Ruling by valuations: market-making, and property assessment in data-scarce occupied East Jerusalem

The paper examines how Israeli and Palestinian appraisers generate authoritative valuations in the absence of reliable market data, and how these practices contribute to the performative construction of markets and the extension of Israeli state authority in a fragmented and contested urban space. In doing so, the paper makes explicit how valuation operates as a technology of rule, extending performativity theory to contexts shaped by occupation and epistemic scarcity. Drawing on interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and document analysis, we show that appraisers routinely rely on informal sources, outdated records, and bureaucratic repetition to simulate the appearance of standard valuation practice. These valuations acquire legal and fiscal authority through their circulation across institutions, not through empirical accuracy. Rather than passive reflections of market conditions, valuations operate as performative governance instruments, embedding settler-colonial control, and shaping the urban political economy. Bringing literature on valuation, performativity, and statecraft into conversation with the ethnographic study of East Jerusalem real-estate valuation arena, this study challenges conventional assumptions about professional authority and the production of credible market knowledge. Furthermore, it offers a rare empirical account of valuation under occupation and advances a methodological approach for analysing market practices in data-poor and politically charged environments.