Gendered politics of location of three generations of Palestinian women in Israel, 1948–1998

This dissertation is based on interviews conducted in 1998 with thirty-five Palestinian women from the Galilee and Triangle areas in Israel. The first generational group interviewed included women who were born in the 1920-1930s and came of age in the 1940-1950s. The second generational group included women who were born in the 1940-1950s and came of age in the 1960-1970s. The third generational group included women who were born in the 1960-1970s and came of age in the 1980-1990s. I use generation to define Palestinian women in Israel as a group marked by a particular common experience, even if women in that generation experienced that event or that process quite differently from each other. I argue that what women in each of these generational groups experienced in their adolescences and early twenties seems to make a lasting impact on their outlooks in their later lives. I also found that it is the relationship of girls/women to the central Israeli state that was formative of each distinct generation of Palestinian women in Israel because of the features and experiences that decisively and distinctly demarcated these three separate, though interacting, generations. This self-conscious generational comparison is valuable as an explanatory strategy for understanding the causal connection between gender formation, state regimes, and nationalized and militarized state policies in the lives of three generations of Palestinian women in Israel, 1948-1998. It is also valuable for understanding the political changes that took place and their impact on shaping the lives of historically differentiated generational groups.