ABSTRACT
The methodologies of history-from-below (Thompson 1966: 279-80) (often referred to as people’s history) seek to challenge hegemonic top-down approaches to history. They focused on the narrativisation of the past from the perspectives of ordinary people or social movements rather than political, social, economic or religious elites or statement. Their primary focus is the oppressed, silenced and forgotten people. History-from-below narratives of resistance would produce an alternative to Palestinian elites. In order to understand and appreciate the complexities and richness of Palestinian individual, social and cultural memories, rather than imposing a topdown, elite or single narrative, a range of voices and multiple narratives of competing memories, the archaeology of a people crisscrossed with individual experiences-including narratives of suffering and sumud (steadfastness), of courage and resistance born out of anger and revolt against oppression-must be allowed to flourish and be nurtured further. The history-from-below approach, with its emphasis on multiplicity of popular memories and people’s voices rather than high politics, political elites, decision makers or top-down approaches, can, potentially, challenge elite discourses or dominant methodologies based on Israeli or Western-dominated archival sources.
