Webs of oppression: An intersectional analysis of inequalities facing women activists in Palestine

Abstract

How can we understand the multiple, intersecting webs of oppression that Palestinian women activists face in their everyday organizing? With a long tradition of counter-hegemonic organizing, the Palestinian context presents opportunities and challenges for women pursuing activist causes in the public domain. Adopting an intersectionality framework, we uncover how gender, class and settler-colonized domination interact, engendering dynamics of oppression differentiated by activists’ social positions. Activists’ stories captured at interview reveal they were not victims across all categories of difference, experiencing forms of relative privilege, characterized as safeguarded, secured and sheltered. We connect relative privilege to the patchwork nature of Palestinian institutions, whereby women’s agency intermingles with a patchwork of historically constituted structures and conditions. Our fine-grained study contributes to literature on feminist and activist organizing and to theorizations of intersectionality by identifying forms of relative oppression and privilege as women actively resist hegemonic gendered structures in Palestine.

Revisiting Entrepreneurship as Emancipation: Learning from subalternized women in post-revolutionary Tunisia

“…Following the ECM (Burawoy, 1998, 2009), we connected the stories of women beneficiaries in a social enterprise to the macro context of post-revolutionary Tunisia while unpacking their social positionality (Abdelnour & Abu Moghli, 2021; Yousfi & Abdallah, 2020). Our findings show how women’s assignment to subalternity and the efforts they deploy to get out of it are tied to complex and contextual ties between social, economic and political constraints (Nazzal et al, 2023). First, we see how the research participants are affirming their dreams, i.e.…”

“…While other research shows how women may benefit from family relations to succeed as entrepreneurs when they lack other forms of capital (Powell & Eddleston, 2013; Venkatesh et al, 2017), we see from our analysis that this comes with a necessity to navigate patriarchy using various tactics of resistance. This ambivalent experience with kin relations under patriarchy is also at play in the study of Nazzal et al (2023), where Palestinian activist women fighting for liberation still have to navigate patriarchy but also benefit from social protection through their husbands, fathers or brothers. Further research into the interaction between the economic, social and political dimensions affecting emancipation would be important to further unpack women beneficiaries’ experiences, and the experiences of subalternized people more broadly.…”

“…In turn, the intersectionality of such factors shapes the experience of resistance and emancipation. For instance, Nazzal, Stringfellow, and Maclean (2023) studied how Palestinian women activists experience relative oppression and privilege, depending on how their social positioning and the broader context interact.…”

Mobility Challenges Faced by Rural Women and the Implementation of the National Transport Policy in Busega District, Tanzania

“…Also, scholars argue that the theory's focus on multiple identities and their intersection can make it challenging to analyse and address specific issues (Pinto, 2019;Few-Demo & Allen, 2020). Moreover, it has been accused of neglecting class-based analysis and the role of economic inequality in shaping individuals' experiences of oppression and privilege (Nazzal et al, 2022). The critics further argue that the theory's focus on identity politics can overshadow the importance of socio-economic class in shaping individuals' experiences to address problems facing marginalized individuals (Ma et al, 2022).…”

Dos categorías de resistencia anticolonial entre los palestinos del 48 ante el espejismo de la ciudadanía liberal. Los acontecimientos de la Primavera de 2021 como caso de estudio.

“…Uno de los pilares de la dominación colonial lo representaba el principio de separación al que se ve sometido el pueblo palestino, con respecto por supuesto a los judíos israelíes, pero también en su seno entre palestinos con distintos regímenes jurídicos y otros árabes (Robinson, 2013), e incluso en lo que respecta a los palestinos del 48 entre sí. El fin era evitar la contigüidad territorial, pero también social, política y económica, y las consecuencias aún se hacen sentir a día de hoy (Nazzal et al, 2023). Esta separación impuesta sigue siendo una realidad, como evidencian la relevancia de la Línea Verde a la hora de limitar la libertad de circulación o la prohibición de reunificación familiar entre palestinos del 48 y del 67 (Shihade, 2012).…”