Colonial Dispossession, Developmental Discourses, and Humanitarian solidarity in ‘Area C’: The Case of the Palestinian Yanun Village

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Yanun village, which was categorized as part of ‘Area C’ by the Oslo accords, this article analyses the collusion of the mainstream hegemonic developmental discourse with the colonial project in colonized Palestine. It also analyses the politics of and limitations of contemporary forms of international solidarity with Palestinian communities in ‘Area C’. The article situates the devastating life conditions of Yanun community within the Zionist settler colonial project in Palestine with its ongoing structural and violent forms of dispossession, land appropriation, expulsion and displacement of Palestinians, particularly in ‘Area C’, which constitutes the current frontier for Zionist settler colonial expansionism. By examining Yanun community’s survival tactics, the article illustrates how the hegemonic developmental discourse on ‘Area C’ constitutes the masses of Palestinians as subjects of humanitarian aid. The article also shows how the humanitarian approach of solidarity with Yanun’s community constitutes the condition of Palestinian victimhood, cancels its anticolonial agency, and patronizes its forms of anticolonial resistance by employing the tactics of eye witnessing Palestinians’ life under occupation and employing the language of non-violence.