4.7 Conclusion

4.7 Conclusion

In this chapter, I have outlined the conceptual foundations of my thesis by introducing key theoretical frameworks, genocide by attrition, slow erasure, biopolitics, necropolitics, grievability, and vulnerability. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Mbembe, Butler, Wakeham, and others, I have shown how these concepts illuminate the structural and embodied dimensions of settler-colonial violence.

At the centre of this discussion is the concept of slow erasure, which I develop to describe the prolonged and cumulative efforts to undermine Palestinian identity, agency, and episteme. These processes are enacted through overlapping modes of power: sovereign, disciplinary, biopolitical, and necropolitical, that operate through mechanisms such as surveillance, legal regimes, restricted movement, and the regulation of life and death.

The concepts of grievability and vulnerability expand this analysis by drawing attention to the affective, relational, and communal dimensions of erasure and resistance. In particular, the notion of sumud provides an entry point into understanding how vulnerability can become a source of collective strength and resistance in contexts of occupation.

These conceptual tools will guide the empirical chapters that follow. In Chapters Five through Eight, I use this framework to analyse how settler-colonial power manifests in the lived experiences of Palestinians, and how practices of resistance and survival emerge within, and against, the structures of slow erasure.