Constructing the ‘Right Image’: Visibility Management and the Palestinian Village of Susiya

Abstract

This article focuses on the Palestinian Bedouin village of Susiya in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the multi-agency efforts to save the village after the Israeli Civil Administration issued a full demolition order to all existing structures in 2012. By analysing a range of creative visual responses to the demolition order, including social media campaigns and video appeals, the paper examines the problematic nature over who and how to produce the ‘right image’ of the village and its struggle. Based upon fieldwork and interviews undertaken between 2013–2014 with activists and community workers, I identify how in an effort to overcome the separation between audience and distant spectator, a number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Human Rights Organisations (HROs), acting on behalf of the village, ultimately weakened rather than strengthened the representation of the villagers.

Keywords

• Palestine
• Israel
• visibility
• humanitarianism
• YouTube
• visual activism