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Spacing Palestine through the home
Author(s) -
Harker Christopher
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
transactions of the institute of british geographers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.196
H-Index - 107
eISSN - 1475-5661
pISSN - 0020-2754
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-5661.2009.00352.x
Subject(s) - palestine , ethnography , argument (complex analysis) , conversation , geopolitics , sociology , work (physics) , relation (database) , value (mathematics) , field (mathematics) , gender studies , political science , law , politics , anthropology , history , ancient history , mechanical engineering , biochemistry , chemistry , mathematics , communication , database , machine learning , computer science , pure mathematics , engineering
This paper explores connections that can be made between houses, homes and violence in Palestine, and representational consequences of making such connections. Drawing on ethnographic field research in Birzeit, I put recent work on critical geographies of home into conversation with geographies and geopolitics of Palestine. I criticise the tendency to represent Palestinian geographies almost entirely through the lens of the Israeli Occupation. While such studies have a great deal of value both academically and politically, this paper augments such work by developing a different focus and a different representational approach. I use detailed ethnographic vignettes and interviews to engage with the domestic practices that make particular Birzeiti homes. These intimate domestic encounters underpin my argument that there is a need for more work that apprehends Palestinian geographies as complexities that bear a relation to, but are not fully determined by, the Israeli Occupation.