The environmental impact of the war in Gaza might seem of little importance in comparison to the humanitarian atrocities of the unfolding genocide. Yet, images showing the debris resulting from the destruction or damage of more than 100,000 buildings in Gaza remind us that the consequences of the war in terms of illnesses and premature mortality will extend for years after the conflict has ended. In which way does waste shape forms of sociality, politics, and self-understanding for people living in conditions of war and occupation? How can material practices help to trace and make legible the political, environmental, and social affordance of waste in these contexts? The two-part event will address these questions with a workshop and a public lecture. The workshop and the lecture inform each other, but they respond to different aims. Interested people may decide to follow both or just one of them.

The workshop (upon registration) focuses on the ways material practices can become tools to investigate the political ecologies of waste in contexts of non-sovereignty. Combining theoretical reflections with material practices from arts and design, the conversation will unfold around six key concepts with the aim of refining and possibly expanding the methodological tools of the participants.

In the public lecture, the invited speakers will introduce the notion and theory of waste siege and discuss how waste in Palestine is a weaponized materiality that impinges on and interweaves with (the loss of) historical crafts and knowledges, industrialized modes of production, as well as forms of sociality and self-understanding under Israeli occupation.

Practical information

Workshop: 7 May 2024, 17:00-20:00. Online.

Led by Sakeb (Mariam Dahabreh and Raghad Saqfalhait) and Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins (Associate Professor of Anthropology, Bard College).

To ensure a dynamic and collaborative learning environment, the workshop requires some preliminary preparation and reading. For the same reason, participation is limited. Please register by sending an email to g.bellinetti@uva.nl.