Constructing a “Wall”: Discursive Fields, Social Movements, and the Politics of the [Wall/Barrier/Fence]

ABSTRACT

The [wall/barrier/fence] built by Israel near the Green Line has produced a new object around which political actors, especially those engaged in contentious politics around the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, can use to focus and shape their language and actions. Using the notion of discursive fields, this paper examines the use of the three terms wall, fence, and barrier among social movement actors from Israel, Palestine, and elsewhere to describe the object, arguing that the difference between wall-discourse and fence-discourse marks out separate discursive faces that embody different sets of assumptions about the conflict, relevant actors, and normative priorities. It also argues that, while barrier-discourse tries to stake out a ground outside this binary, its reception by those engaged in other discourses negates the attempt.

Funding Information

This paper was completed with support from the Vice-Dean of Research, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa.

Notes

1 For instance, imagine an alternate [wall/barrier/fence] where the practice was not to keep Palestinians/potential terrorist threats out of Israel, but to keep Israelis/potential settlement threats out of the West Bank. Such an object might be physically identical, but people would have very different feelings and practices about it.

2 I specify “outside of Israel” in part because I am looking for conversations that happen in English, whereas the majority of the Israel public sphere takes place in Hebrew, and also because there are only a very small set of social-movement actors within Israel mobilized in support of the object (see Simmoneau’s paper in this issue).

3 It is also legible to actors in the Palestinian Authority, but those are not usual targets of these movements.

4 Few pro-Palestine advocates think of themselves as supporting the Palestinian Authority or other markers of quasi-state authority; they understand themselves rather as supporting the Palestinian people or community.

5 Many thanks to Daniela Mansbach, who both provided me with information about common Hebrew usage among Israeli activists, and pointed out the double meaning of “obstacle” in this context.