Organizations, Gender, and the Culture of Palestinian Activism in Haifa, Israel

Extrait de l'introduction : "In this book, based on 25 months of fieldwork from 1993-1995 and subsequent visits in the summers of 2000 and 2001, [the author examines] activism and activists in Palestinian nongovernmental organizations in Israel. [The author argues] that organizations enable certain processes of self-identification based on activist's constructions of modernity. Throughout the text, [she does not] demonstrate how activists' conceptualizations of modernity reflect Western academic discourses of modernity. Rather, it is [her] intent to unfold and illustrate a vernacular Palestinian and activist discourse of modernity, exploring how modernity, here, is literally an ideology-in-the-make and subject to improvisation. Still, these same improvisations carry social weight within the activist community as activists reflect on their roles as emergent modern leaders as well as judge others with reference to these same ideologies."