Geoffrey F. Hughes, Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy (New Texts Out Now)

Geoffrey F. Hughes, Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy (New Texts Out Now)

Geoffrey F. Hughes, Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy (New Texts Out Now)

By : Geoffrey F. Hughes

Geoffrey F. Hughes, Kinship, Islam and the Politics of Marriage in Jordan: Affection and Mercy (Indiana University Press, 2021). 

Jadaliyya (J): What made you write this book? 

Geoffrey Hughes (GH): I was inspired to write this book by my experiences serving for two years as a Peace Corps Volunteer in a small rural Muslim community in southern Jordan at the height of the so-called “War on Terror.” Of course, the people I came to know were nothing like the caricatures of abjection, violence, and resentment that were so widespread at the time—and unfortunately remain widespread today. I felt like the insider-outsider positionality I developed through that experience gave me a privileged vantage point from which to critique these cynical and manipulative misrepresentations of Muslims and so it seemed incumbent upon me to use that privilege to do so. I did not set out to write an ethnography of marriage in Jordan, but I came to embrace the topic because it was one of the things I found Jordanians were most excited to talk about (which seemed significant in itself). I was especially captivated by the struggles of the many young men I worked with and befriended to love and provide for their families and wanted to tell their stories.

That being said, the book is also about how the people who welcomed me were responding to world-historical events like colonialism, war, occupation, and forced displacement through new institutional forms. The book takes Jordan as a case study of a much-discussed “crisis of marriage” that has touched lives throughout the contemporary Muslim “world” and, arguably, far beyond it. The crisis is about rapidly growing populations coming to adulthood amidst high rates of unemployment, poverty, and acute housing shortages (often exacerbated by colonialism, uneven development and war), but also contentious debates about changing gender roles and class relations. Of course, the marriage crisis is also a mass-mediated phenomenon as well, part and parcel of an emerging global “knowledge economy” in which the lines between activism, scholarship, and policymaking are increasingly blurred. Unsurprisingly, in Muslim countries like Jordan this often takes on an Islamic twist. I was particularly intrigued by how these Islamic activists and institutions often pitched themselves as defenders of women, young people, and the marginalized—and in opposition to “tradition.” 

So when it came time to do the fieldwork for the book, I arranged to live with some friends in a village on the suburbanizing fringe of Jordan’s capital of Amman. I divided my time between building houses and learning about the history of the housing market, between attending dozens of proposal delegations and weddings and conducting fieldwork with the Sharia courts and an Islamic NGO that organizes mass weddings and training courses for newlyweds. I take up the Quranic phrase “affection and mercy” that I heard so often across these otherwise distinct “sites” to reflect an emergent ideal of companionate marriage that remains in tension with economic constraints and older ideals of marriage that privilege the prerogatives of the extended kin group.

... the first part of the book is about the house and focuses on changing notions of land rights, gendered labor, and domestic space ...

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures does the book address?

GH: The book runs along two axes: 1) through the process of getting married with an emphasis on some of the biggest financial obstacles to marriage (the house, the bridewealth or mahr payment to the bride, and the wedding) and 2) through a historical account of how each of these aspects of the marriage process have shifted over time, with an emphasis on institutions that have stepped in and attempted to change or even supplant the role of the family (the Housing and Urban Development Corporation, the Sharia courts, and an Islamic charity called the Chastity Society). As a result, the first part of the book is about the house and focuses on changing notions of land rights, gendered labor, and domestic space with the collapse of traditional peasant and pastoralist economies and the rapid expansion of the state in the mid-twentieth century.

The second part of the book is about the marriage proposal. It looks at how the Sharia courts have increasingly supplanted the tribal jaha or delegation as the key information infrastructure for the production and legitimation of marriage contracts, and how this shift has led to the production of new statistical categories that have made new political actors and political demands thinkable.

The third part of the book is about the wedding. It explores how forms of class distinction around weddings have shifted, with a growing emphasis on demonstrating not just one’s status but also fealty to “tradition,” “Islam,” and/or “modernity” through the choice of either an indoor wedding in a hotel or wedding hall, or an outdoor wedding (amongst a myriad of more subtle aesthetic distinctions). As a result, the book engages with a wide range of literatures: gender and kinship, but also science and technology studies, the development of statistics and survey techniques, and the ethics and aesthetics of the Islamic revival. 

J: What was the research for this book like?

GH: I started doing fieldwork in 2010 and then spent most of 2011 and 2012 in Jordan. I subsequently visited to share my findings with my interlocutors and to begin new projects in 2013, 2016, 2017, and 2019. As I said, I based myself in a village on the suburbanizing fringe of the capital so I could commute into the city to work with major urban institutions during the day while still being based in a village where people self-consciously carried on with more “traditional” practices of house construction, marriage arrangements, and weddings.

I learned a lot hanging out at construction sites, weddings, and engagement parties, but working with the institutions (and especially their archives) helped give the project more historical depth. For instance, I constructed a database of over eight hundred marriage contracts in an attempt to detect more subtle shifts in the Sharia courts’ knowledge practices over time—especially the increasing individuation of participants, changing gendered property rights, and the delegitimation of older forms of collective “voice.” I also dug into the archives of the Housing Corporation to understand how the World Bank and its development experts helped engineer the emergence of a housing market in Jordan. Finally, I benefited greatly from the research of the Chastity Society (much of it produced in conjunction with the Sharia courts, or at least relying on its data). I also attended its mass weddings, fundraisers, and training courses for newlyweds. These institutions were incredibly welcoming, so I was able to spend a lot of time with their employees and learn a lot from them.

J: How does this book connect to and/or depart from your previous work? 

GH: I have always been interested in politics, the state, and the consequences of large-scale social engineering initiatives, but I think this project and especially the Jordanians who shared their lives with me have had a big impact on how I think about all of these topics. They definitely taught me to think more critically about the politics of gender and kinship. All of the talk of “love” and “affection and mercy” has also inspired a growing interest in the anthropology of emotions. At the same time, I remain pretty committed to doing ethnographic work grounded in concrete human institutions that give meaning and coherence to what are often treated as primarily individualistic and “interior” phenomena. 

J: Who do you hope will read this book, and what sort of impact would you like it to have? 

GH: I think this book will be most interesting to people who want to learn more about marriage and especially those interested in Jordan. Today, Jordan has the distinction of having the lowest rate of women’s workforce participation in a country not at war, and so there is a big temptation to see Jordan as ripe for a “salvage ethnography” of “traditional” gender roles. Of course, as the book shows, Jordan’s current gendered social settlement is very much an artifact of previous waves of modernization initiatives (and Jordanians’ creative responses to them) and is already in the process of changing into something else, as economic exigencies and social mores shift yet again. So the book is a significant case study in the marriage literature. But I also wrote it to be an introduction to Jordan, which invites readers to enter into a very specific sort of semi-public discourse that Jordanians enjoy exploring with new acquaintances.

J: What other projects are you working on now?

GH: While I was in Jordan writing this book, the Arab Spring was in full swing so there were a lot of things going on I could not fit in. There were frequent “tribal clashes” in the area that were usually organized on social media to challenge the local gerontocratic power structure (though, of course, elders quickly learned to adapt). I have published a few articles on this so far and aim to publish a book-length treatment. 

This also led to an interest in what I have called “ugly emotions” and especially the phenomenon of hasad or “envy.” Here, I was especially intrigued by how accusations of envy were deployed in talk about weddings and marriage—especially by the powerful. This led me to take up the “politics of accusation” as a methodological and theoretical challenge. For instance, what to make of the long-running orientalist obsession with resentment? Who really envies whom? Coinciding with this has been the marked rise of the discourse of “moderation” and “extremism” in Jordan in response to the so-called “Islamic State,” as the language of “terrorism” became increasingly incoherent. This has led me to begin work on a project looking at the history of ‘itidal and wasatiyya (moderation) in the Islamic tradition—and especially how these concepts are being creatively deployed to promote and contest various projects of moral policing and social transformation. 

 

Excerpt from the book (from Chapter 1, pp. 45-55)

“The Seed”

I used to make a point of asking elderly Bedouin men in Jordan about the names for the constituent parts of the Bedouin goat hair tent—not the least because everyone seemed to enjoy teaching the foreign anthropologist the obscure minutiae of a bygone era. A number of elderly men were even kind enough to draw diagrams for me. At first, I thought it would be useful as a conversation starter that might lead comfortably into stories, jokes, and ad hoc social theorizing. Indeed it did. It soon became clear that there was also great diversity of experiences and terminologies that people would express through their narrations of the tent. Some aspects were ubiquitous: The tent was always conceived as divided into two parts—the masculine shiq and the feminine muharam. But was the shiq on the right or the left? A man once told me it varied by tribe: his tribe put the shiq on the left. Seeming to contradict his thesis, he then added, “but the path here is on the right so I put the shiq on the right so [male] guests wouldn’t walk by the muharam.” 

Nevertheless, there was a certain spatiotemporal ordering of this gendered polarity that seemed to transcend the countless individual experiences of the tent. For my part, I was taught and later experienced the tent as a man. The long sides of the tent would usually be raised up to some degree. The front flap (usually known as the star) would be parallel to the ground, whereas the back flap (usually known as the ruwaq) would be raised only enough to allow the wind to enter. I was told in no uncertain terms that only dogs and children enter through the ruwaq. Men must enter through the front. Ideally, a man should approach from the back of the tent, which allows the family to be shielded from his gaze by the lowered ruwaq. When he is within earshot, he should call out, “Peace be upon you” (salam ‘alaykum), “O protector, O family of the house!” (ya satir, ya ahl-al-bayt!), or some other greeting. With permission granted, the visitor should approach one of the rear corner poles known as the “foot” (shadih ar-rijl) or al-fahiq while making sure to give the various ropes, which are staked in the ground around the sides, a wide berth. Passing the stake jutting out from the front pole (known as the “hand,” shadih al-iyd), the male guest could expect to find his hosts waiting to greet him. 

Similar accounts of gendered space could be provided for other types of homes in Jordan and in other times and places. When I have gone for strolls among the ruins of the stone houses of the peasantry from the early twentieth century, my Jordanian friends have always described them in terms of the same gendering of space. The examples could be multiplied across the Mediterranean and across the Arab world. Domestic space is treated as though it were polarized into male and female aspects (shiq and muharam), whereas the home forms a feminine pole (am-mharam) in relationship to the masculine exterior. 

* * *

After weeks of hearing some friends of mine talking about their neighbor, ‘Authba, an elderly woman with a reputation for being a character, they insisted on taking me to visit her. We hailed the men from the road as we walked by their land, and they demanded we come and drink tea. Inside the tent, the dirt floor was covered with a brightly colored plastic mat and a number of upholstered foam mattresses. I explained that I was doing research on customs and traditions around marriage and made small talk. Soon enough, ‘Authba burst into the room with her scarf over her face and declared, “I hear there’s a foreigner here!” I made a slow gesture to stand up while putting my hand over my heart to greet her. She let forth a volley of effusive praise, and we all laughed at the mock sycophancy. I repeated my introduction and explained my research focus on marriage. 

‘Authba immediately launched into a story: “In the old days, the man and the woman never saw each other until their wedding night.” She paused for dramatic effect. “So on my wedding night, I was alone in the tent and this man walks up and I covered my whole face except for one eye.” As she did this, she revealed one of her eyes. She continued, raising her pitch by a few octaves, “I said, ‘Who are you?’” She dramatically lowered her voice as she let her scarf down, “I am your husband, girl!” Everyone burst out laughing again. She asked me what I wanted to know and repeatedly proclaimed her “expertise” while gesturing with her scarf. In this manner, she held court as she bantered with my friends and her sons. She seemed to take great pleasure in her ability to simultaneously challenge local norms around female modesty (even for an older woman) and my ethnographic gaze and presumably cosmopolitan gender norms, embracing (and mocking) a perception of herself as a helpless victim of rural backwardness. 

Eventually, I asked her about the names of the various parts of the tent. To this day, I am not sure what she said when she responded by asking whether I had heard of one particular part of the tent, but everyone burst out laughing. The men were too bashful to repeat the precise word she had used, but they explained to me that it was a word for the gap between the saha (the piece of fabric separating the putatively masculine shiq from the muharam) and the ruwaq (the back of the tent). It was clear that she had likened the gap to the human pudendum—a clever play on the anthropomorphization of the tent and an extension of what one would expect to find behind the tent’s “hands” and between its “legs.” My friends would later refer to it as simply al-bizr (the seed). As I pondered its possible significance, a teenage girl’s voice rang out from the other side of the divide: “Mom! Your TV show is on!” ‘Authba yelled back, “What do I want with my TV when I have a foreigner right here!” That was the first time I realized the laughter was coming from both sides of the tent. 

This story highlights the inherent difficulties and hazards of rendering the interior exterior and the invisible visible. ‘Authba, a gifted performer, handled it expertly. She could turn it into a joke. However, as we will see, this is not always the case. Such renderings can be fraught with misunderstandings, arguments, and violence. And as I have intimated, this problem is not merely a Jordanian one. In “Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel,” Mikhail Bakhtin goes so far as to argue the drive to exteriorize and render visible the interior and the invisible is central to the development of literature in general and the novel in particular. I suggest that ethnography itself is ancillary to this preoccupation. Bakhtin argues that “the public and rhetorical unity of the human image is to be found in the contradiction between it and its purely private content. . . . Although personal life had already become private and persons individualized, although this sense of the private had begun to infiltrate literature in ancient times, still, it was only able to develop forms adequate to itself in the small everyday genres, the comedy and novella of common life.” In the essay, Bakhtin attempts to illustrate the “historico-literary process” through which various forms of time-space have developed in literature and the arts from the Greek Romance to the Rabelasian novel. It is important to note, however, that we have not yet arrived at the liberal notion of public and private. This shift markedly divides market from state and associates the former with the private and the latter with the public. Here, the dialectics of interiority and exteriority, visibility and invisibility, still predominate. 

As an ethnographer, and even more so as a male ethnographer, I was always acutely aware of this literary conundrum hit upon by Bakhtin. When the action was masculine, visible, exterior, and collective, I was well equipped to narrate it, but such action failed to exhaust the ethnographically relevant data. Much like generations of World Bank consultants, colonial administrators, and Jordanian bureaucrats, I found myself compelled to consider (if not necessarily understand) that which was feminine, invisible, interior, and individual—what Bakhtin would call “private.” As he observes, “By its very nature this private life does not create a place for the contemplative man, for that ‘third person’ who might be in a position to meditate on this life, to judge and evaluate it. This life takes place between four walls and for only two pairs of eyes.”

New Texts Out Now: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein, guest eds. "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis." Special Issue of Conflict, Security & Development

Conflict, Security and Development, Volume 15, No. 5 (December 2015) Special issue: "Israel-Palestine after Oslo: Mapping Transformations in a Time of Deepening Crisis," Guest Editors: Mandy Turner and Cherine Hussein.

Jadaliyya (J): What made you compile this volume?

Mandy Turner (MT): Both the peace process and the two-state solution are dead. Despite more than twenty years of negotiations, Israel’s occupation, colonization and repression continue–and the political and geographical fragmentation of the Palestinian people is proceeding apace.

This is not news, nor is it surprising to any keen observer of the situation. But what is surprising–and thus requires explanation – is the resilience of the Oslo framework and paradigm: both objectively and subjectively. It operates objectively as a straitjacket by trapping Palestinians in economic and security arrangements that are designed to ensure stabilization and will not to lead to sovereignty or a just and sustainable solution. And it operates subjectively as a straitjacket by shutting out discussion of alternative ways of understanding the situation and ways out of the impasse. The persistence of this framework that is focused on conflict management and stabilization, is good for Israel but bad for Palestinians.

The Oslo peace paradigm–of a track-one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution–is therefore in crisis. And yet it is entirely possible that the current situation could continue for a while longer–particularly given the endorsement and support it enjoys from the major Western donors and the “international community,” as well as the fact that there has been no attempt to develop an alternative. The immediate short-term future is therefore bleak.

Guided by these observations, this special issue sought to undertake two tasks. The first task was to analyze the perceptions underpinning the Oslo framework and paradigm as well as some of the transformations instituted by its implementation: why is it so resilient, what has it created? The second task, which follows on from the first, was then to ask: how can we reframe our understanding of what is happening, what are some potential alternatives, and who is arguing and mobilizing for them?

These questions and themes grew out of a number of conversations with early-career scholars – some based at the Kenyon Institute in East Jerusalem, and some based in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere. These conversations led to two interlinked panels at the International Studies Association annual convention in Toronto, Canada, in March 2014. To have two panels accepted on “conflict transformation and resistance in Palestine” at such a conventional international relations conference with (at the time unknown) early-career scholars is no mean feat. The large and engaged audience we received at these panels – with some very established names coming along (one of whom contributed to this special issue) – convinced us that this new stream of scholars and scholarship should have an outlet.  

J: What particular topics, issues, and literatures do the articles address?

MT: The first half of the special issue analyzes how certain problematic assumptions shaped the Oslo framework, and how the Oslo framework in turn shaped the political, economic and territorial landscape.

Virginia Tilley’s article focuses on the paradigm of conflict resolution upon which the Oslo Accords were based, and calls for a re-evaluation of what she argues are the two interlinked central principles underpinning its worldview: internationally accepted notions of Israeli sovereignty; and the internationally accepted idea that the “conflict” is essentially one between two peoples–the “Palestinian people” and the “Jewish people”. Through her critical interrogation of these two “common sense” principles, Tilley proposes that the “conflict” be reinterpreted as an example of settler colonialism, and, as a result of this, recommends an alternative conflict resolution model based on a paradigm shift away from an ethno-nationalist division of the polity towards a civic model of the nation.

Tariq Dana unpacks another central plank of the Oslo paradigm–that of promoting economic relations between Israel and the OPT. He analyses this through the prism of “economic peace” (particularly the recent revival of theories of “capitalist peace”), whose underlying assumptions are predicated on the perceived superiority of economic approaches over political approaches to resolving conflict. Dana argues that there is a symbiosis between Israeli strategies of “economic peace” and recent Palestinian “statebuilding strategies” (referred to as Fayyadism), and that both operate as a form of pacification and control because economic cooperation leaves the colonial relationship unchallenged.

The political landscape in the OPT has been transformed by the Oslo paradigm, particularly by the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Alaa Tartir therefore analyses the basis, agenda and trajectory of the PA, particularly its post-2007 state building strategy. By focusing on the issue of local legitimacy and accountability, and based on fieldwork in two sites in the occupied West Bank (Balata and Jenin refugee camps), Tartir concludes that the main impact of the creation of the PA on ordinary people’s lives has been the strengthening of authoritarian control and the hijacking of any meaningful visions of Palestinian liberation.

The origin of the administrative division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip is the focus of Tareq Baconi’s article. He charts how Hamas’s initial opposition to the Oslo Accords and the PA was transformed over time, leading to its participation (and success) in the 2006 legislative elections. Baconi argues that it was the perceived demise of the peace process following the collapse of the Camp David discussions that facilitated this change. But this set Hamas on a collision course with Israel and the international community, which ultimately led to the conflict between Hamas and Fateh, and the administrative division, which continues to exist.

The special issue thereafter focuses, in the second section, on alternatives and resistance to Oslo’s transformations.

Cherine Hussein’s article charts the re-emergence of the single-state idea in opposition to the processes of separation unleashed ideologically and practically that were codified in the Oslo Accords. Analysing it as both a movement of resistance and as a political alternative to Oslo, while recognizing that it is currently largely a movement of intellectuals (particularly of diaspora Palestinians and Israelis), Hussein takes seriously its claim to be a more just and liberating alternative to the two-state solution.

My article highlights the work of a small but dedicated group of anti-Zionist Jewish-Israeli activists involved in two groups: Zochrot and Boycott from Within. Both groups emerged in the post-Second Intifada period, which was marked by deep disillusionment with the Oslo paradigm. This article unpacks the alternative – albeit marginalized – analysis, solution and route to peace proposed by these groups through the application of three concepts: hegemony, counter-hegemony and praxis. The solution, argue the activists, lies in Israel-Palestine going through a process of de-Zionization and decolonization, and the process of achieving this lies in actions in solidarity with Palestinians.

This type of solidarity action is the focus of the final article by Suzanne Morrison, who analyses the “We Divest” campaign, which is the largest divestment campaign in the US and forms part of the wider Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. Through attention to their activities and language, Morrison shows how “We Divest”, with its networked, decentralized, grassroots and horizontal structure, represents a new way of challenging Israel’s occupation and the suppression of Palestinian rights.

The two parts of the special issue are symbiotic: the critique and alternative perspectives analyzed in part two are responses to the issues and problems identified in part one.

J: How does this volume connect to and/or depart from your previous work?

MT: My work focuses on the political economy of donor intervention (which falls under the rubric of “peacebuilding”) in the OPT, particularly a critique of the Oslo peace paradigm and framework. This is a product of my broader conceptual and historical interest in the sociology of intervention as a method of capitalist expansion and imperial control (as explored in “The Politics of International Intervention: the Tyranny of Peace”, co-edited with Florian Kuhn, Routledge, 2016), and how post-conflict peacebuilding and development agendas are part of this (as explored in “Whose Peace: Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding”, co-edited with Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper (PalgraveMacmillan, 2008).  

My first book on Palestine (co-edited with Omar Shweiki), Decolonizing Palestinian Political Economy: De-development and Beyond (PalgraveMacmillan, 2014), was a collection of essays by experts in their field, of the political-economic experience of different sections of the Palestinian community. The book, however, aimed to reunite these individual experiences into one historical political-economy narrative of a people experiencing a common theme of dispossession, disenfranchisement and disarticulation. It was guided by the desire to critically assess the utility of the concept of de-development to different sectors and issues–and had a foreword by Sara Roy, the scholar who coined the term, and who was involved in the workshop from which the book emerged.

This co-edited special issue (with Cherine Hussein, who, at the time of the issue construction, was the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute) was therefore the next logical step in my research on Palestine, although my article on Jewish-Israeli anti-Zionists did constitute a slight departure from my usual focus.

J: Who do you hope will read this volume, and what sort of impact would you like it to have?

MT: I would imagine the main audience will be those whose research and political interests lie in Palestine Studies. It is difficult, given the structure of academic publishing – which has become ever more corporate and money grabbing – for research outputs such as this to be accessed by the general public. Only those with access to academic libraries are sure to be able to read it – and this is a travesty, in my opinion. To counteract this commodification of knowledge, we should all provide free access to our outputs through online open source websites such as academia.edu, etc. If academic research is going to have an impact beyond merely providing more material for teaching and background reading for yet more research (which is inaccessible to the general public) then this is essential. Websites such as Jadaliyya are therefore incredibly important.

Having said all that, I am under no illusions about the potential for ANY research on Israel-Palestine to contribute to changing the dynamics of the situation. However, as a collection of excellent analyses conducted by mostly early-career scholars in the field of Palestine studies, I am hopeful that their interesting and new perspectives will be read and digested. 

J: What other projects are you working on now?

MT: I am currently working on an edited volume provisionally entitled From the River to the Sea: Disintegration, Reintegration and Domination in Israel and Palestine. This book is the culmination of a two-year research project funded by the British Academy, which analyzed the impacts of the past twenty years of the Oslo peace framework and paradigm as processes of disintegration, reintegration and domination – and how they have created a new socio-economic and political landscape, which requires new agendas and frameworks. I am also working on a new research project with Tariq Dana at Birzeit University on capital and class in the occupied West Bank.

Excerpt from the Editor’s Note 

[Note: This issue was published in Dec. 2015]

Initially perceived to have inaugurated a new era of hope in the search for peace and justice in Palestine-Israel, the Oslo peace paradigm of a track one, elite-level, negotiated two-state solution is in crisis today, if not completely at an end.

While the major Western donors and the ‘international community’ continue to publicly endorse the Oslo peace paradigm, Israeli and Palestinian political elites have both stepped away from it. The Israeli government has adopted what appears to be an outright rejection of the internationally-accepted end-goal of negotiations, i.e. the emergence of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. In March 2015, in the final days of his re-election campaign, Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the Jewish settlement of Har Homa in Palestinian East Jerusalem, which is regarded as illegal under international law. Reminding its inhabitants that it was him and his Likud government that had established the settlement in 1997 as part of the Israeli state’s vision of a unified indivisible Jerusalem, he promised to expand the construction of settlements in East Jerusalem if re-elected. And in an interview with Israeli news site, NRG, Netanyahu vowed that the prospects of a Palestinian state were non-existent as long as he remained in office. Holding on to the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), he argued, was necessary to ensure Israel’s security in the context of regional instability and Islamic extremism. It is widely acknowledged that Netanyahu’s emphasis on Israel’s security—against both external and internal enemies—gave him a surprise win in an election he was widely expected to lose.

Despite attempts to backtrack under recognition that the US and European states are critical of this turn in official Israeli state policy, Netanyahu’s promise to bury the two-state solution in favour of a policy of further annexation has become the Israeli government’s official intent, and has been enthusiastically endorsed by leading ministers and key advisers.

[…]

The Palestinian Authority (PA) based in the West Bank also appears to have rejected a key principle of the Oslo peace paradigm—that of bilateral negotiations under the supervision of the US. Despite a herculean effort by US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to bring the two parties to the negotiating table, in response to the lack of movement towards final status issues and continued settlement expansion (amongst other issues), the Palestinian political elite have withdrawn from negotiations and resumed attempts to ‘internationalise the struggle’ by seeking membership of international organisations such as the United Nations (UN), and signing international treaties such as the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court. This change of direction is part of a rethink in the PA and PLO’s strategy rooted in wider discussions and debates. The publication of a document by the Palestine Strategy Study Group (PSSG) in August 2008, the production of which involved many members of the Palestinian political elite (and whose recommendations were studiously discussed at the highest levels of the PA and PLO), showed widespread discontent with the bilateral negotiations framework and suggested ways in which Palestinians could ‘regain the initiative’.

[…]

And yet despite these changes in official Palestinian and Israeli political strategies that signal a deepening of the crisis, donors and the ‘international community’ are reluctant to accept the failure of the Oslo peace paradigm. This political myopia has meant the persistence of a framework that is increasingly divorced from the possibility of a just and sustainable peace. It is also acting as an ideological straitjacket by shutting out alternative interpretations. This special issue seeks a way out of this political and intellectual dead end. In pursuit of this, our various contributions undertake what we regard to be two key tasks: first, to critically analyse the perceptions underpinning the Oslo paradigm and the transformations instituted by its implementation; and second, to assess some alternative ways of understanding the situation rooted in new strategies of resistance that have emerged in the context of these transformations in the post-Oslo landscape.

[…]

Taken as a whole, the articles in this special issue aim to ignite conversations on the conflict that are not based within abstracted debates that centre upon the peace process itself—but that begin from within the realities and geographies of both the continually transforming land of Palestine-Israel and the voices, struggles, worldviews and imaginings of the future of the people who presently inhabit it. For it is by highlighting these transformations, and from within these points of beginning, that we believe more hopeful pathways for alternative ways forward can be collectively imagined, articulated, debated and built.