Interviews, 2020

Scope and content:

Duke students in AMES 204FS "Documenting the Middle East," fall 2020, undertook semester-long audio interviewing projects to collect the oral histories of four Palestinians and one Palestinian-American. The interviewees are from Gaza (temporarily residing in the United States), Haifa, Ramallah, Hebron, and the United States. Students worked one-to-one with their interviewee community partners. Four students recorded two long-form (45 minutes to an hour) oral history interviews via Skype. The fifth student recorded one long-form interview by Skype. Each long-form audio recording was transcribed by the student, and each student wrote fieldnotes after recording each interview. (Students edited a three-minute set of excerpts for each long-form interview, and some of these also have transcripts.) Also included are final project audio projects, edited to four minutes each, produced by the students (with audio file, transcript, written introduction, and spoken introduction).

The interviewees shared stories of their daily lives, cultural traditions, experiences living in West Bank communities, in Gaza, in the State of Israel's 1948 borders, or in the diaspora. The recordings include stories about their childhood, families, and education; observations and stories about living under occupation or in the State of Israel, and their professional interests and activities. They spoke about Palestinian identity and personal goals. Notably, three of the five interviewee community partners are filmmakers.

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