Much like 1948 and 1967, 7 October 2023 ushered in a violent project of erasure and elimination of Palestinians as an indigenous population. While uncertainty, fear and anguish have been features of Palestinian daily life for decades, at this time of high-flame violence, with their habitat becoming spaces of blatantly visible non-life, questions of the meaning and practice of remaining present, of existence itself, have never been more urgent. 

These extreme times require a bold agenda for critical inquiry. How can anthropology make sense of contemporary mass killing, large scale physical destruction, genocidal rhetoric and transfer plans as colonial powers seek to destroy and empty Gaza while silencing, including criminalizing, criticism and dissent around the world? How can the methods and concepts of anthropology respond to these violences in all their forms? In turn, what can Palestine, as one of the most protracted examples of occupation and colonial erasure, offer to an anthropology in pursuit of emancipating its disciplinary ethics and knowledge? This Conference will explore these questions through a focus on several interconnected themes: processes and dynamics of elimination; forms of activist as well as everyday praxis and resistance and their epistemologies; and “convergences” and alliances between Palestine and experiences of racial violence elsewhere in a world under the sway of Western colonial modernity. We seek to reflect on the conditions for transversal politics and the kinds of knowledges generated out of daily praxis. 

While we had hoped for our conference to bring Insaniyyat’s community together in person, we had to make the difficult decision of moving the conference entirely online. Despite this change, we look very much forward to having you with us, and to your engagement with our panelists and participants.

We are happy to announce that the program of Insaniyyat’s 4th Biennial Conference “Holding onto Palestine: Re-imagining Anthropology at a time of Genocide” (12-15 September 2024) is now ready and available online (below)

Please note that the keynote address "Unethical Anthropology and Anthropology of The Unethical" (by Ghassan Hage) and roundtable discussion "Decolonizing from Palestine to the World" (featuring Robin Kelly, Salim Vally, and Madiha Tahir) will be open to the public through pre-registration using this link. All other conference panels will all be accessible for free to Insaniyyat members, while workshops on the final day will be closed for the participating graduate students. To secure your attendance and receive conference links please ensure your membership is up to date or join as new members here.