Date of Award
Summer 8-22-2025
Level of Access Assigned by Author
Open-Access Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
English
First Committee Advisor
Benjamin Friedlander
Second Committee Member
Dylan B. Dryer
Third Committee Member
Rosalie Purvis
Abstract
As Palestinians in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank appeal to the global community to respond to Israel’s genocidal actions and speak against its blatant crimes against humanity, the role of distanced, global witnesses and the ethical implications of such witnessing are thrown into sharp relief. My thesis stems from questions about the experience of witnessing such a widely and graphically documented genocide from afar and the psychological, ethical, and ideological implications that accompany it. In contextualizing distanced witnessing, I also aim to focus on the complicated media environment, as well as the scholasticidal tendencies that the scholarly community of global witnesses is navigating. My research is informed by interviews with individuals residing in United States whose ethical engagement and action against the Palestinian genocide is impacted by a range positionalities, including but limited to, them being a scholar, retired professor, student activist on F1 visa, non-profit employee on an H1B visa, poet, political artist, mental health worker, photographer, former political candidate, Israeli-American, American Jew, Palestinian-American, and Pakistani. My analysis of interviews found four determining factors that dictate how the interviewee’s positionality and the psychological, ethical and ideological implications of distanced witnessing impacted their engagement with the Palestinian conflict. The four determining factors include 1) how they handle the “calculus” of being an activist by navigating the complicated media environment 2) how they identify the range of affective responses generated by such witnessing; 3) how they confront their disillusionment with America’s freedom and morality and Israel’s intentions; and 4) how they experience and resist the ideological scholasticide through activism.
Recommended Citation
Khan, Maryam Sami, "Witnessing Genocide from a Distance" (2025). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 4281.
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/etd/4281