Since 2011 in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank more than 20 collective farms were founded. This paper argues that this growing phenomenon emerged from the contradictions of Israeli peripheralization of Palestine: the proletarianization of the Palestinian population and the destruction of its productive factors, which produced alienated youth and fallow lands in a countryside subordinate to Palestinian and colonial urban centers. From this condition, an initially small band of left-leaning youth—otherwise repressed in their activism—saw opportunity along with necessity, and utilized the land towards an alternative economy. Building on critical urban theory and dependency theory, this paper demonstrates the multi-scalar nature of this peripheralization which involves local and global capital and states. The paper highlights the commonalities between settler-colonial peripheralization in Palestine and the broader global condition of neoliberal racial capitalism, thus demonstrating the relevance of Palestinian experiences to theory-making and struggle for the future of the planet.
Contradictions of settler-colonialism and peripheralization in the Palestinian central highlands (West Bank)