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- Convenor:
-
Nayrouz Abu Hatoum
(Columbia University )
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- SO-F497
- Sessions:
- Friday 17 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Stockholm
Short Abstract:
This panel examines how, in Palestine and Israel, populations and spaces simultaneously and differently stay, move, and settle and the effect these dynamics have on their lives, bodies, environments and nationalist political imaginations.
Long Abstract:
Contemporary Palestine and Israel are populated and shaped by groups with different mobilities and border realities. Restricted by continuing Israeli settler colonial expansion and military occupation, Palestinians are confined to small geographies. Palestinian refugees, resident in the occupied Palestinian territories (oPt), are unable to return to their own lands but forced to remain in camps often mere kilometres from their places of origin. Israelis, are, however able to mobilise and settle the remaining of the West Bank. Settlements offer upward mobility for Jewish Israelis, impacting a catastrophic downturn in social mobility in the surrounding Palestinian spaces. The Palestinian landscape is continuously being militarized, walled, and destroyed by a colonizing state, resulting in gross land loss and displacement. The Wall and the military checkpoint matrix in the oPt render Palestinian bodies as incarcerated. This panel examines how, in Palestine and Israel, populations and spaces simultaneously and differently stay, move, and settle and the effect these dynamics have on their lives, bodies, environments and nationalist political imaginations. It asks the following: What does it mean to fight for staying put, and steadfast on the land resisting government displacement, relocation or land confiscation? What are the dwelling practices utilized by those who are forced to relocate, or those who choose to move? What are the processes of meaning-making that people generate to speak of the transforming landscape (urban, village, border, historical, visual)? Finally, how do changing mobilities speak to a shift away from (historical) nationalist narratives and a discourse of state formation?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 17 August, 2018, -Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the production of autonomous spaces under the condition of permanent instability focusing on the case of sport clubs from rural, urban and camp communities in the West Bank, Palestine.
Paper long abstract:
This paper examines the production of autonomous spaces under the condition of permanent instability. It focuses on the case of sport clubs from rural, urban and camp communities in the West Bank, Palestine. For decades preceding the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) in 1994, sport clubs were among the very few community organizations in which Palestinians living in the West Bank could openly and legally participate. Other then providing sport, cultural and social activities to local populations, many developed into spaces for community organizing, political activism and self-governance. Establishment of the PNA brought (relatively) greater freedom of association and triggered significant transformations in the Palestinian civil society. The majority of research on these transformations discuses the professionalization of the Palestinian civil sector, its changing role in resistance against the ongoing Israeli occupation and the impact of donor politics, with a particular focus on the so-called professional NGOs. Less is known about the dynamics under way in more traditional forms of associational life in Palestine, such as charitable associations or sport clubs. This paper approaches the long-standing sport clubs as spaces of autonomy, where local communities develop mechanisms to collectively respond to permanent instability induced by the ongoing Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, as well as the resulting deficiencies of the Palestinian state formation process. It argues that the analysis of the production of such spaces, and the politics of autonomy performed in them, is crucial to understand the means of steadfastness, or staying put, on the local level.
Paper short abstract:
This study explores Palestinian youth experiences and practices of citizenship and belonging in a context of displacement, focusing on East Jerusalem neighbourhoods dislocated by the Israeli Separation Wall.
Paper long abstract:
The historical trajectory of Israeli policies that have ensued since the 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem have created a situation in which Palestinian Jerusalemites have been gradually encouraged to move to areas beyond the Israeli Separation Wall, ultimately displacing thousands and effectively containing them in a series of enclaves. The particularity of the enclave context brings to the fore the links and complexities between spatial de-territorilisation; the experience of (precarious) 'citizenship', including an individual's access to social infrastructure in a context of displacement; and the possibilities for survival. Drawing on interviews (n=40) with Palestinian youth between the ages of 18-30 holding Jerusalem 'permanent residency' status and living in two areas dislocated by the Separation Wall, this study focuses on youth experiences and practices of citizenship and belonging within these enclaves, and the impact of this precariousness on their lives. Further, this paper attempts to explore (im)mobility in a context that incorporates new forms of spatial, physical and bureaucratic restrictions, thereby reframing the experience of citizenship in a context of displacement.
Paper short abstract:
The peace agreement of 1993 was suppose to lead to a Palestinian state by the end of 1999. However, facts on the ground reflect otherwise. This research shed light on these facts and on the Palestinians opinions, feelings. In addition to their expectations of the formation of a Palestinian state.
Paper long abstract:
The peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993 was supposedly to lead to a Palestinian state on the major part of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with East Jerusalem as its capital by the end of 1999. However, facts on the ground had its impact on the discourse of state formation in the mind of the Palestinians for many reasons. First, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and 64 square kilometers of its suburbs after the war of 1967. The Palestinians of the annexed areas were given a different civil status than those of its surroundings restricting their lives and dwelling practices such as where to live and whom to marry. Second; Israel implemented restrictions on the Palestinian free movement in March 1993 by the checkpoint regime and the permit system that allow only those who obtain a permit to enter Israel and East Jerusalem. In 2002, Israel started to construct a wall to fully separate Israel and East Jerusalem from the West Bank. The Wall divides between the Palestinian communities and many families were forced to relocate.
This article seeks to analyze the facts on the grounds' ability to undermine the Palestinian dream of a state. The study draws from existing secondary data, and then from the collection of life stories between 1967 and 2018. Through my informants' life stories, I shed light on Palestinians contemporary opinions, feelings and their expectations towards the formation of a Palestinian state.
Keywords: East Jerusalem, the Wall, Families and Displacement
Paper short abstract:
This paper explore the social and political transformations of Kufr Aqab, a Palestinian "neighbourhood" at the margins of Jerusalem's municipality. I argue that Palestinian make claims to Jerusalem through urban informal re-making of their spaces and constant re-establishing presence in the city.
Paper long abstract:
My paper explores the social and political transformations of Kufr Aqab, a Palestinian "neighbourhood" at the margins of Jerusalem's municipality. It investigates the frameworks and practices of community building that Kufr Aqab's dwellers employ to cope with the rapid urban and demographic changes in their space. Situated on the border-zone of Jerusalem's Israeli municipality and the Palestinian West Bank, Kufr Aqab's geopolitical location renders it an extrajudicial territory. This paper argues that Israel's discriminatory policies in Jerusalem oversee urban dispossession of Palestinian Jerusalemites. Through four main Israeli policies and practices Palestinians' presence in Jerusalem is undermined. I shall refer to these policies and practices as a "matrix of dispossession". The matrix of dispossession consists of a settler colonial identification system; discriminatory urban development; house demolitions; border and checkpoint system (most notably: the wall). I also argue that we cannot understand urban strategies utilized by Palestinian Jerusalemites without looking into the larger structure of settler colonial citizenship that they are subjected to. Building on Asef Bayat's (2012) article "Politics in the City‐Inside‐Out", I borrow the notions of 'informality', 'urban subaltern' and 'survivals by repossession' to explain Palestinian strategies of claiming Jerusalem through imprinting their spatial dwelling practices in the face of this matrix of dispossession. Palestinian Jerusalemites make claims to Jerusalem through the constant re-making of their urban space and re-establishing presence in the city.