Epistemic stakes in the spatial politics of Palestine

Since early 2024, I have been coordinating the open-access curriculum Palestine: Spaces and Politics. The project emerged through an intensive dialogical process between academics engaged in the Arab Urbanism platform. Despite varied disciplinary approaches, we shared a research interest in postcolonial spatial politics. Particularly, we were concerned that growing demand for critical analysis on Palestine’s built and natural environments was largely consumed by settler colonial perspectives rooted in ethnic separation, border-making, indigenous dispossession, and land commodification. As significant as these analyses are, they do not clarify the multiplicity of Palestine and Palestinians, nor respond to research concerns and needs produced through internal critique.