PREDATORY FLEAS, STERILE FLIES, AND THE SETTLERS: Agricultural Infrastructure and the Challenge of Alien-Native Dichotomies in Israel/Palestine

In this essay, I follow predatory fleas, sterile flies, and other insects, as well as farmers, across the Arava/Arabah, an arid desert region in southern Israel/Palestine, south of the Dead Sea, marked by harsh environmental conditions. Following a four-year ethnographic study, I examine the ecological and political impacts of Zionist settlement in the area and the fluidity of definitions of alien/native species. I use the term agricultural infrastructure to describe the network of connections that make agriculture possible—wells, pipes, and “beneficial” insects—as part of a theoretical framework that integrates both the human and non-human in the Anthropocene era, while also examining the challenges posed by environmental and agricultural transformation. Agricultural infrastructure is shown in this piece as a political enterprise: it establishes hierarchical boundaries between communities and strengthens land control while maintaining and establishing boundaries between humans and non-humans, often resulting in compounding ecological harm. Yet the use of the term agricultural infrastructure within a given context of settler colonialism contributes a more nuanced approach than dichotomous contrasts between alien versus native, settler versus local.