Journal Article

Martyr bodies in the media: Human rights, aesthetics, and the politics of immediation in the Palestinian intifada

ALLEN, LORI A.

2009

Overview

The growth of the human rights regime in the Palestinian occupied territories during the last two decades and the spread of visual media have had an extreme effect on the nature of Palestinian politics and society. They have transformed the way Palestinians represent themselves to each other and to the international community, whereby appeals to human rights help to constitute a human subject with certain kinds of rights that are seen to arise not from a political status but from the state of (human) nature. In this article, I explore the \"politics of immediation\" at work during the second Palestinian intifada, which began in 2000, to explain why social actors mobilize representations of people in states of acute physical and emotional distress as part of their political projects.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Inc,Wiley Subscription Services,Wiley,American Ethnological Society,Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subject: Aesthetics / Affectivity / Electronic records / Emotional distress / Ethnology / Human Rights / International community / Intifada / Mass media effects / Media / Middle East / Middle Eastern politics / Military occupations / News content / Nongovernmental organizations / Occupied territories / Palestinian Authority / Palestinian people / Palestinians / Physical symptoms / Political conditions / Political discourse / Political representation / Politics / Psychological distress / Rebellions / Research subjects / Social relations. Intercultural and interethnic relations. Collective identity / Social representations / Social structure and social relations / Society / Television broadcasting / Visual communication / Visual media