http://crisisstates.wordpress.com/

"Crisis States: The Uncertain Future of Israel/Palestine"
Graduate Student Conference, 2-3 April 2009

The Columbia University and City University of New York (CUNY)
Graduate Center departments of Anthropology jointly invite you to
submit abstracts for "Crisis States: The Uncertain Future of
Israel/Palestine," a graduate student conference to be held in April
2009 in New York City.

Social science research on Israel/Palestine has tended to view the
relationship of Palestinians and Israelis as one characterized by the
occupation and resistance to it. Anthropology, in particular, has
produced valuable studies of Israelis and Palestinians in Israel, the
West Bank, and Gaza that have focused largely on the micro-practices
of everyday life on the one hand, and on the logics and effects of
institutions of national politics on the other. As a result of this
trend, the study of Israel/Palestine often focuses on these
relationships within—although generally critical of—national and
historical narratives of geographical Palestine.

It is often said in popular representations of the region that it is
now "too late" to establish a two-state solution; that recent
developments (or non-developments) have closed off possibilities for
peace. In other words, political realities and the future
possibilities that they imply—including but not limited to the
increasingly desperate circumstances of Palestinians in Gaza or the
construction of the separation wall, settlements, and the
infrastructure of closure—may now demand attention in new ways.
Therefore, in order to supplement existing analyses, we ask: what have
large concepts and forces like capitalism, geopolitics and global
economics, colonial histories, and nationalism brought to the study of
this conflict? What have they obscured? How are these processes and
categories constituted and contested at multiple national, regional
and international scales, and what have recent transformations in
economic and political circumstances revealed about academic claims
about Israel/Palestine? What are the temporal dimensions of the
conflict, its historiography, and its peace process?

Any future resolution of this conflict will have to deal with certain
political histories, global, ideological, and temporal processes that
operate in multiple ways and in relation to multiple processes that
are perpetually shifting and unfolding. Some of these are ongoing and
others have emerged at staggered intervals with, for example, the
establishment and collapse of Oslo, accusations of high-level
corruption in the Israeli government, Israel's recent war with
Lebanon, or with the end of the second intifada and Hamas' victory in
the 2006 elections and takeover of Gaza. What forms of political or
proto-political organization might be emergent in what has been called
a non-state or a "failed state?" How are we to understand the role of
institutions and infrastructures that seem to mediate between "local,"
"global" and national realms and how are they constituted by and
through various scales? What theoretical tools might be required to
recognize and evaluate them in the Palestinian context, and in terms
of the peculiar and ambiguous "stateless" political organizations in
the West Bank, Gaza, and in their relationship to Israel?

The purpose of this conference is to begin a multidisciplinary
dialogue about the study of Israel/Palestine that is attuned to and
expands the frame for analyzing the extent to which these territories
are defined by the dialectic of occupation and resistance to it. We
seek to create a forum for the discussion of alternate possibilities
for understanding global and local processes, sensibilities and
ontologies in the contemporary economic and political climate. The
organizers hope that this workshop will bring together graduate
students across the social sciences in order to identify recent
theoretical approaches to Israel/Palestine that will help engage with
ongoing dialogues within and about this conflict. In doing so we hope
to supplement the social sciences' long-term commitment to the study
of resistance, occupation, and national politics.

Suggested topics of discussion include:

o    Infrastructure
o    Political Economy
o    Global Economics
o    Geography
o    Separation and closure as defined in multiple ways: political,
economic, Zionist, or otherwise.
o    Rethinking the binary between Oppressor and Oppressed
o    Governance
o    Religious Theology, Thought, Sensibilities and Practice
o    Islamic, Jewish, and Christian political movements
o    Time and Temporality
o    History, Narrative, and Historiography
o    The State
o    Humanitarianism and Development
o    Production of Nature and the Environment
o    Law and Jurisdiction
o    Urbanism
o    Approaches focusing on materiality and/or post-Humanist Approaches

The conference will take place between the CUNY Graduate Center and
Columbia University, on 2-3 April 2009. We are in the process of
inviting faculty respondents to student papers and organizing faculty
panel discussions and a keynote address. We invite students across
disciplines but particularly in anthropology, geography, sociology,
history, economics and political science to submit abstracts of 250
words to both organizers (Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins
[log in to unmask] and Kareem Rabie [log in to unmask] ). The
deadline for abstract submissions is January 30, 2009. We will notify
those selected by mid-February 2009. Please include your affiliation.
We are currently working to secure funding for student travel, so
please indicate whether or not you can afford to travel on your own or
have access to funds from your home institution.