Title: Palestinian Commemoration Politics: The Performative Roles of Women in the ‘Palestinian Diaspora’ TV Series

The paper analyses gender roles within a Palestinian historical context, using the TV drama series ‘The Palestinian Diaspora’ as a case study. The focus is, specifically, on how women in pre-1948 Palestine and, subsequently, in refugee camps are presented in the series. Building on Maurice Halbwachs's and Sigmund Freud's respective theoretical frameworks in memory studies and on the works of Raevvyn Connell, Judith Butler and other feminist theorists, the paper shows how women's voices are silenced within the Palestinian national narrative and collective memory. It is argued that the TV series present a unique remembering model where women's gender roles intersect with their class positions and with specific historical events such as the 1948 and 1967 wars. By doing so, the series introduce a commemoration pattern where women become a part of Palestinian history as women, not only as mothers or daughters.