In this episode, Dr. Ewa Górska sits down with Dr. Mark Griffiths, a political geographer whose work focuses on military ecologies, weapons supply chains, and colonial space in Palestine and Iraq. We discuss his latest book, ’Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine’, published in 2025 by University of Minnesota Press.
Checkpoint 300 is a large „border” crossing between Bethlehem and Jerusalem that controls the movement of thousands of West Bank Palestinians daily. In 2005, Israel upgraded it to 'terminal status’ with airport-like corridors, turnstiles, and biometric systems. We talk about how it functions as a border mechanism built on Palestinian land—not an actual border between Palestine and Israel.
The conversation covers who can cross the checkpoint: mainly Palestinian men with labor permits working in Israeli construction and agriculture. The permit system operates through unwritten rules—men must be of working age, married with children, and free of political activism. We examine how this creates gendered effects, with women largely confined to care-giving roles and domestic labor while men spend hours commuting through checkpoints.
We also explore how Checkpoint 300 exemplifies colonial space—connecting the checkpoint corridors to domestic spaces, villages across the West Bank, and international technology companies that develop surveillance systems used both at checkpoints and in civilian settings worldwide. The discussion covers Rachel’s Tomb, tourist movements, privacy violations through biometric data collection, and how Palestinians resist and reshape the space around them despite the occupation.
Dr. Mark Griffiths is a political geographer at Newcastle University whose research explores military ecologies, weapons supply chains, the aftermaths and beforemaths of war, and the making and unmaking of colonial space. His current work focuses on the effects of militarism in Palestine and Iraq. His latest book, Checkpoint 300: Colonial Space in Palestine, was published in 2025 by University of Minnesota Press.