Introduction: Infrastructure, Environment, and Health in Palestine

Abstract

Abstract The Journal of Palestine Studies’ special issue on infrastructure, environment, and health in Palestine sheds new light on the conditions and possibilities of politics. Although it is commonly viewed as “an entity ostensibly separate from technology and other human constructions,” the environment is in fact a particular configuration of “socio-technical arrangements.” The special issue’s four articles and two reflection essays—by Nadi Abusaada, Leena Dallasheh, Samir Harb, Cristina Violante, Nimrod Ben Zeev, and Emily McKee—span historical periods from Ottoman-ruled Palestine to the contemporary era. Hailing from the fields of history, architecture, anthropology, and legal theory, the contributors draw on original archival, spatial, and ethnographic research to parse the realities, experiences, and lessons that Palestine offers beyond its status as a site of settler-colonial deprivation and toxicity. Together they demonstrate that infrastructure, environment, and health are fundamentally and irrefutably political.