The Native and the Refugee | Malek Rasamny
Malek Rasamny — documentary filmmaker, co-founder of "The Native and the Refugee" and one of the original afikra presenters — on his critical work juxtaposing the societies, struggles and lived experience of settler colonialism by looking at Native Reservations and Palestinian refugee camps through a spatial lens.
Taking his film "Spaces of Exception" as a starting point, we talk about reservations and refugee camps as uniquely dual spaces that are all at once akin to prisons, yet a territory where it is possible to practice native sovereignty. He points to the very power of Indigineity in calling nationhood into question, the potent transnational solidarity that exists between Native Americans and Palestinians, and why it is possible to be a settler coloniser without a sponsor state.
Malek Rasamny is a documentary filmmaker, researcher and writer. He was also one of the first afikra presenters when we first launched. He is the co-founder — along with Matt Peterson — of "The Native and the Refugee" which is a multi-media research project that compares and contrasts the societies and struggles of both Native American reservations and Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East. Much of their work and research culminated in their feature film "Spaces of Exception" which was shot between 2014 and 2017 in Arizona, New York, South Dakota, Lebanon and the West Bank.
This Is Not a Watermelon
This podcast series is a celebration and documentation of Palestinian history and culture. We interview experts from various disciplines to help us better understand the facts about Palestine – the land and the people.