Contribution short abstract:

In Palestine, water control is used as a tool of dispossession by the Israeli settler colonial project. This paper examines how communal water knowledge(s) and practices remain a vital source of Indigenous resistance through fostering relationalities of care, stewardship and reciprocity.

Contribution long abstract:

In settler colonial contexts, control over water functions as a mechanism of dispossession and domination. In Palestine, water has been the site of overt weaponization and theft by Israeli settler colonial control, perpetuating extractivist logics and practices designed to erase Palestinian presence on the land.

This paper examines ‘Njasa cisterns, traditional water storage systems, as vital communal infrastructures and living knowledge systems central to the resilience of Palestinian herding communities. Countering colonial and orientalist frameworks that commodify water and reduce its meaning and valuation to mere techno-managerial logics, we highlight how ‘Njasa knowledge(s) and knowledge holders embody an ethics of care, reciprocity, and commons, fostering deeper relationality with land and water.

Through ethnographic research with communities in the occupied West Bank, we explore how cisterns knowledge(s) operate as dynamic systems sustained by intergenerational knowledge-sharing, shared stewardship, and mutual care. These cisterns are not only reservoirs of water but also sites of communal resistance, preserving ecological and cultural ties and countering systemic dispossession. We also examine how communal water knowledge-sharing extends into new practices in physical and virtual spaces, enabling the sharing and evolution of Indigenous practices under conditions of (settler)colonial erasure, ecological collapse and climate change.

By positioning ‘Njasa cisterns as sites of resistance and relational commoning, this work contributes to the decolonial turn in water studies, advocating for methodologies that honor and strengthen Indigenous communities’ sovereignty, cultural resilience, and steadfast presence on their land amidst relentless settler colonial oppression.