Knowledge Share Description
This knowledge share will be a presentation based on Dr. Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins’ long-term research and experience living in occupied Palestine. She focuses on the decade that immediately followed the end of the second intifada, or uprising (2000-2006), when it appeared that the West Bank was in a moment of stabilization and when national-scale politics appeared to be collapsing. Within that context, she asked, how does waste mediate social and political life? What can waste management in the absence of a state tell us about twenty-first conditions of settler colonialism?
This presentation traces Palestinians’ experiences of waste in the West Bank, and it’s ramifications for understanding all of the lands under Israeli control, including Gaza. Dr. Sophia explores what Palestinians’ improvisations for mitigating the effects of what she calls a “waste siege” can tell us about Palestinians' approaches to time and collectivity, and how thinking through the category of ecology can help us understand those approaches. Dr. Sophia’s talk offers an analysis unusual in the study of Palestine: it begins with the environmental, infrastructural, and aesthetic context in which Palestinians forge their lives. It describes a series of conditions: from smelling wastes to negotiating military infrastructures, from biopolitical forms of settler colonial rule to experiences of governmental abandonment, from obvious targets of resistance to confusion over responsibility for the burdensome objects of daily life.
In particular, it will tell the stories of a) a Palestinian Authority-sponsored sanitary landfill, b) the village of Shuqba, which has become a dumping ground for Israelis as well as Palestinians, and c) the abandonment of unwanted bread out-of-doors. Dr. Sophia will close in two acts: First, by explaining why she believes that waste siege not only describes a stateless Palestine; it also becomes a metaphor for our besieged planet. And second, by bringing us into the present to consider how waste siege helps us understand Palestine–and in particular Gaza–since October 7th, 2023.
We will explore:
An introduction to the idea of waste as an ecology
An understanding of how waste intersects with settler colonialism and occupation in Palestine
Consideration of bread as a sacred abject object
Consideration of how capitalism shapes Palestinians’ experiences under occupation
An understanding of how Palestinian state-building relates to waste
Cost
$35 - low income
$50 - standard
$75 - pay-it-forward (if you have financial abundance, this is our pay-it-forward option to fund our full tuition scholarships)
The zoom link will be sent upon registration. Recording will be available for 30 days.
Please apply here for a scholarship.
FREE for Palestinian community. You can either use the scholarship form or email us at connect@herbancura.com to receive code.
Accessibility Information
Virtual Gathering
*ASR (automated) captioning provided
The knowledge share zoom link will be sent out immediately upon purchase, along with any other necessary information.
Sunday April 21, 2024
3:00pm - 5:00pm Eastern Standard Time
Class will be recorded and available for 30 days.
Facilitator
Dr. Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Bard College. Her interests include infrastructure, waste, environment, platform capitalism, and the home. Her first book, Waste Siege: The Life of Infrastructure in Palestine (Stanford, 2019), has won five major book awards, and examines waste management in the absence of a state. Her current book, Controlled Alienation: Airbnb and the Future of Home (under contract with Duke) explores the joint world-making of austerity and home-sharing in Greece. She serves on the editorial teams of Cultural Anthropology and Critical AI. More on her scholarship and film-making can be found her website.