MESA Banner
Abstract
Enclavization is a key feature of the continuous colonial-engineering of space in Palestine. It is simultaneously a byproduct of prolonged displacement, land confiscation, and occupation and a spatial device used by Israel to concentrate and manage excluded or surplus populations. The process of enclavization, crystallized in the post-Oslo era, has severed Palestinian cities from their peripheries, distorted landscapes, and transformed social worlds and ecologies. In this study, we focus on the Northwest Jerusalem enclave, to examine the effects of the interplay between exposure to prolonged violence, mobility restrictions, reconfiguration (and disfiguration) of space, and fragmentation of social life, livelihoods, and health. We center the social ecologies and spaces that people inhabit and seek to understand the ways in which long-term exposure to political violence and dispossession impact the social worlds, livelihoods, and health of Palestinians in the Northwest Jerusalem enclave. Our research consists of extensive fieldwork in the villages constituting the Northwest Jerusalem enclave, including 35 in-depth interviews, two focus group discussions, and several site visits between October 2018 and December 2019. Drawing on eco-social theory and the concept of ‘slow violence’, we argue that exclusionary spatial policies and continuing settler-colonial encroachment impact health through multiple levels, including environments, communities, families, and persons. The complex web of bureaucratic and mobility restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation, including the Oslo land classification system, ongoing confiscation of land, and settlement expansion, have had profounds impacts on the built environment, infrastructure, and agricultural lands. They have expedited urban sprawl in some of the villages, increased crowding, rendered proper zoning almost impossible, and resulted in environmental degradation, including higher levels of pollution and waste. According to our interlocutors, the ensuing spatial transformations have negatively impacted social environments and reshaped local Palestinian inhabitants’ relationships with their environments, often leading to increased stressors and various forms of suffocation (khanq), at times linked with chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes. Interlocutors also highlighted two sources of toxins they believed to be driving disease: Israeli cellular towers servicing illegal settlements; and waste disposal from these settlements into Palestinian areas. Through their narratives, our interlocutors point to manifestations of both structural and ‘slow’ violence rendering their environments vulnerable to degradation and distortion and rendering themselves vulnerable to ill-health and disease.
Discipline
Sociology
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
Health