Viviana Biasco

Thesis: Starvation as Temporal Violence in Gaza: Unpacking the Settler-Colonial Logic of Elimination

This project examines how systematic starvation in Gaza operates as a form of temporal violence within a settler-colonial logic of elimination. Rather than treating starvation solely as a humanitarian or physiological crisis, it conceptualises it as a political technology through which power governs time, producing conditions of delay, suspension and endurance that shape both present survival and collective futurity. Building on theories of settler colonialism, political temporality and humanitarian governance, the project develops the concept of starvation as a time-engineered form of rule, examining how political and institutional mechanisms - including siege administration, humanitarian aid governance, bureaucratic regulation, diplomatic relations and legal exceptionalism - produce and sustain deprivation over time.

The analysis proceeds across four interconnected dimensions: the governance of futurity through humanitarian delay; institutional complicity in the endurance of famine regimes; the bureaucratic administration of suspension under siege; and the cyclical temporality of crisis, aid and reconstruction. Drawing on policy and institutional documents, discourse analysis and semi-structured interviews with Palestinian and humanitarian actors, the project traces how starvation becomes embedded within systems of governance rather than operating as an episodic failure of humanitarian provision. In doing so, it shifts attention from the mere immediate effects of starvation towards the temporal and institutional processes through which deprivation is sustained, normalised and reproduced, revealing how the regulation of survival can become embedded within broader structures of settler-colonial elimination.

Biography:

Born in Italy and raised in London, Viviana holds a Bachelor of Science in Politics and International Relations from University College London (UCL), which she completed in 2023, and a Master of Science in Politics and International Relations from SOAS University of London, completed in 2026. During her master’s degree, she specialised in the politics of the Middle East. Her dissertation examined how humanitarian governance in Gaza can function as a form of neocolonial governance through the reproduction of orientalist assumptions and representations. She is now building on this research through her ESRC-funded PhD at the University of Warwick. Her research interests centre on postcolonial theory, imperialism, resistance, human rights, and political violence. Her focus remains primarily on the Middle East, with particular emphasis on Palestine and Iran, while also encompassing the broader region and the role of the United States in shaping geopolitical dynamics across it.

Other research interests:

- Human rights

- Humanitarianism

- International law

- Iranian foreign policy

- US foreign policy

- History of colonialism in the Middle East

Politics and International Studies

University of Warwick

2026 Cohort

Supervisors:

Dr Nicola Pratt

Dr Asha Herten-Crabb