Are you interested in engaging with Palestine in an academic setting?
In this upper-level course students will explore the social and spatial transformations that have occurred in Palestine throughout history and examine how these have shaped the geographies of Palestine today. This seminar offers an in-depth exploration of the Palestinian experience with Zionist settler-colonialism. There will be an opportunity to discuss the ties between Palestine and other colonized peoples and nations across the globe.
“This seminar offers a unique opportunity for students to critically explore the socio-spatial transformations of Palestine, examining its history and present through the frameworks of settler-colonialism and national liberation. Students will analyze how Palestine’s social, political, and economic geography has been shaped by multiscalar colonial and imperial processes and how resistance has emerged in response,” says seminar co-coordinator Hammad Jabr.
This self-directed human geography seminar is led by senior undergraduate students under the supervision of Dr. Peter Hudson. Hammad Jabr is an Honours student in Human Geography with minor in International Relations and Joshua Bransford is a double major in Political Science and Human Geography.
“Our roles are more as facilitators—we aim to create a space where students can engage with the material in the syllabus in a collective setting and produce knowledge about Palestine together. Collaboration is a central component of the course. We know students taking this course will bring their own invaluable knowledge and lived experience to the space, and we are just as excited to learn from them as we are to facilitate it,” says Bransford.
This seminar uses a geographic lens to understand the social and historical production of Palestine as a geographical place embedded in and understood through a series of interlocking geographical scales, including the body, the city, the nation, and the region. The seminar will provide students with a comprehensive understanding of the various actors, ideologies, processes, and arrangements of power relations that have produced and continue to reproduce Palestine as a fractured, colonized, and contested geography. Students will be introduced to two analytical frameworks—settler colonialism and national liberation—to explore three central concepts/themes—land, demography, and capital. These will be used to analyze the socio-spatial dynamics ongoing in the land of Palestine.
“This course will draw on connections between global social, economic, and political systems and what is currently happening in Palestine and what has happened there over the course of its history. We aim to show how the geography of Palestine, which is unique in many ways, is a product of global processes that implicate all of us. It is not simply a regional issue far away.” says Jabr and Bransford
Admission is with permission of the instructor and preference will be given to students in the Faculty of Arts. Familiarity with geographical concepts is an asset. Please email peter.hudson@ubc.ca to request registration.
