Excerpt: In the introduction, she identifies her theoretical framework for studying Palestine as “a modern settler colonial context” (2). In the oPt, access to space, and therefore mobility, derives from racialized categories of ethnicity, religion, nationality, place of origin, and residency, as well as an expanding/contracting expanse (the former for newly installed Israelis, the latter for indigenous Palestinians). Zionism, she points out, is now ever more commonly seen as a form of settler colonialism in which land and water resources are expropriated for the use of the colonials while the indigenous population is either expelled or contained rather than, in classical colonial fashion, incorporated as a labor force. Indeed, the publication of this book and others in the field illustrates the shift in political and conceptual understandings of Palestine/Israel in the world academy from a “conflict” to a “settler colonial” focus. Endowed since 2011 with its own scholarly journal (Settler Colonial Studies), this classical field has increasingly concentrated on contemporary examples, among which Israel/Palestine figures prominently.
