Necropolitics in Palestine: a socio-spatial analysis of practices of suspended death and grassroots resistance.

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This doctoral research examines the colonial spatial and socialconfigurations of death in Occupied Palestine. The researchhas two key objectives: 1) to analyse the settler-colonialmobilisation of suspended death as an instrument that targetsPalestinian social and political life; and 2) to critically examineforms of Palestinian grassroots resistance to necropoliticalformations (e.g., in collective mourning rituals).My focus will begin with archival and legal research toreconstruct a historical account of British and Israeli practices ofdetaining dead Palestinian and Arab bodies as a tool for socialdivision. I will document the ways that detaining the dead hasbeen practiced by colonial forces in Palestine since 1945. I willthen deploy visual mapping, 3D modelling, and geolocationanalysis to examine clandestine sites - commonly known as"Cemeteries of Numbers" - where deceased Palestinian andArab bodies are still detained by the Israeli military. This part willconsist of ethnographic fieldwork informed by Palestiniangrassroots initiatives that seek to locate and retrieve thesebodies. My involvement will be conducted at a safe distance,comprising remote and field investigations into such sites and intheir geopolitical, spatial and social contexts.This conceptually and methodologically innovative project willcontribute to wider geographical debates on colonialism anddecolonising by producing a detailed, site-specific study thatinvestigates the wider phenomenon of colonial necropolitics, amode of governing whose prevalence has grown significantly inthe "postcolonial" world.