Reintegration as Illusion: Sumud and the Everyday Resistance of Palestinian Women After Israeli Colonial Imprisonment

This paper examines the post-incarceration reintegration experiences of Palestinian women formerly imprisoned in Israeli colonial prisons. Drawing on an abolitionist decolonial feminist framework and Bamberg's narrative practice approach, the study analyzes how women narrate resistance, survival, and the ongoing impact of colonial carcerality on their lives after release. The analysis demonstrates that imprisonment does not end at the prison gate. Rather, women's narratives reveal a continuum in which arrest, incarceration, and post-release life are blurred by ongoing surveillance, stigma, and structural violence. Central to their survival is sumud (steadfastness), which operates not as passive endurance but as a dynamic practice of reasserting agency, sustaining collective memory, and challenging colonial logics long after release. By foregrounding women's testimonies and their post-release experiences, this study contributes to decolonial and abolitionist scholarship by illustrating how Palestinian women transform the continuity of colonial carcerality into a site of ongoing struggle and solidarity.