The Middle East is represented in the media by reports of terrorism, war, and peace processes. While
the dramatic violence of war is a real and fundamental aspect of the civilian experience in Palestine,
Smith argues that the everyday violence of dispossession is far more prevalent in Palestinian lives
than the immediate impacts of war or invasion. Occupation, a legal category intended to describe a
temporary state of affairs, has dragged on for decades, and may continue indefinitely. In Palestine,
occupation is a totalizing process, affecting all aspects of Palestinians’ lives.
In this talk, Smith will describe the political economies and micro-geographies of occupation:
systematic structures of control designed to dispossess and displace. He will explore the ways in
which geography, history, culture, and politics create a dynamism that allows dispossession to
continue without end, and I will recount the everyday forms of resistance and solidarity that
challenge the denial of a state to a people.

Please RSVP to Amber at asg5500@psu.edu by January 15th.