Memory, Agency, Counter-Narrative: Testimonies from Jenin Refugee Camp (Report‪)‬

Abstract In this paper I examine memories and testimonies in Jenin refugee camp. I explore the local narration of the Israeli invasion of April 2002 and the resistance to the assault on the camp. The literature on nationalism suggests that the nation is an imagined community, yet the narratives within the nation, as well as the counter-political imaginaries of anti-colonial national movements are often under-explored. This paper is concerned with the counter-narratives within the nation and the oppositional agency and identities constituted within situated locations and historical experiences. I use the concept of melancholy to identify and distinguish a counter-sensibility and a form of agency associated with people who have experienced violent histories of loss through colonialism and dispossession. Melancholy, as a type of longing and sadness, indicates the creative and inherently political ways in which loss is conveyed. I examine the performative utterances of memories in Jenin camp and consider the way that the melancholic reiteration of loss and suffering that exceeds mourning, is incorporated into the self and informs counter-definitions of subjectivity, agency and community.