Abstract

This paper will focus on Palestinian Bedouin village of Susiya, located in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the range of visibility making actions that ensued after the entire village was issued a demolition order by the Israeli Civil Administration 2012. Focusing on a range of creative visual response to the demolition order, this paper will examine the problematic nature over who and how to produce the ‘right image’ of the village and its struggle. Based upon fieldwork and interviews with activists and community workers I will identify how, in an effort to overcome the separation between audience and distant spectator, a number of NGOs and Human Rights organizations (HROs) acting on behalf of the village ultimately weakened the representation of the villagers (Tomlinson, 1999). Thereafter I will conclude by addressing how through the circulatory nature of the internet, one specific Activestills photo project, developed with rather than for the villagers one year earlier re-emerged as the dominant visibility of the awareness raising campaign, online. By doing so, I will argue that more subtle form of visual resistance can be measured against the emotional and affect laden practices adopted by the HROs; a practice that became prevalent during the Second Intifada (Allen, 2008).