the International Court of Justice (2004) used the term ‘Wall’ as the most accurate
term to describe the “security fence” when understood in terms of its material
effects. The ruling also declared its construction as illegal under international law
(see International Court of Justice, 2004 “Legal Consequences of the Construction
of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory: Advisory Opinion” (July 9),http://
http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?pr=71&p1=3&p2=1&case=131&p3=6 )(accessed
June 11, 2009). For a detailed barrier route, seehttp://www.btselem.org/English/
Maps/Index.asp(accessed May 10, 2013); for reports on the barrier’s impact see
UN OCHAhttp://www.ochaopt.org/generalreports.aspx?id=97&f=2005-01-01&t=
2008-04-30(accessed May 10, 2013); B’tselemhttp://www.btselem.org/english/publi
cations/Index.asp?TF=15&image.x=7&image.y=4 (accessed May 10, 2013).
- All names of people have been changed.
3.According to International Law the Palestinian Territories are under Israeli
occupation as the Israeli government de facto annexed the Palestinian Territories
after the 1967 war with its Arab neighbors. However, consistent with international
law, borders cannot be defined by land annexation, but only through peace negotia-
tions. Consequently, according to the UN Security Council and the International
Court of Justice also Jewish settlements within occupied territories contravene
international law and the 4th Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of
civilian populations into occupied areas.
4.Van der Meulen (2011) points out that marginal communities, such as
sex workers, were frequently misrepresented in academic treatises. She found that
such works were often shaped by researchers’ ideology and sense of morality.
Consequently, they tended to perceive sex workers as victims, who were ill equipped
to make informed decisions, due to a lack of education, poverty, and a history of
abuse. However, such accounts failed to understand the complexity and diversity
within sex workers’ communities nor did they reflect sex workers’ social reality and
concerns. - Arguably, it would be a worthwhile exercise to strip away the taken-for-
grantednessof the politics of the conflict and instead attempt to understand the
lifeworlds of different social groups in context, as well as to provide a Foucaudian
type of genealogy of how certain issues have historically become defined as see-
mingly inevitably political problems. For analyses of the social construction of
social problems seeHolstein and Gubrium (2000), Leuenberger(2006), Spector and
Kitsuse (1977), andStallings (1990).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to the Fulbright Scholar Program for the Middle East,
North Africa, Central and South Asia Regional Research Program (grantee
no. G48413539), the Fulbright Specialist Program (grantee no. 88100362),
and the National Science Foundation (award no. 1152322) for research
support. I like to thank Thaddeus Mu ̈ller for encouraging me to write this
38 CHRISTINE LEUENBERGER