| Violence, Nonviolence, and Resistance: Sumud and Struggle in Palestine Discussion on resistance movements often turns on representations of violence and nonviolence. But is there something about the violence/ nonviolence binary itself that obscures deeper understandings of popular struggle and the social, political, and economic conditions from which they emerge? In an effort to unpack that binary, this talk will examine dominant categories of nonviolence and civil resistance mapped onto Palestine and explore alternative discourses of struggle narrated by Palestinians. In particular, it explores the concept of sumud or “steadfastness” among Palestinians and how it is lived as a form of nonviolence and struggle. Timothy Seidel is Associate Professor of Peacebuilding, Development, and Global Studies; and Director of the Center for Interfaith Engagement at EMU. He is co-editor of Political Economy of Palestine: Critical, Interdisciplinary, and Decolonial Perspectives (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and the forthcoming Resisting Domination in Palestine: Mechanisms and Techniques of Control, Coloniality and Settler Colonialism (I.B. Taurus/Bloomsbury, 2024). He recently co-led an EMU intercultural program to the Middle East. |