The biopolitics of declassing Palestinian professional women in a settler-colonial context

Abstract

This article argues that the biopolitics of declassing Palestinian professional women in Israel, which constitutes part of the logic of eliminating the native, is mediated by colonial violence that secures labor market class sovereignty for settlers. In this context, the term declassing refers to rendering this class invisible by disregarding the women’s presence and/or value in the labor market. The study unpacks the logic of elimination through the racialized, everyday lived experience of middle-class professional women in Bedouin society who succeeded in entering the Jewish workplace. These women face sophisticated erasure tactics, paralleling various manifestations of the direct politics of fear that discipline the body, will and mind, as well as indirect opposition reflected in the settler-colonial reinforcement of patriarchal power against women. This article reveals concealed violent forms of power practiced by the colonialists to declass Palestinian women and preserve colonialist class superiority in the labor market.

Poverty in Arab-Palestinian society in Israel: Social work perspectives before and during COVID-19

“…But this way of thinking has also been criticized for its supposed essentialization of the conception of culture (Abrams and Moio, 2009). According to the critique, an essentialist view that emphasizes the culture of Arab society highlights the components of the culture that are different from those accepted in Western society and sees them as permanent components while ignoring the culture's complexity and dynamic nature and the changes that take place within it (Abu-Rabia-Queder et al, 2017;Khoury, 2018;Meler, 2017). Thus, Arab societies, including Arab-Palestinian society in Israel, have often been presented in the research literature in a monolithic and static manner, with emphasis on its traditional and patriarchal character.…”

“…Thus, Arab societies, including Arab-Palestinian society in Israel, have often been presented in the research literature in a monolithic and static manner, with emphasis on its traditional and patriarchal character. In recent years, however, there has been more complex and nuanced documentation of the processes of transformation that this society has undergone (Abu-Rabia-Queder et al, 2017;Haj-Yahia and Lavee, 2018;Khoury, 2018;Meler, 2017).…”

Covid-19 Fault Lines: Palestinian Physicians in Israel

“…31 Those PCIs who manage to enter the professional middle class practice various modes of "indirect discipline" (self-censorship, deference, self-policing, and so forth) in order to be accepted, and this includes the severance of their professional identity from their non-Jewish status, what is referred to in Israel as the Arab tag. 32 At its most extreme, this phenomenon is manifested in the unilateral requirement by a prominent Palestinian physician that only Hebrew be spoken in the hospital he directs, even among Arab colleagues and patients. 33 Another example can be found in the figure of the Palestinian physician lighting the official torch on Israel's Independence Day, 34 an irony not lost on Palestinians since said physician was one of twelve individuals at the ceremony representing the so-called lost Jewish tribes, a category from which the Palestinian is excluded by definition.…”

Palestinian mothers in Israel: Can a welfare-to-work program enhance their social capital?

“…The multiple marginality of Palestinian women in Israel (Abu-Rabia-Queder, 2019) affects their employment opportunities. Although the percentage of Israeli-Palestinian women in the workforce has increased recently, their employment rate remains substantially lower than that of Israeli-Palestinian men and Israeli-Jewish women.…”