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Reshaping Geography: Palestinian Community Networks in Europe and the New Media

The continuing difficulty of finding a solution to the physical return of the Palestinian diaspora to the homeland is increasingly being addressed in the digital realm by the rise of virtual communities. PALESTA (Palestinian Scientists and Technologists Aboard) was established to harness the scientific and technological knowledge of expatriate professionals for the benefit of development efforts in Palestine. This paper will discuss both the possibilities and the limitations of the PALESTA network. Additionally, it will examine new media technology and its implications in charting diasporic movements across national borders. Internet networking does not suggest the ‘end of geography’ but rather a kind of ‘reshaping of geography’. Internet networking accomplishes this ‘reshaping’ by simultaneously connecting various dispersed communities not only to their centre but also to each other—periphery to periphery. The paper argues that, in a process of construction and reconstruction of Palestinian identity that is largely affected by dispersed people with a fragile centre of gravity, new media can become important tools for establishing direct contact between these communities, while sometimes challenging the centrality of the homeland in diasporic communications.