A political ontology of land: rooting Syrian identity in the occupied Golan Heights

Mason, Michael ORCID: 0000-0002-8831-0593 and Dajani, Muna (2019) A political ontology of land: rooting Syrian identity in the occupied Golan Heights. Antipode, 51 (1). 187 - 206. ISSN 0066-4812

Preview

Text - Accepted Version Download (566kB) | Preview

• Author
• Scopus publication

Abstract

Questions of identity, belonging and place are heightened in societies under protracted military occupation. Bridging scholarship on territorial justice and settler colonialism, this paper examines the impacts of, and responses to, the misrecognition of Arab residents enacted by the Israeli state in the occupied Golan Heights. The injustice of misrecognition entails the imposition on the indigenous population of a Zionist ethnogeography consolidated through Jewish settlements, forced citizenship and discriminatory land and water policies. Focusing on the distinctive agricultural practices by which a Jawlani (Syrian Golani) identity is forged, we highlight the role of sumud (“steadfastness”) as a strategy of non-violent resistance. Sumud here rests on the mobilisation of communal norms of land and water management, evident in the creation of counter-infrastructures and water collectives supporting apple orchards. In the face of settler colonial misrecognition, Jawlani rootedness expresses a distinctive ontology on land with a conjoined right of resourcehood.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14678330
Additional Information:	© 2018 Antipode Foundation Ltd
Divisions:	Geography & Environment
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GF Human ecology. Anthropogeography J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration
Date Deposited:	18 May 2018 13:37
Last Modified:	16 Apr 2024 03:03
Projects:	MEC-AC-2011-02
Funders:	Emirates Foundation for Philanthropy
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/88002

Actions (login required)

View Item