"The practice of mapping in Palestine-Israel has long been an exercise in power, imperialism, and dispossession." So writes Zena Agha in her recent policy brief for Al-Shabaka. But how can maps be reclaimed as tools for resistance? And can they be utilized to help envision a different Palestinian future?

In our first policy lab of 2020, Zena Agha and Ahmad Barclay join host Nur Arafeh to discuss the ways in which maps and other visualization tools serve as sites to entrench power disparities as well as to empower communities to reimagine their colonized homelands.

Zena Agha served as Al-Shabaka's US Policy Fellow from 2017 - 2019. Her areas of expertise include Israeli settlement-building in the occupied Palestinian territory with a special focus on Jerusalem, modern Middle Eastern history, and spatial practices. She has previously worked at the Economist, the Iraqi Embassy in Paris, and the Palestinian delegation at UNESCO.

Ahmad Barclay is an architect and visual communicator based in Beirut, Lebanon. He is a partner with Visualizing Palestine, co-founder of the Palestine Open Maps project, and an Al-Shabaka policy member. Over the past decade, Ahmad has led award winning infographics projects, and facilitated information design workshops in London, Bangalore, Beirut, Barcelona and Amman.

Nur Arafeh is a Rhodes Scholar, doing her PhD in Economic Development at the University of Oxford. She previously served as Al-Shabaka's Palestine Policy Fellow from 2015 - 2017, as an Associate Researcher at the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), and as a Visiting Lecturer of Economics at Al-Quds Bard College.

About the Policy Lab Program: Al-Shabaka's Palestine Policy Lab is an online live-stream space, where audiences can engage directly with expert analysts from our nearly 200-member network as they craft policies and strategies related to Palestine. The labs are free and open for public participation, inviting viewers to join in on policy discussions.

Mapping Palestine: Decolonizing Spatial Practices