Toward a History of Dangerous Work and Racialized Inequalities in Twentieth-Century Palestine/Israel

Abstract

In recent years, a high number of fatal work accidents in the construction industry in Palestine/Israel has led several Israeli civil society organizations to begin documenting and publicizing the details of work accidents and identities of the victims. This novel documentation work has laid bare the unequal racialized distribution of dangerous work and bodily harm in the land. Palestinian construction workers from across the Green Line consistently constitute the overwhelming majority of victims of construction accidents, followed by migrant workers. Considering the long history of racial divisions of labor in Israel/Palestine over the last century, and building on the insights of scholarship on disability and political economy, this essay argues for the historical study of dangerous work as a crucial field of inquiry for scholars seeking to understand inequality, exploitation, the production of difference, settler colonialism, and communities’ experiences of these phenomena and processes in Palestine/Israel since the early twentieth century.