Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine

the long version

Shamir follows electric wires as they extend to new contact points and asks about the social significance of being permanently attached to an electrical network ('the grid'). The argument is that the construction of an electric grid is a process that creates social differences, new subjectivities, distinct geographical areas, and new social classifications and categories (types of 'electric consumers'). The case-study is of electrification in 1920s Palestine, the book offering a material sociology of the roots of separatism between Arabs and Jews.