PLANTEAMIENTO DEL PROBLEMA

The Naqab Bedouin have mobilised indigeneity in their challenge of state racialisation, culturalisation and ethnicisation. However, the discourse and framework of indigeneity have paradoxically also reinforced the gaze on culture and resulted in perpetuating the fragmentation of the Palestinian people along ethnic and religious lines. As stated by Awad Abu-Freih:

I feel the indigenous discourse is dangerously disconnecting us from our Palestinian identity and belonging. If I say I am indigenous, we start talking of a separate people who are distinct from the rest of the Palestinian population. I am not interested in

divide and rule. At the same time, we are indigenous. Why should I deny my indigeneity? (Interview, Awad Abu-Freih 2013)63

The development of Bedouin indigeneity along culturalist lines has framed the Bedouin struggle as a multicultural accommodative political project centred on frameworks of citizenship, recognition, reconciliation and transitional justice. This approach has further rested on the normalisation of the settler state, its authority and its sovereignty. In their work on Bedouin indigeneity, Yiftachel, Roded and A. Kedar suggest that:

… rather than forming a bone of contention, indigeneity can be used as an historical opening. It presents an opportunity for redressing the colonial relations existing in the Negev since the late 1940s. This is because under certain circumstances, the indigenous concept enables (mutual) recognition and flexibility. Indigeneity and customary traditions, rather than the strict letter of the law, are open to mediation and mutual adjustment, instead of the current reliance on rigid legalities or violent dictates. In such a process, recognition can progress mutually, enabling the transformation … of Israeli Jews from a settler, to a non-colonizing, homeland group. We therefore suggest thinking about indigeneity as an opportunity to give substance to Bedouin-Palestinian citizenship, based on the UNDRIP principles outlined above. This will enable the reconciliation of rivaling cultures brought together by fate of history and geography, whose futures are intertwined in the Negev/Naqab. To do so, the ruling forces must shift their paradigm and transform their treatment of indigenous Bedouins from oppression and denials to recognition and rights – the sooner, the better. (Yiftachel, Roded and A. Kedar 2016, 25–6, emphasis in original)

Their approach exemplifies Glen Sean Coulthard’s argument that ‘the purportedly diversity-affirming forms of state recognition and accommodation defended by some proponents of contemporary liberal recognition politics can subtly reproduce nonmutual and unfree relations rather than free and mutual ones’ (Coulthard 2014, 17; for additional critique on the politics of recognition, see Bhandar 2011 and, in the context of Australian multiculturalism, Povinelli 2002).

Framing indigeneity as a multicultural project of recognition had led some grassroots Palestinian Bedouin activists – particularly (but not limited to) the youngest generation – to favour resistance grounded in Palestinian nationalism (not liberal nationalism). The agenda of these new movements among the Naqab Bedouin have come to favour an

63 _{Similar concern was raised in my interviews with Amir Abu-Kweder (2014); Awad Abu-Freih (2013);}

antagonistic project of decolonisation framed around demands for self-determination, sovereignty and the dismantling of the settler colonial regime. As Huda Abu Obaid, a Bedouin activist, explains:

I am not with the use of the term indigenous people. When you use this phrase, you effectively legitimise the existence of the occupier. You accept the reality as it is. But here the Zionist existence is illegitimate, not acceptable. I instead use the term of the Palestinian Bedouin society in the Naqab. I don’t want to legitimise the Zionist ideology, which is built on the takeover of our land. (Interview, Huda Abu Obaid 2014)

Suhad Bishara, a land rights lawyer in Adalah, also argues that the indigenous framework is based on the normalisation of the settler polity and the naturalisation of settler sovereignty:

For me, the issue of the utility of indigeneity is whether this framework is suitable to our historical and political context. In the context of the indigenous framework, you already have certain experiences in the US, Australia – states that emerged as colonial. The discourse there makes peace with the colonial system that already exists. There is no talk about dismantling the settler state. Do we want to find a way that we can live with the settler state and the colonial system as indigenous? I think this is the main consideration. Is this framework compatible with our political vision and desire? Some might answer this question with a ‘yes, we want equality and to find a way to live within the system’. Others tell you, ‘this is my homeland, and I want it back’. Using the indigeneity framework in the context of occupation is very problematic. (Interview, Suhad Bishara 2013)

Nonetheless, as in other cases of indigenous struggles, Bedouin activists appropriate ‘the universal “indigenous” label when engaging strategically with laws, institutions and social movements’ (Saul 2016, 24). As Amir Abu Kweder states:

To an extent, we have internalised the use of this indigenous discourse, especially when we advocate foreign audiences. We use it since it gives us access to the UN and other international forums. I personally try to avoid this discourse as much as possible. But sometimes, I use indigeneity as an instrumental tool, but not as an ideological one. Nonetheless, the Palestinianisation of our society is much stronger than any parallel process of trying to distort our identity and transform it into a folklorised and exoticised form of identity. (Interview, Amir Abu Kweder 2014)

4. Repressive Authenticity and the Double Bind of