Rebel Attentiveness

Living under Israeli occupation, Palestinians face countless controls over their daily lives and movement. This research focuses on the reflections of cycling group founders and participants in the occupied West Bank, who ride despite efforts by the Israeli occupation to control and limit Palestini...

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Main Author: Connie Etter
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Extreme Anthropology Research Network 2024-12-01
Series:Journal of Extreme Anthropology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://journals.uio.no/JEA/article/view/10721
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author Connie Etter
author_facet Connie Etter
author_sort Connie Etter
collection DOAJ
description Living under Israeli occupation, Palestinians face countless controls over their daily lives and movement. This research focuses on the reflections of cycling group founders and participants in the occupied West Bank, who ride despite efforts by the Israeli occupation to control and limit Palestinians’ movements. Cycling groups bring Palestinians together to connect to the land and each other. Their communal, intentional, and immersive approach to feeling and experiencing Palestine on bikes – both idealistic connections to the land and the increasingly dangerous encounters with the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlers – make the rides a method for political education and mobilization. I locate such cycling groups as new iterations of long-standing Palestinian traditions of mobility (sarha, or ‘wandering’) and mobilization (mujaawarah, or ‘neighboring’). In its slow attentiveness to Palestinian land, people, and heritage, cycling in the occupied West Bank is rebel movement. It refuses to comply with common narratives about what counts as activism (urgency; predetermined goals) and what cycling is for (speed; fitness). Instead, cycling is a way to understand shared Palestinian identity and heritage through the stories, knowledge, and connections that emerge through rides and to demand the right to roam in Palestine, as Palestinians. Cycling as rebel movement resists settler colonial architecture and practices that aim to separate Palestinians from their homes, land, roads, and each other. It counters settler colonial logics that see land through the lens of ownership and property by approaching land as a meaning-making process.
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spelling doaj-art-9943618e991e413cbc95e2ecbe96855c2025-01-04T10:10:16ZengExtreme Anthropology Research NetworkJournal of Extreme Anthropology2535-32412024-12-018110.5617/jea.10721Rebel AttentivenessConnie Etter0Westminster University Living under Israeli occupation, Palestinians face countless controls over their daily lives and movement. This research focuses on the reflections of cycling group founders and participants in the occupied West Bank, who ride despite efforts by the Israeli occupation to control and limit Palestinians’ movements. Cycling groups bring Palestinians together to connect to the land and each other. Their communal, intentional, and immersive approach to feeling and experiencing Palestine on bikes – both idealistic connections to the land and the increasingly dangerous encounters with the Israeli military and illegal Israeli settlers – make the rides a method for political education and mobilization. I locate such cycling groups as new iterations of long-standing Palestinian traditions of mobility (sarha, or ‘wandering’) and mobilization (mujaawarah, or ‘neighboring’). In its slow attentiveness to Palestinian land, people, and heritage, cycling in the occupied West Bank is rebel movement. It refuses to comply with common narratives about what counts as activism (urgency; predetermined goals) and what cycling is for (speed; fitness). Instead, cycling is a way to understand shared Palestinian identity and heritage through the stories, knowledge, and connections that emerge through rides and to demand the right to roam in Palestine, as Palestinians. Cycling as rebel movement resists settler colonial architecture and practices that aim to separate Palestinians from their homes, land, roads, and each other. It counters settler colonial logics that see land through the lens of ownership and property by approaching land as a meaning-making process. https://journals.uio.no/JEA/article/view/10721Palestinecyclingmobilityminor gestureresistancesarha
spellingShingle Connie Etter
Rebel Attentiveness
Journal of Extreme Anthropology
Palestine
cycling
mobility
minor gesture
resistance
sarha
title Rebel Attentiveness
title_full Rebel Attentiveness
title_fullStr Rebel Attentiveness
title_full_unstemmed Rebel Attentiveness
title_short Rebel Attentiveness
title_sort rebel attentiveness
topic Palestine
cycling
mobility
minor gesture
resistance
sarha
url https://journals.uio.no/JEA/article/view/10721
work_keys_str_mv AT connieetter rebelattentiveness