Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the creative mapping practices of a number of Palestinian heritage NGOs which have been very active in recent years in urban regeneration projects throughout the West Bank. It argues that these practices participate in forms of non-state governmentality and raises questions about local participation.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the creative mapping practices of a number of Palestinian heritage NGOs which have been very active in recent years in urban regeneration projects throughout the West Bank. Beyond the common sense dichotomy between art as radical practice and heritage as conservation, this paper analyzes Palestinian heritage as the ambiguous terrain where these two practices meet, creating a language that is both locally rooted and cosmopolitan. By examining the 2007 and 2009 Palestinian art biennials, which placed a strong emphasis on the country's heritage, I show how art in this context functions as the platform for different forms of national remembrance and imaginations, while heritage provides a site for new creative cartographies. Organized by a heritage organization, the biennials highlight the innovative practices of a new generation of Palestinian heritage NGOs, which continue a local, deeply rooted lineage of social organizing marked by the alliance between heritage, the arts and liberation politics. This cultural production undermines a traditional dichotomy between heritage and counter-memory for, as I argue, it represents both part of a state-building project and an act of anti-colonial cultural resistance, suspended between what scholars term transnational governmentality and countergovernmentality. In other words, I argue that Palestinian heritage practices constitute a form of non-state governmentality. In this context, problems of representation and participation acquire strong relevance.