Fabric of life : the infrastructure of settler colonialism and uneven development in Palestine
(2014)
- Author
- Omar Jabary Salamanca (UGent)
- Promoter
- Sami Zemni (UGent) and Christopher Parker
- Organization
- Abstract
- This dissertation aims to resurface and make visible infrastructure networks as concrete expressions of settler colonialism and uneven development. Focusing on contemporary Palestine, particularly in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, this thesis investigates the ways in which infrastructures come to matter socially, politically, economically and spatially both symbolically and as a set of materials. Drawing on the histories and geographies of road and electricity grids, Fabric of Life explores the ways these infrastructures are constructed, imagined and governed but also how they are experienced and contested. The research takes roads and electricity as object and subject of analysis and traces their role in shaping and producing space while also using them as window into understanding the various actors and ‘larger’ forces and structures that constitute these grids. An interdisciplinary analytical focus on the ‘hardware’ (e.g. wires) and ‘software’ (e.g. policies) aspects of infrastructures and their co-evolution with urban spaces and populations opens up critical perspectives on existing accounts of the political and economic geographies of Palestine. It offers a powerful way of thinking about these large socio-technical systems as a complex assemblage of actors, agents, policies and processes that connect to, and drive, much debated processes of settler colonialism, modernity, statecraft and uneven development. Concurrently, by providing an analytical study of infrastructures, the project generates new knowledge about and insight into the Palestinian case. In pursuing these themes, this thesis represents an attempt to resist and complicate dominant accounts of occupation and development in Palestine but also to make a vital contribution to a broader scholarship in critical urban studies and settler colonialism.
- Keywords
- Development, Political Economy, Infrastructure, Assemblage, Palestine, Israel, Settler Colonialism, Uneven Development, Everyday Life, Roads, Electricity, Middle East
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Citation
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-6915408
- MLA
- Jabary Salamanca, Omar. Fabric of Life : The Infrastructure of Settler Colonialism and Uneven Development in Palestine. Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, 2014.
- APA
- Jabary Salamanca, O. (2014). Fabric of life : the infrastructure of settler colonialism and uneven development in Palestine. Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Ghent, Belgium.
- Chicago author-date
- Jabary Salamanca, Omar. 2014. “Fabric of Life : The Infrastructure of Settler Colonialism and Uneven Development in Palestine.” Ghent, Belgium: Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences.
- Chicago author-date (all authors)
- Jabary Salamanca, Omar. 2014. “Fabric of Life : The Infrastructure of Settler Colonialism and Uneven Development in Palestine.” Ghent, Belgium: Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences.
- Vancouver
- 1.Jabary Salamanca O. Fabric of life : the infrastructure of settler colonialism and uneven development in Palestine. [Ghent, Belgium]: Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences; 2014.
- IEEE
- [1]O. Jabary Salamanca, “Fabric of life : the infrastructure of settler colonialism and uneven development in Palestine,” Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Ghent, Belgium, 2014.
@phdthesis{6915408, abstract = {{This dissertation aims to resurface and make visible infrastructure networks as concrete expressions of settler colonialism and uneven development. Focusing on contemporary Palestine, particularly in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, this thesis investigates the ways in which infrastructures come to matter socially, politically, economically and spatially both symbolically and as a set of materials. Drawing on the histories and geographies of road and electricity grids, Fabric of Life explores the ways these infrastructures are constructed, imagined and governed but also how they are experienced and contested. The research takes roads and electricity as object and subject of analysis and traces their role in shaping and producing space while also using them as window into understanding the various actors and ‘larger’ forces and structures that constitute these grids. An interdisciplinary analytical focus on the ‘hardware’ (e.g. wires) and ‘software’ (e.g. policies) aspects of infrastructures and their co-evolution with urban spaces and populations opens up critical perspectives on existing accounts of the political and economic geographies of Palestine. It offers a powerful way of thinking about these large socio-technical systems as a complex assemblage of actors, agents, policies and processes that connect to, and drive, much debated processes of settler colonialism, modernity, statecraft and uneven development. Concurrently, by providing an analytical study of infrastructures, the project generates new knowledge about and insight into the Palestinian case. In pursuing these themes, this thesis represents an attempt to resist and complicate dominant accounts of occupation and development in Palestine but also to make a vital contribution to a broader scholarship in critical urban studies and settler colonialism.}}, author = {{Jabary Salamanca, Omar}}, isbn = {{9789461972309}}, keywords = {{Development,Political Economy,Infrastructure,Assemblage,Palestine,Israel,Settler Colonialism,Uneven Development,Everyday Life,Roads,Electricity,Middle East}}, language = {{eng}}, pages = {{X, 219}}, publisher = {{Ghent University. Faculty of Political and Social Sciences}}, school = {{Ghent University}}, title = {{Fabric of life : the infrastructure of settler colonialism and uneven development in Palestine}}, year = {{2014}}, }