PARC sponsored MESA panel: “Reassembling the Pieces: Settler Colonialism and the Reconception of Palestinian Health”

In health as in many disciplines, too often the perspectives and framings of the very populations in question are obscured. The health issues of Indigenous and otherwise marginalized and racialized populations are thus frequently analyzed without sufficient historical or political context, rendering them as mere victims of humanitarian misfortune rather than as groups that are deliberately harmed and discounted in service of broader political, and often territorial, aims. So while the fragmentation of the Palestinian people and land is now increasingly understood to be the legacy of more than a century of Zionist settler colonialism, the hegemonic discourses on Palestinian health often perpetuate their dismemberment in eliding this history and their ongoing dispossession. While settler colonialism has dispossessed and fragmented Palestinians, this fragmentation is frequently reinforced in the academic literature where Palestinian health is framed as ‘refugee health’ for Palestinians in neighboring Arab countries, ‘conflict and health’ for those in the oPt, and ‘minority health’ for the Palestinians in Israel. The health of Palestinians is thus often excluded from the growing literature on indigenous health and the health impacts of colonization. This panel seeks to ‘reassemble the pieces’ in the study of Palestinian health by focusing on settler colonialism’s ongoing structural manifestations in Palestine/Israel. This framework has the advantage of more comprehensively explicating the lack of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights of Palestinians throughout the region, whether they are citizens of Israel, living stateless in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), or ensconced in refugee camps in neighboring countries. The papers in this panel draw on research in various sites in Palestine and the diaspora while centering settler colonialism and its manifestations in the conceptualization of health. Through the papers in this panel, we move from presenting a theoretical conceptualization of Palestinian health rooted in the examination of the structural and settler colonial determinants of health and then move to examine various dimensions of health and healthcare access for Palestinians within the occupied Palestinian territory, health disparities among Palestinians citizens of Israel, the health of refugee adolescents, and the impacts of a grassroots community health worker program on the health of Palestinian refugees.

PARTICIPANTS
Dr. Yara Asi – Presenter (Former PARC Social Media Coordinator)
Dr. Weeam Hammoudeh – Organizer, Presenter (PARC Fellow)
Dr. Osama Tanous – Presenter
Dr. David Mills – Presenter
Dr. Bram Wispelwey – Presenter