Cultural Resistance: An Ethnographic and Phenomenological Case Study of Palestinian Music Educator Mohamed Fadel's Life and Work

Abstract

This ethnographic and phenomenological case study examines the lived experiences of pioneering Palestinian music educator Mohamed Fadel (b. 1956-). Instrumental in establishing in 1986 the first music conservatory in Jordan, named the National Music Conservatory, he subsequently developed the string and outreach programs of the Edward Said National Conservatory of Music in villages and refugee camps in the neighbouring occupied Palestinian territory beginning in 1995, directing the outreach program until his retirement in 2021. The inquiry draws on postcolonial theory, critical pedagogy, and conscientization theory to position the data. These include lengthy and in-depth conversations with Fadel and four additional research participants, visual and print materials, observations, reflexive and collaborative poetry, and fieldwork narratives written in the style of literary journalism, as narrative vignettes. Four key themes frame the discussion: (a) Fadel as a Palestinian goodwill ambassador who embraces Western classical music and pedagogy as symbols of universality and cosmopolitanism; (b) teaching music as an individual and national accomplishment, leading to community cultural capital as resistance; (c) being in a liminal space between the contested occupied Palestinian territory and the West; (d) modelling independence, courage, and empowerment with which to resist colonization, occupation, and oppression. The study celebrates the advancement of Palestinian musical culture – Arabic and Western-based – in the occupied Palestinian territory, and its use as part of non-violent cultural resistance against colonization, occupation, and oppression of Palestinian people, and thus as counterhegemonic.