Fassetta, G., Al-Masri, N. and Phipps, A. (eds) (2020) Multilingual Online Academic Collaborations as Resistance: Crossing Impassable Borders. Bristol: Multilingual Matters

This book, co-edited by Dr Giovanna Fassetta and Prof. Alison Phipps (UofG) in collaboration with Dr Nazmi Al-Masti (Islamic University of Gaza, Palestine), was published in August 2020 by the Bristol publisher Multilingual Matters. The book brings together academics from the UK, the US and Palestine to discuss their experiences of working collaboratively online and through multiple languages as a way to bypass the forced immobility imposed on people in the Gaza Strip by a blockade that has now lasted for over 12 years. The book’s chapters bring together reflections on multilingual online collaborations by academics from a wide range of disciplines: Modern Languages, Education, Architecture, Educational Technology, to name but a few.

The experience of moving to online working and researching that many of us have struggled with over the past few months, have been an everyday occurrence for academics in the Gaza Strip and in several other countries around the world who, for many years now, have kept working together despite the severe limitations to physical movement to and from the Gaza Strip. The chapters in this book all illustrate and celebrate the ways in which academics in Gaza and worldwide have managed keep collaborations and partnerships going and thriving, despite the many challenges, as a form to resist isolation and forced immobility, to keep learning together and from each other.

This is an overview of the book’s chapters:

Introduction. Can you ‘here’ me? Editors’ reflections on online collaborations between the Gaza Strip and the Global North. By Alison Phipps, Giovanna Fassetta and Nazmi Al Masri

Part 1. English as an Additional Language and online technologies

Chapter 1. Four years of Glasgow-Gaza pre-sessional English telecollaboration: reflections from an ethical perspective. By William Guariento

Chapter 2. Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) internationalization endeavours at the level of postgraduate programmes. By Sanaa Abou-Dagga

Chapter 3. Exploring Mobile Support for English Language Teachers in a Context of Conflict: Syrian Refugee Teachers in Jordan. By Nazmi Al-Masri, Gary Motteram, Heba Hamouda, and Shaiffadzillah Omarali

Part 2. Finding motivation for language learning in a situation of forced immobility

Chapter 4. Motivational Strategies and Online Technologies: Are Palestinian EFL University Students in the Gaza Strip Empowered to be Bilingual? By Abedrabu Abu Alyan

Chapter 5. ‘Really Talking’ to Gaza: from Active to Transformative Learning in distributed environments and under highly pressured conditions. By Anna Rolinska, Bill Guariento, Ghadeer Abo Uda and Ongkarn Nakprada

Part 3. Palestine and the Arabic language

Chapter 6. Gaza Teaches Arabic Online: Opportunities, Challenges and Ways Forward. By Giovanna Fassetta, Nazmi Al-Masri, Mariam Attia and Alison Phipps

Chapter 7. (In)articulability of Pain and Trauma: Idioms of Distress in the Gaza Strip. By Maria Grazia Imperiale

Part 4. Internationalisation and imagination

Chapter 8. The Experience of the Islamic University of Gaza in Cross-Border Academic Collaboration: T-Meda project as a case study. By Ahmed Salama Muhaisen

Chapter 9. From the Kitchen to Gaza: Networked Places and the Collaborative Imagination. By Chantelle Warner and David Gramling

First published: 14 December 2020

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