Confronting the Occupation: Work, Education, and Political Activism of Palestinian Families in a Refugee Camp

This is a study of work, education, family and community relations in a Palestinian refugee camp under conditions of Israeli military occupation. It is based on extended field research carried out by an Israeli scholar in Dheisheh camp, south of Bethlehem, between 1992 and 1996. Emphasis is placed on how men and women, families and the local refugee community confront the occupation regime as they seek livelihoods, invest in the education of younger generations, and mount a political and often militant struggle. In the process, men lose their jobs in the Israeli labour market, women, old and young, enter the workforce, university graduates are compelled to migrate to the Gulf, and political cadres challenge harsh prison circumstances by erecting their own comprehensive counter-order. Whuile directed against the occupation, patterns of coping and resistance adopted by Dheishehians introduced tensions and conflicts into family life, furthering the transformation of gender and generational relationships.