Performative communication: Palestinian resistance, hip-hop and cyberspace performances

ABSTRACT

This study addresses communicative performances of Palestinian resistance through hip-hop as sites of resistance across the intersections of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Through theorizing cultural sites of performance, the author reflects four domains of resistance within Palestinian hip-hop while simultaneously weaving in her own performative voice. Thus, the goal is to create global connections and communication through performance with both the diasporic Palestinian population and Palestinians living inside Palestine in relation to larger dominant structures.

KEYWORDS:

• Palestine
• Hip-hop
• diaspora
• rhetoric
• performance
• intersectionality

Acknowledgment

I dedicate this article to my father and mother who taught me how to resist colonization.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ All songs reviewed in this article are in Arabic and therefore the English lyrics are a translation of the original song

² All the songs in this paper contain only parts of the lyrics

³ When I refer to Whiteness, I am referring to a system that infiltrates both the macro and micro at the interstices of race, gender, sexuality, and class. It cannot be separated from notions of colonization, patriarchy, heteronormativity, class, and so forth.