« Biopolitical settler colonialism: Dawit Tesfay Haile, ‘Settler colonial biopolitics at the border: a transnational entanglement of law, medical sciences, and migration control at Ellis Island’, Settler Colonial Studies, 2026

Belabouring the labour of Palestinian labour: Anonymous, ‘Superfluous Labor: The Settler Colonial “Turn” in the Study of Palestine’, Qui Parle (2026) 35, 1, 2026, pp. 121-163

03Oct26

Abstract: No one following the critical academic study of Palestine and Israel over the past decade and a half could fail to observe the dramatic proliferation of the category of settler colonialism. This article examines the intellectual historical conceit of one prominent strand, those studies taking after Patrick Wolfe’s influential theorization. Where many scholars observe a renewal or return to an earlier tradition of studying Zionism, the author argues that recent developments represent a paradigmatic turn. This is, moreover, often a highly “motivated” interpretation that aims for the history to adhere to the preferred theoretical schema (specifically, the superfluity of native labor to the settler economy), rather than striving to incorporate the unfolding of a dynamic struggle and its contemporary analysis. To demonstrate this shortcoming, the article then samples a selection of English- and Arabic-language sources from the apparent interim in the theorization of Zionist settler colonialism. These works, responsive to their conjuncture between the June War and the First Intifada, not only deploy many concepts and theories that are illegible in the Wolfean paradigm but also demonstrate a concerted recovery of the history and struggles of the Palestinian working class and their relevance to the struggle for national liberation.


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