Social reproduction theory is a big idea. It explores how the daily renewal of human life, and therefore human labor, is essential to capitalism. Here, leading feminists come together to apply the theory to one of its most extreme settings - that of Palestine.
Israels settler colonialism is premised on the eradication of Palestinian lives, undermining Palestinian social reproduction at every turn. This project, which ramped up after October 7th, does have a logic, and by examining the concrete, historically specific details, the authors begin to reshape and refine the theory of social reproduction, shedding light on why Israels assault is so brutal.
Chapters look at Israels mass murder of a generation of Palestinians in Gaza, the effects of ecocide, the relationship between land dispossession and class, Israels selective pronatalism, scholasticide, and other topics. By understanding this deadly logic, we can look deeper into the heart of the evils of capitalism and stand in solidarity with Palestine.
Why is the Israeli assault against Palestinians so shockingly brutal?
Recenzijos
'In this important edited volume, two pioneering figures in Social Reproduction Theory, Tithi Bhattacharya and Sue Ferguson, extend their framework beyond the working-class struggle for life in advanced capitalist societies, accounting for the specificity of settler-colonial capitalism. The essays they have assembled here urgently address the contemporary case study of Palestine in the horrific era of the Gaza genocide. They 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
Foreword - Ruth Wilson Gilmore
Introduction - Tithi Bhattacharya and Susan Ferguson
1. Gaza: Care, Hope and Genocide - Asmaa AbuMezied
2. Childhood and Social Reproduction in Palestine: They Didn't Know We Were
Seeds - Mai Abu Moghli and Rachel Rosen
3. 'I Forgot to Die:' Thinking through Social Reproduction of Palestinian
Life - Tithi Bhattacharya
4. Decolonialism as Social Reproductive Class Struggle - Tal-Hi Bitton
5. Scholasticide and Social Reproduction in Palestine - Sue Ferguson
6. The Colonial Rift: Affirming Life in Palestine's Frontiers - Layal Ftouni
and Omar Jabary Salamanca
7. Checkpoints, the Sexual Division of Labour and Social Reproduction in the
West Bank - Jemima Repo
8. Insurgent Social Reproduction: The Home, the Barricade and Womens Work in
the 1936 Palestinian Revolution - Mai Taha
9. 'Genocidal Hauntings of Pronatalism': The Dialectics of Assisted
Reproduction in Israel/Palestine - Sigrid Vertommen, Weeam Hammoudeh and
Michal Nahman
Onward- Fady Joudah
Tithi Bhattacharya is a Marxist historian and activist, writing extensively on gender and the politics of Islamophobia. She has been active in movements for social justice throughout her life, spearheading campaigns across three continents. She 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. She is on the editorial board of Spectre, and lives in Indiana.
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: Social Reproduction, Feminism and Labour. She serves on the editorial board of the webzine, Midnight Sun, and is a coordinating committee member of Scholars Against the War on Palestine and a member of Faculty for Palestine, Canada. She lives in Texas.
Ruth Wilson Gilmore is Professor of Geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and the associate director of the Center for Place, Culture and Politics. She is the author of Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California, and has served as the chair of the American Studies Association and received the 'Angela Davis Award for Public Scholarship'.
