Traces of urban resilience : exploring everyday practices of reconstruction in the occupied West Bank through actor–network theory
Hamdallah, Rand (2025)
2025
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025100925770
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2025100925770
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This thesis examines how urban resilience is enacted in a single contested street in Tulkarm, West Bank, through everyday practices of adaptation, repair, and persistence under conditions of military disruption. It applies an integrated analytical framework combining Actor–Network Theory (ANT), James C. Scott’s theory of everyday resis- tance, and Braun and Clarke’s Reflexive Thematic Analysis (RTA) to investigate the material structures and political meanings of mobility sovereignty in a militarised urban environment.
The study draws on one month of immersive fieldwork, including semi-structured inter- views conducted primarily in colloquial Arabic, systematic field observations, and visual documentation. Human actors—such as shopkeepers, taxi drivers, municipal workers, educators, and displaced residents—were examined alongside non-human actors, includ- ing earth mounds, rubble, repair tools, military vehicles, and informal route signage. ANT mapping illuminated the networked interdependencies between these actors, while Scott’s framework revealed how subtle, non-confrontational acts of adaptation function as political expressions of agency.
Five interconnected themes emerged: economic persistence, mobility disruption and adap- tation, collective repair practices, normalisation of military presence, and place attach- ment. Together, these illustrate that resilience in this context is a dynamic, negotiated process, shaped by the interplay of human and material agency and embedded within socio-political struggle. The research argues that maintaining commerce, improvising mobility, and sustaining community spaces are not merely survival strategies but also acts of resistance that contest erasure.
By offering a fine-grained account of resilience in a conflict-affected Palestinian urban setting, this thesis contributes to scholarship on socio-material networks and political agency under systems of spatial control. It further demonstrates the value of integrating ANT and everyday resistance theory to “see the unseen” in contested urban environ- ments, revealing how small acts of repair, movement, and reinterpretation sustain life in landscapes designed for interruption.
The study draws on one month of immersive fieldwork, including semi-structured inter- views conducted primarily in colloquial Arabic, systematic field observations, and visual documentation. Human actors—such as shopkeepers, taxi drivers, municipal workers, educators, and displaced residents—were examined alongside non-human actors, includ- ing earth mounds, rubble, repair tools, military vehicles, and informal route signage. ANT mapping illuminated the networked interdependencies between these actors, while Scott’s framework revealed how subtle, non-confrontational acts of adaptation function as political expressions of agency.
Five interconnected themes emerged: economic persistence, mobility disruption and adap- tation, collective repair practices, normalisation of military presence, and place attach- ment. Together, these illustrate that resilience in this context is a dynamic, negotiated process, shaped by the interplay of human and material agency and embedded within socio-political struggle. The research argues that maintaining commerce, improvising mobility, and sustaining community spaces are not merely survival strategies but also acts of resistance that contest erasure.
By offering a fine-grained account of resilience in a conflict-affected Palestinian urban setting, this thesis contributes to scholarship on socio-material networks and political agency under systems of spatial control. It further demonstrates the value of integrating ANT and everyday resistance theory to “see the unseen” in contested urban environ- ments, revealing how small acts of repair, movement, and reinterpretation sustain life in landscapes designed for interruption.