Abstract
This article discusses writings by Palestinian political prisoners and the broader body of prison literature situating them as practices of ‘smuggling freedom’ from Israel’s carceral regime, shedding light onto their political and social meaning. Through discussing writings by prisoners, the article points to a long history through which Palestinian prisoners confronted the Israeli regime’s torture and violent practices, and its broader project of eliminating the political nature of captivity. The article argues that prisoners’ writings reveal much about the dynamics of carceral power and violence, and the logic behind the confrontation practices used by prisoners in Palestine and beyond. These writings inform the practice of sumud, where prisoners not only confront the carceral regime but invite others to reject defeat and resist against Israeli violence and settler-colonialism. By articulating Palestinian prisoners’ cultural productions as instances of a smuggled freedom, the article highlights the political nature of prisoners’ varied responses to power and violence conceptualizing them as modes of ‘politics in-the-making’. Palestinian prisoners’ long history of cultural productions, along with the processes of smuggling them out of captivity, point to an emancipatory politics in-the-making which dreams, and works for, a liberated geography.
Recommended Citation
Farraj, Basil.
"Palestinian Prisoners: Smuggling Freedom, Writing from Captivity."
CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture
25.1
(2023):
<https://doi.org/10.7771/1481-4374.4877>
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