The Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM): Transnational Politics, Inter/national Frameworks and Intersectional Alliances

This study illustrates findings from research conducted between 2015-16 on a transnational organization operating across various Arab and western countries: the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM). It argues that the PYM is reformulating the notion of Palestinian-ness through a type of activism that is rooted in intersectional alliances and local anti-racist campaigns. The PYM notions of national liberation and national identity stand in dynamic tension with the more classic territorial and nationally based ones. Palestinian-ness in the PYM’s political praxis is co-terminus with diaspora, multiple languages, diverse allegiances, multiple belonging, inhabiting several localities. The PYM exemplifies how a diasporic standpoint can be politically productive in a redefined discourse of justice and liberation. The Palestine question is part of a wider web of interconnected forms of oppression, control, destitution and violence that are knotted together globally. Native American protests against the North Dakota pipelines in connection with settler colonialism and destitution in the occupied Palestine are both central to PYM political praxis.