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Paper short abstract

This paper argues for the importance of multimodal creative productions as sufficient and essential sources for cultural analysis in anthropological research. Focusing on Palestine, experimental prose as an art review is used here to reapproach the intrinsic task of recounting Palestinian legacies.

Paper long abstract

Edward Said wrote in 1994 “without the practice of a national culture--from slogans to pamphlets and newspapers, from folktales and heroes to epic poetry, novels, and drama--the language is inert; national culture organizes and sustains communal memory…” By neglecting non-material, non-verbal, and often unwritten products of a given culture, the contextual basis of ethnographic analysis is consequently obscured. This paper argues for the importance of film and literary productions as sufficient and essential sources for cultural analysis in anthropology, welcoming various unconventional artistic representations as viable mediums to understand and represent culture across contexts.

Challenging paradigms of professional legitimacy within anthropology, this paper seeks to make use of creative mediums to more effectively represent and analyze experiences across cultures, attempting to understanding art forms through artistic imitation and flattery. Such approaches seek to perfect ethnographic inquiry by engaging with living mediums of art as electric testimonies to the forces of cultural productivity. Without representing these unconventional examples—and approaching them with equal artistic passion and merit—the theoretical and thick descriptive language “is inert.” Focusing on the case of Palestine, multiple mediums will be represented by flirting with the given art form itself during the analytical process, imitating literary prose to understand experiences of survivance and identity; an essential element of the intrinsic task of re-calling Palestinian legacies.