BETWEEN THE LOCAL , THE GLOBAL , AND THE AID ECONOMY IN PALESTINE
also circulating in the West ( De Cesari , 2012 ; El Ghadban & Strohm , 2013 ; Jawad , 2014 ; Karkabi , 2018 ). Cultural production ( and mobilization ) in the post-Oslo era took on heightened charge and meaning , becoming a highly contested sphere within which the conflict and its associated narratives were constructed and debated more heatedly than ever , both locally and internationally . 6 The ESNCM ’ s participation in a mediated classical Western music concert that would be widely circulated in Europe provided a means of constructing projections of Palestinian modernity and sovereignty that also “ speak ” to the West in its own language of “ civilization .”
I begin with a brief description of the ESNCM , highlighting how the institution is building a national cultural infrastructure based on a cultural mapping of Palestine that disrupts and subverts Western states ’ discourses and imaginations of Palestinian futurity , which are based on 1967 borders and Oslo ’ s premises for Palestinian sovereignty . This follows with a critical review of the aid economy in Palestine and the place that cultural production has been awarded within its frameworks . The story of the Christmas Concert for Life and Peace elaborates the sociopolitical tensions that occur when local positions come into conflict with global interventions and the aid economy . It shows how a local cultural institution leverages its ideological alignments both locally and internationally and positions itself in a cultural ambassadorship role that is entwined with the project of legitimizing Palestine , and Palestinian modernity , on the world stage . I then map the ESNCM ’ s nation-building , resistance , and diplomacy efforts vis-à-vis other actors and stakeholders , including the church custodians of the Holy Land , the Palestinian Authority ( PA ), and BDS . My final commentary ponders the potential liberatory power of national imaginaries and projections produced through cultural texts , in the context of the ever-shrinking on-the-ground spatiality and cumulative fragmentation of occupied Palestinian geography .
The Edward Said National Conservatory of Music ( ESNCM ) 7 or : how a local cultural institution ( re- ) maps Palestinian ( national ) geography
The pioneering ESNCM , aka Al-Ma ‘ had , is the largest and longest established conservatory in Palestine . Founded in 1993 with 40 students , the ESNCM was the first Palestinian institution providing formal music education since 1948 . By 2011 , the Ma ‘ had was serving over 800 students attending branches in Ramallah , East Jerusalem , Nablus , Beit Sahour ( Bethlehem ) and Gaza , in addition to conducting outreach programs in more peripheral areas . The conservatory provides a structured academic program designed to prepare students to enter university-level music programs in both Western classical and Arabic musics . 8
The Ma ‘ had is also developing a variety of events and institutions that both literally and symbolically serve to diffuse the isolation of Palestinians imposed by conditions of dispersal , exile and occupation , while laying the basis for a national cultural infrastructure .
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