Dr Elian Weizman

ISRF Early Career Fellow 2022-23

Dr Elian Weizman

ISRF Early Career Fellow 2022-23

Elian is a senior lecturer in International Relations at London South Bank University. Elian’s research agenda is grounded in the case of Israel/Palestine, but speaks more broadly to the study of (settler) colonial regimes, paying particular attention to the dynamics of resistance within settler states, the intersection of law and violence and the politics of knowledge production in these contexts. She currently serves as the honorary secretary of the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) where she previously acted as the deputy director of the Kenyon Institute in Occupied East Jerusalem (2015-2017). She is now developing and coordinating, together with Dr Federica Rossi (LSBU) an international network of scholars analysing the processes, strategies and tools of formal and informal criminalisation of political activism/dissent in multiple  countries, that are self-defining as ‘liberal democracies’ across different continents. 

The Threshold of Criminalisation: Cartographies of State Vulnerabilities and Anti-Colonial Resistance in Israel

The project sets to develop a nuanced understanding of processes of formal and informal criminalisation in Israel, here regarded as a ‘liberal settler state’, and their operation on the state’s most privileged groups. In so doing, it investigates key aspects of political activism and notions of legality and criminality and unravels the logic behind the increasing repression of Jewish-Israeli dissidents in recent years, as indicated by recent legislation; the growing incitement against them by politicians and right-wing organisations; and the growing number of prosecutions of political activists. By tracing the shifting threshold of criminalisation, we gain a window into the precarity of such systems of power and how they can be challenged and transformed. Through this case study, a wider contribution to the study of resistance, criminalisation and settler colonial studies will be made, pointing to the links between the efficacy of resistance and growing state repression.

Contacting Fellows

If you would like to contact any of our Fellows to discuss their ISRF-funded work, please contact Dr Lars Cornelissen (Academic Editor) in the first instance, at [email protected].