Negotiating the Present, Historicizing the Future

Abstract

Children living in conflict zones witness violence, loss of loved ones, killing, injury, and displacement, experiencing fear and loss of protection in their communities—experiences likely to affect the children for the remainder of their lives. This article examines one aspect of the violent conflict in the Palestinian Occupied Territories-West Bank, the way Palestinian children perceive and react to the effect of Israeli military occupation as reflected in the presence and ongoing construction of the Israeli Separation Wall, illustrating traditional views of children as passive victims of political violence and moving instead to view children as agents of change and mobilization. Via writing compositions, focus group discussions, the children’s own photographs, and participatory observation research data, the author contextualizes both the “extended scene” and the immediate moment(s) of Palestinian children facing the Israeli Separation Wall, letting the children’s own words, narratives, and photos speak for themselves; they do their own witnessing.