- Dr. Sandra Penić (Université de Genève);
- Dr. Nadine Stammel (Free University Berlin)
- Dr. Maria Boettche (Free University Berlin)
Toxic contact: How military checkpoints affect Palestinians’ psychological well-being
Sandra Penić, University of Geneva, Switzerland, sandra.penicjunge@unige.ch
Mai Albzour, Birzeit University, Palestine, malbzour@birzeit.edu
Checkpoints in the Occupied Palestinian Territory serve as enduring symbols of the military occupation and Israel’s ever-present power over Palestinian civilians. We examine how residing in proximity to checkpoints shapes Palestinians’ psychological well-being and the underlying role of negative intergroup contact. Combining geo-coded data on checkpoints across the West Bank and Jerusalem with a representative survey of the adult population from 49 Palestinian communities (N=1000), we find that residing in proximity to checkpoints is linked to increased exposure to physical violence and humiliation and lower psychological well-being. These effects are mediated by (negative) contact with soldiers, which is the most frequent form of intergroup contact that Palestinian civilians have with Israelis. These findings are robust to various individual- and community-level controls and the potential of reverse causality and residential self-selection. Overall, this study identifies the adverse psychological effects of repressive infrastructures and demonstrates the importance of considering structural factors in the study of mental health consequences of political violence.