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Conference: challenges of conflict transformation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Thursday 12 June 2025

A burning olive tree

The ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ is often cited as one of the most enduring disputes in contemporary global politics. Despite a myriad of initiatives and interventions over the decades, the underlying structures that facilitate occupation and give rise to violence endure.

In light of the most recent period of violence in the region, the prospects for conflict transformation – of addressing and alleviating the root causes of antagonism – appear bleaker than ever. Following the attack on Israeli civilians by Hamas militants on 7th October 2023, the scale of Israeli violence against Palestinians in Gaza has been unprecedented and likely constitutes genocide. Despite the ceasefire reached in January 2025, subsequent developments point to continuing human rights and international law violations, not least the plan backed by the President of the United States to permanently expel approximately two million Palestinians from Gaza.  

Conference details

This interdisciplinary one-day conference, to be held at the University of Liverpool on Thursday 12 June 2025, will examine and underscore the obstacles to conflict transformation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). The conference is aimed at scholars within the humanities and social sciences, broadly conceived, and the organisers invite paper proposals which relate to the challenges and prospects of conflict transformation in the region.

Papers could engage with, but are not limited to, themes including:

  • Critical approaches to peace and conflict transformation in the OPT
  • Feminist and gendered approaches to occupation and conflict
  • Race, space, and settler colonialism
  • The Palestinian Authority, Hamas, or the governance of the OPT
  • Displacement, refugees and the Right of Return
  • Security, Apartheid, and Israeli law
  • Human rights, international law, and impunity
  • Art, cultural production, and resistance
  • International solidarity movements for Palestine
  • Israeli civil society and solidarity movements for Palestine
  • International relations, foreign policy and imperialism
  • Young people, education, scholasticide
  • Climate futures and environmental politics
  • The future of Palestinian statehood and self-determination

The conference will follow a hybrid format to facilitate in-person and online participation. Paper proposals from Palestinian scholars are particularly welcome.  

Paper proposals should be in the form of a 300-word abstract, to be submitted here before 5pm on Friday 25 April 2025. All attendees must register their attendance in advance here.

For paper givers who attend the conference in person, tiered bursaries are available to assist with travel and accommodation costs: up to £140 per paper for PhD students and Early Career Researchers; up to £100 per paper for mid-career and senior academics.

Attendees can register for their free online or in-person ticket here.

Queries about the conference can be directed to optconference25@gmail.com.