Transformative provenance: memory work in the Palestinian diaspora

Provenance, as the foundational principle of archival studies, dictates that records with the same creator should be organized separately from those of a different creator. This idea of provenance, however, fails to consider different epistemologies of origin. Using an ethnographic study of the Palestinian diaspora in Southeast Michigan, this paper interrogates provenance through Palestinian epistemology and Palestinian futurism to theorize a transformative provenance that positions archival origins as both spatially and temporally unfixed. Rather than rejecting provenance, the concept is a useful departure point to consider how Western understandings of origin and custody can be broadened by other ways of knowing. In this article, I track the origins and custody of memories and stories, the main medium of records in this community, to highlight the culturally specific epistemologies involved in their preservation. I then propose a transformative provenance based on three qualities. First, intergenerational: Chain of custody belongs to both the past and the present, as stories belong to the time of a grandparent’s past exile and a grandchild’s present diaspora. Second, collective: With the spatial referent of memories being lost, ownership is shared within village kinship networks. Third, imaginative: Origins of memories exist in the past, present, and the future, as those in diaspora use memories to imagine future liberation. By grounding this analysis of Palestinian memory work within the community’s conceptualizations of knowledge organization, this paper contributes to current discourse around decolonial recordkeeping, non-Western epistemology, and the management of diaspora archives.