Social Science History Association (SSHA) Annual Meeting; Washington, D.C.

Conference: Social Science History Association (SSHA) Annual Meeting  Washington, D.C.
November 16 – 19, 2023

Presentation: “Contested Solidarities: Negotiating Transnational Solidarity through Tourism in Palestine”

The 49th annual meeting of the Social Science History Association (SSHA) was held November 16-19, 2023 in Washington, DC. The theme of the conference was Pursuits of Wellbeing. Sponsored by the Kellogg Institute’s Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant, I presented a paper on a panel of the Culture section titled Figuring Global Politics. The panel also included Kellogg faculty fellow Ann Mische and Kellogg graduate affiliate Wesley Hedden. Although our time slot at 8am on Saturday meant that attendance was slim, the group that gathered had a lively discussion.

My paper, “Contested Solidarities: Negotiating Transnational Solidarity through Tourism in Palestine,” explores preliminary results of my year of fieldwork. The research draws on over 700 hours of participant observation and 48 in-depth interviews with community leaders to answer questions about how marginalized people claim, resist, and transfer narrative authority in a stigmatized discursive context. My research investigates the case of “solidarity tourism” in Palestine/Israel and shows how interactions between Palestinians and international visitors are shaped by Orientalist discourses, even in spaces explicitly centering social justice. During the panel Q&A, I received very useful feedback and questions that will inform the continuing development of my dissertation. The SSHA panel was the first time I have presented my work following October 7, and it was a challenging emotional experience. I was very grateful for the generosity of the other panelists and audience members.

In addition to my own panel, I attended several other very interesting sessions, including Cultures of Calculation and Resistance, and The Dynamics of Finance, Wealth, and Inequality in Macrohistorical Perspective. I appreciated that many of these panels highlighted the work of graduate students, providing an opportunity to network with peers and colleagues with similar interests. It was also helpful to attend the conference with my advisor, Ann Mische, and have the opportunity to meet her friends and colleagues from across the discipline. I appreciated the more intimate size of the SSHA (compared to conferences such as the American Sociological Association meetings). It felt more possible to access and get to know other scholars. As luck would have it, we ran into former Kellogg fellow Luiz Vilaca and had the chance to spend some time hearing about Luiz’s current work.