Affective Borderlands: Experiences in Practice of the Neo-Zionist Settling Enterprise in the Israeli Periphery

Abstract

In writing on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the image of neo-Zionist settlers is taken often uncritically as an immediate expression of power, in representations by both settler movements and their opponents. Based on an ethnographic perspective that combines Herzfeld’s attention to the “intimacies” with critical writing on the symbolization of reality, I shift attention to an intricate representation of “affective borderlands” to illuminate situated experiences of settler–native relations in practice. Focusing on specific fragile and contradictory relations of single settlers and natives unfolding around a newly established village in Israel’s southern Negev desert, this ethnographic lens contributes to a deeper understanding of Israeli–Palestinian relations as entangled and entwined rather than separate. Beyond a dichotomist conception of native–settler relations and beyond the palpable dynamics of power, this examination of affective borderlands demonstrates that the more opponents invest in distinguishing themselves from the settler endeavor, the more its power over them grows.