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An Exploration of Palestinian Peacebuilders‟ Conceptualisations of Men and Masculinities in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

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An Exploration of Palestinian Peacebuilders‟ Conceptualisations of Men and Masculinities in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict “Pulling the Tail of the Cat”: An exploration of Palestinian peacebuilders‟ conceptualisations of men and masculinities in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Alana Foster School of Earth Sciences Victoria University of Wellington Aotearoa New Zealand A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the Masters in Development Studies (MDS) Degree September 2011 ABSTRACT To date, men as gendered beings have largely remained absent from the international literature on armed conflict and peacebuilding. In general, the literature omits men‘s gendered experiences as civilians, non-combatants and peacebuilders and instead, men remain confined by stereotypes of violence, soldiering and war-making. In this thesis, I aim to break these silences by producing a qualitative analysis of discourses of men and masculinities within semi-structured interviews conducted with fourteen Palestinian peacebuilders in the West Bank. This analysis explores the impacts of the ongoing occupation and armed conflict on non-combat related Palestinian masculinities, and further, how men and masculinities are thought to interact with local peacebuilding initiatives. Through the use of feminist critical discourse analysis, this study has uncovered a number of key themes relevant to gender and peacebuilding theory and practice. Firstly, it found that the ongoing conflict has resulted in a ‗thwarting‘ of West Bank masculinities in which men are understood as finding it increasingly difficult to live up to social expectations of their traditional roles and identities. Secondly, this study found that men and masculinities have become somewhat estranged from civil society, informal peacebuilding schemes. Based on my findings, these initiatives seem to centre around feminised narratives that emphasise women‘s peacebuilding capacities, while masculinities and the peacebuilding roles of men are overlooked. Nevertheless, this thesis also presents the notion that men are actively involved in the nonviolent resistance movement within the West Bank, which opens up room for a novel, alternative understanding of ‗masculinised‘ peacebuilding in Palestine. In sum, this study articulates the need to ‗take masculinities seriously‘ in the pursuit of more inclusive and effective peacebuilding and post-conflict development practice. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank many people for their help and support as I wrote this thesis. First and foremost, I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my primary supervisor Megan Mackenzie. I deeply appreciate the encouragement, inspiration and guidance you provided me throughout this tumultuous process. Thank you for your time, support, gentle (and sometimes not so gentle) prodding, and most of all, your patience. To my secondary supervisor, John Overton – for all the times I found my way into your office in tears - I am very grateful for your ongoing enthusiasm and support of my research project. To the unrelenting peacebuilders who graciously agreed to participate in this study – my deepest gratitude to you for your time, wisdom and warmth. I learned so much from you and cannot even begin to explain how inspiring you have been to me. To the staff at the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation (HCEF), and all my friends in the West Bank – thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the tea, love, kindness and friendship. To my parents, brother, Mark and Anthony – your ongoing support, encouragement, love and inspiration continues to be the fuel for my fire. Thank you for being by my side throughout this process. And finally, to Palestine - my first love. You taught me how to hope, grieve, dream, and love. This thesis is dedicated to you and the ongoing struggle for peace. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................................................................II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...................................................................................................................................III TABLE OF CONTENTS...................................................................................................................................... IV TABLE OF FIGURES ......................................................................................................................................... VI GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS ..................................................................................................................... VII GLOSSARY OF TERMS ................................................................................................................................... VIII CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 1 RESEARCH AIMS AND OVERVIEW .......................................................................................................................... 2 PERSONAL STANDPOINT ..................................................................................................................................... 6 THESIS STRUCTURE ........................................................................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER TWO – METHODOLOGIES ............................................................................................................... 10 QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ................................................................................................................................... 11 POST-STRUCTURAL FEMINISM ........................................................................................................................... 11 DISCOURSE AND FEMINIST CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ........................................................................................ 13 Discourse............................................................................................................................................... 13 Feminist critical discourse analysis ......................................................................................................... 14 “DOING REFLEXIVITY” ..................................................................................................................................... 16 LOCATION..................................................................................................................................................... 17 RESEARCH PARTICIPANTS AND RECRUITMENT PROCESSES ......................................................................................... 18 DATA COLLECTION .......................................................................................................................................... 21 TRANSCRIPTION AND CODING ............................................................................................................................ 23 APPLICATION OF FEMINIST CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS ........................................................................................ 24 ETHICS AND POSITIONALITIES............................................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER THREE - LITERATURE REVIEW: GENDER, ARMED CONFLICT AND PEACEBUILDING .......................... 31 MEN, MASCULINITIES AND ARMED CONFLICT ........................................................................................................ 32 Men, Masculinities, Violence and Armed Conflict ................................................................................... 32 Gendered Stereotypes and Invisible Non-Combatants ............................................................................ 37 MEN, AND MASCULINITIES WITHIN GENDER AND PEACEBUILDING .............................................................................. 39 Theoretical Approaches to Peacebuilding ............................................................................................... 39 Gender and Peacebuilding ..................................................................................................................... 43 Gender and formal peacebuilding......................................................................................................................44 Gender and informal peacebuilding. ..................................................................................................................46 CHAPTER FOUR – CONTEXT: A GENDERED HISTORY OF THE PALESTINIAN-ISRAELI CONFLICT ........................ 50 BACKGROUND TO THIS CONTEXT CHAPTER ............................................................................................................ 50 A Note on the Method Taken in this Chapter .......................................................................................... 50 Palestine, Israel, or the Occupied Territories? A Note on Terms .............................................................. 52 A HISTORY OF THE CONFLICT THROUGH THE LENS OF MASCULINITY ............................................................................ 53 Traditional Man in ‘Ottoman Palestine’ ................................................................................................. 53 Man and Nation – Palestinian Nationalism in ‘Mandatory Palestine’ ...................................................... 55 Al-Nakbah, the ‘State of Israel’ and Political Paternity ............................................................................ 58 The First Intifada – A Gendered
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