Anthropological Panel on Palestine

Sedimented in legalistic and humanitarian logics, discussions in academia and media often attend to “war” as either a grand eruption or a set of fragmented logistical concerns, diverting attention from the way ethical and political questions are deeply entangled with and manifest in the realities of human lives. By reframing the understanding of the war on Gaza as one among many culminations of processual structural violence rather than a discrete event, this panel seeks to unravel the enduring historical continuum of imperialism that underpins the Palestinian struggle. Join our panel of experts to navigate through this critical dialogue.

with:

Munira Khayyat (New York University Abu Dhabi) is Princeton Anthropology Department’s Global South Visiting Scholar. Her research focuses on the interplay between war, empire, and theory from the Global South. Her award-winning book, A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon (2022), examines resistant ecologies in a world of perennial warfare at the frontline villages along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel. Her current project explores the intricate dynamics of Saudi Arabia’s empire and the multifaceted impact of oil on environments, politics, and societies through a feminist lens, focusing on domestic spaces and affective landscapes.

Ikaika Ramones is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Princeton, specializing in Indigeneity and settler colonialism, political economy and class, social movements, and media. He explores the internal contestations of Indigeneity in Hawaiʻi through grassroots revitalization efforts and elite institutions, examining the political economy shaping various forms of Indigenous identity and resistance. He is also a researcher and practitioner of Indigenous media and community organizing as a Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) and Ilocano first-generation scholar from Kalihi, Oʻahu.

Fadi A. Bardawil is a visiting research scholar in Near Eastern Studies and visiting Associate Professor in Anthropology at Princeton. He focuses on the intellectual inquiry and political engagement of contemporary Arab thinkers, examining their intersections with critical theory genealogies and exploring the dynamics of cultural production, political practice, and generational dwelling across different global contexts to address questions of power, emancipation, and solidarity. His book, Revolution and Disenchantment: Arab Marxism and the Binds of Emancipation (2020), critically examines Arab Marxism and the complexities of emancipatory struggles.

Chair:

Omar Abdelqader is a PhD student in Princeton’s Anthropology Department, studying the possibilities for Palestinians within the lands occupied in 1948 to form a collective consciousness in the shadow of an interplay between discursive and physical domination by focusing on the built and epistemic spheres. He is interested in the ways subjectivities, political and otherwise, are negotiated and constituted in both quotidian and strategic exchanges and desires for recognition.

Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any event does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.