Dorina-Maria Buda Title : Touching Fear, Fearing Touch: Touring the West Bank in Israel/Palestine

by

Dorina-Maria Buda

In this presentation I explore the ways in which sensuous touch contributes to co-constructions of affective and emotional subjectivitiesin a tourism context in the West Bank in Israel/Palestine. Drawing on socio-spatial theories of haptics, touch and fear are argued to be part of a sensuous hapticality, intimately connected and happening within and around places and bodies – of tourists, local guides and soldiers – in conflict. The location of the West Bank in the heart of the ongoing conflict turns tourism mobilities into a contested tool of exclusion of some, mainly locals, whether Israelis or Palestinians, who are positioned not as free in the same way as tourists and/or soldiers.The West Bank wall and its checkpoints have become tourist attractions, pervasive and ever presentin the Israeli/Palestinian landscape enticing most tourists in the area.Empirical examples are drawn from fieldwork conducted in Israel/Palestine in 2010 and 2017/2018 where interviews were undertaken withlocal tour guides and international tourists.