Violence in the Occupied Territories, as in many "emergency zones" throughout the world, is a comprehensive form of regulating and administering life, activity, movement and human interrelations, and one had better understand its machinations as a ruling system in its own right, apart from other power sources and ruling systems, in order to fully comprehend the way in which it is incorporated in them. Under the control apparatus maintained in the Occupied Territories, the entire space has become penetrable to two types of violence – eruptive violence and withheld violence - whereas the relation between them is no longer that of potential and fulfillment: the apparatus of withheld violence is constantly active and does not remain a mere potential threat, while potentially eruptive violence hovers separately and independently. 

The verge of catastrophe does not emerge, is not exactly an event, and has no power to create a difference. It exists on the surface, completely open to the gaze and yet evading it, because there is nothing to distinguish it from the surroundings in which it exists. Its contours are indistinct; one could easily fail to notice it, passing in front of it without stopping. It meets all the conditions necessary to escape most existing systems of representation. It is a non-event or an event that never was and never will be. The question what can be seen will be addressed through "reading" various photographs from 1967, when the infrastructure of violence was implemented in the occupied territories, and from recent photographs bearing traces of the verge of catastrophe.

12. Workshops, Roundtables and Panel Discussions 

One of the integral components of the winter course is the participatory sessions or interactive sessions. During the Fifth Winter Course on Forced migration we had a series of interactive sessions in the form of roundtable, panel discussions and workshops under each module. The compulsory modules (A-E) had at least one workshop/roundtable/panel discussions each. In case of optional modules (F, G, H) there was at least one panel discussion for Module F and G and a day-long workshop on 12 December 2007 on “Media and forced displacement of population” under Module H which was an open event well attended by media persons, activists and academics from diverse backgrounds. The media workshop was organized in collaboration with Panos, South Asia.
 The themes of the sessions under the compulsory and optional modules were:
1. “Refugee and IDP women’s access to citizenship – experiences of South Asia and elsewhere” (2 December 2007) 
2. Protracted situations of displacement: What is happening to Bhutanese refugees in Nepal and Sri Lankan refugees in India? (3 December 2007)
3. Need for a fresh look at the 1951 Convention and the Relevance of Post-Colonial Experiences (5 December 2007)
4. The IDP Crisis Today and the Protracted IDP Situations in Africa (5 December 2007)
5. Roundtable on “Protection Regimes – International and National” (6 December 2007)
6. Discussion on the method and findings of the CRG Report, “Voices of the IDPs in South Asia”(7 December 2007)
7. Resources, Women and Displacement in India's Northeast (10 December 2007)
8. One day workshop on Media and forced displacement of population (12 December 2007)