Remix and the Afterlife of Digital Archives: Reconstructing History and Identity in Palestine Remix

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

While remix has received scholarly attention as a grassroots mode of identity expression in the Palestinian context, its integration into institutional digital archives remains underexplored. This article examines how Palestine Remix, a digital archive launched by Al-Jazeera in 2014, mediates Palestinian identity and history through participatory affordances and selective exposure, with particular focus on three tools: keyword tagging, the ‘destroyed villages’ database, and remix. The article argues that remix diversifies, reanimates, and foregrounds selective narratives of Palestinian identity and history, bringing visibility to perspectives often obscured within digital archives. Together, these tools articulate a territorial conception of Palestinian identity rooted in rural life, alongside a transnational orientation that mobilizes global solidarities by situating the Palestinian cause within shared anti-colonial and pan-Arab frameworks. Tags such as 1948, Zionism, Jerusalem, and Arafat direct user engagement toward themes that resonate within Palestinian historical consciousness and broader Arab and global imaginaries. The ‘destroyed villages’ database fosters affective homophily by enabling users to connect around shared experiences of dispossession. Overall, the article situates Palestine Remix as a revealing case of how participatory media and archives can enable grassroots engagement with history and identity, while remaining embedded within institutional logics of visibility, commodification, and algorithmic control.