Bodies, Buses and Permits: Palestinians Navigating Care

Abstract

All Palestinian bodies, male and female, are subject to and targeted by the occupying state. Drawing on participatory observation conducted in the West Bank, this essay focuses on how gender and occupation intersect in men’s access to care and seeks to realign feminist practice to examine the ways in which all bodies are subject to the intersections of gender, race, class and power. It shows the lived realities of Palestinian everyday life that are occluded when one considers only the “legal formalities” Israel has put in place, which seem to allow for access to certain spaces for sick bodies, but in fact hinder or deny every attempt to do so. Finally, I conclude with some reflections on how the current Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is one means of addressing the forms of power exercised over Palestinian bodies living under occupation.