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Contribution short abstract

I present the story of a man who takes pride in his ability to find his way across frontlines and borders, and to establish shared worlds with all kinds of people, but is forced to helplessly watch the material world of his natal home being destroyed and members of his family murdered.

Contribution long abstract

Originally, a different paper was announced: a critical reflection about enmity and front-building in the German academia since the beginning of the 7 October War or the Gaza Genocide, or whichever other name you wish to use. However, there is already an abundance of papers in the programme critiquing the positioning of intellectuals and academics on Palestine, but little primary research from Palestine. Not wanting to add yet another piece of academics writing about other academics, I instead asked a man I know since some years to tell me the story of his life between Gaza where he grew up, and Berlin where he lives today. As a committed empiricist, I believe that listening to somebody say something that we do not already know or think we know, is the more valuable contribution I can offer as an anthropologist. I present the story of a man who takes pride in his ability to find his way across frontlines and borders, and to establish shared worlds with all kinds of people, but is forced to helplessly watch the material world of his natal home being destroyed and members of his family murdered. His experience and narrative offer a useful nuance to the tendency of current anthropology to privilege political activists and foreground principled resistance, and also to think about the implicit links between Arendt’s idea of a shared world and conservative ethics of survival.