Faculty

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://hdl.handle.net/11209/8744

The institutional repository for scholarship by the faculty of Bennington College

Browse

Browsing Faculty by Subject "activism"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Between Tikkun Olam and Self-Defense: Young Jewish Americans Debate the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
    (PsychOpen, 2017) Ben Hagai, Ella; Zurbriggen, Eileen L.
    In this study, we examined processes associated with ingroup members’ break from their ingroup and solidarity with the outgroup. We explored these processes by observing the current dramatic social change in which a growing number of young Jewish Americans have come to reject Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians. We conducted a yearlong participant observation and in-depth interviews with 27 Jewish American college students involved in Israel advocacy on a college campus. Findings suggest that Jewish Americans entering the Jewish community in college came to learn about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a lens of Jewish vulnerability. A bill proposed by Palestinian solidarity organizations to divest from companies associated with Israel (part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions or BDS movement) was also interpreted through the lens of Israel's vulnerability. As the college’s Student Union debated the bill, a schism emerged in the Jewish community. Some Jewish students who had a strong sense of their Jewish identity and grounded their Judaism in principles of social justice exhibited a greater openness to the Palestinian narrative of the conflict. Understanding of Palestinian dispossession was associated with the rejection of the mainstream Jewish establishment’s unconditional support of Israel. Moreover, dissenting Jewish students were concerned that others in the campus community would perceive them as denying the demands of people of color. We discuss our observations of the process of social change in relation to social science theories on narrative acknowledgment and collective action.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Intersecting Alliances: Non-Palestinian Activists in Support of Palestine
    (American Psychological Association, 2018-01) Hill, Sophia; Ben Hagai, Ella; Zurbriggen, Eileen L.
    Influenced by social identity theory, psychologists have focused primarily on the role of shared identity in leading people to engage in collective action. In this study, we are concerned with the factors that lead individuals who do not share a collective identity to act in solidarity with an outgroup. We explored this question by looking at the narratives and motives that brought non-Palestinian university students to participate in collective action for Palestine. In-depth interviews with campus activists and a yearlong observation of campus debates over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict suggested a number of motives for solidarity activism. First, activists drew parallels between their in-group collective narrative and the collective narrative of the Palestinians. Second, an intersectional narrative of identity increased activist self-efficacy by highlighting the ways that activists were both marginalized and privileged. Third, activists explained their affinity to these narratives as rooted in personal experiences with marginalization and discrimination. A final motive arose through the practice of coalition building that further empowered students of different minority groups. Findings from this study contribute to an understanding of the current surge in Palestinian solidarity activism on college campuses in the United States.