(Dis)Connections

Ethnographic Insights into Contentious Belonging in Palestine and Brazil

Bibliographic Data

ID23311552
AuthorsKaterina Hatzikidi (0000-0003-2211-0262, Department of Social Sciences), Rami Salameh (0000-0002-4724-7188, Birzeit University, corresponding author)
Year2026
Pages1-23
Publication date2026-07-21
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMiddle East Critique (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1943-6149 • E-ISSN: 1943-6157
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/19436149.2026.2700113
OpenAlexW7169842791
LanguageEN
References cited44

This article seeks to contribute to the anthropological discourse on belonging by conducting a comparative ethnographic analysis of quilombola land struggles in Brazil and the experiences within the Al-Am’ari Palestinian refugee camp in Palestine. By juxtaposing these two contexts, the article analyzes how belonging is generated, challenged, and reconfigured across distinct yet structurally analogous histories of colonial domination and dispossession. By focusing on practices of (dis)connection, it demonstrates that belonging is an affective, performative, and imagined status that emerges in response to spatial control, marginalization, and exclusion. The article juxtaposes these ethnographic cases, contributing to an anthropology of belonging that is critical to power, space, and the political implications of lived relationality in colonial and postcolonial contexts.

Colonialism · Ethnography · History of anthropology · Narrative · Palestine · Politics · Refugee · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Migration, Refugees, and Integration

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