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Paper Short Abstract:

This talk is about how within the context of a nationalist and settler-colonial project, gender roles can be both reinforced and, at times, transgressed and even deconstructed. Its focus is on religious-Zionist settlers in the West Bank, who live in isolated hilltop communities.

Paper Abstract:

In the past two decades, the illegal outposts (ma’achazim halo choki’im) have become the main tool by which religious-Zionist settlers appropriate land in the West Bank. The outposts are often small-scale rustic communities built on hilltops in relative isolation against Palestinian resistance. Many of them can be reached only by driving on a rough gravel road. Based on almost two years of fieldwork, in this talk I shed light on questions of gender and sexuality that have become prevalent among the outpost people. I will demonstrate how, within the context of a nationalist and settler-colonial project, gender roles can be both reinforced and, at times, transgressed and even deconstructed. In short, we will see how for the young settler couples, the hilltops of the outposts serve as spaces where they can become what they imagine as proper “men” and “women” (raising children together in a tight-knit isolated frontier-style manner as each partner adheres to traditional gender roles), while for others it is the opposite: for them, the outposts is where this small-house-on-the-prairie fantasy can be transgressed (as they break from traditional gender roles, and partake in rather radical experiments in terms of gender performance and sexuality). I will show how among a specific segment of outpost society, most settlers shift from the first model to the second. Ultimately, by focusing on the outpost people, my aim is to illuminate the relationship between nationalism, religion, settler-colonialism, and gender.