Pequeños Belénes: The Making of a Palestinian Diaspora in Chile

Abstract

This thesis analyzes discourses of the Palestinian community in Santiago, Chile. The community, known emically as the colectividad, has developed these discourses through institutions that it has established and maintained over the past one hundred years. The purpose of my discourse analysis is to explore the colectividad’s particular corner of Palestine’s field of discursivity, which encompasses all the potential signifiers of Palestine that its global nationalist, legal, and humanitarian discourses historically cast aside.

I argue that discourses of the colectividad have historically diverged from discourses of stateless Palestinians in the Arab world through four primary discursive categories: territory, wealth, Christianity, and mobility. First, because Palestinian-Chileans are not refugees, they have developed distinct concepts of territorial sovereignty. Second, their history of economic success has shaped unique ideals and images of prosperity. Third, their Christian heritage informs their engagement with versions of Palestine that are not strictly material. Lastly, the forms of mobility that they have historically enjoyed determine how they fashion Palestine into a mobile entity and identity.

I ultimately argue for an opening of the historiographic imagination to account for a Palestine that is broad and variable. I posit that Palestine exists in dimensions both distant from and intrinsically linked to the prospects of a people for sovereignty over a specific territory. Along the way, I invite readers to envision and critique the implications of this capacious Palestine for the world to which we aspire.