Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial
Key information
- Date
- Venue
- Virtual Event
About this event
In Decolonizing Palestine (Cornell University Press, 2020), Somdeep Sen rejects the notion that liberation from colonialization exists as a singular moment in history when the colonizer is ousted by the colonized. Instead, he considers the case of the Palestinian struggle for liberation from its settler colonial condition as a complex psychological and empirical mix of the colonial and the postcolonial. Specifically, he examines the two seemingly contradictory, yet coexistent, anticolonial and postcolonial modes of politics adopted by Hamas following the organization's unexpected victory in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election.
Despite the expectations of experts, Hamas has persisted as both an armed resistance to Israeli settler colonial rule and as a governing body. Based on ethnographic material collected in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Israel, and Egypt, Decolonizing Palestine argues that the puzzle Hamas presents is not rooted in predicting the timing or process of its abandonment of either role. The challenge instead lies in explaining how and why it maintains both, and what this implies for the study of liberation movements and postcolonial studies more generally.
Recording
About the speaker
Dr Somdeep Sen is Associate Professor in International Development Studies at Roskilde University, Denmark, and is an Associate Member of the Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS. His research focuses include spatial politics, race and racism in international relations, liberation movements, settler colonialism, postcolonial studies and migration. He is the author of Decolonizing Palestine: Hamas between the Anticolonial and the Postcolonial (Cornell University Press, 2020) and the co-editor of Globalizing Collateral Language: From 9/11 to Endless Wars (University of Georgia Press, 2021).
Registration
This webinar will take place online via Zoom.
* The webinar will also be live-streamed on our Facebook page for those that are unable to participate via Zoom.
Chair: Gilbert Achcar (SOAS)
Organiser: SOAS Middle East Institute and the Centre for Palestine Studies, SOAS
Contact email: smei@soas.ac.uk
