From the thousands of ancient manuscripts and academic scholarship stolen from West Jerusalem in 1948, to the hundreds of archives and heritage sites in Gaza that have been damaged and destroyed since October 2023, the continuous loss of Palestinian history is deeply felt. Yet, within this archival erasure, Palestinians remain deeply committed to preserving their collective memory and history. Considering this, this presentation addresses the following research question: Given the large-scale destruction and repression of formal Palestinian archives under Israeli settler colonialism, how are Palestinians persevering in the decolonization and preservation of their historical narratives? To advance knowledge about how Palestinian archival practices operate within a framework of ongoing settler colonialism and genocide, this study focuses on the archival infrastructures and practices of one transnational group of Palestinians, those hailing from the city of Ramallah in the West Bank. Based on findings from a multi-sited archival ethnography of preservation practices utilized by Palestinians who have emigrated from Ramallah to the United States as well as Palestinians living in Ramallah in the West Bank, I show how Palestinians have archived the history of Ramallah from their exiled position in the diaspora and their occupied position in the homeland. In doing so, I contribute knowledge to archival studies’ understanding of cultural heritage preservation under settler colonial violence, decolonial approaches to recordkeeping, and indigenous epistemologies of archives.

Tamara Rayan is a PhD candidate in the School of Information at the University of Michigan, studying archives and digital curation. Their work focuses on representing the Palestinian diaspora and trauma in archival practices. Their work has been published in Across the Disciplines and Archival Science.

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