Conception of violence in the West Bank

The aim of the project is to examine conceptions and handling of violence in a post-colonial society with legal pluralism, where the formal criminal justice system is weak. The project is carried out as an ethnographic study of court cases in the West Bank in Palestine, analyzed from a perspective drawing on post-colonial theory, critical criminology and sociology of law.

The main research questions are: How is violence conceived and handled in the West Bank? To what extent, and in which ways, does colonial history, a weak state, and legal pluralism in the area impact on the conception and handling of violence? These research questions can bring new knowledge about: (a) conceptions of violence, and various ways of handling it; (b) the relationship between conceptions of violence, social control and power structures organizing societies; (c) social control in the West Bank under occupation; (d) the relationship between western ideas of justice and social control in the global south.