Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev

Citation:

Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Nadera, Antonina Griecci Woodsum, Himmat Zu’bi, and Rachel Busbridge. 2014. “Funding Pain: Bedouin Women and Political Economy in the Naqab/Negev.” Feminist Economics 20 (4): 164–86. doi:10.1080/13545701.2014.946941.

Authors: Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Antonia Griecci Woodsum, Himmat Zu'bi, Rachel Busbridge

Abstract:

This contribution focuses on the experiences and voices of Palestinian Bedouin women surviving and challenging Israeli colonial policies while residing in their own land and, in particular, the Bedouin women of the Naqab living in unrecognized villages. Through interviews and focus groups, this study learns from and engages with the voices of Palestinian Bedouin women because colonized women's criticisms of the political economic apparatus are seldom invoked to influence policy. Exploring these women's voices offers an opportunity to examine the political economy of their unrecognized, officially nonexistent villages and homes and to rectify the gap in bottom-up knowledge of political economy by investigating the institutional structures that define and circumscribe women's lives. Privileging Bedouin women's production of knowledge carries the analytical value of studying political economy based on women's own experiences and struggles against hegemony.

Keywords: bedouin women, political economy, palestine, Israel

Topics: Armed Conflict, Gender, Women, Households, Political Economies Regions: Asia, Middle East Countries: Israel, Palestine / Occupied Palestinian Territories

Year: 2014