Spirits of Palestine, Palestinian village women and stories of the jinn

grantor: University of Toronto"Spirits of Palestine: Palestinian Village Women and Stories of the Jinn" examines the lives of women in a neighborhood of Artas, a village in the Palestinian West Bank. The first half of the thesis focusses on how women understand and live according to specific gendered moral precepts, including fertility and cleanliness, and practice their social relations; the second half examines stories of the jinn, spirits, which circulate in Artas. An underlying theme throughout the thesis is the ways in which Artasis experience and articulate their conflicted position as Palestinians who are at once opposed to the Israeli occupation and yet earn a living by building houses for Jewish settlers on occupied land. The experiences of geographical proximity to Israel build on a further theme of the thesis--the concept of social geography. Social geography is an implicit principle structuring women's social relations in practice. This concept recognises the importance of physical proximity and women's individual preferences for the development of reciprocal relationships and friendships which are most important to the workings of women's daily lives. Villagers' proximity to Israel and Jewish settlers thus creates the grounds for a range of imagined and real social possibilities; on the other hand, distance from relatives who live in Jordan reveals the limitations of genealogical ties which lack geographical proximity and daily upkeep practices. Stories of the jinn comment on aspects of daily life which are otherwise left unspoken in daily discourse. Women, but also some men, experience possession by jinn, and the stories of their possession (rather than active possession involving trance, etc.) that circulate through the village call attention to the moral complications of sectarian conflict and identity. Women's stories of the jinn may comment on the "dark" side of close relations, redirect blame for infertility away from themselves onto the jinn, or explain why a marriageable women has remained unmarried. Further, women's stories of the jinn may comment on the ways in which village social mores and oppressive Israeli measures may collude to affect women's lives in adverse ways. Men's stories of the jinn may also comment on the unspeakable; a serialized story of a young man's love affair with a female jinn comments on the ways in which young men may experience village social mores as well as Israeli occupation as oppressive.Ph.D