Seeing Israel through Palestine: knowledge production as anti-colonial praxis

Hawari, Yara; Plonski, Sharri; Weizman, Elian

Abstract

Knowledge production in, for and by settler colonial states hinges on both productive and repressive practices that work together to render its history and present ‘normal’ by controlling how, where, to and through whom it tells its story. This makes the production and dissemination of knowledge an important battleground for anti-colonial struggles. The State of Israel, in its ongoing search for patrons and partners, is focused on how to produce and appropriate ‘knowledge’, and the arenas in which it is developed and shared. In so doing, it works to reshape critique of its political, social and economic relations and redefine the moral parameters that inform its legitimacy and entrench its irrefutability. Inspired by existing literature on and examples of anti-colonial struggles, this paper challenges the modalities through which Israel produces and normalises the colonial narrative. By critiquing existing representations of the Israeli state – and the spaces and structures in which these take hold – our article contributes to the range of scholarship working to radically recalibrate knowledge of ‘Israel’ and ‘Palestine’. As part of this work, the article purposefully centres indigenous anti-colonial frameworks that reconnect intellectual analysis of settler colonial relations, with political engagements in the praxis of liberation and decolonisation.

Citation

Hawari, Y., Plonski, S., & Weizman, E. (2019). Seeing Israel through Palestine: knowledge production as anti-colonial praxis. Settler Colonial Studies, 9(1), 155-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2018.1487129

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jun 18, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Oct 31, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jun 28, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 9, 2018
• Journal: Settler Colonial Studies
• Print ISSN: 2201-473X
• Electronic ISSN: 1838-0743
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 155-175
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2201473X.2018.1487129
• Keywords: Palestine; Israeli Studies; Knowledge; Resistance
• Related Public URLs: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rset20/current