Introduction: Judea and Samaria Jewish settlers and settlements – cultural sociology of unsettled space

This volume put out by the journal Israel Affairs is the outcome of a research initiative on the part of its editors dealing with the democratic skills (expertise) of the residents of Judea and Samaria.Footnote2 The intention was to examine how those ‘others’ found ways of influencing Israeli society and Israeli discourse. The settlers are those who over the years have remained in a modern condition, promoting interests via settlement practices in a similar fashion to the pioneers of the early Zionist movement. This was in contrast to many of the Israeli identities to the west of the Green Line that are in the post-modern condition and find ways of influencing the formulation of policy and discourse through social networks, social movements, intellectual discourse, cultural structuring and related means. This collection contains a number of studies, some of which were directly created as a part of the research project, and they shed light on the issue