Leiden University Student Repository

Gelder, Laura Fiona van (2015)

Performing Rootedness in a Landscape of War

Master thesis | Media Studies (MA)

Although trees are not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of the Israel/Palestine conflict, the aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that specific trees play a significant and active role in the conflict and in the construction of Israeli and Palestinian collective memories and identities. Beyond providing mere metaphoric expressions of Israeli and Palestinian rootedness, trees give material form to claims to the contested land of Israel/Palestine. Thus, the Israel/Palestine conflict is not merely a struggle over land, but also a struggle conducted and articulated through the land and through trees more specifically, as both Israelis and Palestinians invest memory in “their” trees, the pine tree and the olive tree respectively.

memory studies

collective memory

sites of memory

Israel/Palestine

Author

Gelder, Laura Fiona van

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Specialisation

Comparative Literature & Literary Theory

Supervisors

Alphen, E.J. van

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en