Dr. Shahd Abusalama is a Palestinian scholar-activist and artist, born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp, northern Gaza. Due to the genocidal ethnic cleansing facing her and her family in Gaza, she is based between London, Barcelona, Dublin and Beirut. She recently started a visiting scholarship at the Lebanese American University, exploring the gendered representation of Beirut protests during the 17 October Revolution. Her PhD from Sheffield Hallam University, which explored the historical representations of Gaza and its refugees in documentary films, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury under the title, Between Reality and Documentary. She is the author of Palestine from My Eyes blog, which was published as a book in Italy in 2013. She co-founded the Hawiyya Dance Company in 2017, which showcases Palestine’s folkloric Dabke and music to UK audiences and beyond to amplify antiracist causes.
In 2022, Shahd Abusalama, a Palestinian academic working in the UK, was suspended from her teaching position on antisemitism charges. Here she recalls the defamation campaign against her and discusses how her case reveals the structural vulnerability of Palestinians in the West.