solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and so as to understand and
advocate for the “inner logic” (Rottenburg, 2006) of either sides’ perspec-
tive, while at the same time, deconstruct the otherness of the other, might
be one form of intermarriage between politics and science that might just
still be defendable in the context of an intractable conflict.
When I first landed at Ben Gurion airport in February 2008 and arrived
inwhat many locals endearingly call “the white city” of Tel Aviv I did not
realize that what was to be a circumscribed short-term semester’s project
was to become one of life’s all-encompassing works and passions. Orit once
told me over a steaming hot cappuccino in one of Tel Aviv’s many cafe ́s,
“you came here as a researcher and you did not know that you’d return
home a local.” The discovery of IsraelPalestine had become more than
the discovery of a people, it became a form of self-discovery. It was about
fear and challenge, community and commitment, friendship and love, trust
and understanding, passion and politics, as well as about science and meth-
ods. As for now, I have embarked on another lengthy research trip to the
contested city of Jerusalem. From my neighborhood I hear the mosques
calling to prayers, watch the children playing on playgrounds, see the West
Bank Wall from the local supermarket, and observe the armed security
guards playing computer games on their IPhones whilst guarding fenced-in
apartment complexes. To be here has become not just a choice, but also a
need, a longing, a calling, and a jinx, not least because I have been “cap-
tured” by the politics, intricacies, and complexities of IsraelPalestine, and
impelled by the potential of the social sciences to further peace and reconci-
liation in the region. Indeed, for me, academic pursuits have become
entangled with: attempts to advance cultural understanding and tolerance,
the desire for academic knowledge to further capacity-building, and the
recognition for the need for local expertise to inform the Ivy Towers of the
academe. Yet, at the same time, what started off as an ethnographic experi-
ence so many years ago has, by now, also became a deeply personal
journey.
NOTES
- In 2002, the Israeli government started to build what it termed a “security
fence” that consists partly of concrete walls (along densely populated areas) and a
“fence system” in rural areas. Once completed, it is projected to be 721 km long
(twice as long as the internationally recognized Green Line, the 1949 armistice line,
marking the boundary between Israel and the West Bank). In an advisory opinion,
Knowledge-Making and its Politics in Conflict Regions 37