Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Literature Review
- Research Design
- Conceptual Framework: From Environmental Security to a Relational Ecology
- Background on War on Gaza
- Impact of War on the Environment in Gaza
- Conclusion
- References
Abstract
Rethinking the impact of war on the environment in IR may be possible by advancing a relational ecological approach. To do so, this study evaluates how coloniality in thinking IR limits understandings of the impact of war on the environment which can be broadened by rethinking IR through the case study of Gaza. To do this rethinking, this study provides an overview of the literatures which aid in developing a critical appraisal of IR in terms of its thinking, its treatment of war and security, the impact of war on the environment, and the Gaza Strip. These critical viewpoints evaluate the colonial foundations of IR which operate through logics such as linearity, occlusion, and abstraction which marginalise the environment and subalterns as securitised objects. Based on this critique, a framework which understands the world as an ecology of relationality between all things can be advanced as an alternative. This could be strengthened by enquiries into history and grappling with the challenges of linearity and positionality. Rethinking IR in this relational way can platform marginalised subjects, promote new methods, and deconstruct the dualist boundaries enforced by IR which occlude a relational understanding of war and the environment. In discussing the case study of Gaza where war is currently unfolding, this study explores a discussion of Palestinian history and identity to appraise the roles of coloniality and relationality in shaping a complex reality of Palestinian being. This informs an understanding of how the environment, as a part of this being, can experience violence. Hence, the impact of war on the environment can be explored as co-constituted processes of ecocide and genocide. To discuss this in terms of the decolonial framework of relationality, the humanitarian impact of war in Gaza since October 7, 2023, is explicated. Furthermore, the impact on the environment is explored in terms of categories such as water, waste, energy infrastructure, marine environment, terrestrial environment, and air. This engages mixed-method research to source descriptions of the impact and quantify the loss of vegetation. Together, the impact on humans and the environment can be understood as ecocide and genocide in which the targeting of people has collateral damage in nature either directly from war or indirectly as a result of displacement and disruption of water and sanitation services. Furthermore, the environment may also experience destruction directly in severing the relations forming Palestinian being. Ecocide is thus resulting from a war of genocide in which life forms become dispensable to coloniality. Thinking relationally is thus able to grasp such complexities of war and violence and possibly imagine ways in which this could be disrupted to advance peace and respect for all forms of life.
This represents the work from my Master’s research, which can be found in full here.