Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank both protested in solidarity wit... more Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank both protested in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during the 2014 war. They did so with what Charles Tilly would regard as distinct repertoires of contention, though they both referenced the same heritage of resistance. I argue that we should interrogate the boundaries that states establish to see how different forms of sovereignty and state violence shape resistance and expression. This approach highlights the role of the state in constituting the public sphere. The distinct subalterneities of these two Palestinian communities are a product not only of their political positions under Israeli rule, but also of the larger dynamics of fragmentation that separate them from one another. An analysis of their forms of protest demonstrates that in both cases, Palestinian protesters performed political community by establishing a collective voice and by taking over space.
Israel’s system of closure divides Palestinian citizens of Israel from Palestinians of the West B... more Israel’s system of closure divides Palestinian citizens of Israel from Palestinians of the West Bank. For members of both categories, road journeys spur political analysis, explicitly stated or implicitly packed into jokes or offhand comments. If, in liberal traditions, political knowledge is idealized as disembodied, abstract, and dispassionate, Palestinian knowledge gained while driving is none of these things. Yet it can provide important insights into the operations of Israeli power less easily represented in more formal outlets. Because the road system is an everyday site at which its users come into contact with the work of the state, driving is an important practice through which to examine popular conceptions of politics. Still, these two communities of Palestinians face obstacles in communicating about shared understandings of space and politics. In examining everyday political knowledge of subaltern people, we must attend to varieties of subalterneity to examine how these differences can perpetuate marginalization. [mobility, infrastructure, Palestinians, subalterneity, the state, Israel, place]
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Jan 1, 2010
... his bedroom window. Kareem's friend Rashid reported that he had just receive... more ... his bedroom window. Kareem's friend Rashid reported that he had just received a phone call from his mother-in-law Rawia telling him that the bullets had hit her house, but that no one had been injured. This was vital information ...
... grew to be a considerable force in the area,36 Palestinian nationalist activity slowed consid... more ... grew to be a considerable force in the area,36 Palestinian nationalist activity slowed considerably for years after Al-Nakbah, the ... 152 Amahl Bishara ... in many forms of cultural production.50 Contrary to these kinds of homes, which signify a cultural difference from Ameri-cans and ...
This article tracks contests of representation among the Palestinian Authority (PA), the U.S. new... more This article tracks contests of representation among the Palestinian Authority (PA), the U.S. news media, and the Palestinian public regarding the funeral of PA President Yasser Arafat and subsequent presidential elections. It is popularly assumed that governments primarily represent by gathering people and implementing actions in their names, whereas media represent by depicting the world. Latour has called for “object-oriented democracies” that reintegrate gathering and depiction in ways that eschew formal structures of political legitimation, which have so often been abused. This enables recognition of emergently democratic forms. However, even in these provisional assemblies, established institutions of legitimating representation, like states and elite media institutions, continue to exert authority. This demands an ethnographic examination of connections among the state, the press, and the public. Palestinian officials and the public alike identify the U.S. media as influential conduits to powerful outsiders. Thus, Palestinian officials may use the Western press as an executive force, to encourage Palestinians to perform nationhood in an orderly manner. Palestinians may determine that neither the U.S. media nor the PA adequately represent them, and thus carry out political actions according to local political traditions. U.S. media depicted popular forms of gathering in the street at Arafat's funeral as chaotic, whereas they depicted voting, about which some Palestinians had important reservations, as a progressive form of gathering. As officials and journalists do their representational work, the ostensible subjects of representation, the public, often undertake their own projects of gathering and depicting, but these are reincorporated into—and transformed by—authorized representational institutions.
Study of the production process of news about Palestinians rather than simply its final forms rev... more Study of the production process of news about Palestinians rather than simply its final forms reveals the extent to which mainstream news is a cultural product not only of US society and western journalism’s professional norms, but of Palestinian society as well. Palestinian journalists working for international news contribute essential labor to the final product of international news. They serve
Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank both protested in solidarity wit... more Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinians in the West Bank both protested in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza during the 2014 war. They did so with what Charles Tilly would regard as distinct repertoires of contention, though they both referenced the same heritage of resistance. I argue that we should interrogate the boundaries that states establish to see how different forms of sovereignty and state violence shape resistance and expression. This approach highlights the role of the state in constituting the public sphere. The distinct subalterneities of these two Palestinian communities are a product not only of their political positions under Israeli rule, but also of the larger dynamics of fragmentation that separate them from one another. An analysis of their forms of protest demonstrates that in both cases, Palestinian protesters performed political community by establishing a collective voice and by taking over space.
Israel’s system of closure divides Palestinian citizens of Israel from Palestinians of the West B... more Israel’s system of closure divides Palestinian citizens of Israel from Palestinians of the West Bank. For members of both categories, road journeys spur political analysis, explicitly stated or implicitly packed into jokes or offhand comments. If, in liberal traditions, political knowledge is idealized as disembodied, abstract, and dispassionate, Palestinian knowledge gained while driving is none of these things. Yet it can provide important insights into the operations of Israeli power less easily represented in more formal outlets. Because the road system is an everyday site at which its users come into contact with the work of the state, driving is an important practice through which to examine popular conceptions of politics. Still, these two communities of Palestinians face obstacles in communicating about shared understandings of space and politics. In examining everyday political knowledge of subaltern people, we must attend to varieties of subalterneity to examine how these differences can perpetuate marginalization. [mobility, infrastructure, Palestinians, subalterneity, the state, Israel, place]
Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication, Jan 1, 2010
... his bedroom window. Kareem's friend Rashid reported that he had just receive... more ... his bedroom window. Kareem's friend Rashid reported that he had just received a phone call from his mother-in-law Rawia telling him that the bullets had hit her house, but that no one had been injured. This was vital information ...
... grew to be a considerable force in the area,36 Palestinian nationalist activity slowed consid... more ... grew to be a considerable force in the area,36 Palestinian nationalist activity slowed considerably for years after Al-Nakbah, the ... 152 Amahl Bishara ... in many forms of cultural production.50 Contrary to these kinds of homes, which signify a cultural difference from Ameri-cans and ...
This article tracks contests of representation among the Palestinian Authority (PA), the U.S. new... more This article tracks contests of representation among the Palestinian Authority (PA), the U.S. news media, and the Palestinian public regarding the funeral of PA President Yasser Arafat and subsequent presidential elections. It is popularly assumed that governments primarily represent by gathering people and implementing actions in their names, whereas media represent by depicting the world. Latour has called for “object-oriented democracies” that reintegrate gathering and depiction in ways that eschew formal structures of political legitimation, which have so often been abused. This enables recognition of emergently democratic forms. However, even in these provisional assemblies, established institutions of legitimating representation, like states and elite media institutions, continue to exert authority. This demands an ethnographic examination of connections among the state, the press, and the public. Palestinian officials and the public alike identify the U.S. media as influential conduits to powerful outsiders. Thus, Palestinian officials may use the Western press as an executive force, to encourage Palestinians to perform nationhood in an orderly manner. Palestinians may determine that neither the U.S. media nor the PA adequately represent them, and thus carry out political actions according to local political traditions. U.S. media depicted popular forms of gathering in the street at Arafat's funeral as chaotic, whereas they depicted voting, about which some Palestinians had important reservations, as a progressive form of gathering. As officials and journalists do their representational work, the ostensible subjects of representation, the public, often undertake their own projects of gathering and depicting, but these are reincorporated into—and transformed by—authorized representational institutions.
Study of the production process of news about Palestinians rather than simply its final forms rev... more Study of the production process of news about Palestinians rather than simply its final forms reveals the extent to which mainstream news is a cultural product not only of US society and western journalism’s professional norms, but of Palestinian society as well. Palestinian journalists working for international news contribute essential labor to the final product of international news. They serve
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Papers by Amahl Bishara
examine popular conceptions of politics. Still, these two communities of Palestinians face obstacles in communicating about shared understandings of space and politics. In examining everyday political knowledge of subaltern people, we must attend to varieties of subalterneity to examine how these differences can perpetuate marginalization. [mobility, infrastructure, Palestinians, subalterneity, the state, Israel, place]
examine popular conceptions of politics. Still, these two communities of Palestinians face obstacles in communicating about shared understandings of space and politics. In examining everyday political knowledge of subaltern people, we must attend to varieties of subalterneity to examine how these differences can perpetuate marginalization. [mobility, infrastructure, Palestinians, subalterneity, the state, Israel, place]