The Political Mapping of Palestine

My dissertation research traces a history of map-use in the Israel/Palestinian conflict. It examines the ubiquitous presence of the  map in the “peace process” and the subsequent rise of the Palestinian cartographic spirit since the Oslo Accords. A key component of this work also investigates the cartographic production of the “Holy Land” in the 19th century by religious and imperial interests. Deep traces of these maps, which first produced Palestine as space to be owned, controlled, and parceled by Western interests, continue to be present in contemporary mappings. They shape many of the political strategies sought toward a resolution today. As a counter to this dominant geography, this work also presents original maps of everyday forms of survival and community in Bethlehem’s Aida Refugee Camp, produced in collaboration with Camp residents. Maps of how residents creatively cope under challenging circumstances—be they the lack of open space, water shortages, the ‘Separation Barrier,’ or access to Jerusalem—consider how everyday refugee practices correspond to, or differ from, the official bounding of Palestinian space in the negotiations. In an attempt to map a Palestine with Palestinians, these maps seek to create a discussion of what a progressive cartography of the region might begin to look like.

Cartography and the destruction of the commons

Building from my dissertation, I focus on the British cadastral survey to investigate the production of space through capital formation in Israel-Palestine. Here, I take a political economy lens to examine “the work” that the survey did. Following E.P. Thompson’s seminal study of the production of modern time which argued that the clock, a graphic symbol of centralized political authority, brought “time discipline” into the rhythms of industrial workers, I draw on the late critical cartographer J.B. Harley, who suggested that, so too have the lines on maps become “dictators” of a new modernist geography, introducing a dimension of “space discipline”. Under this process, individual ownership of land is enforced and the practices of negotiation between neighbors and communities are destroyed. This new “production of space” takes place not only conceptually through maps but is re-enforced in everyday life. Such a production of space, I suggest, renders sharing the land between Israelis and Palestinians impractical and a resolution to the refugee question unthinkable.

The Israel-Palestinian Conflict in the Global Scene

Since the advent of the peace process in the early 1990s, the politics of the Israel-Palestinian conflict have shifted from the international and regional arenas to the closed, bi-lateral negotiations between the State of Israel and the Palestinian leadership. My future work seeks to challenge these notions by situating the conflict within a comparative context. By “re-internationalizing” Israel-Palestine, we can come to understand how the shared history of ideas, ideologies, and struggles worldwide have inspired and have been inspired by both peoples’ struggles for self-determination. I suggest that more fruitful understandings of the Israel-Palestinian conflict might be gained by investigating Israel-Palestine as a space of flows where social movements, ideas, and ideologies from other parts of the world, which have inspired it or have been inspired by it, converge.

Comparative border studies: U.S.-Mexico and Israel-Palestine

My interest in Israel-Palestine in general, and in its shifting borders in particular, was initially sparked by my earlier investigations of the U.S.-Mexico border’s new fortifications, which I conducted as part of my Master’s research. I was originally drawn to issues of race, migration, borders, walls, and immobility from my experience growing up as a child of undocumented Guatemalan immigrants. These issues, and their broader manifestations worldwide, continue to play a central role in my research. I have recently begun collaborating with scholars in American Studies, Sociology, and Ethnic Studies to investigate how the “special relationship” between Israel and the U.S. produces a geographic imagination where the immigrant and the Muslim are understood as threats to “our way of life.” These fears are leading to border walls and toward a “splintering urbanism”[1] whereby the landscape takes the shape of gated communities; de facto segregated roads and schools; and increasingly securitized spaces.

This work will begin with comparative analyses of settler-colonialism in the New World and the ‘Holy Land,’ exploring the ways national histories are founded on theological narratives to legitimize the occupation of foreign land[2]. In addition, we pay special attention to the ways white identity has morphed into the idea of “Western civilization”[3]—its protection justifying the continued purification of territory through bordering, deportation, expulsion, imprisonment, policing, and surveillance.

[2] Salaita, Steven. 2006. The Holy Land in Transit: Colonialism and the Quest for Canaan. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.

[3] Bonnett, Alastair. 2008. Whiteness and the west. In New Geographies of Race and Racism, Dwyer C; Bressey C (eds), pp. 17-28. Aldershot: Ashgate.