New Palestinian centers: An ethnography of the 'checkpoint economy

Based on an ethnography of Palestinian checkpoint workers, the author suggests that new and emerging 'checkpoint economies' are transforming politically contested boundaries into important economic centers. Focusing on taxi drivers, porters, merchants and peddlers at the West Bank's Qalandia checkpoint, halfway between Jerusalem and Ramallah, the article tracks the growth of checkpoints and their ad hoc economy, and of Qalandia specifically, and argues that although checkpoints are technologies of Israeli military control, they are also renegotiated spaces of resistance.