Дисертації з теми "Palestinian Arabs – Ethnic identity"

This dissertation conceptualizes a Palestinian archipelago based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope, and uses the archipelago model to illustrate the situation and development of Palestinian consciousness in diaspora. To gain insight into the personal lives of Palestinians in diaspora, This project highlights several islands of Palestinian identities as represented in the novels: Dancing Arabs, A Compass for the Sunflower, and The Inheritance. The identities of the characters in these works are organized according to the archipelago model, which illustrates how the characters rediscover, repress, or change their identities in order to accommodate life in diaspora. Analysis reveals that a major goal of Palestinian existence in diaspora is the maintenance of an authentic Palestinian identity. Therefore, my description of the characters’ identities and locations in the archipelago model are informed by various scholars and theories of nationalism. Moreover, this dissertation illustrates how different Palestinian identities coalesce into a single national consciousness that has been created and sustained by a collective experience of suffering and thirst for sense of belonging and community among Palestinians. Foremost in the memories of all Palestinians is the memory of the land of Palestine and the dream of national restoration; these are the main uniting factors between Palestinians revealed in my analysis. Furthermore, this project presents an argument that developing a Palestinian exceptionalism as both a response and a solution to the problems Palestine faced in the 20th century has already occurred among diasporic Palestinians as well as those settled in the West Bank. In addition, a significant finding of this dissertation is the generation clash in regarding to the methods of modernization of the West Bank society between the settled Palestinian and those returning from diaspora. Nevertheless, a Palestinian homecoming will require a renegotiation of Palestinian identities in which generation gaps and other disagreements will be resolved and transcended in favor of nation-state building.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of California, Riverside, 2009.
Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-285). Issued in print and online. Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations.

The present thesis seeks to understand and explain the rhetoric and behaviour of the rejectionist 'current' within the Palestinian national movement. It proceeds from the view that extant scholarship, primarily from within the fields of terrorism and security studies, has profoundly misunderstood rejectionist speech and behaviour by ignoring the explanatory capacity of Emic - the research subject's perception - as well as the influence of the sociocultural milieu within which rejectionism exists. The thesis proceeds to set up a 'socioculturally sensitive' analytical framework drawn from social identity theory, a heuristic, non-reductionist model for understanding group interaction and conflict. Emphasizing cultural norms and cues identified by anthropologists as salient in the eastern Mediterranean, the thesis suggests that the social value of honour, patron-client dynamics and a firmly entrenched group orientation must be significant elements of a model for understanding rejectionist behaviour. The main analytical narrative suggests that for reasons derived from ideology, patron-client relations and group dynamics, what has distinguished the rejectionists from the mainstream have been a qualitatively different set of preconditions for, and objectives of diplomatic negotiations. To the main rejectionist factions the goal of liberating Palestine has always been inextricably intertwined with the goal of restoring national honour; one without the other has been impossible and to claim otherwise would mean a depletion of factional and personal honour. To the rejectionists, there has never been any question of deviating from the fundamental goals - national recognition, repatriation, self-determination and independent statehood, not even for tactical reasons. This 'higher standard' likely derives from their structurally and politically subordinate position within the national movement, and the need to creatively enhance their own social status and appeal.

Thesis (MA (Political Science. International Studies))--Stellenbosch University, 2009.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In the context of the present conflict in Darfur, and in the years preceding it, the distinction between so-called African and Arab tribes has come to the forefront, and the tribal identity of individuals has increased in significance. These distinctions were never as clear cut and definite as they are today. The ‘Arab’ and ‘African’ distinction that was always more of a passive characteristic in the past has now become the reason for standing on different sides of the political divide. What then are the main factors which contributed to this new violent distinction between Arab and African? How is it possible for people and communities who have a positive history of cooperation and tolerance to suddenly plunge into a situation of such cruelty and hate towards one another. The thesis uses the New War framework to look at the current situation in Darfur. The most definitive version of this new framework is presented by scholars such as Mary Kaldor (2006), Martin van Creveld (1991) and Helfried Münkler (2005). The thesis then shows how the war in Darfur, exactly in line with the new war argument, has political goals with the political mobilization occurring on the basis of identity. Kaldor (2006) argues that the political goals in the new wars are about the claim to power based on seemingly traditional identities, such as Arab or African. Defining identity politics as “movements which mobilize around ethnic, racial or religious identity for the purpose of claiming state power” (Kaldor, 2006: 80), it becomes apparent that Darfur has become subject to this these kind of new war politics. The study therefore questions the popular argument that ethnic conflict arises out of an “ancient hatred” or “tribal warfare”. Chapters three and four illustrates how this new distinction between Arab and African should rather be seen as the cumulative effects of marginalization, competing economic interests and, more recently, from the political polarization which has engulfed the region. Most of the factors leading to the current Arab/African antagonism were traced to contemporary phenomena. The study also looks at factors such as loss of physical coercion on behalf of the state, loss of popular legitimacy and effective leadership, underdevelopment, poverty, inequality, and privatization of force. The study then concludes that politics of identity should more often be seen as a result of individuals, groups or politician reacting to the effects of these conditions then as the result of ethnic hatred.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In die konteks van die huidige konflik in Darfur, en die jare wat dit voorafgaan, het die verskille tussen sogenaamde ‘Afrikaan’ en ‘Arabier’ stamme na vore gekom. So ook het die stamverband van individue kenmerkend toegeneem. Hierdie onderskeid was nooit so noukeurig afgebaken en bepalend soos wat dit vandag is nie. Die ‘Afrikaan’ en ‘Arabier’ onderskeid wat in die verlede meer van ’n passiewe kenmerk was, het ontaard in die rede waarom beide kante hulself vandag in ’n politieke skeiding bevind. Wat dan is die hoof faktore wat bydra tot hierdie nuwe gewelddadige onderskeid tussen ‘Afrikane’ en ‘Arabiere’? Hoe is dit moontlik vir mense en gemeenskappe met ’n positiewe geskiedenis van samewerking en verdraagsaamheid om skielik ’n toestand van soveel onmenslikheid en haat teenoor mekaar te ervaar? Die tesis maak gebruik van die Nuwe oorlog denkrigting in ’n poging om die huidige oorlog in Darfur te beskryf. Die mees bepalende weergawe van hierdie denkrigting word voorsien deur akademici soos Mary Kaldor (2006), Martin Creveld (1991) en Helfried Münkler (2005). Die tesis fokus op hoe die oorlog in Darfur (in lyn met die Nuwe Oorlog denkrigting) politieke doelwitte aan die dag lê, met die gepaardgaande politieke mobilisering wat geskied op grond van identiteit. Kaldor (2006) argumenteer dat die politieke doelwitte in die nuwe oorloë berus op die aanspraak tot mag op grond van skynbare tradisionele identiteite of stamwese, soos ‘Afrikaan’ en ‘Arabier’. As ’n mens identiteitspolitiek definieër as ’n beweging wat mobiliseer rondom etnisiteit, ras of geloof, met die doel om aanspraak te maak op staatsmag, dan blyk dit of die konflik in Darfur wel onderhewig is aan hierdie nuwe vorm van Nuwe Oorlog politiek. Die studie bevraagteken dus ook die gewilde aanname dat etniese oorloë ontstaan uit ‘stamoorloë’ of ‘antieke vyandskap’. Hoofstuk drie en vier verduidelik hoekom hierdie nuwe onderskeiding tussen ‘Afrikaan’ en ‘Arabier’ eerder beskou moet word as die kumulatiewe effek van marginalisasie, kompeterende ekonomiese belange en die politieke polarisasie wat die streek in twee skeur. Meeste van die faktore wat gelei het tot die etniese polarisasie van die streek word hier beskou as kontemporêre verskynsels. Die studie kyk ook na faktore soos: die verlies van populêre legitimiteit en effektiewe leierskap, onderontwikkeling, armoede, ongelykheid en die privatisering van mag. Die studie sluit af met die gedagte dat identiteitspolitiek in Darfur beskou moet word as die uitkoms van individue, groepe of politieke leiers wat reageer op die bogenoemde omstandighede, eerder as die resultaat van ‘antieke vyandskap’ of aggresiewe ‘stamoorloë’.

The use of violence in the Israel/Palestine conflict has been justified and legitimised by an appeal to religion. Militant Islamist organisations like Ramas have become central players in the Palestinian political landscape as a result of the popular support that they enjoy. This thesis aims to investigate the reasons for this support by analysing the Israel/Palestine conflict in terms of Ruman Needs Theory. According to this Theory, humans have essential needs that need to be fulfilled in order to ensure survival and development. Among these needs, the need for identity and recognition of identity is of vital importance. This thesis thus explores the concept of identity as a need, and investigates this need as it relates to inter-group conflict. In situating this theory in the Israel/Palestine conflict, the study exammes how organisations like Ramas have Islamised Palestinian national identity in order to garner political support. The central contention, then, is that the primary identity group of the Palestinian population is no longer nationalist, but Islamic/nationalist. In Islamising the conflict with Israel as well as Palestinian identity, Ramas has been able to justify its often indiscriminate use of violence by appealing to religion. The conflict is thus perceived to be one between two absolutes - that of Islam versus Judaism. In considering the conflict as one of identities struggling for survival in a climate of perceived threat, any attempt at resolution of the conflict needs to include a focus on needs-based issues. The problem-solving approach to negotiation allows for parties to consider issues of identity, recognition and security needs, and thus ensures that the root causes of conflicts are addressed, The contention is that this approach is vital to any conflict resolution strategy where identity needs are at stake, and it provides the grounding for the success of more traditional zero-sum bargaining methods. A recognition of Islamic identity in negotiation processes in Israel/Palestine may thus make for a more comprehensive conflict resolution strategy, and make the outcomes of negotiations more acceptable to the people of Palestine, thus undermining the acceptance of violence that exists at present.

Research Report submitted for the partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Migration African School of Migration and Society (ACMS) University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2018
This research report examines the everyday effects of Israeli policies and state practices (relating to rights to live in the city) on the lives of Palestinians in Jerusalem. It engages with state policy and practice across three main scales; the larger scale level of rights to the city itself, the closer-to-home scale of bureaucratic threats against the family home, as well as the micro-scale questions of the everyday. In this report I examine empirical evidence – a case study of a house demolition, and ethnographic material from a Palestinian neighbourhood targeted for settlement projects - alongside the policy data that relates to each of these instances- including policy on land-zoning, tenancy, residency and social security. I argue that the cumulative effect of these policies and practices create the unstable conditions, which I refer to as a ‘coercive environment’, which works to indirectly displace Palestinians from Jerusalem. This report shows that the daily uncertainties that Palestinians experience as a result of these policies intensify the precarious conditions of everyday life, and further finds uncertainty as one of the multiple forms of violence present in the coercive environment. Themes including everyday anxiety, security and fear, punishment and criminalization, procedural bare life and emotional violence, arise from the empirical data observed and collected, and are examined for how they create uncertainty and form part of this coercive environment.
XL2019

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2004.
Advisor: Dr. Peter Garretson, Florida State University, College of Arts and Sciences, Dept. of History. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Sept. 22, 2004). Includes bibliographical references.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
Opposing the culture of différance created through American cultural media, this thesis argues, Arab hip-hop artists revive the politically conscious sub-genre of hip-hop with the purpose of normalising their Arab existence. Appropriating hip-hop for a cultural protest, Arab artists create for themselves a sub-genre of conscious hip-hop – Arab-conscious hip-hop and function as Gramsci’s organic intellectuals, involved in better representation of Arabs in the mainstream. Critiquing power dynamics, Arab hip-hop artists are counter-hegemonic in challenging popular identity constructions of Arabs and revealing to audiences biases in media production and opportunities for progress towards social justice. Their identity (re)constructions maintain difference while avoiding Otherness. The intersection of Arab-consciousness through hip-hop and politics of identity necessitates a needed cultural protest, which in the case of Arabs has been severely limited. This thesis progresses by reviewing literature on politics of identity, Arabs in American cultural media, Gramsci’s organic intellectuals and conscious hip-hop. Employing criticism, this thesis presents an argument for Arab hip-hop group, The Arab Summit, as organic intellectuals involved in mainstream representation of the Arab community.

This dissertation examines contemporary Iraqi North American women’s life narratives within the frame of postcolonial autobiography theory. Through narrating their experiences of oppression, war, and displacement these women reveal the fragmentation of identity that occurs under such unsettling situations. However, I argue that in the course of narrating their stories and in spite of the fragmentation they suffer, these women are able to establish selves that distinguish and recover from fragmentation and loss through a process I term defragmentation. They are able to defragment their identities by reconstructing unique selves through the act of life narration, through relational remembering, and finally by resisting patriarchal and Western influences on how they perceive themselves and their experiences. Thus they are able to defragment their sense of disjointedness and reaffirm their sense of Iraqiness, even in the diaspora. This study explores the major causes of fragmentation in the work, which are divided into trauma and displacement. Unlike the studies and statistics that political approaches and media coverage have provided, these works shed light on the disruptions caused by war, oppression, separation from loved ones, and exile in the daily lives of these narrators or the lives of their friends and relatives. Therefore, in addition to the new identity that these women create in order to cope with their new lives in the West, they also construct a hybrid identity that is capable of recollecting and narrating these traumatic experiences. Within the space of hybridity, Iraqi North American women have to deal with vast differences between Western and Middle Eastern cultures; the transformation entails not just a change of place but an acceptance or understanding of a new culture, a new religion, and a new identity. The struggle of settlement, or re-settlement, becomes that of establishing an identity that does reflect the stereotypical images of Middle Eastern women in Western perceptions and a struggle to maintain selves that can contain both the past life and the present in what can be considered a third space. Although the main topic of this dissertation is defragmentation in the life narrations of Iraqi North American women, this study also covers the cultural and political history of Arabs in general, and of Iraqis specifically. There are also references to the migrations of Arabs to North America and a brief background of the roots of Arab North American literature. These topics will be discussed in order to provide an understanding of the histories from which these women, or their families, have migrated and their positions within Western culture and scholarship. In addition, this approach provides an insight into the complexities of these women’s identities that reflect multi-layered affiliations, interests, and cultures. The works chosen for this study include written and oral life narratives by Iraqi North American women who write from Canada and the United States. These works are Zaineb Salbi’s Between Two Worlds: Escape From Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam (2005), Dunya Mikhail’s A Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea (2009) and a National Film Board documentary titled Baghdad Twist (2007), by Jewish Iraqi Canadian Joe Balass. In the documentary, Joe Balass interviews his mother, Valentine Balass, as she recounts growing up in Iraq and later experiencing exile from her homeland. The final work I address is The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family (2007) by Leilah Nadir, a Canadian born Iraqi writer. Through her memoir Nadir tries to reconnect with her father’s family in Iraq while uncovering their traumatic experiences of the Gulf War. The narrators in my research belong to different social classes, age groups, and practice different religions, but they all identify themselves as Iraqi women. These women, through their interpretations of living life between two (or more) cultures, offer important perspectives not only on their own ethnic society, but also on the role of ethnic women in North American society in general. There has been a massive increase in the migration of Iraqi women to North America in the last thirty years; their perspectives on political, social, and religious changes are an important part of understanding the experiences of this ethnic group. Through their life narratives, these women are able to display their unique selves by portraying their ability to contest the boundaries and limitations of borders and societies that try to eliminate one identity or the other.