Making Death and Life in Palestine: Social Reproduction in Settler Colonialism

“These essays reveal the intensity of the battle between the exterminationist death-making force of Israeli colonialism and the Palestinian determination to produce and sustain a flourishing and liberated collective life” Abdel Razzaq Takriti, Palestinian Historian and Arab-American Educational Foundation Chair in Arab Studies, Rice University Social reproduction theory explores how the daily renewal of human life, and therefore human labour, is essential to capitalism. Here, for the first time, the theory is applied to the setting of Palestine. Israel’s settler colonialism is premised on the destruction of Palestinian lives, undermining Palestinian social reproduction at every turn. That project, which ramped up after October 7, has a terrible logic. By examining the concrete, historically specific details, the authors begin to reshape and refine the theory of Social Reproduction, shedding light on why Israel’s assault is so brutal. Chapters look at Israel’s mass murder of a generation of Palestinians in Gaza, the effects of ecocide, the relationship between land dispossession and class, Israel’s selective pronatalism, and scholasticide among other topics. Tithi Bhattacharya is Professor of South Asian History at Purdue University and the author of Ghostly Past, Capitalist Presence, editor of Social Reproduction Theory and co-author of Feminism for the 99% which has been translated into over 30 languages. Susan Ferguson is Associate Professor Emerita at Wilfrid Laurier University and a Research Affiliate at the University of Houston. She is the author of Women and Work.