OF THE AFIKRA PODCAST NETWORK
The afikra Podcast is our flagship series featuring experts from academia, art, media and beyond who are helping document and/or shape the histories and cultures of the Arab world through their work. Our hope is that by having the guest share their expertise and story, the community walks away with a new found curiosity and maybe some good recommendations about new nerdy rabbit holes to dive into head first.
Explore all episodes in this series: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0voh_EioBMlist=PLfYG40bwRKl5xaTkBDrUKLCulvoCE8ubX
ABOUT AFIKRA
afikra | عفكرة is a movement to convert passive interest in the Arab world to active intellectual curiosity. We aim to collectively reframe the dominant narrative of the region by exploring the histories and cultures of the region – past, present and future – through conversations driven by curiosity.
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