Send message to Contributor

Contribution short abstract:

Considering the role of anthropologists during a genocide, this intervention will discuss a project instigated in October 2023 to gather testimonies throughout Gaza to share as evidence with human rights organisations.

Contribution long abstract:

Having spent two years working and living in Gaza, including time spent conducting academic research, this intervention considers the role of anthropologists during a genocide, and discusses a project instigated in October 2023 to gather testimonies throughout Gaza to share as evidence with human rights organisations.

Send message to Contributor

Contribution short abstract:

An emerging ethnographer/ PhD student in cultural and social anthropology offers insights, concerns and auto-ethnographic reflections on engaged and political anthropology through the lenses of a marginalised positionality while occupying a precarious institutional position

Contribution long abstract:

Living under both, the ongoing imperially-sustained occupational military rule in Palestine, and statelessness in Austria, while Palestinian political subjectivity continues to be materially-targeted, structurally-erased, vilified or/and unacknowledged, how does one utilize their marginalized positionality while becoming an anthropologist/ethnograper? What are the security concerns/dangers of this becoming? Are there necessary silences for political protection, personal/collective? These questions come from a Palestinian PhD student navigating the academia through their first semester of Social and Cultural Anthropology in an institution that, not only erased a moderate statement supporting a ceasefire/demands for basic Palestinian rights from its website, but also one that canceled lectures on Palestine, in a country that voted against ceasefire, three times (at the UN-and EU) as a genocide was still taking place in PoT.

Palestine, serving as an example of the broader oppressed-geographies in the Global South, demonstrated huge multi-layered contributions to politically/morally engaged and urgent anthropology of speaking-Truth-to-Power(Lila Abu Lughod, Maura Finkelstein) under the subfield of anthropology of Palestine, and has also fostered global solidarity through comparative approaches to parallel oppressive systems. Participating in engaged feminist-queer(thus necessarily political) production of anthropology is intellectually rewarding and harbors justice and liberation. However, is this only possible to tenured professors or the materially-privileged (including Palestinians or “halfies” (Abu Lughod) who have a valuable citizenship? This paper proposal discusses anthropology written by a structurally-disadvantaged subjecthood becoming an anthropologist/ethnographer. Are there important political silences for fear of doxing, reprisal, possible abuses of ethnographic materials by institutions, military-forces, antagonistically(-politically) motivated individuals e.g misrepresentation and decontextualization?

Send message to Contributor

Contribution short abstract:

Adopting micro-anthropological approaches, this paper sheds light on the intricate relationship between the reshaping of local sectarianism and sectarian identities, the settle-colonial practices of the state, and the socio-political dynamics among Palestinian citizens of Israel.

Contribution long abstract:

The Palestinians, survivors of the Nakba who later became Israeli citizens after remaining on the 1948 lands, grapple with their liminal situation, shaping their socio-political evolution. Comprising approximately 17% of the population, they have become the subject of academic scrutiny within Israeli academia amid knowledge production influenced by Zionist political hegemony until the late seventies.

Examining intricate social phenomena such as sectarianism and communitarianism among Palestinian citizens of Israel has predominantly followed the modernization approach, shaped by Israeli-Zionist hegemony. This perspective conceptualizes sectarianism through an essentialist lens, portraying it as an ahistoric phenomenon aligned with the broader political hegemonic viewpoint that perceives Palestinians as religious minorities within a de-nationalized Palestine. Despite recent contributions from critical scholars offering counter-approaches, these often attribute such phenomena solely to settler-colonial control, emphasizing elimination or “socio-cide” mechanisms. However, these perspectives frequently overlook alternative techniques like “cooptation” and “containment” of the native. Furthermore, an exclusive focus on the state pays scant regard to micro-anthropological perspectives.

To bridge this gap, the paper traces the reshaping of sectarianism within the Palestinian community through ethnographic research in Shefa-A'mr, a mixed-religious town. Exploring relationships between settler colonialism and sectarian evolution at both macro and micro levels and adopting a micro-anthropological methodology, the study emphasizes the roles played by the state, local elite, and daily practices within society.

In doing so, the research delves into the unique case of Palestinian citizens in Israel, existing in a liminal position between the Palestinian national and Israeli civic spheres. This in-between existence provides a distinctive case study for examining complex colonial control mechanisms, including the social re-engineering of the native—elements that have received limited attention. Aiming to contribute to critical Palestinian anthropology and the production of counter-knowledge, the study seeks to challenge hegemonic mainstream academic narratives concerning Palestinian society.