Palestinian women and the politics of invisibility

Image: Thymus
Whatsapp
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Telegram

By NADERA SHALHOUB-KEVORKIAN*

Women may need to remain invisible, and their decision to deny voice to their knowledge, and prevent their narratives from seeing the light of day, should guide our constructions

Introduction

“The problem is that first my house was demolished and we all had to move to live in the school. Then the school was demolished and I don’t know where we should move to and when. Why can’t my house be my home, my school be my school, and I can live a normal life with an undemolished house and an undemolished school?” (Hidaya, 15 years old)

“When they demolished my school, I felt like I lost my own home. Maybe the world doesn’t understand, but for Palestinian girls like me, school is all we have. Girls in the world can go places, visit each other, find books they want to read, organize trips with their schools and teachers, but Palestinian children have nothing. We, Palestinian girls, feel like our schools are the only place where we can find friends, share books, meet, talk, play, sing, write, love… and now they have demolished my school.” (Nora, 15 years old)

“When my house was demolished, the neighbors were afraid to even come out to help us. They were afraid to fight alongside us because they knew they would be next, that they would end up losing their homes. The demolition of my house, the loss of my belongings, my ability to gather my family under one roof and feel safe, was gone in seconds and no one wanted to look at us. They looked at the building. I mean the physical building, as if it were just the walls, the windows and the doors. Maybe people felt sorry when they heard the noise during the demolition, but do you think anyone is able to hear the demolition of our hearts? Our dreams? Our future plans? I don’t think those voices are ever heard. Do you think they even noticed my fear, my agony, my horror? No way. They (fear, agony and horror) have no voice, they make no noise, and the military occupation has no eyes, no morals, no conscience, no God” (Salwa, 28 years old).

The voices cited above are just a small sample of the voices of Palestinian women who are living with the effects of Israel’s militarization and demolition policies on their domestic lives and education. As a result of these policies, Palestinian girls and women have been rendered internally displaced, homeless, and, as Nora put it, “homeless.” Women like Nora have experienced the trauma of not only losing their homes, but also losing their sense of safety, security, and belonging as a result of the ongoing political conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, coupled with the denial of their suffering and the silencing of their voices.

This article addresses the “politics of invisibility” and raises questions about how to research and analyze unheard and silenced voices, understand the meaning of loss of home and loss of access to education and the right to education, and what methodology should be employed to examine their ongoing suffering. The voices of Hidaya, Nora, and Salwa reveal that the brute force of military power does not notice or acknowledge their suffering. However, what about feminist activists and feminist researchers? Are they capable of developing methodologies that can engage with this suffering, respond to it, and investigate its “invisibility”? If so, what types of methodologies are needed?

The article discusses the need to develop practices in research methodologies that allow engagement with the knowledge, experiences and “ways of knowing” of indigenous women in conflict zones. It reflects on how to make visible the strength and resilience of women amidst daily trials and in the context of the global functioning of power, endless violence and the “technologies” associated with colonialism and militarization.

Thus, the main epistemological question raised in this article is whether, how, and when we can engage with and know the “invisible” and the invisibilized. In addressing this question, the article draws on two of my studies in Palestine: one that studies militarization, gender, and education, and another that examines homelessness and house demolitions from a feminist perspective. Both studies challenge perceptions of Palestinian women as victims, transgressors, or criminals by placing their everyday actions in the context of military occupation and oppression.

I have examined several interconnected questions and dilemmas related to researching invisibility and developing an appropriate feminist methodology. To begin with, how can we research invisibility and where should we look for it? More importantly, to whom should we be accountable when conducting such research and what is the price of disclosing the experiences of Palestinian women who would otherwise have remained invisible? In other words, are we sensitive to our responsibilities towards the women we research and how we engage with their voices? A related question arises: what is the price of not engaging with the ordeals and daily lives of women in such a violent conflict zone?

My own position as a Palestinian feminist researcher living in the area of ​​my research, borrowing meanings from the absent voices and the plight of the invisible and silenced, compels me to seriously address the methodology needed to capture such invisibility. As a Palestinian feminist researcher, mother of three daughters, wife, and member of the Palestinian nation, researching the invisible and the invisible is a human/political, academic, and moral obligation.

Researching the invisible, and focusing on invisibility as the primary category of analysis, requires remaining attentive to each woman in the context of her collective and objective experience of militarization and patriarchy, which unfold against the backdrop of colonialism, a violent political economy, and the inequalities of globalization and racism. To do so, researchers must engage with the past (especially the history of injustice, including the ongoing effects of Nakba about the Palestinians) and how this impacts women's lives.

They must pay close attention to the ways in which women locate themselves in the meanings they attribute to their experiences, in the collective consciousness of their families, communities and nations. Building a feminist methodology for researching invisibility in conflict zones requires being attentive and able to document women’s resistance and struggles against power relations in their daily actions, on the way to school, at work, in caring for others and in their survival strategies.

The article will conclude by addressing a dilemma. Should feminist researchers investigate all instances of invisibility in conflict zones, especially considering that in some cases, invisibility and women’s silence become a mode of survival and self-protection? By foregrounding women’s narratives and voices, the article reveals that information is one of the first casualties in conflict areas and that the “other” is made even more invisible, both by the inability of the oppressed to speak out and explain their positions and suffering, and by the ability of those in power to maneuver and silence influential actors in the media, the economy, the law, and even human rights defenders.

We must also be aware of the possibility that information about women’s lives, education, health and mobility under conditions of vulnerability can be used as tools of oppression. The challenge for feminist scholar-activists is therefore to understand the politics of invisibility, especially seen through the prism of the trauma of violence and ongoing loss.

The article suggests that the epistemology of conflict and the politics of knowledge in conflict zones takes us back to the very personal, as well as the political, while emphasizing that knowledge production never occurs outside the realm of politics, history and justice.

Spiraling Transgressions, Militarization, and the Disruption of Everyday Life

The creation of the State of Israel in 1948, the military regime and the occupation of additional Palestinian lands in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 resulted in the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, challenging the question of the right of return. It also called into question the legitimacy of Zionist claims that portray Israel as a state exclusively for the Jewish people and justify the Jewish state’s constant attacks on the bodies, lives, homes and homelands of Palestinians. The failure of the peace process and the failure to end the conflict are rooted – in my view – in Israel’s deep historical insecurity about its existence in the region.

The question of Israel’s legitimacy and security is rooted in “historical” claims that justify Israel’s need to fully control the Palestinians in order to feel secure. The suffering of Palestinian victims is compounded by the injustices inherent in the massive settler colonial project, through violent attacks, displacement, land grabbing, home demolitions, and the destabilization of Palestinian lives. This is being done to advance the specific goal of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine.

Our focus is on military attacks on homes and schools and how the Jewish settler colonial project not only destabilizes the daily lives of Palestinians, but also works to “invisibilize” their just cause. The attack on Palestinian homes and the Palestinian right to safe education has not only left many families homeless, but has also disrupted individuals’ rights to security and violated their access to education, healthcare, social networks, etc.

I have termed these acts of violence “spiraling” transgressions to reflect their far-reaching consequences on the lives of those affected. While they may appear on paper to be isolated physical events, the trauma caused by a home demolition or a violation of basic rights permeates every aspect of life, irrevocably altering the daily reality of those targeted by such violence. This trauma ripples out and impacts the bodies, minds, social networks, economic status, etc. of everyone involved.

For example, when a child’s home is demolished, he or she loses his or her bed, books, toys, clothes, neighbors, and friends. Children must accept and adapt to living with relatives, moving to a new environment, place, and space, changing schools, witnessing the loss of their family, and reliving their trauma through their daily actions. When a woman’s home is demolished, her loss affects her bodily safety, privacy, mobility, lifestyle, physical well-being, psychological health, and social support system. Thus, attacks on the body, home, and homeland work in a spiraling manner, invading every aspect of life and distorting the meaning of an individual’s life under military occupation.

The militarization of Palestinian space is a tactic widely used by the Israeli army, reflected in hundreds of military checkpoints, attacks on Palestinian educational institutions, and home demolitions. For example, since 1999, the Israeli army has destroyed more than 5200 Palestinian homes, leaving 25.719 Palestinian women, men, and children homeless. It has been a powerful method of imposing Israeli spatial domination and creating constant chaos that fuels the spiraling form in which militarized violence operates in the daily lives of Palestinians.

The unstructuredness of everyday life and its spiraling transgressive power are reflected in the voice and problematics of 11-year-old Mariam. Five years ago, while conducting field research, engaging with and interviewing victims of home demolitions, I noticed that one of the demolished homes belonged to Ayman, a former student of mine. A week after my interview with the family, Ayman came to visit me with his wife and daughter Mariam. He wanted my help in finding a way to alleviate the effect of the severe trauma his daughter was experiencing after the loss of the family home and their displacement.

Talking to the family, and especially the little girl, revealed to me the inseparability of the historical denials (both global and local) of the Palestinians’ right to a home and the ongoing personal trauma of Mariam, Ayman and the rest of their family. Mariam shared with me the story of the demolition of her home with much despair, pain, tears and anger. She told me how hundreds of police and military officers attacked her home in Silwan while she was sleeping. She described the large dogs ready to attack her mother, who was resisting the demolition of her home while carrying her younger brother, the loud noise of the bulldozers, the extreme horror that struck her family, and her confusion, loss of ability to speak and anger at the injustice.

Then she said, “House demolitions have become normal. Bulldozers have become normal for Jews. They have already demolished so many houses in Silwan… that the demolition of my house is normal, which makes me very upset with the world. Sick, very sick… I feel exhausted.”

Hearing such reflections and emotions from an 11-year-old girl was shocking. But research into home demolitions revealed that Mariam’s voice was one of many often unheard voices challenging the normalization of violence in conflict zones. It calls us to unpack the violence inflicted on her and to question the injustice reflected in the politics of invisibility of her loss. It draws our attention to the lack of recognition of her victimization, its “normalization,” and its legalization.

Mariam’s trauma, though unheard or unacknowledged, points to the fact that there is no production of knowledge outside of politics and the history of loss, displacement and injustice. Her rejection of the normalisation of her trauma, reflected in the politics of house demolition, highlights the fact that for feminist research, the recognition of such hidden suffering is not only a scientific necessity but also a political obligation.

This obligation moves us away from the positivist approach, which often raises questions about the legitimacy of the study in terms of sample “size,” representativeness, etc. Instead, it leads us to a different approach, one that positions people like Mariam as sources of knowledge. This raises a new set of questions that revolve around the search for justice and alleviating the pain of those who experience the “everyday” of militarization and violence. Mariam’s situation demands that feminists pay attention to research on invisibility and the invisible.

Mariam was persistent in discussing the impact that the noise, the terrifying bulldozers, and the violent military power had on her small body and her young life. She kept asking me if I knew anyone who would let her share with the world her fear of the color yellow, which reminded her of the bulldozers and her sense of loss.

However, her persistent plea to share and speak “truth to power” was interrupted by her mother’s anxious interventions. Her mother explained that if Mariam spoke to a television station, the Jewish state would deprive her of the medical treatment she needed. But Mariam remained steadfast in asking me and her father to find a way for her to tell her story. Her father began to make suggestions, but her mother—who was close to tears—said that she could not handle the further loss that might result from her telling her story. She explained that what mattered now was Mariam’s health (who developed childhood diabetes after the house demolition), not whether or not the world knew about the effects of house demolitions. She asked me, “Do you think the world cares about us? Do you think we are considered human beings in the world’s formulas of power?” Despite her mother’s words, Mariam insisted, “I want to tell the whole world what they did to us. I want to show them what they did to me.”

Mariam’s voice and her family’s long history of loss and injustice allow us to reflect on the effect of global, regional and local denial of the suffering of the invisible and rendered invisible. I refer here specifically to the Palestinian case. This requires us to look closely at how this denial and power dynamics influence the bodies and shape the lives of individuals and families living in conflict and war zones.

It illuminates the unprecedented levels of hegemonic military power involved in land occupation and asks whether and how feminist methodologies can be developed when violent transgressions, both local and global, operate in spiraling and cumulative ways, affecting the everyday acts and movements of individuals. This requires us to understand whether and how we can study “invisibility” through people’s voices when localized contexts and global power politics shift rapidly and unpredictably, leaving victims/survivors in a constant state of turmoil and confusion, and when our research carries political implications.

The spiraling nature of the transgression, evident in the prolonged suffering of Mariam's family, affected every aspect of their lives. The family lost their home in Haifa in 1948 (during the Nakba Palestinian), lived from then on in a constant state of displacement, lost contact with members of her nuclear and extended family, was deprived of social networks, adequate access to education, and was unable to find gainful employment or provide for her family’s well-being. The loss of Mariam’s home and her family’s inability to protect her from further trauma—in the context of the global failure to end the ongoing violation of Palestinian rights—worked in a spiraling manner to impact Mariam and her family economically, socially, and psychologically.

Mariam’s losses and their ramifications are reflected, for example, in her health situation and the heavy medication she is taking. This influences her eating habits, her body image and her entire future as a woman. For Mariam, being a woman in a patriarchal society like Palestine, and suffering from childhood diabetes, affects not only her physical health, but also the degree of her vulnerability as a young woman. This (as her parents explained) will further influence her ability to obtain social and economic security, access educational institutions, impact her sexuality and affect her marriage prospects.

Similar findings were evident in revealing the effect of home loss due to demolition on women’s bodily security, sexuality politics, sense of privacy, and future personal decisions. Young women, for example, explained that they had to refrain from applying to college and accepting early marriage proposals because of the heavy economic burden on their families. Others explained that they had to live with a large number of extended family members, losing their bodily security, privacy, and sense of family protection after their homes were demolished.

Thus, the spiraling way in which violence operates and affects the lives of those living under its shadow has added to the already excessive levels of force (which have been justified by what I call Israel’s security theology) and legitimized disproportionate attacks on Palestinians, disrupting their daily lives and their futures. The disruption of Palestinians’ daily lives, whether by affecting their ability to go to school, to maintain their home as a safe space, to give birth safely, or to bury their loved ones with dignity, has been justified by the alleged need to ensure “security for Israel.”

“Securing Israel” from the Palestinians, at any cost, and even if it violates international codes of morality and law, has become a new religion, a new theology that is beyond question and challenge. The security of the Israeli state, as defined by the Israeli military leadership and political elite, creates a spiral of insecurity and attacks that affect every moment of the lives of Palestinian civilians. Some of these attacks, as Mariam’s suffering exposes, are invisible, unreported, and denied recognition.

The precision, power, and efficiency of the spiraling effects of militarized violent practices have resulted in increasing threats to Mariam’s family, including the threat of continued internal displacement, exile, loss of home and family, loss of economic livelihood, and the deprivation of rights to health and education. And yet, the mode, structure, and epistemic power of this theology of security, which renders invisible the human suffering of Mariam and her family, remains indistinct and hidden.

Studying the spiral effect of legalized violence (internal displacement, deprivation of security, etc.) and the use of women’s bodies and lives to strengthen colonial bureaucracy and policies will help develop a clear and politicized feminist methodology that places women’s suffering at and as the center. My argument is that by foregrounding Israeli security voices, and reflecting the attack on bodies, homes, homelands, and lives, it would be possible to construct a critical analytical space from which to theorize a feminist methodology against colonial violence.

To strengthen my argument, I draw on the voices of women facing house demolitions, followed by the voices of women facing violations of their right to education, and conclude with some reflections on feminist methodologies and the dangers of both invisibility and visibility.

Feminist methodologies and invisibility houses in conflict zones

The daily activities of displaced Palestinian civilians are impacted by militaristic policies, manifested, among other things, in the demolitions of homes and the Israeli Separation Wall. As a result of these measures, and as stated by the women I interviewed, Palestinian women have lost their sense of security, autonomy and economic independence. The women explained that they suffer from the constant fear of losing their homes, family members and their ability to provide for their children.

The economic strangulation that prevents Palestinians from accessing schools, finding decent work, and moving freely within and between their own areas has had a profound impact on women’s bodily safety and lives. Women express fear for their own bodily safety; many of them sleep fully clothed, fearing abuse and the arrival of bulldozers to demolish their homes. The voices of Manar, Hoda, and others quoted below reveal how Israel’s militaristic policies permeate every area of ​​Palestinian life.

Manar reports: “For the past three years, after I wash at night, I have gone to bed with all my clothes on… I am afraid to even wear pajamas to bed because you never know what might happen… just ask what happened to Hoda when they tore down her house and you will understand why we sleep in all our clothes.”

Hoda describes the demolition of her home as follows: “When they demolished the house, I was still wearing my tracksuit… I only realized this when I saw the pictures in the newspaper… I was without my headscarf, and only in my tracksuit! I will never forgive them for violating my privacy and my right to safety in my own home. Because of this, to this day, I make a point of taking off my headscarf and my dishdasheh (long dress) when I am at home in my rented place. Since the demolition last year, I no longer know what it means to sleep. I feel like they have even deprived me of the right to sleep and to sleep safely.”

Nawal and Salma tell similar stories of loss and fear. In Nawal’s words: “We have lost everything – all sense of security. We can’t get water without fighting, we can’t find our parents without fighting, we can’t sleep, and we can’t scream or cry. And even if we do, no one listens. Although both my husband and I are from Jerusalem, our children are not, and they don’t have identity cards… They are all under constant threat. We have lost all sense of security. Sometimes I feel like being a dog or a cat is safer than being Palestinian.”

According to Salma: “Safety is our main concern. Our children face sexual harassment every day on their way to school. Three months ago, someone tried to kidnap my six-year-old daughter, and I had no one to turn to for help. They refuse to secure the streets and there is no public transport. So we end up walking in unsafe areas, and our children end up walking to school on unsafe roads.”

For Hoda, talking to me about her struggles was an opportunity to share her experiences and express her feelings in her own language, rather than “as a legal expert.” She repeatedly stated that her problem is not the legality or illegality of her demolished home, but rather “the illegality of my existence… so do you have a law that checks whether I should exist, whether my family should live or not? Could you write my questions into your survey?”

Feminist methodologies and homes of invisibility in conflict zones

The daily activities of displaced Palestinians are impacted by military police, manifested in, among other ways, the demolition of homes and the destruction of the Israeli Separation Wall. As a result of these measures, and as stated by the women I interviewed, Palestinian women have lost their sense of security, autonomy and economic independence. They reported that they suffer from the constant fear of losing their homes, family members and the ability to provide for their children.

The economic stranglehold that prevents Palestinians from attending school, finding decent jobs, and moving freely within and between their own areas has had a profound impact on the physical security and lives of these women. They express fear for their physical safety; many sleep fully clothed, fearing abuse and the arrival of bulldozers that could demolish their homes. The voices of Manar, Hoda, and the other women quoted below reveal how Israel’s militaristic policies permeate every area of ​​Palestinian life.

Manar reports: “For the past three years, after I wash at night, I have gone to bed with all my clothes on… I am afraid to even wear pajamas to bed, because you never know what might happen… Ask Hoda what happened when they tore down her house, and you will understand why we sleep fully clothed.”

Hoda describes the demolition of her home as follows: “When they demolished the house, I was still in my workout clothes… I only realized this when I saw the pictures in the newspaper… I was without a veil and only in my workout clothes! I will never forgive them for violating my privacy and my right to safety in my own home. Because of this, to this day, I refuse to take off my veil and dishdasheh [long dress] when I am in my rented house. Since the demolition last year, I don’t know what it means to sleep. I feel like they have deprived me of even the right to sleep and sleep safely.”

Nawal and Salma tell similar stories of loss and fear. In Nawal’s words: “We have lost everything – all sense of security. We cannot get water without fighting, we cannot find our parents without fighting, we cannot sleep, we cannot scream or cry. And even if we do, no one listens. Although both my husband and I are Jerusalemites, our children are not, and they do not have identity cards… All of them are under constant threat. We have lost all sense of security. Sometimes I feel that being a dog or a cat is safer than being Palestinian.”

According to Salma: “Safety is our main concern. Our children face sexual harassment on their way to school every day, every day. Three months ago, someone tried to kidnap my six-year-old daughter, and I had no one to turn to for help. They refuse to secure the streets and there is no public transport. So we end up walking in unsafe areas and our children end up walking to school on unsafe roads.”

For Hoda, talking to me about her own struggles was an opportunity to share her experiences and vent in her own language, rather than “as a legal expert.” She repeatedly stated that her issue was not the legality or illegality of the demolition of her home, but rather “the illegality of my existence… so do you have a law that checks whether I should exist, whether my family should live or not? Could you write my questions into your survey?”

Hoda, along with her neighbors, raised questions and requested that their concerns be brought to the attention of the world. Her constant use of phrases such as “No one sees or hears us” and “we are not considered human beings” led me to realize the importance of developing a feminist methodology that engages with invisibility as a central space for understanding the unseen and unheard.

Hoda, like other Palestinian women I interviewed, stressed that the attack on Palestinian homes is a deliberate strategy of war. It alters gender roles, causes physical displacement, destroys social networks and tears the social fabric. It leads to changes in gender roles, intergenerational clashes and undermines social values.[I]. Under these conditions, cultural roots, religious and spiritual beliefs act as psychological buffers that help women survivors to shape and reshape their subjectivity to reduce risks. The fact that the home (both physically and emotionally) is a place of resistance, survival and a source of voice for women, reconstructs new meanings.

As Samar put it: “My house was the family home; it was the place where we gathered the whole family on Fridays, the place where most of our relatives came for help when they were in trouble… it was a place where we gathered in happy and sad times… during weddings, during births, when we lost someone, when someone was released from prison… it was the place where I felt happy… in control, loved, appreciated, respected… a place to talk, cry, share, meet, relax, fight. I was so proud of my house, so strong and energetic… Now… it feels like a graveyard… they buried all our energy and solidarity… now… we are divided and very lost.” Samar, 58 years old.

Within Israel’s heavily oppressive militarist regime, the home is one of the few places where Palestinian women can find solace. As the only place of refuge, the home is a place for personal growth and community building. As such, it is a site of opposition within a military-state patriarchy and a place where Palestinian women can protect themselves from the “dual spheres of racism and sexism.”[ii]

I argue that feminist methodologies in conflict zones must be attentive to the meaning that certain spaces carry, such as the meaning of the space of the home. The voices of Palestinian women revealed that the home represents a place of welcome that facilitates their development. The home was found to be the only place of refuge. It is a space for identity formation and community building. The home, as we learned from Palestinian women, serves as a safe space that they created in the face of a history and life in forced diaspora. For them, the home became not only a place of personal cultivation, but also a space of political resistance and agency.

Losing their home means losing the space where they can safely develop into stronger, more independent individuals amid constant uncertainty and violence. It means losing the space that affirmed their power to love and care, regardless of the strangling Palestinian economy, the unending losses and deprivations, and the global denial of these realities.

It means losing the only space where they can restore their dignity, denied by power structures and their industrialized theology of security. While the home for some Palestinian women may be what conventional feminist theories conceive of as a site of oppression and subordination, it is also the only space that affirms their humanity in an inhumane and brutal global and local context. As a site of “personal/political resistance,” the private space of the home takes on greater importance for women who are victims of military violence and constant displacement.

Similarly, my study of the effects of the Israeli Separation Wall on Palestinian school-aged girls revealed how their daily struggle and torment to pass through military checkpoints and the Wall became a serious concern and source of distress for them. Their fears of being sexually abused and harassed, their worries of being left waiting for hours in the cold or under the sun, their denial of the right to access their schools, which led to missed exams and interrupted school attendance, were found to be factors that militarized their spaces and violated their right to education.

However, examining the daily struggles of girls and the ramifications of the violation of their right to education are topics that have been lost in the legal, global and media discussions about the legality or illegality of the Wall’s construction. The plight of girls and their voices have been rendered invisible, not only by the Israeli occupation and its supporters, but in some cases even by human rights activists who have used legal and human rights discourse to emphasize the illegality of the Wall’s construction and the unjust home demolitions, while turning a blind eye to the trauma of the Wall’s construction.[iii]

But by studying and engaging with the daily experiences of women and girls, I learned how violent conflicts have affected their daily lives, the way they act, dress, plan their future, make decisions, get married, etc. I learned that in some cases, parents have decided to prevent girls from continuing their education, fearing the effect of military checkpoints on their safety. In other cases, girls have been unable to cope with the daily humiliations and suffering and have decided to drop out of school; in still others, girls have accepted early marriage to escape daily oppression.

Developing methodologies that are capable of reading, hearing, and seeing the unseen requires looking to those who have been rendered invisible—in our case, Palestinian women—as sources of invisible knowledge about the role and value of a secure home amid ongoing instability. The continued invisibility of women’s suffering contributes to the failure to understand the effects of militarization and thus exacerbates the effect of instability and chaos during times of danger and trauma in conflict zones where uncertainty and disruption of life prevail.

Researching this invisibility allowed me to challenge the epistemic violence of hegemonic knowledge production, which claimed that the Wall was built to “safeguard” and “protect” lives. It brought to light an ongoing ‘necropolitics’, an economy of life and death that dictates whose lives should be safeguarded and protected, and who the uncounted ‘others’ are. Listening to the voices of young girls allowed me to unpack the implications of colonialism, militarization, hegemonic ideologies and war on our methodologies. It opened new windows of empowerment and research on invisibility. It brought to the forefront of research, as well as to the forefront of conflict, the importance of investigating the lack of access to hospitals and schools as a deliberate way of intensifying the fragmentation of Palestinian society.

The Ever-Shifting Power of Spiraling Transgressions

In my study on the nature of gender in education,[iv] I have shown how everyday militarism and violence affect the way young girls access their schools. The study quotes Reem, a 13-year-old girl who shared the following story: “I really want to keep going to school, but the soldiers and the Mishmar Hagvul [border patrol] keep harassing me and my family. As you can see, we live very close—one minute away—to the racist separation wall, and the soldiers don’t bother me on the way to school, but they don’t allow me to go back home. Now I am sneaking home from school through the sewer pipes that are still open. Every time they refuse to let me go back home, they know that I will either walk more than three miles or sneak through the sewer pipes.”

Reem’s voice reveals how her time, space, and route to school were violated on a daily basis. Her testimony speaks to her everyday challenges as well as her acts of resistance and agency. Yet Reem’s suffering is rarely seen or known, and her daily encounters, like those of many women and men living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), are largely invisible. The encounter between Israeli state violence and Palestinian civilian women is colonial in nature, a construction of domination through practices of violence directed at the colonized body, home, and homeland. Colonial encounters, including violent evictions, claims that the land is empty, and the supposed need to save the colonized from their own “backward” culture and lack of civility, affect the everyday acts of the colonized.

The colonial power holders have confined Palestinians to specific spaces in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and created a new colonial administration. People’s movements and lives are under the control of the colonial regime. Border management within Palestinian spaces is also under its administration. Ghettoized spaces are created for the Palestinian “other,” controlled by military checkpoints, new zoning and planning laws, and the creation of spaces and roads for settlers, both conceptually and materially. Consequently, the Palestinian body, home, school, time and space, and their everyday acts are racialized and gendered.

A case of a counter-space,[v] created in opposition to the demolished home, was found in Iqbal’s account. She tells of the night her home was demolished with only thirty minutes’ warning: “They came, with their big bulldozers, cars, police forces… many soldiers with their guns pointed at my children… and the noise… their voices, their Hebrew language that no one understood, made me feel like I was in a whirlwind [dawameh]. I was running around like crazy, between calming the children down, afraid they would be shot, collecting our papers, documents, birth certificates… collecting the gold that the children had received as gifts from their grandparents… I was trying to gather everything in such a hurry… and when they said they were about to demolish the house, Salim, my four-year-old son [he was less than two at the time] was nowhere to be found. I thought he was inside the house and I started screaming… screaming and screaming. But he was right next to me, holding my deshdasheh [a loose-fitting house dress]… When they started to demolish the house, I hugged him with his sisters… I wrapped everyone in my deshdasheh and we all cried. To this day, the girls still remember how the whole family stood wrapped in my dirty deshdasheh, crying like we had never cried before, we cried and cried while our hearts were on fire.”[vi]

Examining invisibility in Iqbal’s act allows us to expand our understanding of world politics to include the personal suffering of “others” as constitutive of previously invisible spheres, and to conceive of women’s acts of resistance and agency as counter-hegemonic acts that function under a severe and spiraling transgression. Studying invisibility in the context of spiraling transgressions in conflict zones raises crucial feminist/political and ethical questions that cannot be ignored. Developing a feminist methodology that recognizes and makes visible the sufferings of women in conflict zones is both an epistemological and political move, a means of transforming methodology into a political act of resistance to subjugation.

Studying the home and educational space as sites of invisibility but also as sources of knowledge reveals the spiraling and intricate connection between internal (personal, familial, community) and structural/political-economic factors. As the Palestinian case studies have indicated (and as can be seen in many conflict zones), the localized institutionalization of violence and peace has facilitated our understanding of the effect of localized global militarism on women’s everyday lives. Engaging with women’s voices has revealed how displacement, home demolitions, deprivation of education, and loss are an overt and deliberate strategy of war.

The silencing and invisibilization of displaced Palestinians since the Nakba The 1948 (Palestinian catastrophe) and the spiraling effect of physical and emotional dislocation, including the destruction of entire communities, have led to dramatic changes in the behavior of women and girls, the loss of certain values ​​and the acquisition of new ones. For example, making visible how women shape and reshape their subjectivity to reduce risk under extreme violence can be revealing for researchers in conflict zones. Revealing the silenced and invisible global effect of deprivation of education, security, certainty and predictability, and the everydayness of violence, through a critical feminist methodology, is a feminist and political act. Such a methodology allows us to understand how the personal and the familial hold life together and help women preserve the humanity of their loved ones.

In order to develop a feminist methodology for the politics of invisibility, I have attempted to uncover the daily experiences of Palestinian women and the effect that spiral transgression has on them (as well as on other Palestinians), and their rights to housing and education, as well as free access to see their families, attend school, have health care, water, food, etc. This process of uncovering helps us to uncover the hierarchies of hidden and visible violence. Knowing and making visible the “invisible” spiral transgressions of Palestinian women requires us to look at the roots of the historical injustice inflicted on Palestinians and to juxtapose this with the ongoing effect of militarist and colonialist violence.

It is a process that forces us to question the relationship between her identity politics as a Palestinian refugee, the politics of “invisibilization” of her rights, causes, needs and daily suffering, and the geopolitics of the colonial project as reflected in the spatial politics of land grabbing, displacement and housing demolitions. Analyzing the relationship between identity politics, geopolitics and the politics of invisibility requires that we analyze their effect on the daily encounters of Palestinian women living in a context of global denial of their basic rights to life and subsistence. Analyses of the everyday require reading the “invisibility” of colonized women through the political organizations in their daily lives. This means that we must look at what is being imposed and projected onto specific bodies and lives.

Developing a feminist methodology that reveals the invisibility of women’s everyday acts of resistance requires that we first uncover the technologies of domination, such as control over bodily safety, water, food, electricity, and movement. It requires uncovering the control over spaces, places, time, economies, and development; all of which are employed by the invading colonialist regime. Such a methodology asks us to read the counter-languages, counter-actions, and counter-spaces created by the colonized and occupied in resisting oppression. It also requires a reading of the spiraling, constant, and ever-shifting power of the colonizer’s technologies of domination.

Feminist methodology and the dangers of invisibility and visibility

This article argues that feminism’s failure to develop methodologies that make the invisible visible is not only an academic issue, but also a political one that requires careful analysis of history and justice. I argue that there is a grave danger in both making women’s sufferings invisible and visible, and in the spiraling effect of everyday violence against women in conflict zones.

Such an argument leads us to reflect on questions such as: What is the price of not connecting with women’s suffering and their cry for historical justice? What is the price of not acting on the everydayness of their experiences, denying women a space for their theories? What is the price of publicizing women in conflict zones without allowing them to speak ‘truth to power’ through research? What is the price of failing to make the invisible visible? What is the effect of the trauma of silencing? These are all relevant questions that need further investigation.

Sociological analyses of visibility[vii] point to the importance of studying asymmetries and distortions of visibility when these are the norm, and suggest that these issues should be incorporated into critical feminist methodology. Furthermore, I propose that such asymmetries transform the issue of visibility-invisibility into a field of strategy and politics, thus requiring a political, methodological and linguistic counterpart.

A methodology that proposes to trace the archaeology of women's “invisible” resistance in conflict zones helps us to unravel the production of Western knowledge engendered, whether in traumatology, which tends to pathologize acts of resistance[viii], in human rights, which needs to use legal regulatory discourses and, thus, legalizes and depoliticizes inhuman acts[ix], or in criminology and victimology, which are deeply influenced by those who control the production of knowledge and its academic dominance.

The hidden/silenced voices of Palestinian women teach us that developing a feminist methodology that investigates invisibility requires that we also question how, why, and when visibility intersects with perceptions of danger and ‘safety’. This requires us to look at and engage with how women’s marginality intersects with their ‘dangerousness’ as Palestinians, and how the Israeli state constructs a theology of security that operates at every level of everyday life to silence and invisibilize women’s voices.

Connecting the dots between the politics of making the visible invisible and understanding the workings of power in normalizing or denying this invisibility, as evidenced by the voices of Palestinian women living in conflict zones, brings us back to where we started. It brings us back to analyzing the effect of local and global politics of denial on understanding the politics of researching “invisibility” and the invisible in conflict and war zones. It invites us to more closely investigate the politics of seeing and hearing, as we map the terrifying landscape in which order, regularity, predictability, routine, and everydayness itself are organized in militarized zones. This helps us develop a critical feminist methodology that documents and engages in the everyday acts of resistance/survival of “invisible” women living in conflict zones.

Furthermore, the formation and management of visibility and invisibility raises questions such as: who are the women in conflict zones who should or should not be seen and why. It also requires us to unravel the regime of invisibility. Visibility is an operation of power, controlled and operated by politics and knowledge production, when the invisible is not static or absolute, but rather a hidden power holder who must be feared.[X].

Researching the invisible trauma of Palestinians as they lose their homes and homelands and as they survive constant danger and uncertainty requires looking at the interconnected connections between the spiraling transgressions of trauma and invisibility in the historical context of racism and invisibilizing, globalized power politics. To understand the silenced voices of girls who are deprived of their right to education, or to understand the meaning of homelessness for Palestinian women, one must study the invisibility of their stories, of the global denial of their rights, as well as the invisibility of their psychological traumas as girls and women facing ongoing injustices.

The women’s voices shared in this article also present a challenge to the role of international politics in denying justice to Palestinians, by highlighting how women’s daily private lives are intimately tied to the global politics of seeing one side while rendering the other “invisible.” Therefore, studying invisibility requires both a macro and micro analysis of the global political economy, to link women’s private lives to the global power play. Studying invisibility can help us detect claims of ‘security’ that can further silence the unseen.

Studying women and their families in times of militarization and displacement, when the body, the future, the home and the family are threatened, can sometimes disrupt the production of hegemonic knowledge. The question remains whether such disruption could be considered a form of feminist political action. Reading and writing about invisibility often helps to prevent women from losing their achievements in the daily struggle for survival. Whether such a methodology would be empowering or transformative for women in extreme situations of violence is a question that remains unanswered.

Two final questions remain unanswered: What is the price of exposing the invisible experiences of Palestinian women? Who would pay the price of this visibility? And would visibility add insult to injury and inflict additional trauma and loss? Drawing on my clinical activism and the research shared in this article on home demolitions and the militarization of education, I would like to argue that in some cases, women themselves exercise the right to remain silent and choose to live in the dark in an effort to negotiate their survival strategies.

These refusals to speak out must not only be taken into account, but also respected and protected, because – as I have argued elsewhere in my research on women facing sexual abuse in Palestine[xi] – women are not vehicles for political activism, research, or change. Our first and most important ethical and political commitment as feminists must be to be guided by women’s judgments, silences, speeches, and choices. For me, being a feminist means not only bringing or not bringing to light the power and meanings inherent in silence and speech; it also means being responsive and responsible for the ways we engage, write, read, and not write or make visible the hidden voices of those who are surviving in the dark and dealing with injustice on a daily basis.

Notions of academic ‘truths’ and our engagement with those we study in the context of the politics of invisibility and accountability carry complicated ethical and political meanings and ideologies. The stories of women and girls like Mariam’s made me question the role of developing a methodology that can make the invisible visible and write about the injustices done to the “invisible” in the midst of a volatile and violent conflict.

Women may need to remain invisible, and their decision to deny voice to their knowledge, and prevent their narratives from seeing the light of day, should guide our constructions. But we must not forget that it is at the intimate level of Mariam’s “invisible” life of suffering, and with attention to everyday details, that we can develop a feminist methodology that investigates invisibility and understands in depth the effect of the power of spiral transgressions on women’s lives.

For, as Mbembe states: “power, in its own violent search for greatness and prestige, makes vulgarity and error its primary mode of existence.”[xii]. Consequently, it is this intimacy of experience and the obscenity of power – as Mbembe defines it – that we must try to uncover when researching “invisibility.”[xiii]

*Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian is a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Author of, among other books, Militarization and violence against women in conflict zones in the Middle East: The Palestinian case-study (Cambridge University Press).

Translation: Flavia Eduarda Gomes Hebling & Luisa Bortolato Elias.

Notes


[I] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2005), op.cit.

[ii] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2008), op.cit.

[iii] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, & S. Khsheiboun, “Forbidden voices: Palestinian women facing the Israeli policy of house demolition,” Women's Studies International Forum (2009).

[iv] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2008), op.cit.

[v] Definition of this concept by Ruy-Moreira.

[vi] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (2005), op.cit., 133.

[vii] A. Brighenti, “Visibility: A Category for Social Science,” Current Sociology, 55(3) (2007): 323- 342.

[viii] I. Martín-Baró,Writings for a Liberation Psychology. Ed.Ignacio Martín-Baró Ed and trans. A.Aron & S.Corne (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press: 1996).

[ix] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian & S. Khsheiboun, (2009), op. cit.

[X] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Education and the Israeli Industry of Fear,” in Education in the Arab Region: Global Dynamics, Local Resonances, World Yearbook of Education, Routledge, 2009.

[xi] Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Blocking her exclusion: A contextually sensitive model of intervention for handling female abuse,” Social Service Review 74 (4), (2004): 620-634 and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Imposition of Virginity Testing: a Life-Saver or a License to Kill. Social Science and Medicine,” V 60 (2004): 1187-1196. 2.453; 6, 4/28.

[xii] A. Mbembe, “The Banality of Power and the Aesthetics of Vulgarity in the Postcolony, Public Culture 4(2) (1992): 1-30.

[xiii] I would like to thank Sarah Layton for her assistance with this article.


the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE