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Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication

What happens when six months of waiting become six more and six more, always arbitrarily and uncertainly? And, in turn, what happens when people refuse to wait? I address this question by tracing how Palestinian prisoners refuse to wait in detention by increasingly resorting to individual "freedom s...

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Main Author: Abo-Basha, Ayah
Format: Thesis
Published: AUC Knowledge Fountain 2018
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access_status_str Open Access
author Abo-Basha, Ayah
author_browse Abo-Basha, Ayah
author_facet Abo-Basha, Ayah
author_sort Abo-Basha, Ayah
collection Thesis
dc_rights_str_mv The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy.
description What happens when six months of waiting become six more and six more, always arbitrarily and uncertainly? And, in turn, what happens when people refuse to wait? I address this question by tracing how Palestinian prisoners refuse to wait in detention by increasingly resorting to individual "freedom strikes" since 2011 to demand their release. This mode of striking is contrasted to the strike of 2004: the last general collective hunger-strike demanding improved prison conditions' which was the predominant mode of hunger-striking before Oslo. I trace how freedom-strikers' shift towards targeting administrative detention is a refusal not only of their own arbitrarily renewable detention periods, but also of Israel's new mode of governing at large post-Oslo: when negotiations became permanent therein inscribing a shift from "waiting for" towards "waiting to wait". This shift was further enabled by Israel's intensified individuation practices and closure technologies after the Second Intifada' the result of which effectively repressed what was ingrained as the collective model of "doing politics" in the social imaginary: the structure of nationalist factions and tantheemat (political organizations). This thesis moves beyond a simplistic portrayal of how individuation technologies divide collectives and discipline people into good subjects who wait crises out. Instead, it explores how the individual freedom-striker stubbornly forges new terrains of struggle where former collectives, organized into the logic of nationalist parties and factions, no longer hold; how individual bodies emerged, one after the other, out of the void of hunger-strikes between the last general collective strike in 2004 and the string of individual freedom strikes beginning in 2011 to craft a different mode of collectivity and sculpt potentialities beyond the time-space of waiting to wait. This thesis situates prisons as a site that is generative of such potentialities, and traces such reconfiguring and reassembling of new collectivities within the fields and assemblages of hunger in contemporary Palestine.
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spelling oai:fount.aucegypt.edu:etds-1398 Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication Abo-Basha, Ayah What happens when six months of waiting become six more and six more, always arbitrarily and uncertainly? And, in turn, what happens when people refuse to wait? I address this question by tracing how Palestinian prisoners refuse to wait in detention by increasingly resorting to individual "freedom strikes" since 2011 to demand their release. This mode of striking is contrasted to the strike of 2004: the last general collective hunger-strike demanding improved prison conditions' which was the predominant mode of hunger-striking before Oslo. I trace how freedom-strikers' shift towards targeting administrative detention is a refusal not only of their own arbitrarily renewable detention periods, but also of Israel's new mode of governing at large post-Oslo: when negotiations became permanent therein inscribing a shift from "waiting for" towards "waiting to wait". This shift was further enabled by Israel's intensified individuation practices and closure technologies after the Second Intifada' the result of which effectively repressed what was ingrained as the collective model of "doing politics" in the social imaginary: the structure of nationalist factions and tantheemat (political organizations). This thesis moves beyond a simplistic portrayal of how individuation technologies divide collectives and discipline people into good subjects who wait crises out. Instead, it explores how the individual freedom-striker stubbornly forges new terrains of struggle where former collectives, organized into the logic of nationalist parties and factions, no longer hold; how individual bodies emerged, one after the other, out of the void of hunger-strikes between the last general collective strike in 2004 and the string of individual freedom strikes beginning in 2011 to craft a different mode of collectivity and sculpt potentialities beyond the time-space of waiting to wait. This thesis situates prisons as a site that is generative of such potentialities, and traces such reconfiguring and reassembling of new collectivities within the fields and assemblages of hunger in contemporary Palestine. 2018-02-01T08:00:00Z thesis application/pdf https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/399 https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/1398/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy. Theses and Dissertations AUC Knowledge Fountain waiting refusal
spellingShingle waiting
refusal
Abo-Basha, Ayah
Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication
title Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication
title_full Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication
title_fullStr Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication
title_full_unstemmed Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication
title_short Refusing to wait: Hunger-striking in the age of Gazafication
title_sort refusing to wait hunger striking in the age of gazafication
topic waiting
refusal
url https://fount.aucegypt.edu/etds/399
https://fount.aucegypt.edu/context/etds/article/1398/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf
work_keys_str_mv AT abobashaayah refusingtowaithungerstrikingintheageofgazafication