Policy Lab

Mapping Palestine: Decolonizing Spatial Practices

by Zena Agha, Ahmad Barclay, Nur Arafeh on January 23, 2020

"The practice of mapping in Palestine-Israel has long been an exercise in power, imperialism, and dispossession." So writes Zena Agha in her recent policy brief for Al-Shabaka. But how can maps be reclaimed as tools for resistance? And can they be utilized to help envision a different Palestinian future?

In our first policy lab of 2020, Zena Agha and Ahmad Barclay join host Nur Arafeh to discuss the ways in which maps and other visualization tools serve as sites to entrench power disparities as well as to empower communities to reimagine their colonized homelands.

Nur Arafeh

Nur Arafeh is a Fellow at the Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, in Washington DC, where her work focuses on the political economy of the MENA region, business-state relations, peacebuilding strategies, the development-security nexus and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She previously served as Al-Shabaka's Palestine Policy Fellow between 2015 and 2017, worked as an Associate Researcher at the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), and as a Visiting Lecturer of Economics at Al-Quds Bard College. Nur has also consulted for several Palestinian and international organizations, on issues related to development policies, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and socio-economic policy analysis. Her commentaries have appeared in English, Arabic and French in The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al-Jazeera, and Al-Akhbar, among other outlets. Nur holds a doctorate in International Development as a Rhodes Scholar from the University of Oxford, a Master’s in Development Studies from the University of Cambridge, and a dual-BA degree in Political Science and Economics from Sciences Po Paris and Columbia University.”