Kafka at the West Bank checkpoint
De-normalizing the Palestinian encounter before the law
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2178809 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Anna Ball |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 75-87 |
| Publication date | 2014-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Postcolonial Writing (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1744-9855 • E-ISSN: 1744-9863 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17449855.2013.850245 |
| OpenAlex | W1965195317 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 11 |
The checkpoint has emerged as a quintessential trope within the contemporary Palestinian imagination, to such an extent that “checkpoint narratives” have arguably come to assume a dangerously “normalized” status as everyday, even iconic features of Palestinian existence. Turning to the films Route 181 by Michel Khleifi and Eyal Sivan, and like twenty impossibles by Annemarie Jacir, this article explores how alternative representations (and theorizations) of checkpoint encounter might serve to “de-normalize” the checkpoint in a way that invites us to interrogate the very nature of the checkpoint apparatus in itself, including the nature of the “law” that it represents. Mobilizing the critical paradigms of the “state of exception” and “homo sacer” drawn from the theoretical work of Giorgio Agamben and the literary work of Franz Kafka, the article argues that apprehension of the enduring oddity and abnormality of the checkpoint serves as a vital mode of critical resistance to the policies of “spatio-cide”, “securitization” and colonialism exercised at the hands of the State of Israel through the checkpoint mechanism
Aesthetics · Apprehension · Art · Epistemology · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · State (computer science · State of exception · Trope (literature · Computer Science · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Middle East Politics and Society · Political Theology and Sovereignty · History · Law · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,12 |
| Citation span | 1969 - 2026 (58) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |