Title:
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The dislocation and reconstitution of Peasantry
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The war of 1948 has had a major dislocating impact on the various
institutions of Palestinian society. This study attempts to examine the
consequences of this dislocation on the agrarian regime in two ecological
zones of central Palestine: the dry farming regions in the highlands of
the West Bank, and the intensive farming areas of the Western Valley of
the Jordan. Explanations are provided for the persistence and even
prosperity of peasant communities which have undergone a process of
protracted 'de-peasantisation' in areas of marginal and marginalized
dry farming.
Variables of landlessness, wage labour, tenancy forms, and
population movements are utilized to interpret current trends in
Palestinian rural society in the light of four village case studies.
Particular attention is directed towards the consolidation of a stratum
of peasant-workers and their future in the context of Israeli annexation
of Arab land, and integration of the Palestinian labour force into the
Israeli economy.
At a different level of analysis,. the study examines the manner
in which the dispossessed peasants of coastal Palestine re-constituted
themselves in a new rural economy under conditions of intensified agriculture
and capitalization of farm inputs in a process identified here
as 're-peasantisation'. In this context, the thesis discusses the
decline of patrimonial relations and the subjugation of peasants to
relations of dependency under the new agricultural technology.
Finally, changes in the social economy of Palestinian villages
are compared to features of rural transformation in Europe and the third
world today
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