"My Voice is My Weapon" examines the dynamics of music, nationalism, and resistance as realized through performance among Palestinians in Israel, the occupied territories, and Jordan. Based on eighteen months ethnographic fieldwork this dissertation explores the ways in which music and musical performance have fashioned and disseminated markers of a distinct Palestinian identity, and then traces how this identity has been historically articulated through various local, national, and transnational contexts. In so doing, this dissertation engages issues of national discourse, hegemony, and resistance; and argues for the utility of music and popular culture in resolving central questions of individual subjectivity and collective identity formation.

This dissertation focuses specifically on three interrelated sites of performance (Amman, Ramallah, and Tel Aviv) and three repertories of Palestinian resistance music (indigenous Palestinian folklore, protest song, and popular hip-hop/rap). After an introductory theoretical chapter on the politics of ethnography and violence, and the capacities of music and musical performance to ameliorate the effects of social trauma, this dissertation traces the historical development of Palestinian resistance music (intifada song) as a crucial site for the development of Palestinian national identities. Through a detailed musical and textual analysis, this dissertation explores many of the dominant symbols, myths, and meanings inherent to this repertory, deconstructing the indexical associations that constitute the poetics of Palestinian resistance. Next, this dissertation explores the interrelations of music performance, violence, and the Palestinian resistance movement through a biographical sketch of one of the intifada's most celebrated resistance singers, Kamal Khalil.

The final two chapters examine the burgeoning Palestinian hip-hop movement as representing a new direction in resistance music. This movement, spearheaded largely by a group of young Palestinian-Israelis, illustrates how many Palestinians living in Israel must navigate the interstices of both Palestinian and Israeli national narratives. The development of Palestinian hip-hop reveals a new discursive field where the established Palestinian/Israeli binary breaks down, and areas of cultural interconnectedness become apparent. Such a movement reveals the limits of the dominant nation-state discourse, and offers new lines of inquiry into processes of globalization and transnationalism in a post-national world.*

*This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Windows MediaPlayer or RealPlayer.