Veterinizing the Settler State: Biopolitics, Care, and Killing in Palestine-Israel
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-16-2026
Abstract
Drawing on three multispecies cases in Palestine-Israel – the fallow deer, the griffon vulture, and the free-roaming dog – this article depicts veterinary governance as constitutive of the settler state. Specifically, the article identifies three interrelated but distinct technologies of veterinary power: biopolitics, enacted through population management and selective reproduction; pastoral power, exercised through intimate care and detailed surveillance; and necropolitics, manifested in practices of extermination. The article argues that veterinization advances and naturalizes the state’s settler ecologies. In Palestine-Israel, this dynamic is especially visible in the state’s peripheral regions, in territories it has occupied since 1967, and along the Gaza border.
Publication Title
Medical Anthropology
Recommended Citation
Irus Braverman,
Veterinizing the Settler State: Biopolitics, Care, and Killing in Palestine-Israel,
Med. Anthro.
(2026).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/journal_articles/1281
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