The Center for Racial Justice is very proud to sponsor the second annual Possibilities of Palestinian Refusal: Against Disciplining Knowledge and Movement series! Please join us for the following talk with Samah Saleh:

This talk examines resistance inside Israeli prisons through the experiences of Palestinian women who practice sumud (steadfastness) as an everyday form of political agency. Rather than an abstract idea, sumud emerges as a lived reality within the prison’s suspended time, where women confront isolation, violence, and attempts at erasure. Through collective organization, shared learning, embroidery, reading, writing, and emotional solidarity, everyday survival becomes a form of resistance. Despite gendered violence such as strip searches and harassment, women reclaim dignity and political identity by supporting one another and creating informal spaces for learning and memory-sharing. Drawing on testimonies of former Palestinian women prisoners, this talk highlights how solidarity itself becomes a powerful strategy for survival, resistance, and the continuation of political struggle.

Samah Saleh is Visiting Professor of Gender Studies at UCLA and Assistant Professor at An-Najah National University in Palestine.

Co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute, Students for Justice in Palestine, People’s University, UCSC Sociology, CSAS, Center for Cultural Studies, Center for Racial Justice, CRES, Feminist Studies, Institute for Social Transformation