toxic philanthropy
Fadya Salfiti
In this podcast, Palestinian cultural organiser and activist Fadya Salfiti unfolds the layers of her trajectory –from Kuwait to the United States and then to Jerusalem– to reflect on what it means to go back, to take root, and to struggle in an occupied land. From her situated experience, she dismantles the “humanitarian” and “developmentalist” façade of international aid: how colonial philanthropy depoliticises struggles, fragments the territory, gathers data, monitors, imposes external priorities, and generates dependency. Against this, she proposes other ways of sustaining life and collective projects: networking, self-organising, solidarity among organisations, and the creation of projects such as Owneh Initiative and Rawa, which seek to liberate resources, language, political discourse and imagination. Here, memory acts as insubordination, return as a daily practice, and community organising as a radical wager on Palestine’s future.