Document Type

Honors Project

Abstract

Palestinians are one of the largest diaspora populations in the world, with members in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. How are the individual diasporic experiences of nationalism similar and different to one another? This research examines the creation and maintenance of Palestinian identity in diasporic contexts through ethnographic analysis and a series of interviews conducted in Chile, Jordan, and The United States. The results show that despite Palestinians maintaining Palestinianness as a dominant characteristic of identity in all three settings, there are contextual influences on how people integrate that identity into their lives. Within Jordan, Palestinians experience conflicting national identities and economic disparity while sharing language, culture and geographic proximity with Palestine. In The United States and Chile, Palestinians experience cultural and spatial separation from Palestine and are influenced by local political and economic situations. Evidence also shows that the identities of most of the participants in the three countries demonstrate various levels of cultural hybridity.

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