Reporting from the Global Sumud Flotilla

Kieran Andrieu is a British-Palestinian political commentator and regular contributor to Novara Media. He is a doctor of political economy and has lectured at multiple University of London institutions across a range of disciplines. He recently joined the Global Sumud Flotilla in an attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza, providing daily reporting from the flotilla. Here, he will reflect on the flotilla in the context of cultural hegemony, using a Gramscian definition of culture and hegemony. He argues that Israel's image and reputation have been in interminable decline since 1982, and casts the flotilla as a mimetic tactic in that process. In proper Gramscian fashion, there is nothing superficial about Israel's reputational collapse: 'hasbara', or narrative, has always been correctly regarded as critical to the state's survival. Andrieu will explore and deconstruct the symbolism behind a nautical mission on the Mediterranean, the centrality of media and personality to it, and the complex interaction between 'cultural' and 'material' forces, including the deployment of Italian and Spanish naval frigates to protect the flotilla.

Keynote from Kieran Andrieu, Global Sumud Flotilla participant and journalist with Novara Media. The keynote will be followed by a discussion with Chares Demetriou (senior lecturer in Sociology) and Emma Shachat (PhD in Art History and Visual Studies). The discussion will be moderated by Heba Taha (Centre for Advanced Middle Eastern Studies & Political Science, Lund university). 

This event is arranged by LUCSUS and the Critical Studies Research Node, Department of Arts and Cultural studies, Lund University, in collaboration with Lund Academics for Palestine.

All welcome, no registration needed.