Abstract
This paper is an overview of the findings of a six-month investigation of the current migration patterns of young, single, educated women in the West Bank. These women are a population that has been severely restricted in terms of economic potential and have thus taken the (previously) unusual step of individual (rather than household-scale) migration, seeking jobs in the burgeoning metropolis of Ramallah. Here, they are both marginalized and empowered by their migration choices. These women have much in common with other women migrants worldwide, yet their situation differs due to the micro-scale of the internal migration and the unique political situation that makes migration the best economic option despite social constraints that often discourage it. The paper’s aim is to illustrate the role, position, concerns, and gains of these women in Palestinian society, economically and socially, and to extrapolate the potential role that they may occupy in the Palestine of the future. The case study of Palestinian women migrants, in a tense political setting, offers much to existing migration studies, illustrating much about migration flows occurring at differing spatial scales, and how the migration choice can become a route to women’s empowerment and mobility. Methods include qualitative interviewing in both English and Arabic, of three groups; the women migrants themselves, their families and friends, as well as other key informants or specialists, including individual researchers, non-governmental organizations, governmental representatives, and women’s groups. This project, based in geographic and migration theory, in the context of Middle Eastern women's studies, is also contextualized by in-depth participant observation as well as summary statistics.
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