Border-crossing repertoires of contention: Palestine activism in a global justice context

ABSTRACT

On 7 July 2005, a global call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) was declared against the state of Israel until it abides by international law and principles of human rights. Since that time, BDS has become a popular form of collective action for Palestine. Expanding on Charles Tilly’s original conceptualization of contentious repertoires, this paper argues that BDS advances the issue of Palestine into broader progressive frameworks, such as global justice, through the ways the movement makes claims (repertoire) and the object of its claims (targets). In particular, there are intersections through frames of justice, corporate complicity, and human rights, tactics of boycott and divestment, and decentralized, horizontal, and networked organizational forms, along with similar targets. These parallel repertoires and targets create a bridge between groups, which allows BDS to build its movement and enables the movement to move forward the Palestinian cause into broader global justice contexts.

KEYWORDS:

• Social movements
• contentious repertoires
• BDS movement
• global justice
• Israeli-Palestinian conflict
• Palestine

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the journal’s anonymous reviewers, Kevin Gray, and Munther al-Sabbagh for their helpful feedback on earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The passing of the resolution at the NWSA successfully made the case for BDS as a transnational feminist response to the injustice in Palestine. See Bhandar (2014); Lloyd (2014); Sharoni et al. (2015); Baum and Amir (2019).

2 In 2016, Fosun International, a Chinese conglomerate and investment company, purchased a controlling share of Ahava. At the time, Ahava said that it would open an additional plant near Ein Gedi (approximately 12 km south of Mitzpe Shalem) and within Israel’s internationally recognized borders to accommodate ‘expected changes in cosmetic product manufacturing standards in certain Western countries’ (Coren, 2016). The move followed new EU regulations regarding products made in settlements and persistent boycott campaigns against Ahava in the US, South Africa, the Netherlands, and the UK. Despite the existence of an Ahava store near Ein Gedi, to date, a manufacturing plant and the Visitor Center store are still located in the Mitzpe Shalem settlement.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Suzanne Morrison

Suzanne Morrison is an Assistant Professor in the Department of International Studies, College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, UAE.