Paper presented at panel session C2: Questioning the State level of Analysis at the Swedish National Conference on Peace and Conflict Research, Umeå University, 27-28 February, Umeå, Sweden, 2014.

1. Water, recognition and resistance
at the
Golan Heights and the Westbank
By Joshka Wessels (PhD), Lund University
Presented at the National Conference on Peace and Conflict Research,
Umeå, 27-28 February 2014

2. © 2002 The Knowers Ark
Educational Foundation

3. Hydrohegemony
Hydro-hegemony is hegemony at the river basin
level, achieved through water resource control
strategies such as resource capture, integration
and containment – Zeitoun & Warner
• Riparian position
• Military or economic power
• Exploitation potential infrastructure &
technology

4. Environmental Peacebuilding
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Common ground of a shared environment
Resource driven war vs. resource driven peace
Cooperative benefits and strategic interests
Hegemonic asymmetry vs. equal counterparts
Altruism vs. Selfishness for human survival
Emphasis on technocracy and rational choice
Transformation of conflict and trauma

5. Colonial-logics
“All remnants of colonial or neo-colonial thought
in world politics and multiple rationalities that
drive the rational choice of powerful militarised
countries to exploit the planet’s natural
resources whilst disregarding the human rights
and ownership of those at local level who are
directly dependant on those resources”.

6. Deconstruction of colonial-logics
• Democratic liberal peacebuilding theory
• Rational choice for collective action theory
• Realism and liberalism perpetuates
domination (Jabri)
• Empirical studies of “domination dressed up
as cooperation” (Selby)
• Local level cases of hydrohegemony and
counter-hegemony

7. Occupied Golan Heights

9. Source: www.polgeonow.com

10. Battir (West Bethlehem)
Source: Cafés-Cartographiques 2013

11. Actors in Battir
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Battir Local Community
Palestinian Authority
Israeli High Court
Israel Nature and Parks Authority
Civil Administration & Israeli Defense Forces
NGO Friends of the Earth - Middle East
(FoEME)
• UNESCO Cultural Heritage Committee

12. Local counter-hegemony
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Legal action
Non-violent resistance
Citizenship, cultural heritage and identities
Annexation (legal/de-facto) or Occupation
Third party agency
Recognition and Disrecognition