Im/mobilities and the Occupying Gaze

Bibliographic Data

ID24241177
AuthorsL Gandolfo (0000-0002-8148-3280, University of Aberdeen)
Year2026
Pages1-21
Publication date2026-10-29
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Intercultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0725-6868 • E-ISSN: 1469-9540
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/07256868.2026.2738070
OpenAlexW7224536872
LanguageEN
References cited34

This article considers how the occupying gaze transforms bodies and objects into suspended sites of gendered and political violence. While in peacetime waiting suggests ennui and stasis, the im/mobility that occurs at Israeli checkpoints is entangled with power, including who decides how time is valued, and how and whose bodies move (and where to). Against this backdrop, the gaze transforms bodies and objects into political and gendered sites of violence. While there is a rich corpus concerning the politics of waiting in Palestine, less discussed is how waiting touches the body, as well as how those experiences are embodied, shared, and navigated in terms of trauma. As the checkpoints continue to evolve, visual representations of waiting and im/mobility provide a visceral layer. This article considers the design project, Disarming Design from Palestine (DDfP), which redesigns everyday objects to ‘bear witness to the charged reality’ in which the wearer lives. As the objects, and the bodies wearing and using them, are repositioned by the artists, this article revisits our existing understanding of visual occupation and the colonial gaze to argue that ‘the occupying gaze’ not only reframes space but contributes a ‘hard gaze’ that facilitates state violence.

Art, Politics, and Modernism · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Visual Culture and Art Theory