Aesthetics, Kinaesthetics, and Taste in Contrasting Israeli-Palestinian Reconciliation Initiatives

The article compares secular and religious reconciliation initiatives between Jewish Israelis and Muslim Palestinians. The material, aesthetic, and kinesthetic experience is extremely dissimilar, that is they look very different and also the bodily experience of participating in them is very different. Specifically, the secular initiatives have an aesthetic ideal of demonstrative simplicity and asceticism, while the religious initiatives, though often on a very limited budget, invest in the decor and aesthetic atmosphere of luxury and hospitality. The article suggests the explanation for this difference in aesthetic choices lies in material ideology. Furthermore, it considers the ways these aesthetic distinctions are connected through chains of meaning– from questions of taste, to aesthetic and linguistic ideologies, to understandings and the praxis of reconciliation and coexistence– in order to consider how different groups understand the material component of peacemaking and inter-religious coexistence. I suggest that the material and aesthetic side of reconciliation initiatives is often neglected in favor of an exclusive emphasis on dialogue, and as a result the “best practices” tend to be limited and biased towards the material ideology of their creators.