CMES seminar: Alternative Tourism and Political Narratives in Palestine

This talk explores the anthropological dimensions of tourism in Palestine through research with Palestinian organizations involved in alternative tourism initiatives across the West Bank. The research includes both on-site initiatives and online forms of engagement that have become increasingly significant in recent years. These initiatives foreground the political realities of everyday life under occupation and challenge dominant representations of the territory produced by the Israeli tourism industry.

Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with guides, organizers, and visitors, the presentation examines how tourism becomes a space of political narration, education, and contestation. Particular attention is given to the multiple categories and frameworks mobilized around these initiatives - including alternative, political, solidarity, emancipatory, and educational tourism - and to the tensions and possibilities that emerge from them.

The research also considers the transformations these initiatives have undergone since October 7th 2023, in the context of genocide, restricted mobility, and changing forms of international solidarity and engagement. It also reflects on how these conditions reshape both the possibilities and the limits of ethnographic engagement itself.

Coffee, tea and pastries will be served after the seminar.

Everyone is warmly welcome!