2025 Workshop

Freja Howat

PhD candidate in Contemporary History, University of Sussex

"Beyond the Networked Archive: The Many ‘Sites’ of Future Palestine" 

This paper explores developments in Palestinian heritage and archival activism which contribute to a reimagining of Palestine’s future possibilities. This very act of envisioning a future is in itself an assertion of survival in the face of ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide, and thus, every narrative of Palestinian existence (including the archival) becomes an expression of anticolonial resistance. At a time when a growing body of scholarship examines the construction of Palestinian archives in both traditional and artistic contexts (Hochberg, Qato, Rayan, Sleiman, Stoler), a comprehensive study of digital archiving projects through the lens of indigenous futurisms is more crucial than ever. 

Building on Zalloua's characterisation of the settler state as one driven by necropolitics, this paper will argue that a fixation solely on past ruptures can obscure the ways in which colonialism remains embedded in contemporary systems of power, ultimately enabling colonial trajectories to persist or re-emerge in the future.This paper thus builds on current archival scholarship regarding Palestine, which refuses to homogenise Palestine and its peoples within a constrained singular framework. Digital archiving projects that exist outside the formal tradition, in particular, are key to this reimagining, as they facilitate the sharing of narratives that are not limited by time or physical geography but instead stretch across Palestine and beyond, towards expansive visions of a future. It is a way of asserting that despite the depths of violence there remains as Tam Rayan considers, the potential for transformation. It’s important to note that these projects are not created in isolation, but rather in a mutually reinforcing relationship, where one cannot exist without the other. In this sense, Palestine is constantly being reimagined, or as Hochberg describes it in relation to Palestinian artistic practices, in a state of becoming.

Drawing on my experience as both a researcher and practitioner, I examine the form and content of these projects (their documents, architectures, and networks). Offering both continuity and critical counterpoints, I argue that the Palestinian archival landscape within the digital sphere contains radical future-shaping potential in its capacity to innovate and morph beyond the traditional constraints of archival theory; that it is in their multiplicity, their slipperiness, that these archives refuse the grotesque theatre of death imposed by the settler narrative and forge visions beyond mere survival. This paper thus aims to engage with projects that transcend these ruptures—not by ignoring them, but by challenging the singular future imposed on Palestinians by Zionism and its supporters. These projects include creative initiatives produced both under the constraints of occupation and in exile, which predate the ongoing genocide and will endure beyond it. 

Freja Howat is an interdisciplinary PhD candidate working on contemporary developments in Palestinian heritage and archival activism. Howat has a hands-on approach to her work, studies, and creative projects. Her education and professional experience highlight her passion for heritage, language, and community-based projects, particularly through initiatives like community archiving and more recently, sustainable urban-gardening schemes.