Youth and Conflict in Israel-Palestine - by Victoria Biggs (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

How are forbidden histories told and transmitted among young people in Israel/Palestine? What can their stories teach us about their everyday experiences of segregation and political violence?
This book investigates how young people use storytelling to navigate borders, memory, and unseen spaces, and to confront questions of belonging and those they see as the 'other'. The study is unique in its inclusion of children from a broad spectrum of communities, including Palestinian refugee camps and right-wing Israeli settlement homes. The book shows that boundary spaces are fertile ground for the transmission of forbidden stories and memories.
Young people are at the centre of the research and Victoria Biggs argues that storytelling reveals much more about their experiences and perceptions than either quantitative data or qualitative interviews. Through analysis of the language, metaphor, violence, and endings employed in the stories, storytelling is shown to be a political act that plays a vital role in shaping conflict-affected young people's concepts of community, exclusion, and belonging.

Review Quotes

[I]n addition to the book's empirical contributions, it makes methodological and theoretical contributions by adding to the corpus of knowledge on storytelling, narration, and contested histories ... Further, Biggs raises ethical questions regarding carrying out research in overstudied areas and explains how she adjusted her own approach to better listen to and empower the youth with whom she worked; thus, this book is of relevance to students of fieldwork methods more broadly, not only to those working in Israel/Palestine.
Journal of Palestine Studies

This book focuses on young people as storytellers in the violent and politicized Israeli-Palestinian context and gives us new insights into the worries, dreams and reasoning of Palestinian and Israeli youth. By giving voice to children and youth in Palestinian cities and refugee camps, in Israeli settlements as well as in bilingual educational settings, the author manage to transmit the complexities of identity formation, place-making, political stances and processes of othering.

Victoria Biggs writes a compelling book that brings young people's stories into the foreground, troubling familiar narratives with a dynamic, rich and highly readable account of lives lived amidst violence, oppression and long-standing conflict. She argues that 'telling a story is an act of trust' and 'listening is an expression of responsibility'. I would urge all interested in the politics and narratives of Israel-Palestine to read this book and take that responsibility.

About the Author

Victoria Biggs is a researcher at Durham University, UK. Previously she held the Max Batley Postdoctoral Fellowship in Peace Studies at the University of Sheffield, UK. She is also a special school teacher and storyteller working extensively with young people who have experienced violence. Her fieldwork in the Middle East was supported by the Council for British Research in the Levant.