Dr. Samah Saleh

“Sumud Behind Bars: Palestinian Women and the Politics of Everyday Resistance”

Wednesday, April 15, 2026

12:00 pm

Royce Hall 306

Abstract
This talk examines resistance inside Israeli prisons through the experiences of Palestinian women who practice sumud (steadfastness) as an everyday form of political agency. Rather than an abstract idea, sumud emerges as a lived reality within the prison’s suspended time, where women confront isolation, violence, and attempts at erasure. Through collective organization, shared learning, embroidery, reading, writing, and emotional solidarity, everyday survival becomes a form of resistance. Despite gendered violence such as strip searches and harassment, women reclaim dignity and political identity by supporting one another and creating informal spaces for learning and memory-sharing. Drawing on testimonies of former Palestinian women prisoners, this talk highlights how solidarity itself becomes a powerful strategy for survival, resistance, and the continuation of political struggle.

Bio:
Samah Saleh is a Visiting Professor in the Department of Gender Studies at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and an Assistant Professor at An-Najah National University in Palestine. Her research examines Palestinian women’s experiences of imprisonment within Israeli colonial carceral systems, engaging feminist theory, carceral geography, and decolonial scholarship. She explores how incarceration reshapes space, memory, and subjectivity, and how practices of sumud (steadfastness) function as embodied forms of resistance and survival. Her work employs qualitative and participatory methodologies, foregrounding lived experience while contributing to broader conversations in gender studies, critical carceral studies, and transnational feminist theory. In addition to her academic research, she is involved in community-based initiatives focused on gender equity, social innovation, and community development, working to connect scholarly inquiry with engaged public practice.