UAntwerpen, Stadscampus, Het Brantijser, SJ 116
Tuesday 16 December 2025, 12.30-14.00
At the PoHis lunch seminar of 16 December, we welcome dr. Kholoud Al-Ajarma*, who will give a lecture titled “’Ajjur: the Land under the Park”. In her lecture, Dr. Kholoud Al-Ajarma will explore her personal and family connection to the Palestinian village of ʿAjjur, from which her family was displaced in 1948. Drawing on personal experiences, family memories, and academic research involving oral interviews and site visits, she will revisit the village and her grandmother’s recollections to bring its cultural and ecological landscape back to life. In her research, Dr. Al-Ajarma examines how sites like ‘Ajjur have been transformed into parks and forests, concealing traces of former village life, while showing how memories, traditions, and stories passed through generations sustain an enduring link to the land and its history.
* Dr Al-Ajarma is a lecturer at the Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World at the University of Edinburgh (Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies). She is an award-winning Palestinian anthropologist, photographer, filmmaker and human rights activist, with research experience in North Africa and Latin America. Her research focuses on topics such as refugee rights, political ecology, religious experience and Palestinian diaspora communities. Until the end of December 2025, Al-Ajarma is a visiting scholar at the Urban Studies Institute of the University of Antwerp.