Precariousness, Precarity, and Family: Notes from Palestine

Harker, Christopher

doi:10.1068/a4478

Cited by 69 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 38 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…For them, the rise of self-interested, desocialized parenting has broader impacts on society. Such arguments resonate with Harker's (2012) discussion around the precariousness of Palestinian life, or the ways in which Palestinian lives are highly dependent on the lives of others. Harker's paper points to the way that discussions which frame Palestinian subjects as individuals (eg,`bare life') overlook families, whose spatial practices are important for their potential ability to reduce heightened exposure to violence.…”

Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…What such studies show are forms of family life that take place beyond state governance. By this we are not suggesting that such families are freed from the entanglements of being governed, but rather, as both Lee and Pratt (2012) and Harker (2012) suggest, from amidst such entanglements other forms of politics might be possible. Ramdas (2012) argues that women's rationalizations of how marriage norms do and do not apply to them illuminate a broader politics of`waiting'.…”

Section: Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Familial Relations: Spaces, Subjects, and Politics

Harker

Martin

2012

Environ Plan A

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Familial relations: spaces, subjects, and politics`F amilies matter. Irresponsibility. Selfishness. Behaving as if your choices have no consequences. Children without fathers. Schools without discipline. Reward without effort. Crime without punishment. Rights without responsibilities. Communities without control. ... But I repeat today, as I have on many occasions these last few years, that the reason I am in politics is to build a bigger, stronger society. Stronger families. Stronger communities. A stronger society. ... [I]f we want to have any hope of mending our broken society, family and parenting is where we've got to start.'' David Cameron, Monday 15 August 2011 (1) Following rioting in some parts of England in August 2011, British Prime Minister David Cameron asserted that``families matter''.``Broken'' families, he suggested, were a primary cause of the social disorder that provoked the riots. Fatherless families, negligent or ineffectual parents, families``that everyone in their neighbourhood knows and often avoids'' required government intervention, in order to get the nation back on track. Restoring orderly families led to the creation of a``family test'' by which all social policy initiatives would be judged by their effect on the family, but also more police, less bureaucratic red tape, more education, and a restoration of morality in politics. Britain's``security fightback'' must work in tandem with its``social fightback'', Cameron asserted, because social disorder threatens the security of a``great country of good people''. Cameron's speech can be read as an iteration of a familiar conservative reprisalö family values, personal responsibility, strong policing. The family has been a target of state intervention since states began to perceive and orient themselves towards a society. As Donzelot (1979, page 92) argued, creating social order by managing the family was a primary concern in early liberal statecraft. Consequently, the problems of the liberal state were defined around forms of familial intervention, and the family linked individuals to a series of state and nonstate institutions (see Martin, 2012). Most state governmentsöliberal, social democratic, socialist, authoritarian, and otherwiseöcontinue to distribute social citizenship benefits through family-making practices like marriage, childbirth, and care. Immigration policies privilege biological kinship and heteronormative family forms (Simmons, 2008) and familial gender roles often circumscribe women's migration (Yeoh et al, 2005). Yet employment-based migration schemes often require long-term family separation (Graham et al, 2012;Pratt 2004;2009). Nations, citizenship, and states are made in, through, and on behalf of families.So, clearly families do matter. But we also want to ask what makes a family? And if there are many answers to this question, then how exactly do families come to matter, in what ways? Where, when, and to whom do families matter? While geographers have provided rich analyses of gender, social reproduction, and ca...

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Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Politicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familial Relations: Spaces, Subjects, and Politics

Harker

Martin

2012

Environ Plan A

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“…It is hardly a surprise in a context of violent military occupation that recognisability contains border conditions strong enough to prevent alleviation of Palestinian precarity, not only culturally (Harker, 2012) but also juridico-politically (Joronen 2016b). In other words, recognition is not merely a cultural category of exclusion or inclusion, but a juridico-political demarcation of distinction, which structures theatrical performances conducted by different state apparatuses.…”

Section: Politics Of Waiting: Precarity Recognition and Performativimentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although there already exist relatively established discussions on the politics of precarity, recognition and performativity in the geographical literature, these discussions more often focus on the ways in which the marginalized, discriminated and precarious claim their rights via recognition, performative politics and/or the alleviation of precarity (e.g. Harker, 2012;Staeheli, 2008;van Wichelen, 2015;Vasudevan, 2014). By discussing the recent works of Judith Butler (in part three) and Mitch Rose (in part four), my aim is to show how these three conditions of waiting can be, and have been, used as means to govern and colonize land.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spaces of waiting: Politics of precarious recognition in the occupied West Bank

Joronen

2017

Environ Plan D

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This paper is an attempt to explicate a peculiar logic of government Israeli state apparatuses use to control the Palestinian population and colonize the West Bank; namely, the one of slowness, delay and waiting. To understand the operational logic of such governing, I suggest the conditions of recognizing Palestinian rights, their theatric performance by the Israeli state apparatuses, and the maintaining of precarity among Palestinians are the critical aspects to expand. By looking at the West Bank sites close to expanding Israeli settlements, I show how this mode of governing operates by recognizing the Palestinian right to claim justice, security and governance without actualization of these rights, therefore directing Palestinian resistance and sense of injustice to support the theatric functions of settler colonial state. Hence, theaters of recognition are created, the ones that ceremoniously keep administrative, legal and security processes functional, but through the slow processing, stalling and endless piling up of decisions, regulations, requirements and security exceptions do not alleviate the induced precarities.

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“…Green (2009) contrasts economic measures of precarity with their perceived impact, highlighting that women tend to experience more insecurity, but gendered impacts vary by the form of the economy and other national factors. Harker (2012) uses 'Butler's social ontology of precariousness' to consider the political and ethical work of Palestinian families. Research beyond geography has also used the concept more broadly.…”

Section: Precarity Precariousness and Interdependencementioning

confidence: 99%

Feeling precarious: Millennial women and work

Worth

2016

Environ Plan D

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In Precarious Life (2004), Judith Butler writes about how a shared sense of fear and vulnerability opens the possibility of recognizing interdependency. This is a wider understanding of precarity than is often present in human geography -recognizing the consequences and possibilities of feeling precarious. Focusing on work and the workplace, I examine the working life stories of millennial women in Canada, a labour market where unemployment and underemployment are common experiences for young workers. Using work narratives of insecurity, I argue that one potential consequence of understanding precariousness is the recognition of our social selves, using millennial women's stories of mutual reliance and connection with parents, partners and friends to contrast assumptions of the individualizing, neoliberal, Gen Y worker. I use a feminist understanding of agency and autonomy to argue that young women's stories about work are anything but individual experiences of flexibility or precarity -instead, I explain how relationships play a critical role in worker agency and whether work feels flexible or precarious. Overall I consider what a feminist theorizing of interdependence and precariousness offers geography, emphasizing the importance of subjectivity and relationality.

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Precariousness, Precarity, and Family: Notes from Palestine

Cited by 69 publications

References 38 publications

Familial Relations: Spaces, Subjects, and Politics

Familial Relations: Spaces, Subjects, and Politics

Spaces of waiting: Politics of precarious recognition in the occupied West Bank

Feeling precarious: Millennial women and work

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