ABSTRACT
One aspect that no study of contemporary politics and political subjectivities can fail to address completely concerns the globalisation and hegemonisation of neoliberal ideas and ideologies, which have paved the way for the increasing individualisation, commercialisation and competitiveness of social life. In previous chapters, I have examined the ways in which postcolonial late modernity and colonial occupation intersect in Palestinian politics and subjectivity by drawing attention to the different ways in which Palestinian everyday resistance was articulated in the context of the first and the second intifadas, and by looking at some of the ways in which the political problem-space in Palestine has been affected by the establishment and institutionalisation of the nascent structures of a Palestinian nation-state. Although both of these studies have referred, perhaps indirectly, to processes and changes that point towards the rise of neoliberal subjectivities and sensitivities within the West Bank and Gaza, in this chapter my aim is to address the question of neoliberalism explicitly. How, I ask, is the encounter between neoliberalism and Israeli occupation being translated in the context of Palestinian day-to-day life, and what implications does it have upon the conditions of possibility of Palestinian political subjectivity, or the prospect of collective struggle?
