The affective politics of precarity: Home demolitions in occupied Palestine

Abstract

In this article we discuss the precarities induced by the threat of home demolitions in occupied Palestine. Drawing on fieldwork from four separate sites, the discussion begins by showing how the threat of demolition exposes Palestinians to a powerfully affective future of a violence that will arrive at an uncertain time. From this we develop the notion of 'affectual demolition' to describe how the anticipatory affective dimensions of demolition structure the present and the ways that precarities are embodied in Palestinian communities living under the threat of demolition. The discussion then moves on to further consider how anticipatory affects relate to different practices, including ways of acting on and against induced vulnerabilities and insecurities. We thus argue that the continued threat of home demolitions evokes precarities that are (politically) induced and (ontologically) productive and that they hold significant world-making and-annulling capacities.

Precarious resettlement at the Bui Dam, Ghana—Unmaking the teleological

“…Precarity is most widely used to describe the condition of employment insecurity arising from the dual processes of neoliberalism and globalisation. However, recognising the similarities between labour market precarity and other conditions of insecurity (Banki, 2013a), the concept has been extended to describe other phenomena such as the continued feminisation of domestic labour (Gutiérrez‐Rodríguez, 2014), terrorism (Ettlinger, 2007), refugees (Banki, 2013b), and other forms of forced and spontaneous migration (Joronen & Griffiths, 2019; Paret & Gleeson, 2016; Şenses, 2015). This latter strand of the literature is relevant to elucidating the politics of resettlement.…”

“…Precarity begins long before resettlement. As Joronen and Griffiths (2019) note in their study of housing demolition in occupied Palestinian, it is the threat of displacement that is used to allocate precarity. In short, the condition of precarity precedes affect; that is, precarity exists and is embodied ahead of time.…”

“…In short, the condition of precarity precedes affect; that is, precarity exists and is embodied ahead of time. Thus, the precarious are exposed to “multiple affects and agential capacities” (Joronen & Griffiths, 2019, 566), which forces a view beyond the timeframe of a project and opens the potential for state intervention.…”

Negotiating Colonial Violence: Spaces of Precarisation in Palestine

“…Second, even though precarisation has the power to turn the spaces and lives of the colonised even close to unliveable, it can also operate as a source of action. Induced precarities do not merely passivise those set under the precarious conditions, but engender new forms of action and social practice, ranging from the solidarity within the communities under the threat of settler colonial eviction to the counter‐conducts and counter‐visibilities against the settler colonial ways of precarisation and elimination (see Athanasiou ; Hammami ; Joronen ; Joronen and Griffiths ). Together, these two tensions—the one between the political distribution of precarities and ontological precariousness, and the other between precarity as a source of governing and counter‐conduct—also help in understanding how the corresponding spatialities between the compartmentalisation (as a tactic of spatialising colonial violence) and the negotiated precarities operate in a way that takes into account the irreducibility of Palestinian spaces to the precarities imposed by Israeli settler colonialism.…”

“…This, I argue, highlights the importance of comprehending precarity as beyond the passivising/activating and the governing/governed divides (see also Athanasiou ; Butler ). As shown by several scholars, even remarkable vulnerabilities can create new forms of solidarity (Hammami ), steadfastness (Lentin ), resistance (Joronen ), resilient family practices (Harker ), affectual capacities (Joronen and Griffiths ) and hope (Griffiths ; Joronen and Griffiths ) among the colonised, particularly when shared. Vulnerability can be hence used to perpetuate subjugating governing but also activating resistance; it ensures the governed and the governing alike remain vulnerable, but can also be used as a resource for affirming new action, counter‐conduct and new ways of coping with settler colonial violence.…”