In this episode of the podcast of Mada al-Carmel – Arab Center for Applied Social Research, we discuss a position paper published by the center’s Liberation Psychology Program, titled Reflections on the Psychological Legacy of Palestinians within the Green Line and their Collective Behavior Since the Start of the War of Genocide on Gaza. We are joined by our guest, researcher Asrar Kayyal, the author of the study and a doctoral candidate in community psychology at the University of Brighton, UK.
The episode focuses on defining and analyzing the characteristic collective behaviors of the Palestinian community within the Green Line during the war – behaviors that have been interpreted as indifference, apathy and resignation in light of their political inaction – through the lens of community and liberatory psychology. The discussion also goes into the rise in crime rates among Palestinians within the Green Line during the war, and its significance.
We explore the literature of both classical and liberation psychology in an attempt to probe and comprehend the causes and meaning of these behaviors, and how they reflect what can be referred to as the ‘psychological legacy’ of oppression, which extends from the Nakba to the Uprising of Dignity of 2021. In more than one context, the study considers these behaviors to be multiple psychological responses to this legacy.
Finally, we shed light on the sources of ‘psychological strengths’ exhibited by the Palestinian community within the Green Line during the war of genocide, and consider the possibility of healing from this legacy, in an effort to prevent it from transmuting from a ‘colonial trauma’ to a ‘social trauma,’ the contours of which are beginning to take shape within the community.
To read the Research in Arabic, click here.
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