Encountering Palestine

This edited volume offers a critical examination of power and colonialism in contemporary Palestine. Encountering Palestine challenges readers to rethink these complex dynamics.

This edited volume, Encountering Palestine, delves into the complex interplay of cultural and political geographies, providing insightful reflections on the themes of power, colonialism, and anti-colonialism in the contemporary contexts of Palestine and Israel. The collection is organized around the concept of 'encountering,' emphasizing the dynamic processes through which violence and resistance are both constructed and deconstructed in the interactions between colonizers and the colonized. Each essay examines the multifaceted power relations that emerge in everyday practices and cultural expressions within anti-colonial Palestine.

Covering a variety of locations including Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Israel, Encountering Palestine explores an array of empirical subjects. From the intricacies of marriage and queer aesthetics to issues surrounding policing, demolition, armament failures, and violence, the contributors employ a wide range of theoretical lenses. These frameworks—such as hyperreality, settler capitalism, intimate biopolitics, and the politics of vulnerability—offer deeper insights into the cultural processes that shape both colonial and anti-colonial spaces in Palestine.

Ultimately, Encountering Palestine invites readers to reconsider the mechanisms of colonialism and power within Palestine, highlighting the ongoing struggles of Palestinians. It emphasizes the daily lives and practices that continuously engage with, reshape, and resist the oppressive spaces of colonial violence, fostering a nuanced understanding of contemporary socio-political dynamics.