Pushing through the skin to break the bones: Israel's performance of extraterritorial expansion into West Bank, Palestine

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper argues the built structure of Israeli military occupation in the West Bank is only part of the mechanism that serves to define territorial boundaries and restrict Palestinian movement. A more pervasive and debilitating process of boundary formation occurs through affect-laden performances that typically take place in border areas or sites of surveillance, where state actors and technologies police Palestinians. These performances serve to produce fear and shame: two affects that circulate and act as structuring agents preventing Palestinian movement and resistance. Thus, Israel extends its borders through socio-spatial-technical practices, deep into Palestinian spaces. The underlying evidence for this study originated out of critical performance ethnography and a drama workshop conducted with Palestinians, theorised in part through Sara Ahmed's notion of an ‘affective economy’ of emotions. Overall, this study re-orients the predominant view of occupied space in the West Bank as an oppressive architectural blockade, to that of an affective regime constituted by a set of relations that require repeatable performances to produce the effect of territory. This re-framing opens possibilities for re-thinking resistance to the occupation by suggesting Palestinians may disrupt or alter the circulation of affect in order to reclaim their space and curtail Israeli extraterritorial ambitions.