Palestinian Prison Ontologies

Citation:

Bornstein, Avram. 2010.“Palestinian Prison Ontologies.” Dialectical Anthropology 34 (4): 459-72.

Author: Avram Bornstein

Abstract:

During the first intifada uprising (1987–1993), thousands of Palestinians were arrested annually, and mass incarceration affected as many as 100,000 families. Relying on several recent ethnographies, and other published research including some of my own, this article describes the contests over Palestinian prison ontology as organized by (a) the jailers, (b) the prisoners, (c) the families of prisoners, and (d) a service agency in the emerging Palestinian Authority. What becomes evident is that mass incarceration involves ontological struggles over the framing of justice, agency, and gender. The conclusion asks how these ontological struggles may be part of other modern prisons.

Keywords: political prisoners, Israel-Palestine, justice, gender, agency

Topics: Armed Conflict, National Liberation Wars, Occupation, Gender, Men, Masculinity/ies, Justice, Nationalism Regions: Africa, MENA, Asia, Middle East Countries: Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories

Year: 2010

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