There is something to food beyond the sustenance it provides. There has to be because what compels me to spend a copious amount of money at an Asian restaurant for some rice and a viand just to taste something reminiscent of home?
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When it comes to the construction of race in today’s discourse, is it merely based on phenotype without considerations to cultural and/or genetic heritage? What if one’s “look” does not match their “race”? Is “Blackness” or “Whiteness” merely on the basis of skin tone or do socio-cultural aspects also exist?
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As for my identity in Turkey well, for the Moros I am a Filipino, for the Filipinos I’m an American, and for the Americans, I finally get to be a fucking American. At least the Turks were consistent in labelling me a yabancı.
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I heard that cadres will question why families are getting calls overseas and I worry my family will be harassed so I did not contact them. Then we started having emoji conversations on WeChat.
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Regarding those meetings with other organizations, quite often I would head to a meeting and find a foreigner, usually from a Western nation who had just arrived in the West Bank, but would be the “knowledgeable” resource person I was supposed to look for to gain insight into the current situation. I sat with one expert lauded by a previous team for her knowledge on local communities only to be told by those in said local communities that she barely interacted with them and kept a ‘healthy’ distance when it came to village visits. Yet these “gatekeepers” are deemed better resource persons than the people they supposedly represent.
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Stories of jinn and especially possession by jinn serve to quell spiritual and social aberration amongst believers by reinforcing authority of religious doctrine.
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Although major media outlets tend to portray Islam as a hindrance to women’s emancipation, to these women, Islam offers them agency that their local culture denies.
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