My Neighborhood

My Neighborhood is a documentary about settler expansion in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem. The film is narrated by seventh-grader, Mohammed, who sagely and poetically describes the violent changes to his home and his neighborhood as a result of settler expansion. The film explores Mohammed's feelings towards the settlers and his evolving opinions about the Israeli people. It's short (about 25 minutes), yet extremely powerful.

Syrian Refugess in Jordan: Longing for Home

About 12,000 Syrians are calling the tents and trailers of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan home, at least for the foreseeable future. Today, the New York Times features an interactive website exploring the Syrian refugee experience. The web feature explores the physical environment that the Syrian refugees are living in, as well as a deep longing to return home.

[Photo: Lynsey Addario, The New York Times]

The Concept and Meaning of Place for Young Palestinian Children

Here is the link for my latest publication exploring young children's experience in the oPt.

Young children’s lives are shaped by the socio-spatial, and there is a growing body of literature examining how they interact with place. However, there has been little investigation into what happens when young children’s places are compromised by adverse situations, such as war and political violence. By adopting a socio-spatial approach, this paper aims to illustrate how the concept of place interrelates with the experiences of young children and their families who experience political violence, with the occupied Palestinian territories as an example. Using an interdisciplinary approach, my research begins by exploring the multiple and diverse definitions of space and place. I then turn to an analysis of the places that are specific for children in times of political violence. In order to further understand how young children conceptualize place as a meaning-making process and a source of well-being, certain critical elements of place must be understood. Though there are many relevant concepts to explore, I have limited my inquiry to two elements—place access and place use—that are central to an understanding of place, and which can be applied to the lived experiences of young children affected by political violence in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"The Power of Place" on CKUT Radio's Caravan

I had the pleasure of being invited to speak on CKUT's radio program "Caravan", which is a show focusing on community news for Arabs and Muslims in Montreal. I was interviewed by the extremely talented and amazing Rana Alrabi, and we talked about the importance of place for Palestinians, what it means to be a (neutral?) researcher tackling difficult issues, and how research serves as a tool to empower marginalized communities and demystify "the other". Take a listen here, just click on today's date (23 February 2011). I speak from around 33:00-53:00. Please let me know what you think.

People & Place: Social Work & the Environment

I wanted to share an on-line lecture I recently gave entitled People and Place: Social Work and the Environment to my undergraduate Social Work course, "SWRK220: History and Philosophy of Social Work" at McGill University. It examines some of the ways that social work as a profession have conceptualized environment, looks at multi-disciplinary ways that the environment has been conceptualized, and suggests that social workers can engage with the environment in their practice and beyond. Overall, the presentation considers the environment as more than just place, but as a combination of people AND place.