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Social Isolation and Repertoires of Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2020

EMILY KALAH GADE Open the ORCID record for EMILY KALAH GADE [Opens in a new window]
EMILY KALAH GADE*
Affiliation:
Emory University
*
*Emily Kalah Gade, Assistant Professor of Political Science, Emory University, [email protected].
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Abstract

Checkpoints in the West Bank’s Hebron Governorate represent Israel’s ever-present power over Palestinian civilians. Drawing on 71 interviews conducted during the Intifada of Individuals (2015), this article inductively builds theory about the relationship between social isolation and different modalities of resistance. Rather than forcing civilians to comply with the state, checkpoint apparatus instead change the nature and texture of resistance. I suggest that checkpoints structure social connections for civilians on the ground. Checkpoint apparatus which inhibit social connection engender a feeling of hopelessness and foster support for individual, often violent, resistance. Where checkpoints isolate a community as a whole but did not disrupt within-community social connections, citizens maintain hope for the possibility of change, which facilitates a preference for collective resistance. This article identifies troubling consequences checkpoints have on civilians and highlights how oppressive state power can limit some modalities of resistance only to engender support for others.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 309 - 325
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2020 

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Footnotes

First and foremost, I would like to thank my translators and interlocutors in the West Bank and Israel for their time, compassion, and generosity. I am immensely grateful to Sarah Parkinson and Anna Zelenz for their support, critiques, and advice in the field. I also deeply appreciate Sarah Dreier, Geoffrey Wallace, Amaney Jamal, Michael McCann, Mary Anne Braymer, Elizabeth Kier, Jonathan Mercer, James Long, Jim Caporaso, Rebecca Thorpe, Peter Krause, Mohammed Hafez, Danielle Villa, Bree Bang-Jensen, Paige Sechrest, the editorial team at the American Political Science Review, and the three anonymous reviewers for appropriately, rigorously, and assiduously critiquing and challenging my ideas, project, and this manuscript until it came together fully. This research was financially supported by a Chester Fritz Boeing International Research Grant (UW) and an Ioan G. Curtis Grant Research Grant (UW). Earlier drafts of this article were presented at the Political Violence Working Group at Harvard/MIT (2017), the Sie Research Seminar Series at the University of Denver (2017), the International Studies Association Annual Meeting (2016, 2018), and the Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting (2016). Any mistakes are my own.

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