Abstract
I will be presenting a paper I am working on based on fieldwork and interviews with Jewish radical left activists who left Israel following their dissent over Israel’s policy and their disillusionment with the possibility to make a change. Exploring the interplay between emotions and political stances, the paper demonstrates how these activists perceive the presence of the state as deeply rooted in their bodies and psyche.
Contrary to the literature which describes state power as vertical, this article points to the horizontality of sovereign power and shows that dissidents refer to it using the term ‘this thing’. ‘This thing’ is described as a complex array of practices, emotions, and physical expressions and experiences, which surpass the state and its mechanisms of control. ‘This thing’ is found not only in the state policy to which the dissidents oppose but also in their means of resistance.
In the talk I’ll present some concerns I have trying to debate with Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of subjectification and dissent, and Hardt and Negri’s work on the Multitude and Empire.
02 Mar 2023