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Palestinian Resistance
AAG Annual Meeting Boston April 5-9 2017
Mikko Joronen (University of Tampere)
Mark Griffiths (Northumbria University)
From recent geographical research with Palestinians involved in non-violent resistance against Israeli colonialism:
“Our way of resistance here is not with violence, not with resignation, and not with giving up. We started another way of resistance … refusing to be a victim… refusing to hate … not tak[ing] non-violent resistance as strategy, but a way-of-life. We are people who believe in justice. If justice does not come tomorrow, for sure after tomorrow, or in ten years, or hundred years” (from Joronen 2016)
“it’s about showing people how it feels … people have to know, see with their eyes what is happening here. You can’t get a good picture from the media, it’s not enough … you have to see it, feel it … they can occupy everything apart from here [tapping his head], the more they push the more I hope … we have to hope” (from Griffiths 2016).
Against the resounding silences and failures of diplomacy, governments and mainstream media, this and similar geographical research (cf. Allen 2008; Bayat 2010; Harker 2012, Marshall 2015 ) has documented resistance in an era of increased violence and oppression in the Occupied Territories. Whether framed as ‘destituent play’ (Joronen 2016), ‘reappropriated violence’ (Griffiths 2016), or ‘resistant steadfastness’ (sumud muqawim) (Leshem 2015), what unites this form of resistance is the capacity for actors to turn strategies and apparatuses of occupation in on themselves, refusing to succumb to oppression and instead drawing on colonial violence as a resource of resistance. For such actors fear becomes hope and control becomes potentiality as Palestinians resist through everyday practice.
In this broad call, we ask for contributions on Palestinian resistance. We invite authors to propose presentations on the following topics (this is not an exhaustive list):
Within these broad themes we encourage contributions from a variety of perspectives and disciplines, from theory, methodology and/or empirical research.
Please send your abstract of 200 words or fewer to: mark.griffiths@northumbria.ac.uk and [log in to unmask] by Friday 7 October 2016.
Details also here:
References
Allen, L. (2008). Getting by the Occupation: How Violence Became Normal during the Second Palestinian Intifada. Cultural Anthropology, 23(3), 453–487.
Bayat, A. (2010). Life as Politics. How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Griffiths M (2016) Hope in Hebron: the political affects of activism in a strangled city. Antipode.
Harker, C. (2012) Precariousness, precarity, and family: notes from Palestine. Environment and Planning A, 44(4), 849-865.
Joronen M (2016) ‘Refusing to be a victim, refusing to be an enemy’. Form-of-life as resistance in the Palestinian struggle against settler colonialism. Political Geography doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2016.07.005
Leshem, N. (2015). “Over our dead bodies”: Placing necropolitical activism. Political Geography, 45, pp. 34-44.
Marshall, D.J. (2015). Existence as Resistance: Children and Politics of Play in Palestine. Politics, Citizenship and Rights, doi:10.1007/978-981-4585-94-1_9-1