Boycott!: The Academy and Justice for Palestine (American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present)

American Studies Now: Critical Histories of the Present

by Sunaina Maira

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has expanded rapidly though controversially in the United States in the last five years. The academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions is a key component of this movement. What is this boycott? Why does it make sense? And why is this an American Studies issue? In this short essential book , Sunaina Maira addresses these key questions.  Boycott!  situates the academic boycott in the broader history of boycotts in the United States as well as in Palestine and shows how it has evolved into a transnational social movement that has spurred profound intellectual and political shifts. It explores the movement’s implications for antiracist, feminist, queer, and academic labor organizing and examines the boycott in the context of debates about Palestine, Zionism, race, rights-based politics, academic freedom, decolonization, and neoliberal capitalism. 

Genres: History

180 pages, Paperback

Published January 31, 2018

Reviews

[Kai · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a helpful recent history of bds organizing in the united states, with a focus on interdisciplinary "american studies." for those outside the U.S., "american studies" within the U.S. began as a kind of american literary and cultural studies, but quickly became transformed into a realm for critical analysis of race, U.S. empire, and more recently, settler colonialism. in four chapters, Maira describes the history of the boycott movement (stretching back to popular boycotts in Palestine); the recent history of USACBI and the campaign for a BDS resolution in the American Studies Association; backlash against the campaign; and the context of left struggles against university privatization, militarization, and coloniality. the book is also a social scientific analysis insofar as it features interviews with many of the organizers of that ASA resolution. i found it most helpful in describing the point of a boycott as a clarification of political lines, a vehicle for political organizing, a process through which broader left positions in academia can be advanced, and a war of position in the cultural realm. i also found it interesting to learn how many organizers experienced some sort of campus repression which accelerated their political organizing -- something i identify with for sure.

Maira's analysis is a bit touched by a kind of "social justice" / "anti-racist" analysis that feels very of the 2018 moment. i am curious to what degree this is the immediate and necessary grounds of a bds campaign in 2024. to what degree is the politics of representation the grounds of organizing today? does the truly "mask off" moment we live in means that the charges of anti-semitism, the critiques of non-inclusivity, or the Wilderson-style pitting of palestinian liberation against/as anti-blackness are exhausted in the scholarly world? i'm not sure. it's good to have this archive though to realize the strategies and tactics of the recent past, so we can stack on top of them as well as anticipate reaction.