Paper short abstract:

This paper problematises settler colonial citizenship in Palestine. Using data collected with Palestinian youth, it analyses indigenous aspiration and imagination within a framework of citizenship, arguing such capacities should be understood as resistive to settler colonial statecraft.

Paper long abstract:

"I think it's like we are in a zoo. The animals in the large cages are happy they are not in the small cages. We are still in a cage, but we can raise our arms a little…"

This paper problematises settler colonial citizenship in Palestine through a comparative analysis of fragments of an indigenous community. Drawing on data from two doctoral studies with Palestinian youth in East Jerusalem and in the north of historic Palestine it juxtaposes aspirations and imaginations of citizenship as embodied responses to settler colonialism. Palestinians in Jerusalem hold a civil status of 'permanent residency', usually reserved for foreigners, guaranteeing no residency rights. Since Israel's annexation of East Jerusalem in 1967, contravening international law, discriminatory and restrictive policies have aimed to reduce the Palestinian 'demographic threat' in the city. Yet many youth aspire to acquire citizenship as a pragmatic measure to access full rights. Meanwhile the realities for Palestinians in historic Palestine make it clear that citizenship in the settler colonial state can only ever be partial for the indigenous population. While the 1.6 million Palestinian citizens of Israel have the right to vote, participation in the political sphere is limited and daily lives are navigated within a legislative web of exclusion and racial discrimination. This paper offers an analysis of indigenous aspiration and imagination in the settler colonial state within a framework of citizenship, arguing that, in the face of erasure, such capacities should be understood as fundamentally resistive to settler colonial statecraft.