Arab Literary Travels

Alex Fyfe: Introduction

In my project, I will use changing maps to describe how the population of Jerusalem has changed since the break up of the Ottoman Empire to the present day; in other words, I want to see how the ever-changing political (and physical) map of Jerusalem has affected the different populations of Jerusalem in economic, social, and political terms over the past 100 years. In my project, I will illustrate how the map has changed from under the feet of the people, and how this change represents a form of travel through the Arab world just as valid as any other. In particular, I want to show how the redrawing of invisible lines of jurisdiction and governance affects people in a very real way. The most significant moments in the project – on the surface, at least – will be the transferring of Jerusalem to British control in 1923, the United Nations partition plan of late 1947, the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and the capture of East Jerusalem from the Kingdom of Jordan in 1967. I think this project will be useful because it will underline how, in a volatile world, “travel” does not necessarily mean “movement”; a person can fall asleep in one country and wake up in another, without ever leaving bed. A group can be dispossessed and disenfranchised through the whims of an intangible government, people can become refugees and expatriates without ever leaving the house, and people can find themselves moving from a majority status to a minority one simply by the movements of the people around them – you don’t have to physically move to find yourself in a new place and part of a new map. 
 

This page has paths:

Contents of this tag: