UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
UC Santa Barbara UC Santa Barbara Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Now That I’ve Seen Their Faces: Contact, Social Justice, and Tourism in Israel/Palestine Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/36079063 Author Schneider, Emily Maureen Publication Date 2019 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara Now That I’ve Seen Their Faces: Contact, Social Justice, and Tourism in Israel/Palestine A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology by Emily Maureen Schneider Committee in charge: Professor Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Chair Professor John Foran Professor Lisa Hajjar Professor Richard Flacks March 2019 The dissertation of Emily Maureen Schneider is approved. ____________________________________________ John Foran ____________________________________________ Lisa Hajjar ____________________________________________ Richard Flacks ____________________________________________ Kum-Kum Bhavnani, Committee Chair December 2018 Acknowledgements This dissertation is about empathy and learning. Throughout my life, I have been fortunate to be surrounded by people who have provided me with both of these gifts. In particular, my chair, Kum-Kum Bhavnani has exemplified this balance of kindness and intellectual rigor. She has pushed me to think deeply, to strive for clarity, and to be accountable to my subjects and to greater political truths. I often tell people how lucky I am to have an advisor whom I have maintained such a rich, trusting relationship with for nearly seven years. Kum-Kum, thank you for your guidance and for enabling me to write a dissertation that captures the complexities of lived experience, the unique pains and hopes of diverse individuals, while remaining committed to the struggle against oppression. I am also immensely grateful for the wisdom and guidance of my other committee members. John, I will always remember our first meeting almost eight years ago. Before I had decided to pursue my PhD at UCSB, you met with me and gave me such confidence in my ideas and in my desire to use my research to effect change. Since then, you have continued to provide a blueprint for combining rich, intellectual pursuits with activism. Lisa, thank you for giving me the courage to pursue a dissertation on Israel/Palestine with fearlessness and purpose. You have always been a source of clarity and reminded me that despite the polemics surrounding this contentious topic, the driving force behind this project is an honest commitment to facts and justice. Dick, thank you for challenging me to explore new directions in my research, and for helping me to maintain the relevancy of my work. I’m grateful for the invaluable ways that each of you has enabled me to produce a dissertation that I hope is both theoretically rich and that speaks to the movements and ideals which I seek to uplift. iii None of my research would have been possible without my loved ones and community partners in Israel/Palestine. Thank you to Tal, who is the reason I took my first of many flights to Tel Aviv. Thank you for first teaching me how love and compassion can coexist with criticism and outrage. Ala, I consider those nights at the AIC and the Citadel to be some of the most transformative of my life. Thank you for being both patient and hard on me, for challenging me with a smile, and for your enduring friendship. Hamdan, you exemplify the purist form of kindness that I have encountered throughout my life. I could not have asked for a more loyal or generous person to work with over the past eleven years. Yair, thank you for accompanying me to places you didn’t always want to go, and for modeling the kind of openness and empathy that makes the world a better place. Melanie, your friendship got me through many hard times, and I’m eternally grateful for our partnership and shared vision for a more critical and engaged Jewish community. Ghassan, thank you for making the tours to Hebron a reality and for your friendship. Your spirit and rawness constantly remind me why I care about this place. Thank you to Issa and the entire Youth Against Settlements team, you are the epitome of fearless, steadfast resistance. Thank you also to Motassem, Salah, Mahmoud, Islam, Wasef, Mohammed, Badee, Amir, and Leila for your partnerships and invaluable contributions to these tours. Rachel, my parallel life, you were my source of sanity throughout this process. Shu, Gaby, and Ula, and the rest of the Ulpan team, your friendship kept me grounded, especially during the early years of navigating this place. Thank you to Baha, your brilliance served as a compass for me as I tried to write critically and usefully about tourism to Palestine. And thank you to Honi, Lillian, Khaled, Rawan, Enad, Rani, Saed, and Anna for reminding me to have fun. Thank you especially to Rebecca and Itamar for your emotional and intellectual support. Our many conversations towards the iv end of this process helped me to develop several of the key ideas of this dissertation. Lastly, thank you to the members of All That’s Left (especially Karen and Daniel), Encounter, Scott and the MEJDI staff, Breaking the Silence and finally, Rutie and the entire Windows team. Without you all, this dissertation would not exist. To my professors at UCSB, thank you for allowing me to explore radical thought and social problems in ways that felt limitless. Thank you especially to my cohort for a never dull first few years of graduate school. And to my other friends in Santa Barbara, Annie, Amber, Andrew, Baron, Greg, Jamella, Katelynn, and Salvador, I’m so grateful for your support and for the intellectual community we created. I’m also grateful for my other academic home, Colorado College. Thank you to the CC sociology department for giving me a supportive environment where I could learn, write, teach, and grow professionally. I’m particularly grateful to the students who played a role in this research – Hailey, Lam, Sonya, Kyana, Belle, Charles, Payton, Ryan, Jamie, and Skilling. Thank you to my friends and mentors, Kobi, Heather, Bobby, and Sanjaya, and especially to Gail and Prentiss, your support these last few years has been invaluable. Lauren, thank you for being there for me every day during these final months of writing. I owe many of the ideas in this dissertation to our lunchtime conversations, you’ve challenged me to be a braver, more critical thinker. Finally, I would not have made it through this process without my family, and the friends who have become my family. Stephanie, Margot, and Alex, when I’m feeling overwhelmed you are the first people I call. Your love and encouragement mean the world to me. My brother Andrew, you give me hope every day that people can be good, and that a more just and compassionate world is within reach. To my parents, thank you for creating a v life for me where I could pursue an education and travel the world. To my dad, Joel, thank you for always believing in me, and for raising me to be confident and driven. And my Mom, Cindy, thank you for encouraging me to dream, and for teaching me about inequality, justice, and racism from an early age. All of the values embodied in this dissertation are because of you. Finally, my husband Luke, thank you for your unending support and patience. Your love has changed my world for the better. vi VITA OF EMILY M. SCHNEIDER JANUARY 2019 EDUCATION 2019 Ph.D., Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara Dissertation: Now That I’ve Seen Their Faces: Contact, Activism, and Tourism in Israel/Palestine Committee: Kum-Kum Bhavnani (chair), John Foran, Lisa Hajjar, and Richard Flacks 2015 M.A, Sociology (with distinction), University of California, Santa Barbara 2009 B.A, Cum Laude, Distinction in Sociology, Colorado College 2008 Tel Aviv University Overseas Semester Program ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS 2016 - Present Visiting Assistant Professor Department of Sociology Colorado College RESEARCH AND TEACHING AREAS Tourism; Peace and Conflict; Human Rights; Globalization; Social Justice; Intersectionality PUBLICATIONS REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES In press Schneider, Emily. “It Changed My Sympathy, Not My Opinion: Alternative Jewish Tourism to the Occupied Palestinian Territories,” forthcoming in Sociological Focus Winner: Society for the Study of Social Problems Critical/Global Division’s Best Graduate Student Paper vii In press Schneider, Emily. “Touring for Peace: The Role of Dual-Narrative Tours in Creating Transnational Activists,” forthcoming in International Journal of Tourism Cities Honorable Mention: Society for Study of Social Problem’s Conflict, Social Action and Change Division’s Student Paper Competition 2017 Schneider, Emily. “Empathy, Shame, and Place: Paths to Ideological Transformation and Anti-War Activism,” The Journal of Creative Geography, 19: 82-90 BOOK CHAPTERS 2015 Bhavnani, Kum-Kum and Emily Schneider. "Nothing like Chocolate: Sex Trafficking and Child Labor Trafficking." pp. 181-194 in Global Human Trafficking: Critical Issues and Contexts, edited by Molly Dragiewicz. New York: Routledge. ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRIES In Press Schneider, Emily “Adalah,” “B’Tselem,” “Breaking the Silence,” and “Peace Now.” Forthcoming in Conflict in the Holy Land: An Encyclopedic History from Ancient Times to the Arab-Israeli Conflicts, edited by Robert DiPrizio. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. BOOK REVIEWS 2018 Schneider, Emily. “Youth Encounter Programs in Israel: Pedagogy, Identity,