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Situating the Transnational in Rural Palestine
Abstract
This paper makes a case for approaching the study of rural Palestine through foregrounding the transnational forces that shape rural property, labor, and agriculture. It proceeds in three parts. First, we briefly establish some of the key concerns of this scholarship in Palestine, focusing on the agrarian studies of the 1970s-1990s through the work of scholars like Adel Samara, Salim Tamari, Hisham Masoud Awartani, and others. We show how studies of Palestinian agrarian life fit into broader global peasant studies conversations, and why such concerns became less visible in Palestine studies scholarship after the 1990s. Second, we sketch out the geography of how to study agrarian questions in the present day using ethnographic data. We distinguish between studying Palestine and Palestinians, showing how what happens to and on rural land in the territory of historic Palestine must be comprehended by including Palestinian refugees, migrants, and exiles living in Arab states, the United States, Europe, and South America. Third, we show how framing seemingly local questions on the ground in Palestine through an international lens can productively approach long-standing concerns around class, gender, and space, as well as newer issues in the climate change era of commodity circulation and ecological resilience. We conclude by discussing what this approach might offer to our understanding of Palestinian land politics today, and point towards the sorts of research sites, methods, and questions it opens up.
Discipline
Geography
Geographic Area
Palestine
Sub Area
None