Colonial Constructs: Stone, Cement, Labor, and Race in Modern Palestine/Israel

For over a century, construction has been at the heart of the struggle over Palestine/Israel. The ability to build on the land, the capacity to extract materials from it, and the development of economic and technological dominance in the construction industry were all central to Palestinian and Zionist ambitions to establish modern national communities. Construction also contributed to cementing a colonial social hierarchy among Jews and Palestinians, as racialized notions of skill, ability, and human needs shaped divisions of labor within the industry and the built environments.

From the vantage points of the construction site, cement factory, workers' encampment, self-built home, and boardroom, Colonial Constructs provides a new perspective on the Zionist-Palestinian conflict. Here, the materiality of the land itself – the rocks that underlie it and the buildings and infrastructure that construct it – take center stage. Following the experiences and aspirations of those who labored to excavate, manufacture, and build, Nimrod Ben Zeev tracks the interplay between construction work, the construction industry, and metaphorical constructions of nation- and state-building, the building and rebuilding of communities, and the construction of social difference. In so doing, this book reveals the material underpinnings of a colonial structure of domination, but also the long Palestinian history of rebuilding in the shadow of ongoing catastrophe.