Research Grants Program | Cycle 6 Grantees and Projects

Maysaa Nemer, Palestine, Birzeit University (Principal Investigator)

Ahmed Heneiti, Palestine, Birzeit University (Co-Investigator)

Suzan Mitwali, Palestine, Birzeit University (Co-Investigator)

Project Title: Palestinian Agricultural Working Women in the Jordan Valley, Occupied Palestinian Territory: Politics, the Economy, the Environment and Health

The occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) has undergone and continues to experience important transformations politically, economically and environmentally. In a situation described as one of de-development, a process highlighting the relationship between Israel and the oPt, characterized by severe economic decline, social regression and political repression, such changes are bound to have an effect on women’s work and health. Working women are among the most vulnerable groups in the population, yet they have hardly been studied. Given the historical and present colonial context that the oPt has endured, and the fragmentation and enclavization of communities especially found in Areas C, which are completely controlled by Israel, the displacement and severe marginalization experienced, it is important to focus the attention on the broader environmental, political, and economic transformations, which have taken place and continue to take place, and their effects on working women’s lives and health, especially women working in the agricultural sector. Additionally, as the oPt has experienced a new period of economic deterioration and an accelerated de-development process in the years since the Oslo agreement, as a result of intensified closure and enclavization, it is important to emphasize the post-Oslo period and focus on the changes, which took place during this period and their effects on shaping and reshaping these women’s lives, working conditions and health. The proposed research project will first use qualitative methods to explore the effects of broader environmental transformations on life and health in general, with a focus on Palestinian women working in the agricultural sector in the Jordan Valley/West Bank. Based on the results of the qualitative portion of this study, we will then develop an appropriate quantitative research instrument, which will be administered to women working in the agricultural sector, and will also include clinical tests related to the effects of working in agriculture and exposures to various occupational and environmental hazards on physical and mental health. Given our broad definition of the environment, we will be identifying and highlighting the environmental, political and socio-economic factors and the interactions among these factors, which could have led to changes in the living and working conditions of these women and their health.