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“Now All That We Own Are Our Houses!” Diversity in Labor Relations in Palestine: 1850-1914
Abstract
Levantine joint-stock companies grew up in an era of intense globalization and industrialization between 1860 and World War I. Enmeshing themselves in the global capitalist market, they became powerful political and economic forces in the Levant and Egypt, as well as in Western Europe. The companies purchased large tracts of land in Egypt, Palestine, and Syria and cultivated the lands in these three regions in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century. In all three regions they grew cotton, grains, wheat, and other agricultural products for the global market. Although the companies continued to own these lands in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, the labor relations and land-tenure configurations on these lands differed over time. Specifically, certain peasants held onto their title deeds as owners of the means of production. This was the case, for instance, in regions outside of Nazareth. Other peasants, such as the inhabitants of Jedro and Majdal outside of Haifa, lost their titles, effectively remaining tenant farmers. In still other cases, the companies turned these peasants into wage-laborers. This paper will focus on the differences between and within the agricultural hinterlands of Nazareth, Haifa, and Jaffa to highlight the circumstances that contributed to the variety in labor relations and land ownership configurations in Palestine between 1850 and 1914. An investigation of only Levantine companies’ tracts of land in Palestine, provides an opportunity to highlight the factors and forces that contributed to the variation in labor relations during this period. Naturally, the type of commodities grown in these regions and demand for these commodities on the global market influenced the labor regime on that land. Labor scarcity and changing Ottoman policies also played a role. However, my paper takes this argument further by citing much less obvious and previously unexplored factors in regional labor market transformations. First, I will draw on daily correspondences between the company managers and the owners in Beirut and peasant petitions to show how the agency of peasants themselves had an impact on the character of these markets. Second, I will employ private company letters and court records to argue that changing gender norms at the level of the company influenced variations in land and labor regimes in early-twentieth-century Palestine.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Sub Area
Arab Studies