The 2021 Dignity Uprising in Palestine: New Developments in Class Formation, Settler-Colonialism, and Resistance in 48 Palestine

My research focuses on the 2021 Dignity Uprising in Palestine that is considered a highly significant moment in the recent history of Palestinian struggle. Through 34 interviews with participants and organisers of the uprising from 48 Palestine (Palestinians with Israeli citizenship), I am exploring the features and impact of changing class formations in this settler-colonial situation, attentive to how the uprising included wide engagement of marginalised youth, as well as the distance the uprising opened from traditional Palestinian political elites and structures. I also explore the emerging de-colonial and emancipatory views of the participants during and since the uprising.

Through this research I examine how the break from elite Palestinian mainstream structures, as well as the wide engagement of segments of the Palestinians proletariat, which I explore through the concept of ‘surplus populations’, was reflected in the tactics of resistance that defragmented the map of Palestine organically and from below and gave a moment of hope and a sense of momentary liberation. This will represent an archive of strategies of political mobilisation, as well as an identification of the uprising’s qualities\tactics\imaginaries\motivations and how they break from older structures of Palestinian struggle.

My fieldwork occurred during the major events that happened in Palestine on the 7^th October and the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and this has informed my research in ways that I am developing. However, the research includes a reflection on the current situation from the point of view my participants, bringing to the focus ideas around solidarity, belonging and re-fragmentation, as well as the further distancing of younger generations from Palestinian political elites in 48 Palestine (with a similar reflection on the West Bank) instigated by the the events of October 07 and what followed.