Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Sharif Abdel Qader Kanaaneh was born in the town of Araba al-Batouf in the occupied Galilee in 1935. He is married and has two sons and a daughter. He studied elementary school at Araba al-Batouf and Sakhnin schools, and secondary school at Nazareth High School, where he obtained his high school diploma in 1954. He earned a BA in Economics from Youngstown State University in the United States in 1965, a MA in Anthropology from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, and a PhD in the same field from the same university in 1975.
He worked as a teacher at Touba Al-Zangariyah School in the occupied interior, and worked as a professor of psychology at Hawaii Community College between the years (1967-1969), then at the University of Hawaii between the years (1971-1972), and an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Wisconsin in the United States of America between the years (1972-1975), and an assistant professor in the Department of Education and Psychology at Birzeit University between the years (1975-1976), then in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the same university, where he headed the department between the years (1976-1981), and worked as an associate professor at An-Najah University, and Dean of the Faculty of Arts at An-Najah University between the years (1981-1983), and President of the University between the years (1983-1985), and Director of the Research Center at Birzeit University between the years (1985-1989), and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Birzeit University, and Director For the Center for Heritage and Community Studies at the Family Revival Association for several years.
Kanaaneh was interested in Palestinian heritage, preserving the popular narrative, identity and the transformations that occurred in it, and in the collective and folkloric memory. In 1977, he was the initiator of a project to study the villages destroyed in 1948. Under his supervision, sixteen studies were published on sixteen villages. He also took the initiative to prepare the Palestinian folk tale project, which he began in 1978, and under which he published a number of studies, including his famous book, “Say, O Bird.” This effort resulted in UNESCO’s recognition in 2005 of the Palestinian folk tale as one of the masterpieces of intangible human heritage that must be preserved.
Kanaaneh organized a number of academic conferences within the framework of his research interests, and participated in others in Palestine and around the world. He has published a number of books, studies and research papers on these topics, including the following books: Social Change and Psychological Adjustment among the Arab Population in “Israel” (1987), Dar Abuna (1992), The Palestinian Diaspora: Migration or Displacement (1992), The Louse (A Story from Popular Tales (2006), Stories from Palestinian Popular Heritage (2008), Why Did Al-Shatouh Divorce Aziza? A Study of Political Jokes, Myths and Rumors (Joint, 2008), Say, Bird: Stories for Children from Palestinian Popular Heritage (Joint, 2010), Zionist-Israeli Violence and Aggression: Its Manifestations, Causes and Roots (2011), and The Destroyed Palestinian Villages and Towns 1948 (Joint, 2nd ed., three parts, 2022).
Awarded the Order of Culture, Science and Arts, Creativity Class, 2023.
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