This thesis is concerned with illuminating a deeper agenda of place, meaning and resistance in territorial struggles, focusing on the geopolitically-contested Palestinian West Bank landscape. The premise of its argument is that insufficient ยท attention has been given to the interpretative power of 'place' in such areas ' where resistance struggles are centred on contested territory. Its aim is to redress this relatively under-theorized area in the existing literature through an 'emplaced' empirical exploration of place experience and resistance. John Agnew's typology of place (as 'location', 'locale', and 'sense of place') is utilized as an 'emplaced' lens to explore the extent and ways that 'place' mediates, shapes, and sustains resistance struggles. It is applied to a case study of a spatially reconfigured Palestinian village (Bil'in), which also serves as a contemporary context for examining this typology's applicability to settings of territorial contestation. A mixed repertoire of methods - mental mapping, narrated walk-alongs, and semi-structured interviews - have been used to attain an indepth understanding of how this village was lived, experienced, resisted, and interpreted by Bil'in's inhabitants in their everyday lives. This thesis brings to the fore 'emplaced' insights which contribute conceptual clarity to an expanded notion of resistance. It argues that resistance in geopolitically-contested societies must be viewed as deeply 'emplaced', embedded within and enacted through, the fabric of the contested landscape, and proposes that resistances are multiple and lie along a spectrum which is rooted in a historical, political, and symbolic interpretation of 'place'. It also raises theoretical considerations pertaining to the study of political agency within contested landscapes.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:676494 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Hammad, S. H. |
| Publisher | Queen's University Belfast |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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