The 'Settler Colonial' Framework and Its Limits in Israel/Palestine

Join us for a conversation about the application of the 'Settler Colonial' framework to Israel/Palestine with Dr Rachel Busbridge, Dr Teodora Todorova, and Dr Marcelo Svirsky moderated by Dr Jack Shield. Our three panelists will discuss how this framework can help shed light on the nature of the violence unfolding in Palestine as well as the limitations of applying this framework to a region that has a colonial history unlike any other.

This event is the third in a series of panels entitled Violence in Palestine and Israel and the second event hosted by the United Nations Association of Australia Queensland Division. This panel is the last one of 2024, but the series will continue in early 2025.

Dr Rachel Busbridge is a senior lecturer of sociology at the Australian Catholic University, Melbourne and an editor for the journal, Thesis Eleven. Her research interests include social and political theory, nationalism, postcolonialism and urban politics. She is the author of two books – Multicultural Politics of Recognition and Postcolonial Citizenship: Rethinking the Nation (2018) and How Local Governments Govern Cultural War Conflicts (2020 – co-authored with Mark Chou). She has published on the settler colonial “turn” in studying Israel/Palestine, as well as the politics of bi-nationalism. She is currently working on her third book, entitled Postcolonialism and Political Theory for Polity Press.

Dr Teodora Todorova is an Assistant Professor of sociology at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Her work touches on theories and practices of ethico-political responsibility in the context of nationalist conflict. She has published on post-conflict resolution in Bosnia-Herzegovina, commemoration of the Nakba, and decolonial solidarity in Palestine. Her latest book, entitled Decolonial Solidarity in Palestine-Israel: Settler Colonialism and Resistance from Within was published in 2021 by Bloomsbury.

Dr Marcelo Svirsky is a senior lecturer at the University of Wollongong, Australia. He researches settler-colonial societies – Israel-Palestine in particular – and is focused on questions of social transformation and decolonisation. He is the author of numerous books on Israel-Palestine, the latest of which, From Shared Life to Co-Resistance in Historic Palestine (2017 – co-authored with Ronnen Ben-Arie), examines the elimination of a shared Jewish-Arab sociability in the creation of the state of Israel and the implications for present struggles in defying Israel’s Zionist regime.

Dr Jack Shield, who will be moderating this discussion, is a casual academic at the University of Queensland, Australia, where he teaches and researches. His thesis was a long-range intellectual history project, exploring how certain leading nationalists conceived of international order at moments of transformation. At UQ, he has taught courses on terrorism and insurgency, media and world politics, and foreign policy – at one point lecturing on the shift in leadership of Palestinian violent resistance from the PLO to Hamas.

The event will begin with an hour of facilitated discussion between the three panelists, followed by thirty minutes of audience Q&A. Questions are to be submitted in writing to the Q&A chat on Zoom during the event. They will be screened by online moderators.

The link to the event will be shared via email to registered attendees on the day of the event.

For inquiries, please contact UNAAQPSPROGRAM@GMAIL.COM