This project examines how digital tools are being used, changing lives and transforming cultures, as seen through Israeli occupation in the social media age.
Professor Stein of Duke's Cultural Anthropology department and her co-author Adi Kuntsman explore the ways that Israel's occupation has been transformed in the social media age, with attention to the ways that the Israeli state violence is interwoven with global networking practices, protocols, and aesthetics. This project studies the reach of social media into Israeli military theaters and the occupation's impact on everyday Israeli social media culture.
One example explored in the project is what the authors term “selfie militarism.” At issue is the use of selfies by Israeli soldiers and civilians to support, beautify, and normalize the violence of Israeli militarism—a phenomenon that has grown markedly in Israel over the last few years, as it has across the globe. The militarized selfie is a hybrid genre that couples commonplace selfie conventions with militarized political sensibilities to support Israeli state violence in the occupied Palestinian territories. At the core of this project is an attempt to come to terms with the ways Israelis live intimately with the occupation in the course of their everyday digital lives.
People Involved With The Project
- Rebecca Stein, Nicholas J. and Theresa M. Leonardy Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology (Primary Investigator)