constructing violence: the israel/gaza "war"


Steven Jordan, McGill University; Shaheen Shariff, McGill University; Christopher Dietzel, Concordia University

This paper draws on research that we have conducted over the past 6 years on the iMPACTS project based at McGill University. Led by Professor Shaheen Shariff, iMPACTS is a multi-year, multi-million dollar Partnership Grant funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The overarching goal of iMPACTS is to unearth, dismantle, and prevent sexual violence within universities and, ultimately, in society, through evidence- based research that informs sustainable curriculum and policy change. With its focus on sexual violence, iMPACTS has been driven by three inter-related domains: 1. EDUCATION, LAW, AND POLICY: The education, law, and policy domain of iMPACTS examines sexual violence at universities through several lenses – educational, administrative, and legal. The aim is for institutions of higher education to be equipped with an improved understanding of their legal obligations, roles, and responsibilities. Specifically, there are three overarching objectives: To reclaim the role of universities in educating their own communities and greater society on the value of sustainable models to prevent and reduce sexual violence. To bring students and multi-sector partners together to initiate evidence-based and creative ways of informing administrative and curriculum policies on sexual violence. To expand knowledge and legal definitions of what constitutes on-campus sexual violence, given interactions that take place off-campus and online.This domain of iMPACTS has generated several projects from our university partners across Canada and our McGill student team. 2. ARTS, ACTIVISM, AND POPULAR CULTURE: This domain of iMPACTS explores a range of activist and artistic interventions and the role of the entertainment industry and popular culture, as a means to uncover the roots and effects of sexual violence at universities. Specifically, this project has two overarching objectives: To study the history and ongoing work of student activism and art interventions that promote sexual violence prevention, education, and support and encourage university social and policy changes. To investigate the role of popular culture in perpetuating, condoning, and dismissing sexual-based violence and gender-based violence at universities and in society and 3) news and social media. 3. NEWS AND SOCIAL MEDIA: This domain of iMPACTS analyzes how sexual and gender-based violence is portrayed across media platforms and how survivors, students, and the general public engage with this content. To raise awareness and responsible media reporting of incidents that involve sexual and gender-based violence. In addition, in terms of immediate relevancy, this paper draws on these three domains to explore how and in what ways the concept of violence has been orchestrated and deployed in the events surrounding the 2023 October 7thattack by Hamas on Israel, and Israel’s response to this attack in the Palestinian territory of Gaza. We will be interested in exploring and analysing the different ways in which the concept of violence has been construed and operationalised in mainstream and social/alternative media platforms. We will also be concerned with understanding how public debate and discussion on the conflict in Israel/Gaza has raised questions about the role the of the State in generating and deploying conceptions of violence that perpetuate western colonial-settler relations with the Global South. In making this argument, we will draw on the theoretical contributions of Raewyn Connel, Dorothy Smith, David Harvey, Vijay Prasad and others who have attempted to understand violence from the perspective of subaltern populations in the Global South.

This paper will be presented at the following session: