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Contested Terrain: How the Israeli Occupation's Spatial Violence Shapes Palestinian Resistance in Masafer Yatta

Woods, Ina Louise Degn LU (2025) SGEM08 20251
Department of Human Geography
Abstract
This thesis examines how Palestinian grassroots resistance in Masafer Yatta, the occupied West Bank, is affected by Israeli military occupation and how this reshapes the emotional geographies of the region. Focusing on space and territory, it analyses how Israeli state and settler strategies of displacement, surveillance and fragmentation are met by Palestinian community practices of Sumud (steadfastness) built on situated knowledge. Based on fieldwork, including spatial data, visual documentation and interviews with residents and activists, the research explores resistance against intensified dispossession. Israeli settler colonialism in Masafer Yatta is viewed as a structural project aiming for territorial control and elimination, using... (More)
This thesis examines how Palestinian grassroots resistance in Masafer Yatta, the occupied West Bank, is affected by Israeli military occupation and how this reshapes the emotional geographies of the region. Focusing on space and territory, it analyses how Israeli state and settler strategies of displacement, surveillance and fragmentation are met by Palestinian community practices of Sumud (steadfastness) built on situated knowledge. Based on fieldwork, including spatial data, visual documentation and interviews with residents and activists, the research explores resistance against intensified dispossession. Israeli settler colonialism in Masafer Yatta is viewed as a structural project aiming for territorial control and elimination, using spatial violence like land reclassification, demolitions and hindering of movement. Decolonial methodologies and theories are applied to analyse how everyday acts like maintaining presence, adaptive domesticity, strengthening social cohesion, and counter-narration resist settler-colonial strategies. The occupation creates landscapes of fear, but fear becomes pragmatic caution and embodied spatial literacy coexisting with steadfastness. By centring Palestinian voices, the thesis highlights occupation as profoundly spatial and emotional and resistance as continually enacted through collective practice and reclamation. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Woods, Ina Louise Degn LU
supervisor
organization
course
SGEM08 20251
year
type
H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
subject
keywords
Settler-colonialism, Palestine, tactics of ethnic cleansing, social cohesion, resistance methods
language
English
id
9197737
date added to LUP
2025-06-12 15:36:18
date last changed
2025-06-19 15:34:50
@misc{9197737,
  abstract     = {{This thesis examines how Palestinian grassroots resistance in Masafer Yatta, the occupied West Bank, is affected by Israeli military occupation and how this reshapes the emotional geographies of the region. Focusing on space and territory, it analyses how Israeli state and settler strategies of displacement, surveillance and fragmentation are met by Palestinian community practices of Sumud (steadfastness) built on situated knowledge. Based on fieldwork, including spatial data, visual documentation and interviews with residents and activists, the research explores resistance against intensified dispossession. Israeli settler colonialism in Masafer Yatta is viewed as a structural project aiming for territorial control and elimination, using spatial violence like land reclassification, demolitions and hindering of movement. Decolonial methodologies and theories are applied to analyse how everyday acts like maintaining presence, adaptive domesticity, strengthening social cohesion, and counter-narration resist settler-colonial strategies. The occupation creates landscapes of fear, but fear becomes pragmatic caution and embodied spatial literacy coexisting with steadfastness. By centring Palestinian voices, the thesis highlights occupation as profoundly spatial and emotional and resistance as continually enacted through collective practice and reclamation.}},
  author       = {{Woods, Ina Louise Degn}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Contested Terrain: How the Israeli Occupation's Spatial Violence Shapes Palestinian Resistance in Masafer Yatta}},
  year         = {{2025}},
}