"Photography and the Possibility of Return"

The chapter analyzes the use of photographs as means of protest in the actions of “Return,” a group of Israeli and international activists. The group was formed in 2018 in response to a call from Gaza by Palestinian organizations urging activists around the world to disseminate photographs of slain Palestinians in the weekly Great March of Return demonstrations. Return repurposes these portraits by turning them into specters that trigger what has been historically and politically repressed: the 1948 Nakba. These specters do not attest to the ontological essence of photography and to its power to “authenticate” the past, but to reactivate it by unleashing persisting forces that disturb rather than reassure. By forming an integral part from Return’s actions in specific sites and their circulation and dissemination online, the photographs become acts that demand attention, solicit response and recognition, and trigger the possibility of imagining a joint future for Palestinians and Israelis