SSC Seminar Series: Elia Zureik

Elia Zureik, Professor emeritus
Sociology, Queen's University
Co-investigator, The New Transparency

Colonialism as Surveillance: The Case of Israel/Palestine

Wednesday, March 21
12:30pm to 2:00pm
Location: Mac-Corry Room D411, Queen's University

Settler colonialism is intrinsically associated with the dispossession of indigenous populations through violence, repressive state laws and practices, and racialised forms of monitoring (currently referred to as racial profiling in the language of surveillance studies) that have become essential tools of governance today. Three elements concern us in this presentation. First, we intend to discuss the implications of biopolitics in a colonial context as a technology of power whose main concern is the state’s management of its population. The second feature that concerns us and complements the first is the place of territory in the exercise of surveillance and control in colonial states. Control determines individual (im)mobility, access to land, use of time, economic viability, and indeed life chances. As will be demonstrated in this study, biopolitics and territoriality intersect at various levels to advance the state’s racialised agenda, and the application of western derived colonial law to facilitate the seizure of territory, dispossession of indigenous people, and population transfer. Third, the presentation will discuss the place of state security and state of exception as facilitators of colonial control. Finally, we explore the intersection among these three elements and the possibility of indigenous resistance.

Everyone welcome!