The Palestinian Prisoners' Movement

• In Event: Poster Session

Abstract

Prisons are crucial locations in protracted conflicts as holding sites for authorities to siphon off political resistors, separating them from the conflict itself and punishing them. However, resistance movements themselves find ways to utilize imprisonment. Politically motivated detainees use long-term incarceration terms to learn and teach, hone leadership skills, and study the authorities. The prison is called the university in Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Palestine. It is a site where sides of a conflict may learn to negotiate and coexist; peace agreements and propaganda coups have been forged inside prisons.

Israel has held nearly a million Palestinians over 40 years of occupation of the Palestinian Territories. Palestinian prisoners have developed a sophisticated internal structure with formal classes and democratically-elected leadership that spans political divisions, called the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement.

This research utilizes constructivist grounded theory to explore resistance and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement. The poster highlights methodological challenges, as well as analyses and emerging theories. The study examines the effects of gender and identity on Palestinian prisoners’ strategies and techniques, as well as implications for emancipation.

Author

• Alyssa G. Bernstein, Queen's University Belfast