"In the Land of Our Birth": A Regional Case Study of Higher Education, Settler Colonial Space, and Epistemological Resistance in Palestinian Bethlehem

Abstract

This project is a regional case study of higher education institutions, employees, and students in the occupied Palestinian town of Bethlehem. A three-article format, this project employs autoethnography to explore the ways the author's religious community conceived of the holy land; mapping and photo documentation to explore the infrastructures of occupation surrounding Palestinian educational space; and interviews and direct observation to explore campus spaces, organizational issues, and pedagogical practices. In the autoethnography, the researcher uses reflective memory to reconstruct theologically and culturally rooted impressions of Israel and Palestine. The author also explores their later intellectual and social evolution away from Christian Zionism to a position that supports the Palestinian struggle for liberation.

In attending to the material conditions of the Israeli occupation, the study overlays ArcGIS spatial data from the United Nations with original maps of Palestinian educational spaces including campus locations, student markets, and commuting patterns. The resulting spatial representations are then used to explore notions of settler colonialism and spatial epistemology. The study finds that infrastructures of occupation impinge on Palestinian educational access, psychological readiness to learn, and natural knowledge building processes about place and land.

Exploring Palestinian educational spaces directly, the study draws on interview and focus group data with faculty, administrators, and students from three institutions of higher education in Bethlehem, Palestine. Participants were recruited using chain referral sampling for interviews that lasted between 60 and 90 minutes, exploring the daily practices, aspirations, and challenges participants face as educators or learners.