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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores a Nubian family archive,chronicling displacement after waves of inundation by Dams between 1912-1964.It argues that popular historiographies of displacement and dispossession should inform our own practices of knowledge production and history-writing,rather than yielding to them.

Paper long abstract:

How can we experience and narrate community archiving practices in a way that acknowledges the structures and relations of knowledge they represent? Through this paper, i explore a Nubian family archive, while asking how to read historiographies of displacement and dispossession in ways that inform our own practices of knowledge production and history-writing.

This story is structured by a family lullaby, one sung by Nafissa Zurar, and that is part of a larger corpus of Nubian songs lamenting the loss of the Nile with their displacement after the building of the Aswan High dam in 1964. Within the folds of the lullaby is the story of the uncle, Ahmed Zurar, whose family archives chronicle his own struggle to petition against the heightening of the Aswan reservoir in 1933. His efforts culminate in petitions, levied by Nubian communities against a British colonial administration, and fliers, pleading that fellow Nubians not accept the monetisation (financial compensation) for their land. This petition and flier are to be found in the British Foreign office archives, with the signatures of the diasporic Nubians who strategically link their struggle to other indigenous communities.

Inspired by the work of Samia Khatoun, i attempt to tell the history of this struggle, as a story within a story within story. Starting with a family history, stretching to global solidarity. These are histories of struggle that are not about teaching us how to win, but reminding us, how and why we continue to struggle, thus forging community.