WASTE SIEGE: THE LIFE OF INFRASTRUCTURE IN PALESTINE

THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2021 - 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM

Presented by the Center for Middle East Studies.

This talk with Bard college professor Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins offers an analysis unusual in the study of Palestine: it begins with the environmental, infrastructural, and aesthetic context in which Palestinians forge their lives, naming that context a “waste siege.” She argues that to speak of waste siege is to describe a series of conditions, from smelling wastes to negotiating military infrastructures, from biopolitical forms of colonial rule to experiences of governmental abandonment, from obvious targets of resistance to confusion over responsibility for the burdensome objects of daily life. She focuses on waste as an experience of everyday life that is continuous with, but not a result only of, occupation.

This event is free and takes place on Zoom.