Violence as ‘adii: atmospheric manifestations of normalised violence in the occupied West Bank

Abstract

This article examines the affective repercussions of naming violence as normal in the occupied Palestine. The decades of Israel's military occupation have meant that Palestinians have been forced to grow accustomed with encounters with violence. Frequently, Palestinians describe these encounters with the word ‘normal’, signalling familiarity and prevalence of violence in their communities. By taking the Arabic word ‘adii (normal) as a starting point, the article scrutinises how violence as ‘adii manifests an affective atmosphere that sets feeling rules on how one ‘ought to act and feel’. In existing research, ‘adii has been taken as a statement of agency, resilience and ‘getting by’. These have been discussed in relation to sumud, meaning steadfast perseverance in the face of the occupation, in which case the functioning of ‘adii is scrutinized in relation to Israel as an occupying power. This article, on the other hand, approaches ‘adii as part of an affective ordering that acts towards those facing the violence. By drawing from ethnographic engagement and group interviews conducted in the West Bank, the article suggests that naming violence as ‘adii can be considered as part of an atmosphere that calls for resilience and that can thus leave little space for expressing vulnerability.