In Palestine, a walk across the landscape is a journey of return that defies time, layered with sediments of personal experience and collective peoplehood. For Palestinian scholar Rana Barakat, the experience of place is guided by the stories and memories of her grandmother, who was among the 75 , people forcibly displaced in 948 by the newly formed Israeli government. Since then, the violence of settler colonialism has actively prevented the return of Palestinian refugees, including those from Lifta, her family's ancestral village. In the present, the settler state of Israel seems to control the fate of the remaining structures in Lifta, enforcing so-called development plans that limit access and leave the valley appearing frozen in time. By gathering stories from family and community members alongside archival sources and lived experience in the West Bank under Israeli occupation, however, Barakat reveals the way storytelling provides a form of ongoing return to a once-thriving village and to Palestine itself. One of the first books to position Palestinian studies within Indigenous studies, Barakat offers a rich perspective on Palestinian history and lives today. Embedded in a deeply personal journey, Ongoing Return takes the reader through the past via the present and dares to imagine futures for Palestine and its people.
Rana Barakat is associate professor of history at Birzeit University and director of the Birzeit University Museum.
"For historian Rana Barakat, a journey to and through Palestine is one she takes with her ancestors, both near and far. Through evocative storytelling, Barakat draws 'emotional maps' of the journey and shares them here as lessons in Palestinian survivance, historical intervention and Indigenous refusal."-Ms. Magazine "This exceptional book demands a reorientation of historical narratives regarding Palestine. Centering Palestinian stories and their power to affect forms of return, Barakat shows how Palestinians resist the ongoing Nakba and confront threats to their peoplehood."-Robert Warrior, editor of The World of Indigenous North America "Demanding a full and vibrant return in the face of the ongoing Nakba, this beautiful and necessary book has so much to teach us about Palestine and Indigenous guidance."-Jennifer Lynn Kelly, author of Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine "In this bold, brilliant, invigorating book, Rana Barakat walks us from exile to Jerusalem, and on to Lifta. Weaving together the empirical and the lyrical, she unmasks preservation as a mode of destruction, charting return as a recursive Palestinian imperative and practice.?With her innovative historical storytelling, Barakat teaches us not to ask to whom Palestine belongs but rather to insist on all the ways we belong to Palestine. This is a groundbreaking contribution to the dynamic tradition of Palestinian studies."-Sherene Seikaly, author of Men of Capital: Scarcity and Economy in Mandate Palestine
