Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Political Mapping of Palestine: Open Spaces, Open Futures Beyond the Israel-Palestinian Impasse

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

Cartographic renderings of territories often bound places and fix then in space, thereby erasing the actual interactions between people across boundaries. This is particularly so in regions of national or territorial struggle wherein one group may be rendered less visible than another on official maps. This project will investigate the ways in which Palestine has been constructed cartographically and how maps have been used and misused in working toward a resolution of the Israeli/ Palestinian impasse. By theoretically grounding the research in critical cartography, the production of space, and geopolitics, and through the use of an integration of archival, ethnographic methods with discourse analysis, the project will reconstruct the cartographic genealogy of Palestine from the 19th century to the present, and will consider how Palestine has become bounded and how its form has changed over time. The project will also analyze how maps created by official entities have been used to inform political strategies adopted by the Palestinian movement today. Another component in the project considers the spatial practices of Palestinians in present-day everyday life and how these 'maps' correspond or differ from the official bounding of Palestinian space. This project will contribute to remedying deep misunderstandings about the region and conflict by considering the ways different groups have been portrayed cartographically. This will have policy implications. In addition to this project contributing to the scholarly development of a graduate student, it will provide educational materials about the cartographic dimensions of the Palestinian/ Israeli conflict to university students at the PIs' home institution as well as Hebrew, Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities. Results from the project will be disseminated through a book and lectures, as well as through visual media including maps and a visually rich multi-lingual website.