On Saturday, 19 March the symposium “Settler Colonialism, Indigeneity and the Palestinian Struggle against Zionism” is being held by the
Omran Journal for Social Sciences in collaboration with the School of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, as part of the “Issues of our Time” series. The symposium will run until Monday 21 March in Doha.
Thirteen researchers are participating in the symposium, exploring settler colonialism in Palestine with critical approaches that unpack the theoretical framework of settler colonialism and the problems of using it to understand the state of Israel and the Zionist project. The symposium also addresses the problems emanating from the study of the Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine, based on multiple and overlapping methodological frameworks from the social sciences and humanities. The sessions will examine its relationship to racism, violence and xenophobia, issues of legitimacy and sovereignty and its relationship to the colonial origins of international law. Finally the researchers will investigate the role played by the resistance of the indigenous population in pushing the colonial settlement project to develop systems of control or to blur the lines between the national and the religious.
The academic objectives of the symposium will be met by answering a set of pressing research questions, including: How valid is the conceptual framework of settler colonialism in understanding the state of Israel, and as a model for studying the conflict between the Zionist movement and the Palestinian national movement? What is the relationship between modernity, nationalism and settlement in Israel? What distinguishes Zionism as a settler colonial project? What does it have in common with other projects? How can the experience of settler colonialism in Palestine be understood through the religious cultural dimension? What distinguishes the Palestinians as indigenous from other indigenous populations, and what connects them? When does a settler become a citizen? How does this apply to the Palestinian case?
The event will be held in attendance at the Doha Institute, with all sessions livestreamed across the Arab Center's social media platforms.
