Dr Sara Roy, from the Harvard Centre for Middle Eastern Studies, will be giving the Edward Said Memorial Lecture this year and is visiting Canberra on 15th October.  Don’t miss her talks – you have two opportunities to hear her :

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Joint Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies and RSSS seminar

Dr Sarah Roy, Senior Research Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University

Public Lecture Series: Beyond Occupation - Examining the New Reality in Israel and Palestine

When: Wednesday 15th October, 3pm - 4.30pm

Where: Law Lecture Theatre, Australian National University (Free of charge)

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Wednesday 15th October, 6.30pm

Shalimar Indian Restaurant, Marcus Clarke Street

$35 ($30 concessions) incl. dinner

(Call 0424 910617 to book by 13th October)

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In the last eight years, the transformations in land, labor, economy, and demography in Israel and the Occupied Territories have been stunning. Palestinians have suffered losses not seen since the beginning of Israeli occupation in 1967, and arguably, since the losses of 1948. The current context has many dimensions but is defined primarily by Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian lands, perhaps most vividly expressed in the widespread expansion of Israeli settlements, the isolation of the West Bank and Gaza, the internal cantonisation of the West Bank and the bureaucratisation of Israeli control. The current context is also defined by rapid socioeconomic decline, the total fragmentation of the geographical base of the Palestinian economy, the humanitarianisation of the Palestinian people, and the destruction of political life. The intensification and institutionalisation of these and other conditions have led to some critical paradigmatic shifts in the way the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is conceptualised, understood and addressed.

This presentation will examine these paradigmatic shifts at the political, social and economic levels and argue that they collectively undermine the possibility of achieving a meaningful and politically and economically sustainable resolution of the conflict.

Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. Trained as a political economist, Dr. Roy has worked in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since 1985 conducting research primarily on the economic, social and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign aid to the region. Dr. Roy has written extensively on the Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, and has documented its development over the last three decades.

Dr. Roy has written many books on Palestinian issues. Her most recent book is Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and she is completing Between Extremism and Civism: Political Islam in Palestine. Dr. Roy also serves on the Advisory Boards of the American Near East Relief Agency (ANERA), and the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University.