Occupation and Social Reproduction: Reflections from Palestine

How can we theoretically, and hence analytically, account for social reproduction under conditions of occupation? Giorgio Agamben’s concepts of ‘bare life’ and ‘state of exception’ have become established notions for understanding the politics of occupation, especially with regards to the disposability of colonised subjects and adjacent suspension of the rule of law. Agamben’s account is issued as a corrective or extension of Michel Foucault’s work on biopolitics and governmentality, yet it conceives of power, the state, and law in more strictly sovereign terms, rather than the capillary approach advanced by Foucauldian governmentality. This paper argues for a more Foucauldian approach to analysing occupation, with a focus on the everyday lives of Palestinian women in the West Bank affected by the Israeli occupation. I argue that it allows to move beyond the inclusion/exclusion dichotomy buoyed by the Agambenian approach, to examine the ways in which occupation shapes the limits and possibilities of everyday life in occupied areas. In the process, this lens brings the effects of occupation on women’s lives into sharp relief.