Women Speaking of National Security: The Case of Checkpoint Watch

Abstract

The production of reports and the distribution of information have become integral to the operation of many non‐governmental organizations. In this regard, the fact that the all‐women organization of Checkpoint Watch publishes reports about the Israeli checkpoints in the occupied West Bank seems to comply with current trends. However, the reports—most of which are short repetitive descriptions of the banality and everydayness of the military checkpoints, counting the number of people and cars waiting, commenting on the manner in which the checks are performed and meticulously documenting what mostly amounts to minor incidents of humiliation and distress—do not seem to abide by any convention of reporting. This work analyzes the reporting praxis of the organization and claims that it should be understood as a form of activism in and of itself. Tracking the ways in which the reports address the Israeli public through the concept of parrhesia, the work suggests that this form of reporting enables the women activists to use their gendered marginality to make their way into the highly masculinized and militarized Israeli security discourse.

Feminist geopolitics and the Middle East: Refuge, belief, and peace

“…Despite a brief jump between 2005 and 2010, these numbers remain abysmally low. Amir () similarly discusses the structural and cultural factors that limit women's voice in national security professions, in the very space of geopolitical decision making. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, similar challenges permeate the discipline regarding feminist voice (Dixon & Jones, ).…”

“…Geographers view walls, camps, checkpoints, and settlements as both “object and process” (Abourahme, , p. 203): material assemblage and social relation (Abourahme, , Hughes, , Martin, , Natanel, , Parsons & Salter, , Pallister‐Wilkins, , Ramadan, , Smith, ). They are spaces inhabited by geopolitical agents, people, and objects that forge a “subaltern geopolitics” (Sharp, ) of care and contestation (Amir, , Ramadan, , Smith, ). They are also spaces that bleed into the politics of exclusion and inclusion that govern the outside.…”

“…Spaces of enclosure-the "camp" and border walls-have been fixtures in the Middle East landscape far earlier than the current migrant crisis, illustrated in the approximately 1.5 million Palestinians residing in refugee camps Hughes, 2016, Martin, 2015, Natanel, 2016, Parsons & Salter, 2008, Pallister-Wilkins, 2015, Ramadan, 2013, Smith, 2011. They are spaces inhabited by geopolitical agents, people, and objects that forge a "subaltern geopolitics" (Sharp, 2011) of care and contestation (Amir, 2014, Ramadan, 2013, Smith, 2011. They are also spaces that bleed into the politics of exclusion and inclusion that govern the outside.…”