RGP Cycle One Grantees and Projects

Nada Ghandour-Demiri: NGO-ization, Disciplining Dissent and Increasing Inequality within Palestinian Popular Resistance

Nonviolence has become a popular concept that several Palestinian NGOs advocate and promote. The proposed research project intends to carry out cutting edge research on the use of this concept by NGOs and contrast it with the way it is used (or not) by popular committees. This project is based on a preliminary research part of my PhD, during which it became clear that many Palestinian NGOs use the concept of nonviolence as a value that needs to be taught to Palestinians as part of an effort to develop and empower civil society, rather than as a political strategy to resist the Israeli occupation. This emphasis on nonviolence as a value is mainly the result of foreign donors’ funding conditions and political agendas. Furthermore, the process of NGO-ization and the reliance on foreign donors’ has led to the fragmentation of Palestinian activism and the creation of social and economic inequalities among activists. The project’s main objective is to examine the disciplining role that foreign donors sometimes have by looking at the process of NGO-ization and the use of the concept of ‘nonviolence.’ Two themes of the ACSS call are targeted: the development theme is evident in the focus on NGO-ization and the use of prescriptive concepts such as ‘nonviolence’ that ‘development industry’ actors and donors favour; the theme of inequality is central in the analysis of the side effects of NGO-ization - namely, the societal inequalities that arise among people working within the NGO sector and the grassroots.

Dr Nada Ghandour-Demiri is a Research Fellow in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies at the University of Bristol, where she acquired her PhD. Her doctoral thesis explored the ways in which nonviolent resistance against the Israeli occupation is being conducted and disciplined. She is currently working as Associate Coordinator of the Greek national network of the Anna Lindh Foundation, and is a Researcher in Jadaliyya ezine, where she is on the Editorial Team of its ‘Daily Acts of Resistance and Subversion’ webpage.