Event
Geography Faculty Talks: Professors Sarah Moser & Graham Macdonald
Monday, December 1, 2025 10:00to11:00
Burnside Hall
Room 426, 805 rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montreal, QC, H3A 0B9, CA
The Gazan Riviera and other entrepreneurial imaginaries
Sarah Moser
Abstract: The scale and pace of destruction in Gaza since October 2023 has prompted many discussions about what post-war Gaza will look like, how it will be rebuilt, and by whom. Particularly since Trump became president for the second time in January 2025, Americans and Israeli officials have proposed a number of rebuilding schemes. These are premised on the belief that Gazans and other Palestinians residing in Gaza have no claim to the land or right to remain and are guided by an entrepreneurial logic that views Gaza as economically unproductive waterfront property that is wasted on Palestinians and requires 鈥榠mprovement鈥� in order to be profitable for investors. American and Israeli political elites imagine a sort of luxurious international 鈥楪azan Riviera鈥� as a 鈥榮pace of exception鈥� where normal laws and regulations are suspended and which is regulated and governed using distinct legislation and autonomous non-state actors. In this research I trace some of the origins and antecedents of the Gazan Riviera scheme and examine some of the ways in which they are circulated. While these schemes are audacious and will break international law, I argue that they echo many recent urban mega-developments in which ethnic cleansing, land grabbing, and the establishment of zones governed by separate laws and regulations are increasingly normalized.
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Graham Macdonald
Abstract: TBA