Immersive invisibility in the settler‐colonial city:

Abstract

The inclusion of indigenous people into settler‐colonial cities is often highly conditional. For middle‐class Palestinian citizens of Israel in Tel Aviv, the invisibility of their ethnonational identity is a precondition for their access to the city's neoliberal economy and “liberal” lifestyle. To increase their mobility and socioeconomic opportunities, they employ diverse tactics of immersive invisibility. Some, in hopes of overcoming their stigmatized identity, aspire to be recognized as unmarked individuals and successful professionals. Although immersive invisibility does not change settler‐colonial exclusion, it determines how much individuals can achieve within existing parameters. Tactics of immersive invisibility do not necessarily enable one to transcend categorical difference and racialized exclusion, but they reveal how neoliberal inclusion and the settler‐colonial politics of exclusion become entangled and constitute each other. [visibility, identity, urban inclusion, stigmatization, settler colonialism, Palestine, Israel]

Invisible mobilities: stigma, immobilities, and female sex workers’ mundane socio-legal negotiations of Dhaka’s urban space

“…However, the silence of local people about this type of sex work makes it invisible in public discourses. Hackl (2018), on the other hand, shows invisibility is a form of silence regarding a particular subject or identity to evade stigmatization and exclusion. Such self-chosen tactic of hiding ethnonational identity of middle-class Palestanian citizens in Israel facilitate their smooth immersion in the city of Tel Aviv.…”

“…The choice and limits of becoming invisible is also class specific. While the urban rich have greater opportunities to perform invisibility, unprivileged people like HRSWs experience relatively less control over their chosen invisibility as Bayat (2013) and Hackl (2018) reflect. HRSWs employ various tactics (i.e disengagement from certain domains, appearance, silence) to become and remain invisible, none of these tactics alone make them invisible for long, they become more effective when more than one is used at a time.…”

“…Quick and immediate mobility are used at pressing moments when the threat of being caught is nearby. Thus, invisible mobility facilitates evading legal restrictions and simultaneously enables them to blend into the urban space (Hackl 2018). Within their daily routine, they are continuously moving between 'good' and 'bad' women, rights bearing citizen and sex workers without rights.…”

“…Lollar (2015) hopes that invisibility can lead to improving the marginal people's situation. In the HRSWs context, invisibility is a compromise rather than a form of resistance as Hackl (2018) argues.…”