This essay investigates Edward Said's construction of a method of representation towards a political visibility of Palestinians in After the Last Sky. I argue that After the Last Sky comes to articulate possible sites of representability, specifically in the relationship between "inside and outside," which Said critically engages through the changing and fragmented Palestinian landscape that Said argues has determined the representability or unrepresentability of the Palestinian. To understand Said's construction of representation towards a political visibility of Palestinians through Jean Mohr's photographs, I want to first begin to understand how Said imagines his ability to speak for the photographs from his particular position. For this, I draw from Antonio Gramsci, Gayatri Spivak, Michel Foucault and Walter Benjamin. Then, I investigate how Said narrates the material conditions of the photographs in relationship to his authoritative position. In order to do so, I must also situate After the Last Sky historically, both in the 1980's, when After the Last Sky was first written, (in belated response to the degenerating effects of the 1967 war), and in its publication in the wake of the first Intifada and the western backed Oslo Peace Process beginning in 1991. Finally, I focus on the interesting turn in Said's After the Last Sky to identify the Palestinian female laborer as a potential site of political resistance.
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