Falafel King: Culinary Customs and National Narratives in Palestine (I)

Abstract This article is the ?rst in a series in which I propose to draw on the emergent and poly/trans disciplinary ?eld of Food Studies in order to pursue questions of national identity, political struggle, cultural resistance and psychological survival in Palestine. There are several perspectives from which this connection between food and territoriality may be theorised. At ?rst instance, for the purposes of this paper, I ask whether it is appropriate to draw on the cultural property paradigm in order to spotlight the possibilities and signi?cance of claiming their cuisine as the intangible cultural heritage of Palestinians. This essay is a rhetorical cry for the repatriation and rehabilitation of regional specialties. The need to acknowledge, safeguard and celebrate Palestinian culture, its distinctive genius and the abundance and re?nement of its traditions is part of the struggle for meaningful political change. The Palestinian ethnographic research included in this paper was conducted in collaboration with Bait al Karama, a local (Nablus based) NGO founded and run entirely by women, for local women. My methodology is rooted in the relationship between activism and academia.Keywords Cultural property Ecriture Feminine Food (and) colonialism Legal anthropology/ethnography Palestine/Israe