Prof. Miriyam Aouragh presents talk on Palestine and the Infrastructures of Empire at Geneva Graduate Institute

On 19th November, Prof. Miriyam Aouragh presented a talk at the Geneva Graduate Institute entitled, “Palestine and the Infrastructures of Empire: Occupation and Liberation in the Digital Age.” The talk covered the role the Internet plays in liberation politics.

Digital technologies have become increasingly important for solidarity politics across the world. The internet has been a counter-hegemonic space and tactical tool for marginalised groups from its inception. In the case of Palestine/Israel, Israel’s supporters worldwide are harnessing the same technologies and platforms to mobilize technology primarily to increase pro-Israel sentiments. To understand this paradox, Professor Aouragh problematized ‘digital activism’ through the case of Palestine in this presentation and analyses the relationship of digital infrastructures and decolonisation through the prism of on-the-ground experience and power-relations.

Social media has affected the basic algorithms of propaganda in unprecedented ways. It increasingly seems that digital suppression of solidarity for Palestine has underlined the image of Israel as a colonial power engaged in violent occupation. Drawing on ethnographic research over two decades in Palestinian and the Palestinian diaspora, Aouragh described the empowering and alienating impact of digital technology. Digital infrastructures must be placed within the context of Israel’s colonialism. But as Palestinian internet is grounded in offline physicality and neoliberal economy, its political landscape requires a dialectical treatment: namely both the relationship between online and offline politics and between cyber colonialism and settler-colonialism.

Learn more about the presentation and the Geneva Graduate Institute here.

Photo by Dixit Dhinakaran on Unsplash