Open Collections

Abstract

For many diasporic communities, plants and foods often sustain ties to heritage, kin, and cherished places. In the Palestinian diasporic context, these relationships carry particular political weight, shaped by over 75 years of mass displacement, violence, and the ongoing settler colonial project of the Israeli state. In asserting sumud (steadfastness, refusal of displacement) to Palestine, Palestinian resistance often roots itself in the symbolic, emotional, and historical ties to the land through plant life, as echoed in the enduring protest chant, “we will stay as long as olives and za’atar.” This research investigated how diasporic women and youth narrate the significance of plants and food in connecting to their Palestinian identity and homeland. This thesis relies on analysis of oral life history interviews with three Palestinian women, and a focus group with five Palestinian youth (women and men), all living in Amman, Jordan. The research found that engagement with memories of Palestine can be facilitated through plants and food in the diaspora, serving to sustain Palestinian identity and sense of connection in the everyday. This was observed through sensory encounters with plants and foods—the taste of za’atar, the feel of olives, and the scent of jasmine—evoking unrehearsed recollections that recall and sustain rootedness to Palestine, and impact the textures of everyday life. For the younger Palestinians, such sensory "inheritances" help cultivate belonging and a longing for return. Additionally, maintaining connections to plants and foods provides a tether to Palestinian identity, as forms of care are enacted across borders, gardens, and kitchens. The findings also suggest that participants enact their commitment to Palestinian return by contesting settler-colonial erasures of Palestinian relationships with land.