Geographies of Coloniality and Everyday Violence Research Group (GOCEP)

The Geographies of Coloniality and Everyday Violence Research Group (GOCEP) studies various forms of everyday violence, especially in relation to colonial histories and the prevalence of coloniality in various sites of political and societal crises. We examine diverse geographies of violence - prolonged crises, environmental conflicts, wars - and their multiple relations to imperialism, settler colonialism, and colonial ways of knowing and being as they emerge through the everyday entanglements. While covering various themes, we are particularly interested in embodied materialities, everyday ecologies, and the atmospheres of violence, especially how they appear in ways of undoing power through the irreducibility of the human and non-human to power. The multidisciplinary group is based on Regional Studies, Tampere University.

Leader

Mikko Joronen

Associate Professor, Regional Studies

Faculty of Management and Business

Tampere University

mikko.joronen [at] tuni.fi (mikko[dot]joronen[at]tuni[dot]fi)

+358503187174

City Centre Campus

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4051-2348

Members

Tampere University

Related projects

Research project

Tampere University

Dwelling with Crisis: Home at Spaces of Chronic Violence (HOMCRI)

Area of focus: Society

Research project

International mobility project

Tampere University

Present-futures in/of Palestine

Area of focus: Society

Dwelling with Crisis: Home at Spaces of Chronic Violence (HOMCRI Project)

ERC Consolidator Grant, 2023-2028; Principal Investigator: Mikko Joronen

This project elaborates ways of making home among those dwelling in societies facing prolonged crises. It traverses through various landscapes to look at ways in which people make home in spaces that are familiar, yet repelling, incapacitating and altogether negating in nature. Such landscapes, in Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza in particular, reflect various forms of crises engendered around economic collapse, infrastructural shortage, protracted conflict-situation, colonial presence, and/or continuation of war by various means. These crises force us to pose a key question on what it means to stay, and make a home, in spaces that constantly expose life to disruptions, incapacitations, and material negations? How does one dwell in crisis, in catastrophe, or in complete annihilation of conditions of living?

HOMCRI project responds to this research challenge on three fronts. Firstly, it generates empirical knowledge on what it takes to dwell in crisis and conflict areas, and with the political conditions they establish, by focusing on spaces that violently separate, distance, and amputate people from their familiar everyday spaces through affective disruptions, material deprivations, and conditions of incapacitation. Secondly, it does so by developing negativity as a methodological tool for approaching dwelling as a tension between ‘home-making’ and ‘spaces of exposure’. Thirdly, it offers a novel conceptual elaboration of negativity as a worldly condition, which challenges the paradigmatic notions of materiality, affect and dwelling in current posthuman thought. The project hence rethinks the negative foundations of human-world relationship by focusing on ways in which negative material and affective bindings align with incapacitating political conditions in prolonged crisis, conflict and colonial situations. HOMCRI has various subprojects (described below) that approach these questions from various angles.

Herding in the occupied West Bank: an everyday practice of home-making and un-making (Danna Masad)

Homemaking on Top of the Ashes: Gazan’s routinesed Dwelling Practices in spaces of Elimination (Khalid Dader)

Affect, Spatial Mobility, and the Politicization of Therapy and Lifestyle Movements in Post-2019 Lebanon (Dalia Zein)

The right to the land and the right to home in Palestine (Abdalrahman Kittana)

Decolonial potentialities in Palestinian farming collectives (Wassim Ghantous)

Material politics of atmospheric violence: breathing, affectual disruptions, exposed dwelling (Mikko Joronen)

Acting upon and amid failure: limits of agency in crisis-hit Lebanon

Kone Foundation Grant, 2023-2027; PI: Tiina Järvi

In the past decade, Lebanon has witnessed an accelerating number of crises that have showcased the malfunctioning of the state and its structures. Waste crisis, water crisis, electricity crisis, multiple political crises, dollar crisis, petroleum crisis, hyperinflation, and several shortages, are but examples of the grievances faced by those living in Lebanon. The covid pandemic, the port explosion in 2020 with its political aftermath and the bread shortage created by the war in Ukraine have increased discontent, but they are by no means its starting point. In fact, since the civil war (1975–1990) there have been little significant changes in Lebanon’s political priorities (Arsan 2018, Salloukh 2015), no concentration on the welfare of ordinary citizens. By 2022, media, international actors and Lebanese civil society were describing Lebanon as collapsed, failing, or already failed state. This research explores the situation in Lebanon by elaborating the concept of failure to ask what it means to live and act in a failing state. By combining ground-up ethnographic fieldwork practice with analysis of policy papers on and political and social responses to the current situation on Lebanon, the research project provides a novel approach to state failure. This is achieved by going beyond the idea of a failed state as a security threat, by rather allowing the voices of those who act amid it to be heard.

The research project draws from geographical and anthropological literature on failure (Amin 2016, Musallam 2020, Osborne 2019, Perrons and Posocco 2009, Smith and Woodcraft 2020), and connects them to the emerging literature on ‘geographies of negative’ (Bissel et al 2021). The focus is on the notion of limit, in particular, as it allows to acknowledge agency as constrained. I am interested in what happens if we see failure not as something that can be left behind and learned from (Carroll et al 2017: 3), but as something that exposes the limits of doing. This approach enables taking seriously the rupturing aspects of failure, to see it as something that continues to curtail and destroy capacities (Philo 2017) rather than as something that allows creativity and innovations to emerge (Lewis 2014).

Finished Projects

Present-futures in/of Palestine (Academy of Finland, 2019-2023, PI: Mikko Joronen)

Power of precarity: everyday governing and resistance in the occupied West Bank (Academy of Finland, 2017-2022; PI: Mikko Joronen)

Selected Publications

Kittana A & Gola A (forthcoming). Design and In-War Regeneration: The Experience of Yalla Project in Nablus, Palestine. In Dainese E & Stanicic. A (eds.): War Diaries: Design after the Destruction of Art and Architecture, vol III. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press.

Kittana A & Gola A (forthcoming). Thinking preservation and reconstruction through the idea of urban life: Reflecting on the practice of Yalla Project in the casbah of Nablus, Palestine. In: Al-Jayyousi O, Al-Kodmany K & Alraouf A (eds.): City Re-construction: Urban Policy Innovation: Towards Sustainable Cities in MENA Region. London: Routledge.

Järvi T (2024) Beyond refugeeness: complex subjectivities in Palestinian refugee camps. Social and Cultural Geography 25(9):1471–1489

Joronen M & Ghantous W (2024) Weathering violence: atmospheric materialities and olfactory durations of ‘skunk water’ in Palestine. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 7(3):1122–1141

Masad D & Dajani M (2024) injaṣa Cisterns as Vessels of Knowledge: How Palestinian Traditional Building Knowledge Endures. In Abusaada, M and Al Asali, W (eds): Arab Modern: Architecture and the Project of Independence. Zurich: gta Verlag.

Agha Z, Esson J, Griffiths M, Joronen M (2024) Gaza: a decolonial geography. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, doi:10.1111/tran.12675

Dader K, Ghantous W, Masad D & Joronen M (2024) Topologies of scholasticide in Gaza: education in spaces of elimination. Fennia 202(1): 1-12.

Joronen M & Tarvainen A (2024) Kolonialismin hauntologiasta Palestiinassa. Kosmopolis 54(1-2):59-74

Joronen M & Tarvainen A (2024) Asuttajakolonialismi Palestiinassa: Oikeutuspuheesta kriittiseen tutkimukseen. Kosmopolis 54(1-2):85-91

Joronen M (2024) Eyal Weizman. In Gilmartin M, Hubbard P, Kitchin R & Roberts (eds). Key Thinkers on Space and Place (3. edition). London: SAGE

Ghantous W (2024) Israeli Resettlement Plans in the Gaza Strip. Institute for Palestine Studies.

Järvi, T (2023) Uncanny returns in settler colonial state: return, exile, and decolonization in Palestine/Israel. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 7(13): 2737–2757

Joronen, M (2023) Atmospheric negations: Weaponising breathing, attuning irreducible bodies. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 41(5), 765-783.

Griffiths, M & Joronen, M (2023, eds). Encountering Palestine. Un/making Spaces of Colonial Violence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Ghantous, W (2023) Encountering the Israeli War Machine: Imminent (In)security, Vortical Violence, Rhizomatic Sumud. In: Griffiths, M & Joronen, M (eds) Encountering Palestine. Un/making Spaces of Colonial Violence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Järvi, T (2023) Expectations to Fulfill: Anticipating the Familial Future in Palestinian Refugee Camps. In: Griffiths, M & Joronen, M (eds) Encountering Palestine. Un/making Spaces of Colonial Violence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Joronen, M (2023) Life of the Wounded: Rethinking Settler Colonial Power in Palestine. In: Griffiths, M & Joronen, M (eds) Encountering Palestine. Un/making Spaces of Colonial Violence. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Kittana A & Abu-Baker A (2023) Exploring the Intricate Architectural Fabric of A Historic Arab Medina: A Study of Nablus Old Town. Journal of Islamic Architecture 7(4): 584-594

Järvi, T, Tarvainen A & Joronen, M (2023) Miehitys, asuttajakolonialismi ja vallan epätasapaino: Kommentti Ylen taustoitukseen Gazan tilanteesta. Lähi-itä nyt 1/2023

Järvi, T, Joronen, M & Ghantous W (2023) Väkivalta synnyttää vastarintaa: katsaus Gazan tilanteen taustoihin. Alusta!

Dader K (2023) Boxed Masculinities in a ‘Boxed’ Region: Exploring Masculine Performative Roles in the Gaza Strip. University of South-Eastern Norway.

Ghantous W & Joronen M (2022) Dromoelimination: Accelerating settler colonialism in Palestine. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 40(3): 393–412

Joronen, M. & Griffiths, M. (2022) Ungovernability and ungovernable life in Palestine. Political Geography 98 1-10

Zein D (2022) Performance et exclusion: la place du corps au sein du mouvement intersectionnel des travailleuses domestiques au Liban. L’Homme & la Société 1(214-215) 161-190.

Griffiths M, Berda Y, Joronen M & Kilali L (2022). Israel’s international mobilities regime: visa restrictions for educators and medics in Palestine. Territory, Politics, Governance 12(7): 891-909

Joronen M (2021). Unspectacular spaces of slow wounding in Palestine. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 46(4):995-1007

Joronen M, Tawil-Souri H, Amir M & Griffiths M (2021) Palestinian Futures: Anticipation, Imagination, Embodiments. Introduction to Special Issue. Geografiska Annaler B: Human Geography, 103(4): 277-282

Järvi, T (2021) Demonstrating the desired future: performative dimensions of internally displaced Palestinians’ return activities. Geografiska Annaler B: Human Geography, 103:4, 380-396.

Griffiths M & Joronen M (2021) Governmentalized futures: uncertainty, possibility and anticipation in occupied Palestine. Geografiska Annaler B: Human Geography, 103(4): 352-366

Joronen M (2021). To wound life, to prevent its recovery: Enforcing vulnerability in Gaza. In Bissell, D., Harrison, P. and M. Rose (eds): Negative Geographies: Exploring the Politics of Limits. University of Nebraska Press.

Joronen M & Rose, M (2020) Vulnerability and its politics: Precarity and the woundedness of power. Progress in Human Geography 45(6), 1402–1418

Zein D (2020) Embodied Placemaking : Filipina Migrant Domestic Workers’ Neighborhood in Beirut. Mashriq & Mahjar : Journal of Middle Eastern and North African Migration Studies 7(2) 69-99.

Joronen M (2020) Palestiinan tulevaisuudet. Yksityiskohdista paljastuva poliittinen todellisuus. Politiikasta.fi

Kittana A & AbuJidi N (2020) Weaponized Architecture: Architecture As Agency Of War. ARCPLAN, doi:10.17418/ARCPLAN.2018.1VOL.02

Ghantous W (2020) Settler-Colonial Assemblages and the Making of the Israeli Frontier. Palestinian experiences of (in)security, surveillance and carceral geographies. University of Gothenburg (PhD).

Järvi T (2019) Marking landscape, claiming belonging: The building of a Jewish homeland in Israel/Palestine. In: Lounela A, Berglund E, Kallinen T (eds) Dwelling in Political Landscapes: Contemporary Anthropological Perspectives. Helsinki: SKS.

Balazs R & Zein D (2019). Social Cohesion vis-à-vis Spatial Division: the Contradictions of Participatory Design” in Aelbrecht, P. & Stevens Q. (eds) Public Space Design and Social Cohesion: an International Comparison. London: Routledge, 78-97.

Joronen, M (2019) Negotiating colonial violence: spaces of precarisation in Palestine. Antipode 51(3), 838-857.

Joronen M & Griffiths M (2019) The affective politics of precarity: home demolitions in the occupied West Bank. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 37(3) 561-576.

Kittana A & Meulder B (2019) Architecture as an agency of resilience in urban armed conflicts: The case of Nablus City/Palestine. Archnet-IJAR 13(3): 698-717

Griffiths M & Joronen M (2019) Marriage under occupation: Israel’s spousal visa restrictions in the West Bank. Gender, Place & Culture 26(2) 153-172 (open access here)

Joronen M & Griffiths M (2019) The moment to come: geographies of hope in the hyperprecarious sites of occupied Palestine. Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 101(2) 69-83

Joronen M & Järvi T (2018) Gazan mielenilmaukset nousevat pakolaisyhteisön realiteeteista. Lähi-itä Nyt.

Joronen M (2017) Spaces of waiting: politics of precarious recognition in the Palestinian West Bank.Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 35(6):994–1011.

Joronen M (2017) Waiting and claiming rights: precarities of settler colonial recognition. Society and Space(open access).

Joronen M & Häkli J (2017) Politizicing Ontology. Progress in Human Geography 41(5): 561–579.

Joronen M (2017) Refusing to be a victim, refusing to be an enemy. Form-of-life as resistance in Palestinian struggle against settler colonialism. Political Geography, 56, 91–100.

Joronen M (2017) Few notions on ontology and destituent power. A reply to Gordon. Political Geography, 56, 104-105.

Joronen M (2016) Death comes knocking on the roof. Governmentalities of ethical killing during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Antipode 48(2), 336-354.

Joronen M (2016) Politics of Precarious Childhood: Ill-treatment of Palestinian Children under the Israeli Military Order. Geopolitics 21(1), 92-114.

Ghantous W, Binzoni J (2015) Corporate Complicity in Violations of International Law in Palestine. BADIL: Bethlehem.

Joronen M (2015) Minor(s) matter: stone-throwing, securitization and the government of Palestinian childhood under Israeli military rule’. In: Millei Z & R Imre (eds.) Childhood and Nation. Palgrave MacMillan.

Makhoul M, Reynolds S, Hastings T, Ghantous W and Al-Ubeidiya H (2014) Forced Population Transfer: The Case of Palestine- Discriminatory Zoning and Planning. BADIL: Bethlehem.

Joronen M (2013) Conceptualizing new modes of state governmentality: power, violence and the ontological mono-politics of neoliberalism. Geopolitics 18(2), 356-370.

Joronen M (2013) Heidegger, Event and the Ontological Politics of the Site. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 38(4), 627-638.

Joronen M (2012) Heidegger on the History of Machination: Oblivion of being as Degradation of Wonder, Critical Horizons 13(3), 351-376.

Joronen M (2011) Dwelling in the sites of finitude: Resisting the Violence of the Metaphysical Globe. Antipode 43(4), 1127–1154.

Our research group has collaborated with various instutions and researchers around the world, including Queen’s University Belfast (Ireland), Newcastle University (UK), Birzeit University (Palestine), Aberystwyth University (UK), Durham University (UK), University of Kentucky (US), New York University (US), and more.

GOCEP is also part of the Palestine Research Group, a collaborative network of scholars from Tampere and Newcastle Universities working with various questions related to Palestine and Palestinians around the Middle East.

In Tampere University we work with various other research groups, most importanly the Space and Political Agency Research Group (SPARG).

Geographies of Coloniality and Everyday Violence Research Group (GOCEP)

Leader

Mikko Joronen

Members

Wassim Ghantous

Dalia Zein

Tiina Järvi

Abdalrahman Kittana

Khalid Dader

Majed Abusalama

Danna Masad

Related projects

Dwelling with Crisis: Home at Spaces of Chronic Violence (HOMCRI)

Present-futures in/of Palestine