| Summary: | Thesis advisor: Eve Spangler === This work explores how Israel uses LGBTQ issues as a rhetorical device (pinkwashing) in its self-presentation and examines how American college students perceive the claim that Israel is a ‘gay haven.’ Understanding the Israel/Palestine conflict from a human rights approach, I deconstruct the racial and gendered implications of the pinkwashing campaign by analyzing literature about homonationalism, pinkwashing, and queer activism. Interviews with fifteen student leaders from Zionist, pro-Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, and LGBTQ organizations reveal how students engage with LGBTQ issues and the Conflict, as well as the institutional, cultural, and interactional factors that influence how organizations program. Interview analysis demonstrates that when pinkwashing occurs, some students use media, protests, and conversations to provide an alternative discourse. In conclusion, the findings demonstrate that pinkwashing does happen on college campuses, and anti-pinkwashing activism occurs most often in the form of queer anti-Occupation organizing. Anti-Occupation activism necessitates an intersectional approach if it is to gain human rights for all Palestinians. === Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2015. === Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. === Discipline: Departmental Honors. === Discipline: Sociology.
|
|---|
