Description
This study reorients settler colonial studies towards an understanding of humanitarianism’s role in the constitution of the settler subject. Grounded in the case of Palestine/Israel, the settler colonial modality of humanitarianism that I illustrate is two-fold: enabling the continuous establishment of the settler society; and providing a tool for the dispossession of Palestinians. To substantiate these central claims, I draw from a genealogical methodology that reconstructs the changing patterns and spaces in which humanitarianism came to shape the settler subject, tracing its appearance and evolution to present day. To trace this genealogy linking different historical moments to the present, I relied on research in multiple colonial archives and over 60 interviews with Israeli military officials, settler and humanitarian workers. Through a reconstruction of the historical and contemporary contours of Israeli settler colonialism, this genealogical investigation thus shows how humanitarianism generates an eliminationist settler subjectivity that heralds the erasure and replacement of Palestinians.
