Decolonizing the Study of Palestine

Indigenous Perspectives and Settler Colonialism after Elia Zureik

Ahmad H. Sa'di, Nur Masalha

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN:
  9780755648351
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780755648320
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Writing about Palestine and the Palestinians continue to be controversial. Until the late 1980s, the question of Palestine was approached through Western social theories that had appeared after World War 2. This endowed European settlers and colonists the mission of guiding the "backward" natives of Palestine to modernity. However, since the work of Palestinian scholar Elia Zureik, the study of Israel, and the "ethnic relations" in Palestine-Israel has been radically shifted.

Building on Zureik's work, this book studies the colonial project in Palestine and how it has transformed Palestinians' lives. Zureik had argued that Israel was the product of a colonization process and so should be studied through the same concepts and theorization as South Africa, Rhodesia, Australia, and other colonial societies. He also rejected the moral and civilizational superiority of the European settlers. Developing this work, the contributors here argue that colonialism is not only a political-economic system but also a "mode of life" and consciousness, which has far-reaching consequences for both the settlers and the indigenous population. Across 13 chapters (in addition to the introduction and the afterward), the book covers topics such as settler colonialism, dispossession, the separation wall, surveillance technologies, decolonisation methodologies and popular resistance. Composed mostly of Palestinian scholars and scholars of Palestinian heritage, it is the first book in which the indigenous Palestinians not merely "write back", but principally aim to lay the foundations for decolonial social science research on Palestine.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part 1 Colonial and Decolonial Conceptualizations of Palestine
• 1 Towards a Decolonization of Palestinian Studies
• 2 Indigenous versus Colonial-Settler Toponymy and the Struggle over the Cultural and Political Geography of Palestine: The Appropriation of Palestinian Place-Names by the Israeli State
• 3 What’s the Problem with the Jewish State?
• Part 2 Zionist Settler-Colonialism: Tenets and Practices
• 4 The Epistemology of Zionist Settler Colonialism and the Ontological Securitization of Palestinians
• 5 Al-Naqab: The Unfinished Zionist Settler-colonial Conquest of its Elusive “Last Frontier”, and Indigenous Palestinian Bedouin Arab Resistance
• 6 The Paradox of Settler Colonial Citizenship in Israel: The Dialectics of Dispossession and Palestinian Resistance
• 7 Celebrating Survival: Palestinian Epistemes and Resisting Anti-Palestinian Racism
• Part 3 Zionist Settler-Colonialism: Surveillance
• 8 Secrecy as Colonial Violence: The Case of Occupied East Jerusalem
• 9 Israel’s Telecommunications Lines and Digital Surveillance Routes
• Part 4 Palestine: Connections, Ruptures and Popular Resistance
• 10 Settler Colonialism in Palestine: Connections and Ruptures
• 11 Popular Resistance in Palestine
• Part 5 Issues of Bio-power
• 12 The Effect of the Separation Wall on the West Bank Labour Market
• 13 Palestinian Refugee Archives: UNRWA and the Problem with Sources
• In lieu of Afterword
• 14 Liminal Lights in Dark Places: Elia Zureik’s Sociological and Critical Contribution to Palestinian and Surveillance Studies
• Index
• Copyright