Footnotes in gaza: representations on hamas during the elections in palestine through joe sacco's comics (2002- 2010)

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to understand the most varied forms of representations about the elections of the legislative body in Palestine in January 2006, in the pages of "Notes on Gaza" of the American journalist Joe Sacco. Inserted in the macro-event of the war on terror, started after the attacks on the Twin Towers in September 2001 in the United States, elections in Palestine were won by the Hamas military group, recognized as a terrorist group in Europe, by Israel and the United States. In our attempt to analyze the representations about these elections, we will observe, in addition to "Notes on Gaza" chosen as our source the object of research, documents issued by the United Nations and American periodicals such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. Faced with this scope of documentary sources, we will question how these groups, producers of systems of representations that dispute among themselves the representation of their truth created and established according to their needs and their interests about the elections in Palestine and especially about the role of Hamas in these elections. As a methodology, we will use the precepts of Jean Starobinsky about the analysis of literary texts. As a theoretical reference, our study will be based on the concept of representations of the French historian Roger Chartier. Finally, we understand the disparity in representations between the US media and the representations contained in "Notes on Gaza", especially about the events that permeate the process of their production.