Thirsty water carriers: the production of uneven waterscapes in Sahl al-Battuf

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper provides an overview of settler-colonial imaginaries of water and how they have cast the area of Sahl al-Battuf as the imagined site of a reservoir and a critical junction for the realisation of the Israeli National Water Carrier. Focusing on the events surrounding the construction of this project, I show how Palestinians inside Israel, at that time living under Israeli military rule, engaged with the state to protest and negotiate their claims over land and water. The findings reveal how settler-colonial imaginaries produce uneven waterscapes and have an enduring impact on Palestinian environmental imaginaries. Narrating and analysing water histories from below allows for a better exploration of indigenous opposition and reclamation of their water use and management. Palestinian struggles for water and land reveal how such mobilisation was shaped by the state’s relationship with its estranged Palestinian populations in the midst of citizenship claims, and therefore show how such resource struggles were being constituted through water as a vessel for making claims of recognition.