Living Text: Written messages outside and inside a West Bank peace project

This photo essay gathers statements from both outside (West Bank/Jericho area) and inside the peace project EcoME (“Ecological Middle East”) in the contested Palestinian Territories. The texts and their contexts portray the dynamic relation between outside hopes, fears and separation policies and the project’s inner striving for connection, warmth and openness. (The author wishes to stay anonymous).

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A reminder to hang on, tattooed on a eighteen-years-old Palestinian’s underarm. The young man proudly presented me the inscription, when I visited his family home in the West Bank in 2014. Returning there in 2017, I met him playing with his new German shepherd, which he introduced me with equal elation. Despite unemployment and their challenging living conditions in a conflict area, young Palestinians try to thrive and pursue their dreams, thereby often yearning faraway places.

Arriving at EcoME during the night. If one looks up the project for the first time, its low-key signposting imports wonder: does the place exist at all? Or is this plate just a remnant from the past? Indeed, unlike the young Palestinian’s exhibition of endurance above, EcoME’s public representation reacts with subtlety to the outside threats of othering and unduly state policing. It reflects how these forces constantly work against the meeting space and put it in a precarious position.

Meeting beyond wrong and right – as promoted by the Sufi poet Rumi – is EcoME’s vision and common practice. Inside, this philosophy is directly forwarded to newly arriving foreign guests, who take an obligatory tour through the project. Although couches, cushions and blankets are still messed up from a drug raid by the Israeli police which marks an intrusion of EcoME’s security, its participants continue their work of connecting people in an open space.

A few hundred meters from EcoME, separation instead of meeting is declared. This typical Israeli warning board on the way to the Palestinian city Jericho demarcates the border between Israelis and Palestinians. At the same time, it symbolizes the fear embedded in their social boundaries. Most Jewish participants are afraid to be treated adversely in Arabic areas, the Palestinians vice versa. Though many also sneak through the division lines. This puts them in danger, but it also creates a new, promising and less clear-cut reality.

Again, in the inside, EcoME’s core values defy the outside separation. To communicate in an empathic way, numerous participants apply Non-violent Communication (NVC). The board is from an NVC workshop, during which intensive self-reflections and attentive encounters peak, and EcoME’s culture of care and exploration gets strengthened and forwarded to foreigners and locals.

Also outside the peace project, hope can be found. At least, advertising water bottles in a small supermarket in Akab Jabr, a Palestinian refugee camp next to Jericho. In contrast to this labeling, water is an issue of the Palestinians’ frustration, since their sources are controlled by Israel. One of EcoME’s participants thus works in the supermarket to get a chance to leave for a freer place, even if it is just for a while.

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  A reminder to hang on, tattooed on a eighteen-years-old Palestinian’s underarm. The young man proudly presented me the inscription, when I visited his family home in the West Bank in 2014. Returning there in 2017, I met him playing with his new German shepherd, which he introduced me with equal elation. Despite unemployment and their challenging living conditions in a conflict area, young Palestinians try to thrive and pursue their dreams, thereby often yearning faraway places.
• <

  >
  

  Arriving at EcoME during the night. If one looks up the project for the first time, its low-key signposting imports wonder: does the place exist at all? Or is this plate just a remnant from the past? Indeed, unlike the young Palestinian’s exhibition of endurance above, EcoME’s public representation reacts with subtlety to the outside threats of othering and unduly state policing. It reflects how these forces constantly work against the meeting space and put it in a precarious position.
• <

  >
  

  Meeting beyond wrong and right – as promoted by the Sufi poet Rumi – is EcoME’s vision and common practice. Inside, this philosophy is directly forwarded to newly arriving foreign guests, who take an obligatory tour through the project. Although couches, cushions and blankets are still messed up from a drug raid by the Israeli police which marks an intrusion of EcoME’s security, its participants continue their work of connecting people in an open space.
• <

  >
  

  A few hundred meters from EcoME, separation instead of meeting is declared. This typical Israeli warning board on the way to the Palestinian city Jericho demarcates the border between Israelis and Palestinians. At the same time, it symbolizes the fear embedded in their social boundaries. Most Jewish participants are afraid to be treated adversely in Arabic areas, the Palestinians vice versa. Though many also sneak through the division lines. This puts them in danger, but it also creates a new, promising and less clear-cut reality.
• <

  >
  

  Again, in the inside, EcoME’s core values defy the outside separation. To communicate in an empathic way, numerous participants apply Non-violent Communication (NVC). The board is from an NVC workshop, during which intensive self-reflections and attentive encounters peak, and EcoME’s culture of care and exploration gets strengthened and forwarded to foreigners and locals.
• <

  >
  

  Also outside the peace project, hope can be found. At least, advertising water bottles in a small supermarket in Akab Jabr, a Palestinian refugee camp next to Jericho. In contrast to this labeling, water is an issue of the Palestinians’ frustration, since their sources are controlled by Israel. One of EcoME’s participants thus works in the supermarket to get a chance to leave for a freer place, even if it is just for a while.

While studying sociology and cultural anthropology, the author has spent more than half a year participating in and researching the ecovillage-inspired peace project at hand. Currently, she is writing a master’s thesis about its relationality with the outside world of conflict and cultural difference.

All photos are taken by the author.

In 2016/17, students in the Master of Social and Cultural Anthropology participated in workshops on ‘Visual and Digital Research Methods’ by Sanderien Verstappen and Lipika Bansal. The workshops aimed at facilitating students and their interlocutors in the field to apply visual methods of research and publication in their research projects. At Standplaats Wereld you can see the end results.