the Nakba Archive

During the 1948 war with the nascent state of Israel it is estimated that around half of the 1.4 million Palestinian Arabs were driven from their homes or fled, to neighboring Arab states. This period of Palestinian history has come to be known as al-Nakba, ‘the catastrophe’. Of the 750,000 displaced Palestinians, approximately 110,000 (mostly from northern Palestine) sought refuge in Lebanon.

While recent historiography of the Palestine question has shown a growing awareness of the importance of recording the events of 1948 from the perspective of those previously marginalized in nationalist narratives – peasants, women, camp refugees, poorer city dwellers, Bedouin tribes, etc. – there is still little documentation on the events of 1948 as experienced and remembered by the non-elite majority of Palestinian society.

Since 2002 the Nakba Archive has recorded filmed interviews with first generation Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon about the events of 1948. While the project has centered its work in the twelve official United Nations Relief and Works Administration (UNRWA) camps around the country, it has also conducted interviews and research within unregistered refugee “gatherings,” and with middle class and elite Palestinians living in urban centers around Lebanon. Between December 2002 and September 2005 a team of local and international researchers and scholars, have created a unique archive of approximately 500 video testimonies with refugees from over 130 villages. The collection consists of around 1,000 hours of filmed testimony.

Five duplicate sets of the interviews have been produced, along with a detailed database and search engine. Copies of the archive will be held at Oxford University, Birzeit University, Harvard University, the American University (Cairo) and as part of the Remembrance Museum being established by the Welfare Association in the West Bank.

The work of the Nakba Archive was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ford Foundation and the Welfare Association, and a number of private donors.