‘All the Beautiful Things’: Trauma, Aesthetics and the Politics of Palestinian Childhood

Marshall, D.J.

Abstract

This paper examines the ways in which Palestinian children variously perform and transform the discourse of trauma and the aesthetic of suffering that have come to dominate representations of Palestinian childhood, and the Palestinian struggle in general. I argue that everyday beauty in the lives of Palestinian refugee children, as found in mundane spaces and enacted through interpersonal relationships, constitutes an aesthetic disruption to the dominant representation of trauma as put forward by international humanitarian aid organizations and development agencies. Far from being restricted to the immediacy of everyday spaces and interactions, however, everyday beauty is located within wider national and religious geographic imaginaries, and likewise forms the basis of critiques of social and political injustice, and demands for a more just and equitable future. I argue that children enact an everyday Islamic ethic of beauty as part of a wider political demand for life itself.

Citation

Marshall, D. (2013). ‘All the Beautiful Things’: Trauma, Aesthetics and the Politics of Palestinian Childhood. Space and Polity, 17(1), 53-73. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2013.780713

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Apr 30, 2013
• Deposit Date: May 20, 2013
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 6, 2014
• Journal: Space and Polity
• Print ISSN: 1356-2576
• Electronic ISSN: 1470-1235
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 17
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 53-73
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562576.2013.780713
• Keywords: Children’s political geographies, Palestine, Aesthetics, Beauty, Islam, Trauma.