Asrar is a final year doctoral researcher studying the psychological legacy of intra-communal violence within the Palestinian indigenous community in Israel. Asrar’s research draws on decolonising approaches in social sciences and community psychology, incorporating critical applications of psychoanalysis to examine narrative and photo-ethnography of the Palestinian community. Her work challenges conventional research paradigms by foregrounding indigenous perspectives and exploring the community’s psychological legacy through a decolonial framework.
Her MA thesis examined colonial practices against Palestinian political prisoners and the Palestinian experience of captivity, analysing how prisoners psychologically engage with their experiences within the context of declining communal support following the Oslo Accords. The research identified the significant role of captivity-related symbolism and the understanding of community as active responsibility, rather than passive support reception, in shaping prisoners’ experiences. This earlier work on the intersection of colonial practices, communal support structures, and psychological experience provides important grounding for her current doctoral research.
Asrar’s scholarship contributes to debates around decolonising research methodologies, community psychology, and the psychological legacies of colonial and settler-colonial contexts.