Bana Alabed: From Twitter War Child to Peace Icon

  1. Martínez García, Ana Belén
Book:
New Forms of Self-Narration: Young Women, Life Writing and Human Rights

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

ISBN: 9783030464196,  9783030464202

Year of publication: 2020

Pages: 77-91

Type: Book chapter

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-46420-2_5 GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openOpen access editor

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

This chapter examines Bana Alabed¿s harnessing Twitter to construct an activist self. It analyzes the intriguing ways technological and affective affordances made it possible for a 7-year-old Syrian girl to report from a war zone. Alabed has evolved past the trope of innocent suffering child typical of human rights narratives, and on to a discourse of peace and fraternity which has awarded her several prizes. Mediation¿and the role her mother has played¿as well as imagery to convey trauma should be further addressed and problematized. The chapter closes with a reflection on names. Like Malala, Bana is mainly known by just her first name. Getting to know these girls on a first-name basis is crucial for the degree of empathizing that may be reached.

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