Elastic Solidarity: UK solidarity with Palestine and the production of knowledge

This thesis examines the role of activists in the production and dissemination of two streams of knowledge. On the issue of Palestine/Israel, my research reflected that the knowledge produced and used within the Palestine solidarity movement in the UK typically came from either the academy or Palestinians engaged in struggle in historic Palestine. Conversely, my findings reflected that the knowledge produced relating to activism itself emanated from within the solidarity movement. This knowledge manifests in two ways: formal and informal formats. Formal knowledge outputs typically took the form of commissioned reports and written analysis of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests, which revealed power relations between state and corporate actors. Informally, this knowledge production appeared to be generated through confrontation with the state. As such, I contend that knowledge is produced through the result of such conflict, ‘the clashing of swords’ in a Foucauldian sense. It is in this material struggle that I conceptualise knowledge production as the creation, refinement, and dissemination of ideas that help to construct meaning about the world. The data generated in this study reflects that this conflict with the state creates cognitive dissonance, which seeks to usurp ‘common sense’, replacing it with ‘good sense’. In doing so, activists, academics, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGO) establish themselves as organic intellectuals who seek to unsettle and agitate hegemonic narratives. I explore the relationship between these three sets of organic intellectuals in their efforts to generate epistemic good sense on Palestine/Israel and the struggle for solidarity in the UK. In pulling together various strands of knowledge on Palestine/Israel, protest rights, and hegemonic power relations at a local, national, and international level, the Palestine solidarity movement acts as a needle weaving together threads to create a complex epistemic tapestry. Furthermore, I argue that the protest spaces established by the UK Palestine solidarity movement have increasingly become epistemic spaces which apply and contextualise an intersectional analysis to social justice struggles in the UK. Application of this analysis has stretched the epistemic framing of the struggle and set it within material struggle in the UK. It is within this material struggle that the shifting ideological topography of the movement evolves. It is a topography which moves and stretches to adapt to the material struggle they face against increased hegemonic oppression from above. This stretching is what Aziz Choudry calls ‘struggle knowledge’ and is often fluid, which I characterise as hot knowledge. Through this struggle and shifting topography, the elasticity of the movement is tested.<p></p>

Author dc:creator

• Imran Ahmed (21040004)

• Palestine
• Social movements
• Organic intellectuals
• Palestine solidarity

Statement dc:rights

• All rights reserved

Identifier

10779/exe.32599755.v1

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:figshare.com:article/32599755