Step 1: Donate to Sameer Project here (sugg. donation $50).

Step 2: Register for “Witnessing, Tourism, Solidarity” here.

In this workshop, Jenny Kelly will discuss the history of virtual tourism in Gaza as a form of resistance to the ongoing siege of the Strip. Participants will learn about the labor of Palestinian guides in organizing these tours, as well as how they creatively resist the severing of Gaza from the rest of Palestine by teaching life amidst cycles of genocidal bombardment. Prof. Kelly will then invite participants to reflect on the limitations and possibilities of virtual forms of solidarity, and what it might mean for Palestinians to one day fully control their own borders.

Jenny Kelly is an Associate Professor of feminist studies, critical race studies, and ethnic studies at UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, Invited to Witness: Solidarity Tourism Across Occupied Palestine (2023) is a multi-site, interdisciplinary study of solidarity tourism in Palestine that shows how it emerged as an organizing strategy both embedded in and working against histories of displacement. Prof. Kelly is a founding member of the Institute for the Critical Study of Zionism and UC Santa Cruz’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine. She is also a member of Eyewitness Palestine’s Board of Directors.