Hi Karin!
It’s been a little while since I’ve written to you / on this blog. A lot has happened since I last wrote, and I’ll try to cover it as efficiently and comprehensively as possible. When I last wrote, I was really excited and had many plans: I was going to be productive and engaging with the world around me, but also focusing on self-care and inner peace. Since then, these general goals have not changed, but the circumstances surrounding them obviously have.
I remember a sunny Saturday in March, a day when I felt like I firmly understood my role in my science and local communities. I joined an anti-occupation organization to help a farmer reclaim a part of his land in the occupied Palestinian territory. We helped him weed a field and prepare manure for fertilizing his crops while we learned from him about the adjacent settlers who had claimed his land for their own and were now growing date plantations all around him. I asked the farmer about the groundwater wells around his property, and he explained that the water had recently become saline. I explained to him about the project I was working on with a NGO trying to find the source of salinity in adjacent farmland, and we excitedly discussed the different analysis I could arrange for water samples from his wells. At home that night, as I cooked dinner and my cat Fatin wound around my legs, my mind buzzed with how the farmer’s wells could be a perfect addition to that groundwater monitoring project, and I couldn’t wait to e-mail my contact at the NGO. But as I sat down with a plate and eagerly opened my laptop, I was greeted with a message from the Boren program: due to the global pandemic, I was required to end my program and return home, immediately.
The heart-breaking news triggered a flip of both my personal goals and an understanding of my place in these communities, as well as a week-long whirlwind of preparing to travel under pandemic conditions. I set aside my thoughts and feelings to focus on the necessary tasks. For example, in order to travel with Fatin, I had to get signatures from the Ministry of Agriculture, and their office was open for only three hours a week, with the next open time slot being the next day! By the time I had packed up, said my goodbyes, and arrived to the airport with Fatin in her very pink carrier, I was so sleep-deprived that I had forgotten the most important thing: to hide absolutely anything with Arabic or might possibly suggest pro-Palestinian sentiment. I had at least remembered a tip from a friend to hide anti-occupation literature in the lining of my luggage, but the airport security was already suspicious of my passport full of stamps from throughout the Middle East, plus my cat’s name was Arabic. So when they found my Arabic homework, that triggered an intensive search of each individual item in all of my bags, including my bras and underwear. After a red-faced man yelled that I was lying about being a geologist, they strip searched me, forcing me to remove all my clothes except for my underwear and rubbing some kind of explosive detector device over my genitals. An hour later, I sat on a plane to America, trying to process what exactly had just happened to me, all because of my Arabic homework.
Self-quarantining in Boston was lonely and depressing, but it gave me time to process what had happened in the past week, what I had lost by leaving my research abroad program, and how to rebuild a framework for my own place in my communities that were also experiencing so much change and uncertainty. My work with the NGO was put on hold. My colleagues at the Geological Survey had been supportive hosts, and I had just made some useful progress on modeling laboratory experiments, but I was worried about our future collaboration and how much progress I could make without daily in-person interactions. I also mourned the loss of the community in my neighborhood, with so many amazing people who embraced my presence and invested a lot of time and energy getting to know me. The Boren program gave me an option for returning to Palestine/Israel in the Spring of 2021 to complete my program, but should I return a year later? Among a number of concerns about the timeline for degree completion and progress on other projects, I now also need to consider what it means to be a scientist, and more specifically a woman scientist, in an area where doing science could be perceived as a threat. What I experienced at the airport was terrible. But Palestinians face far worse and incomparable prejudice, abuse, and denial of human and civil rights daily. If I want to engage in fieldwork in an area where people are being marginalized, I also want to use my white privilege as a scientist to produce research that will help those people. Knowledge is power. Can I help by working with Palestinians and learning more about the land that has been illegally taken from them? At the same time, it’s also important to consider how, or if, I can effectively do that work in the face of possible safety risks, and that’s something I’m still thinking about as I consider whether to return.
While this is mainly a research abroad blog, it’s also important to recognize that there are two sides to the research abroad story. The second side is coming home. Always, though especially in this present moment, allyship as a scientist and more specifically as a geoscientist is particularly important. With the death of George Floyd unfortunately proceeding many others at the hands of police, all Americans need to engage in the Black Lives Matter movement and precipitate change so that we as a country can say that Black lives do actually matter. Science, and particularly the geosciences, has historically been white, and the field of Geosciences remains predominantly white. It’s important to acknowledge the history behind that lack of access for People of Color. The Geosciences emerged from a long history of colonialization via mining and exploration of stolen lands. There is a lot that geoscientists, and specifically white scientists, can do to make the field more supportive of Black scientists and other People of Color, and there are also a lot of broader impacts via the Geosciences that could support the change we need as a society.
Acting locally, but thinking globally, it’s also important to note the connection between the discrimination of Black Americans and the occupation of Palestine: they are both rooted in oppression at the hands of people who benefit from that oppression. The occupation affects all facets of life for Palestinians, and least among them is access to drinking water. Israeli policy makes it difficult for Palestinians to drill their own wells, so Palestinians are forced to buy their own drinking water through the national water system. Discrimination against Black Americans and People of Color is similarly multi-faceted, and water systems in America have also been means for harming the health and livelihoods of Black Americans, as we have seen in Flint, Michigan and New Orleans.
Now back in the States, acting locally at home versus abroad, I’m interested in being a responsible geoscientist as well as a responsible citizen with goals towards allyship. What does that look like? Activism can take many forms, including advocating through social media, attending rallies and protests, donating to advocacy groups like bail funds, immersing in art and literature from Black Americans, calling representatives, and listening. Listening. And some more listening. And, as a member of the LGBTQ community and especially since it’s Pride Month, donating to organizations that support queer and trans people of color.
What might allyship look like as a scientist, and specifically as a geoscientist? What is my role in my community? There are many answers: going beyond diversity and inclusion. Being involved with my science communities in the conversation of what to improve in order to be a better space for Black scientists and other People of Color. Teaching myself how to be a supportive colleague and, in the future, mentor. And taking on research projects from a perspective of how the broader impacts will impact local communities, and specifically how they might impact marginalized groups of people.
I’ll also add: there are not enough words to hold my many thoughts about my time in Jerusalem, and I’m still very happy to continue this correspondence through the summer.
Also, a quick update on Fatin: turns out she was pregnant pre-travel, and she gave birth to two beautiful kittens. We have named them Fairouz and Khalil.
Much love to you and our shared community,
Sarah