Migration as Anchorage: A Palestinian Family in London

In this episode we are joined by Michelle Obeid to discuss her book, Migration as Anchorage: Ethnography of a Palestinian Family in London, and what it was like to write about a Palestinian family seeking anchorage while abroad in London—both before and after the escalation of the Palestinian genocide in October of 2023. She shares with us more about the Gazzawi family, the role of food in cultural studies, and what the ongoing process of recreating home looks like for Palestinians. In developing an anthropology of anchorage, Michelle focuses on “everyday practices that create a sense of holding fast in otherwise fluid times and place.”Michelle Obeid is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her research explores postwar sociality, livelihoods, borders, kinship, migration, and food, with a focus on how people create home, community, and belonging amid uncertainty. She is the author of Border Lives: An Ethnography of a Lebanese Town in Changing Times (Brill 2019) and Migration as Anchorage: Ethnography of a Palestinian Family in London (Berghahn 2025).Michelle's book can be downloaded for free from Berghahn Press. Excerpts from Girish's students used with permission. Additional Resources:Hammad, Isabella. 2024. Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative. New York: Penguin Random House.Said, Edward. 1994. Representations of the Intellectual: The 1993 Reith Lectures. New York: Pantheon Books.  Aly, Ramy. 2015. Becoming Arab in London: Performativity and the Undoing of Identity. London: Pluto Press.Mahmoud Darwish quote from 1996 interview: Darwish, Mahmoud, Liana Badr, Zakariyya Muhammad, Mundher Jaber, Amira El-Zein, Carolyn Forche. 2019. “Our Present Does Not Decide Either to Begin or to End.” The Massachusetts Review 60.3: 425–438.Said, Edward. 1979. The Question of Palestine. New York: Times Books.El-Haddad, Laila, and Maggie Schmitt. 2021. The Gaza Kitchen: A Palestinian Culinary Journey. New York: Just World Books.Laila El-Haddad on Unforked: “Gastronationalism”The Everyday Orientalism Podcast explores how Orientalism continues to have deep ramifications in our everyday lives, for how we think about settler-colonialism, liberation, and how empire and capitalism continue to exploit and dehumanize the majority of us. Defined by Palestinian American literary scholar Edward Said, Orientalism is “a Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.” Our podcast celebrates the 10th anniversary of the platform Everyday Orientalism.Host: Girish DaswaniEditor and producer: Taylor StarkResearch assistant: Sophie PlotkinIntro music: Madame Salame – Decaf