Qualifies towards NUIEC Certificate in Gender Studies

Seminar Description: Palestinian women play an increasingly crucial role in producing discourse resistance across digital platforms, documenting life under settler colonialism and dismantling the narrative of power, thus giving a Palestinian narrative a global presence and impact. This digital activism constitutes a modern form of cultural and political resistance, raising awareness of the Palestinian cause and confronting attempts to erase Palestinian identity and existence. This seminar provides an interdisciplinary academic framework for examining the growing role of Palestinian women in crafting resistance narratives through digital platforms within the context of settler colonialism. It focuses on analyzing the digital narrative strategies and counter-narratives developed by Palestinian women activists to challenge dominant media representations, drawing on approaches from anti-colonial feminism, postcolonial media studies, and critical discourse analysis.

The seminar will also examine contemporary models of digital activism and analyzes global campaigns that have contributed to reshaping public awareness regarding Palestine. It also addresses the mechanisms of information suppression and digital surveillance, as well as their impact on women's participation in public life, and the political and social circumstances that shape the production of knowledge in the Palestinian context. The seminar also aims to provide a critical examination of the digital space as a central arena for resistance, clarifying the methodological tools necessary to analyze media representation, evaluate digital advocacy strategies, and connect the Palestinian experience to broader discussions about feminist struggles in the Global South. The seminar employs a critical interdisciplinary methodology that integrates feminist media analysis, postcolonial critique, and digital ethnography to examine the intersection of power, gender, and technology in the Palestinian context. It adopts Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to deconstruct online narratives, exposing the ideological structures that sustain settler-colonial and patriarchal discourses. Additionally, the seminar utilizes narrative inquiry and visual analysis to interpret digital storytelling, hashtags, and visual campaigns as forms of counter-hegemonic knowledge production and political expression.